I've decided my number one quality of life issue that I want to address in the coming days, weeks, and months concerns my over tendency to become fearful throughout the course of any given day. Fearfulness counts as a major symptom of my schizoaffective disorder. I imagine a lot of people in the schizophrenia spectrum have to deal with fearfulness. Before my relationship with women, for sure, dealing with my general state of fearfulness will take priority over a lot of other things of that nature for the foreseeable future.
The most significant time I attempted to deal with this problem head on, to the best of my recollection, occurred in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Sometime during the following weeks, I read a headline in my online New York Times of an article that said that single New Yorkers felt especially vulnerable after the attacks of 9/11. Sometime around October 20th of 2001, the gist of that article still resonating with me, I decided that I needed to come up with more constructive ways of dealing with loneliness. I concluded that a lot of my substance abuse issues had to do with an attempt to cope with loneliness.
That night, on or about October 20th, alone in my efficiency apartment, I decided to refrain from buying beer from the convenience store behind my apartment and clean the place up instead. I pledged to try to refrain from substance abuse such as smoking pot and drinking alcohol on those nights I found myself alone in my apartment. As I cleaned up my apartment, and I came to realize with each passing moment that I could stick with that pledge, at least for that night, I started to feel better, safer.
The pledge to refrain from drinking and smoking dope while alone in my apartment proved doable over the next couple of weeks. After about that long I decided to join a stop smoking support group, because I felt confident enough to give that effort one more try. The rest, as they say, is history. I've quit smoking, I've quit drugs and alcohol, and I may have even managed to substantially improve my relationship with women. It all began with an effort to try to cope with loneliness in more constructive ways. Now I've come back to the fear that walks hand in hand with loneliness, and I'll just prioritize addressing that issue for now.
I just turned sixty the other day, and I have an enthusiasm for writing and drawing my comics that really takes up a lot of my energy and time. I'm glad that Im in pretty good health, and that I have an avid interest in something I can really sink my teeth into. The things that make me feel so fearful: the news events of day such as mass shootings, the war in Gaza, the presidential election, global warming and extreme weather events, I can't do much of anything about that stuff, but I can address the fear that thinking about that kind of stuff can generate in more constructive ways than I utilized before the events of 9/11/2001.
The most significant time I attempted to deal with this problem head on, to the best of my recollection, occurred in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Sometime during the following weeks, I read a headline in my online New York Times of an article that said that single New Yorkers felt especially vulnerable after the attacks of 9/11. Sometime around October 20th of 2001, the gist of that article still resonating with me, I decided that I needed to come up with more constructive ways of dealing with loneliness. I concluded that a lot of my substance abuse issues had to do with an attempt to cope with loneliness.
That night, on or about October 20th, alone in my efficiency apartment, I decided to refrain from buying beer from the convenience store behind my apartment and clean the place up instead. I pledged to try to refrain from substance abuse such as smoking pot and drinking alcohol on those nights I found myself alone in my apartment. As I cleaned up my apartment, and I came to realize with each passing moment that I could stick with that pledge, at least for that night, I started to feel better, safer.
The pledge to refrain from drinking and smoking dope while alone in my apartment proved doable over the next couple of weeks. After about that long I decided to join a stop smoking support group, because I felt confident enough to give that effort one more try. The rest, as they say, is history. I've quit smoking, I've quit drugs and alcohol, and I may have even managed to substantially improve my relationship with women. It all began with an effort to try to cope with loneliness in more constructive ways. Now I've come back to the fear that walks hand in hand with loneliness, and I'll just prioritize addressing that issue for now.
I just turned sixty the other day, and I have an enthusiasm for writing and drawing my comics that really takes up a lot of my energy and time. I'm glad that Im in pretty good health, and that I have an avid interest in something I can really sink my teeth into. The things that make me feel so fearful: the news events of day such as mass shootings, the war in Gaza, the presidential election, global warming and extreme weather events, I can't do much of anything about that stuff, but I can address the fear that thinking about that kind of stuff can generate in more constructive ways than I utilized before the events of 9/11/2001.
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