Surgery is a Full Time Job

I have absolutely no idea how someone can go through gastric surgery while working.

This shit is my full time job now.

Today I met my surgeon (she's awesome), one of my nutritionist (she's also awesome), had blood drawn, x-rays, scheduled an endoscopy, and they also gave me appointments with a Cardiologist (just for a check up) and their OWN psychiatrist just for one appointment.  I didn't check but I'm pretty sure both of those are next week and the week after that is the outpatient endoscopy procedure.

I'm exhausted.  I was going to go to a vanilla meet up for kinky people tomorrow night at a Ramen shop but I'm just so so tired.  If I'm too tired to go, so be it, my health comes first.

Not going to lie: this has made my fears of going through all this work only to die out of the blue in a car accident or something worse.  I'm trying to tell myself that fate is fate and worrying about it can't help.  The only thing I can work on and improve is my health and I'm working my ass off on that front.

Secret Ingredients May Include...

There is this Icon for Hire song that hits particularly close to home when I listen to their last CD...

A few lyrics resonate pretty well with me.  "I don't know if I'm ready but I want to move on... and I've never said that before" can pretty much sum up the last 4 months of my life.  "Make me better, I can't stay half way dead forever" is another one.  But the big one is a simple question:

"When you take the sick away who am I supposed to be?"

So many close people in my life and even doctors and therapist have told me that I'm more than a diagnosis and, to whatever extent my OCD allows me (see what I did there?), I believe them.  But there is always this fear: I've lived my entire life with OCD and anxiety disorder which lead to almost constant depression.  If you remove those, how much of what makes me me was a byproduct of those conditions being severe?

It's a similar situation with the idea of "How can I know what peace feels like if I never experienced true peacefulness?"  There has only been one moment in time where I was able to sit, lose myself entirely in the moment, and not worry about seats or the people around me or anything else.  When we opened up for the band VAST their live show was just amazing.

Sure, it's a bit influenced by the likes of the Cure and such, but their music was just so layered and perfectly performed that I was able to sit there in awe and just enjoy every beat and note without worrying about stupid things like "What if I don't recognize this song" or "Are my friends having fun?  Should I check in on them?"

Old therapist have told me to try to search inside myself to figure out why this is.  I've been to dozens of concerts and I've never really felt that peaceful sensation before.  Maybe I was already tired because we just opened for them two bands before they took the stage, maybe their music has a soothing quality to it, I don't know.  VAST isn't even one of my favorite bands anymore yet I still look back on that show as one of my favorites.

These are two issues I have to focus on as we move on through the year and more and more changes pile up to create what is essentially a Taser 2.0... "What makes me me is me... not my OCD or Panic Attacks" and "How to find mindfulness in social situations and just enjoy and have fun?"  There's still the overreaching "Learning to love myself" self-confidence issue that is at play, too, as well as learning and practicing as much Cognitive Behavior Therapy techniques to combat unwanted thoughts as I can, but I feel like handling the idea that I'm not who I am because I have an illness or I'm not who I am because I'm fat is probably a good thing to cover, too.

This year is going to be a bonanza of change and awesome.  I just have to allow myself to let things happen without overthinking everything which is so much easier said than done.  But I'll do my best.

Sometimes a Taser's but a Taser...

I haven't done one of these in a while and I'm hopped up on High Caffeine Tea, so why not:

Name: Daniel Tase Hayden
Age: 35
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 295
Tattoos: Celldweller/Circle of Dust Logo mash-up on left inner forearm, Rocko on my right lower calf
Instruments played: Keyboards, Binary Guitar, Bass

Favorite Movies: Deadpool, Cloverfield, Fifth Element, Saw VI, Turbo Kid
Favorite Foreign Movies: The Raid, Lady Vengeance, Meatball Machine, Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, Gothic Lolita Psycho
Favorite Actor: Ryan Reynolds
Favorite Actress: Asami
Favorite Bands: <PIG>, Hate Dept, Innerpartysystem, Chemlab, and Gary Numan
Favorite Song: SKOLD's Neverland

Favorite TV Shows: Frisky Dingo, Hell's Kitchen, Law & Order SVU, Jessica Jones, and Scrubs

Favorite Anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Baka & Test, No Game No Life, Himouto Umaru-Chan, and Devil is a Part-Timer

Favorite Books: Ready Player One, Snowcrash, Neuromancer, Treating OCD with Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Dummies, Soon I Will Be Invincible

Favorite Comic Series: Deadpool, Empowered, Hack/Slash, Mercs for Money (RIP), and X-Statix

Favorite Male Superhero: Deadpool, Booster Gold

Favorite Female Superhero: Ms. Marvel, Harley Quinn

Favorite PC Games: City of Heroes, Shadow Warrior, Saints Row IV, Gal*Gun Double Peace, Outland

Favorite Console Games: Splatterhouse, Bayonetta, Deadly Premonition, Deadpool, Bioshock

Favorite Handheld Games: Donkey Kong vs. Mario, Project X Zone, Steamworld Dig, Slayaway Camp, Tetris

Favorite Mobile Games: Threes, Card Thief, Crashnauts, Lost Socks: Naughty Brothers, and Million Onion Hotel

Movies I'm looking forward to: Untitled Deadpool Sequel, Black Panther, Infinity Wars, Wasp & Ant-Man, Rampage, Pacific Rim II

Two and a Half Tasers

Okay, this post might make me sound sexist and crude but... I'd really like a hook-up or any kind of sex before I go for surgery.

I rather kind of like sex and would find it fun to engage in more of it. Sure, being Two and a Half Tasers (which is what I'm going to keep calling myself to motivate me to go to every Bariatric support group meeting and nutritionist appointment without even second guessing if I should) is not the ideal Taser for "teh sex." However, I learned that I kind of don't care about how I look during sex because I'm too busy, you know, with the sex.

I guess "Hey, guys, I have a sex drive now" is not that sexist a thing to say and everyone might want to fuck as much as possible (including me now) but this is still a new world for me. This is a world where I realize that I'm not going to have the worst panic attack of my life and PTSD flashbacks. This is a world where I realize that being assaulted by a doctor in that region didn't make me "damaged goods" that no one would ever want. This is a world where I realized I'm worthy of love and romance and passion and, yes, sex.

I shouldn't just think "Well, I'm a horrible person and I hate myself so everyone else will just do what I do."

Because... I don't hate myself. At least not as much as I did. I'm learning, albeit slowly, that I'm kind of cool. I'm learning that I'm funny, I'm caring, and I put a hell of a lot of work into recovery as if it was my full time job. Last year I would say "Yeah, because it IS your full time job because you are on disability you big societal leach" but fuck last year's Taser (please) I'm not thinking like that anymore. If I was a societal leach I wouldn't be pushing myself and opening old wounds that I stitched together with scotch tape in therapy so we can properly heal them. If I was a societal leach I would just say "Yeah, I'm happy being Two and a Half Tasers... I'll stay fat and keep chugging Mountain Dew, thanks."

No, I'm not that Taser anymore that thinks so little of himself that he is constantly berating himself for not already having a full time job, a house, a wife, a car, and 2.3 children. Fuck that noise.

Two and a Half Taser, if he continued the way he was going, could have and probably would have died in his sleep thanks to sleep apnea. I don't think I've ever mentioned this to anyone but I was so afraid of that situation last year that I set up contingencies with my best friend so he can access anything he needs to let anyone who needs to know that there is no more Taser.

That's fucking grim. That's how shitty I felt last year: I was actively planning for death just in case. Sure, some of the things I did were good like setting it so he can access my Facebook account if I'm not here anymore but, like everything, I obsessively took it too far until it caused me to become depressed and think death, while inevitable, is coming sooner than I think.

Is that what's motivating me to have surgery and to melt away at least 1 and a Half Tasers from my being? Yes, partially. I think fear of dying from fat is a reasonable reason to have gastric surgery. The other part of me just wants one less thing to worry about so I can get out there and meet people and maybe have things like one night stands or relationships or anything more than sleeping all day and being awake, alone, at night.

Two and a Half Taser's existence is lonely and boring. I will not miss that 1 and a Half Taser when he's gone.

Fallout: Mind Plague Us

It could be so easy... so easy to just give into fear and anger and completely forget all the changes I've made and will make.

I could cancel my surgeon intake appointment today, skip out on surgery altogether, cancel my RSVP on all the things I was doing next week, get a refund for my Black Panther ticket tonight.

I can stay in my room watching the news with a nervous twitch waiting to die... fearing that every place can become a warzone and I'm not mentally stable enough to protect myself... become more and more scared to the point where I never leave my room.

But... I can also work on it. I can see that yesterday was a shitty day for just about every American and I'm not unique. I can see that, by even being comfortable enough to speak up to my therapist, not only did I show growth in terms of fighting my irrational fear of angering people by asking for what I want but I also might cause actual change when they turn that goddamn TV to PBS or something, anything, else than the motherfucking news.

It did hit me pretty hard that I felt scared with that fellow patient yesterday. I'm still coming to terms with it in my head. I know he was in an agitated state because he was already yelling at the receptionists to get a sooner intake appointment than next month (because he needed benzos, I could take the shivering of benzo withdrawal because there but for the grace of god went I). I knew he felt frustrated when the new and inept secretary told him to have a seat while she tried to find a better appointment time. Hell, before he arrived I was frustrated with that secretary for the same thing except I actually wanted to move an appointment back two days so I'd be seeing my psychiatrist and therapist in one go.

But there was something about the environment. We had a TV at full volume with reporters chasing school kids in absolute terror trying to score that juicy interview for ratings. There was that little kid in the room I focused on because I worried about how much seeing that might fuck with his own mental health. And the agitated patient was agitated for his own reasons.

MY OCD is screaming "Ha, you were afraid of the schizo! You are just like everyone else that stigmatizes mental illness! You are a hypocrite... and you want to be a mental health advocate? How can you advocate for people you irrationally fear?"

But... Maybe I wasn't scared of him. When I arrived for my appointment there was a cop car outside the building so my tension was already higher than usual. The inept secretary certainly didn't help nor did the fact that they sit behind bulletproof glass that makes you feel like a criminal for going there and forces you to literally scream at them so they can hear you. If we take yesterday's tragedy out of the equation I think I still would have probably had the same massive panic attack. The loud TV, the already frayed nerves, and seeing someone more nervous than I was pacing around made for the perfect anxiety combo.

Was I afraid of the schizo? No. I was bombarded from all sides by absolute shit and I let it stain my soul a little bit. If anything I think I'm more afraid that this one thing is somehow going to derail months worth of work which it's obviously not. I'm about to leave to meet the surgeon. When I get home it's time to grab dinner and go see Black Panther. Next week I'll be hanging out with some kinky people over ramen, then attend an eeeerrroooootttticcccc hypnosis for beginners class, and then cuddling, as you do, in one hell of a fun sounding weekend.

My soul is still stained but it's not permanent. I can wash it off and will wash it off. I just have to fight the other OCD voice in my head saying "You are a selfish cunt for focusing on yourself when the world is falling apart around you."

What can I do, really, though? I write my congressmen and call them only to have their staff say "We agree with you" because Murphy and Blumenthal are amazing guys. I donate to NARAL Pro-Choice and Planned Parenthood because they help those I feel are in need of the most help.

I could get all screaming and calling people (other than myself) cunts but what does that do? It's not going to magically make Trump not our President or stop the GOP from getting an erection anytime they think of a new way to screw people on Social Security or SNAP. Whether I focus all of my attention on the bad or none, the bad will still be... uh... bad.

I can only work on making myself better than bad. I can continue to forgo a meal out every month to donate to the charities I believe in. I can keep emailing and calling and mailing my congressman just to let them know I support them. I can vote. That's more than most people do.

I won't change the world but I don't have to. I'd much rather change myself.

Trigger Warning

I'm going to be selfish for a bit here:

You know what's relatively awful in terms of my life? Sitting in the waiting room of a mental health facility where they decided to have a TV on showing the news.

When my therapist arrived for our appointment I had to tell her: that isn't appropriate for anyone. We had a little kid sitting just underneath the screen looking up all wide eyed. I was sitting next to a guy who was obviously struggling from schizophrenia and trying desperately to get an appointment that instant to be treated who was uttering "Shoot shoot... I could just kill them all... Shoot shoot" over and over again. Even though I knew that was his mental illness talking, I couldn't help but feel dread every time he said it and I'm someone who spent time in a psych ward who should have some kind of immunity built up to that by now. But in this case I did not.

Am I saying the mentally ill should be kept away from current events? Actually, for the most part, yes. A lot of people there are there because courts ordered them to be. A lot of people there are struggling to just live their life on their own. We don't need to throw mass shootings and casualties and political bickering on top of that when we should be focused on getting better.

That's just my two cents. I never really ranted at my therapist before but I had to tell her how absolutely harmful it is to have that set up for all patients waiting.

Playing Taser's Advocate....

So I've been watching a lot of Kati Morton LMFT's channel on Youtube about mental health specifically the ones about self-hatred to try to learn some techniques to fight it.

One of the things she recommended was writing down the flaws your mind tells you you have and then write rational thoughts that prove that isn't true. Since I've long since lost the ability to write with a pen, I'll do it here.

Everybody hates you and just pretends to like you out of pity to your face.
* No one is worth that much effort to pretend to hate someone. If someone truly hated you the amount your mind thinks they do, they would never want to speak with you again.
* You am a good friend who is there for people and I think a lot of people know they can count on you to talk them through or find solutions to most problems.

I am unattractive.
* You have beautiful eyes that change color.
* You have boyish looks that got me ID'd at a bar in Arizona even though I just turned 35.
* You also have an energy about you when you let your guard down and have fun that definitely helps other people have fun.

I will die alone.
* Who cares. You will be dead after you die. People die when they are killed!
* There is no reason I can't find a woman who is attractive to bigger men as long as I make sure I am healthy.
* Even if I do find out I'm truly aromantic and can't be in a relationships, I still have friends all around me.

I'm not worth the money I get from Social Security. I'm a leech on society... a Welfare Queen.
* Fuck that. You paid into the system and now you are using the system for what it's there for.
* You fought for 8 goddamn years and 2 court cases to get disability. You know you aren't faking the panic attacks, the night terrors that break furniture, or the depression that keeps you isolating yourself. Why punish yourself for using the help the country provides for the physically and mentally ill.
* You are not taking food out of someone else's mouth just because you are on welfare and you are no less worthy to be on welfare than anyone else.

I... think that's a good start...

Biological Time Bomb

I've been noticing that if I miss medication by even an hour I start to go into this really intense "My biological clock is ticking" panic. I can't describe it... maybe it's an anxiety that klonopin does help hide. But I usually forget a dose, then I find myself looking at dating sites and such and then I remember "Wait, did you take your medication?" Usually once that's taken and it kicks in, I'm better with being 35 and single.

What's funny is I don't want to be married and I certainly don't want kids (that have my own genes anyway). I just kind of want that ability to hold hands or cozy up watching a movie and all that cheesy stuff. I don't know if that's an infantile view of love or not, but that's kind of all I want.

It might be too much to ask of another human being, but I just want to be able to feel safe. Maybe once I'm on my own I'll start to feel that way, but I sure don't now. I'm kind of over waking up to see what I threw across the wall or broke after waking up in the middle of the night with a night terror and I'm kind of bored with just mindlessly circling Netflix selections nervously when I know I'm not going to actually watch anything.

I am starting to see correlation to go with causation, though. I feel like shit about myself so I kind of let myself go to shit. Why should I try to look good and meet new people if I don't feel like I'm worth their time or effort? So maybe I've kind of been self-defeatist all these years. Maybe the way I've dressed and handled myself around strangers has been kind of a last defense against letting anyone in which would explain why I've had a lot easier time making friends with people online. It's easier for my anxiety to handle friendships where I know I probably won't meet that person face to face.

I'm guessing that starting to see these things rationally or at least figure out what's kind of causing them is key to recovery and shows I'm making some improvement.