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Home / Thoughts / Sean's Thoughts / Is there anything else?

Is there anything else?

Written by Sean on Monday, November 21, 2005

As one does, I was chatting on IM with an online friend. Before long, the friend said to me:

The only thing I hear about you is how depressed you are about not being a para… Isn’t there anything else ticking over in your mind?

And I had to stop for a moment, and think about my response.

This was pretty much it:

First, I must apologise for coming accross heavy about my need to be a para. I realise my feelings on that topic can be overwhelming to others. I have very little occasion to be able to talk freely about it with someone who "gets it".

Second, and more to the point, actually, no, there really is nothing else in my mind…

For nearly a year now, I’ve been under a "transabled attack". I’ve had those on and off for over 30 years. Sometimes it’s easy and I just don’t think much about it, other times, it’s pretty much constant. For this past year, it’s been pretty much constant. It’s in my mind when I go to sleep at night, it’s in my dreams, it’s still there when I wake up, and through the day.

If I do things to occupy myself, it only and merely distracts the thoughts. I can play computer games, and where I can sometimes get immersed, even while playing, these thoughts nag at me. I can read, and have to re-read the same paragraph several times because my mind wanders off into "para-land". I can be watching the tv, and I start drifting about and thinking about chair/wheels/para stuff. It’s just not going away.

Upon reading my response again, I could easily see where one might consider my thought patterns as obsessive-compulsive behaviour. I know some people have tried treating transabled folks as they would OCD, with rather less than more success, if the grapevine has it right. Though there are no studies that can really say exactly what’s what. Not a big enough study group, without control group, etc… I certainly wouldn’t want to be on the high doses of medical cocktails generally prescribed for OCD. If 40mg of Prozac left me feeling like a zombie, and didn’t do a thing to really help, I shudder to think about what a higher dosage of multiple drugs might do to me.

Might as well be a para. Might as well be a depressed para. Might as well not be a para and have these thoughts intrude. But I digress from the intent of this update.

Yeah, it’s in my thoughts, in my head, constantly. Will I need to grab a shotgun to shoot the thoughts away?