I just finished reading my most recent blog, "Paradoxical Success", that I wrote in May of 2017. That makes it quite a while since my last post, and not surprisingly, a lot of 'water under the bridge' has flowed since then.
Downward Spiral
From October 2015 to November 2017, I experienced a rash of quite serious and what at least 'felt like' life-threatening health crises. First, there was the death of my much beloved and greatly respected former therapist, Shoshona Blankman, in New Mexico, in April 2015 -- which I didn't hear about until shortly before being scheduled to attend the 2015 New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference [6 months after her passing]. Between that and some accumulating health challenges, I had to cancel my trip to the Conference, literally on the way to the airport, and ended up in the ER for 24 hours, due to a major anxiety attack. [I have suffered from such emotional challenges quite a number of times in my life, and each time they result in significant setbacks, at least for a period of time.]
That was followed by greatly increased 'toxic' reactions to clothing, shoes, belts, and pants, many of which I'd worn for many years, but which now produced deeply uncomfortable heart palpitations and feelings of overt terror [a condition I term "materials hypersensitivity", though I'm now clear that the cause has a far more to do with emotional trauma than with any toxins organic to the materials, though I don't, in the least, rule out environmental toxins as complicating factors]. I had already been suffering, for 4 years previous to October 2015, with 'burning scalp' and 'burning leg' neuropathy [both of which continue to plague me].
By the summer of 2016, the "materials hypersensitivity" had become so pronounced that I was reading every article I could find on the Internet and talking to multiple medical personnel about how to resolve the issue, but unfortunately to no avail. No one seemed to have any answers which 'worked' for me. I couldn't take nutritional or herbal supplements -- I was far too hypersensitive to those as well -- and my mental health therapy, though quite effective for a wide range of my traumatic challenges, was not 'working' for becoming more tolerant of the clothing I used to be able to wear. Then, I made the horrendous mistake of inadvertently washing several different loads of clothes, with the compression socks that I was required to wear to minimize the chronic edema that I suffered from due to multiple embolisms over the years. The problem was that the compression socks had, embedded within them, chemicals that made me intensely nauseous if they made direct contact with my skin [I have had to wear thick over-the-calf gym socks underneath them to keep the chemicals from touching my exposed skin]. In doing so, I 'polluted' several loads of clothing, including almost all the underwear that I had been 'tolerant' of up to that point.
I reached the point, by September 2016, where I had NO clothing that didn't make me extraordinarily ill. I literally ran out of clothing to wear! On top of that, the last avenues of potential solution to my hypersensitivity had run out. No physician knew how to resolve my condition, not even allergists. I was down to wearing only a pair of long legged gym pants, and some old shirts. I felt at my wits' end and was extraordinarily anxious and depressed about life.
I had wanted to attend the 2016 New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference, having had to cancel the previous year's attendance, but in the midst of that clothing crisis, I additionally learned that I had melanoma cancer on my left arm. At that point, I had to cancel my desire to attend the Conference for a 2nd year in a row. The recovery from the cancer surgery was long and painful. And then, two weeks after the surgery, I had another blood clot in my left leg [the 3rd or 4th -- it's not entirely clear how many -- since 1997]. After spending several days in the hospital, I was given anticoagulant medication, but quickly ran into the problem of being able to adequately tolerate the dosage level prescribed by my physician. That crisis went on for almost 3 months, even while I was recovering from the cancer surgery, before I finally had an nerve-wracking appointment with the physician who was treating me for the blood clot. The result of that appointment, though -- thankfully -- was mutually deciding upon a dosage level I could tolerate without becoming profoundly sick.
In October 2016, I had the good fortune of finding out that a female friend, Pamela Todd, whom Linda [my intimate partner] and I usher with at The Sheldon Concert Hall, was skilled in 'yoga therapy', and Pamela noted that she was working with a couple of war trauma survivors of the Bosnian genocide. Slowly, with great effort and care, her yoga therapy began to have a positive effect upon my 'emotional trauma' reactions to my clothing, and I figured out some clothing [through trial and error] that I could tolerate without becoming frightfully sick. Her yoga therapy positions, which I continue to engage in on a daily basis, quite literally have saved my life.
By the spring of 2017, I felt like I was 'on the mend'. But I kept ending up in the ER with various aliments, including a very nasty flu, and in the summer of 2017, with a kidney stone. When I have, in the past, had dental root canals, I have never taken pain medication, not due to any 'macho' desire to 'tough it out', but because the pain medication made me intensely sick, worse than the pain of the dental work. But when I was hit with the kidney stone, I quite willingly ingested the 'narco' that was prescribed [hydrocodon-acetaminophen combination] and often took a second tablet within an hour of the first -- because the pain was stunningly and profoundly intense! Luckily, although I was unable to 'pass' the stone on my own, within 4 days of being hit with the kidney stone I was put in the hospital and given surgery, which broke up the stone with a laser beam. Another week with a catheter followed [which was no less painful than the kidney stone and far more disruptive of my physical comfort and functionality], but finally, upon the removal of the catheter, I was 'cured' [though I continue to have some periodic residual pain].
On My Feet Again After Two Years of Continual Crisis
By November 2017, I felt 'healthy enough to travel' again. That was the first time in over two years that I felt I had reached an adequate point of physical and mental health that would allow me to travel without excessive pain or anxiety. Having attempted to travel to my home state of New Mexico in 2015 and then again in 2016, and having had to cancel the excursions each time, I wanted to visit family and friends, for an extended time, so I decided to spend a month in New Mexico [from late December through mid-January]. I wanted Linda, my intimate partner, to travel with me, but she has a part-time position at the Missouri Botanical Gardens [a customer services role she has enjoyed for almost a decade] and could not be away during the Christmas season. She encouraged me, though, to take the trip, feeling that such a trip would engender greater self-confidence, given that I'd be traveling alone. And it would give me the opportunity to engage in extended visits with my family and long-term friends.
I had hoped to take the train to Albuquerque, but the planning for such was foreshortened by the recovery from the kidney stone. Hence, I chose instead to drive to New Mexico. I was concerned about such a method of travel, in that, with multiple blood clots, driving long distances was a potential problem. But I decided to more leisurely drive to New Mexico over 3 days, with multiple stops to get out and stretch my legs, keeping the blood flowing adequately. Plus, with cruise control, it would be tolerable.
I spent Christmas with my brother and sister-in-law in Albuquerque [they own an adobe apartment complex and willingly had lodgings for me], and had the chance to visit friends for a week and a half there. Then I drove up to Santa Fe, for a week, staying in a casita that my brother owns, to visit the museums there and have the opportunity to visit with friends in northern New Mexico. I spoke nightly with Linda [we have a mutually loving, decade-long intimacy, and we enjoy sharing our daily activities with each other], and by early January, she was able to join me in New Mexico, for the balance of my trip there. We spent another week back in Albuquerque and three more days in Santa Fe, visiting more of my friends and seeing parts of New Mexico that we both enjoy greatly.
A Different and More Refreshing Perspective Upon New Mexico
As I have enunciated in many previous posts, I've always had mixed feelings about my years in New Mexico. I often write about Albuquerque and St. Louis [between which I've spent 49 of my 66 years] as the 'tale of two cities'. My years in New Mexico were often quite frustrating to me, in that the economy there is 'challenging' even in good years, and 'devastating' in 'bust' years. And, on top of all of the financial and employment challenges, I have been, throughout my life, engaged in a long-term, very emotionally painful, recovery from profound childhood sexual abuse incest/rape and physical & mental torture. Those subjects have been covered, extensively, in many of my past posts.
For this trip, though, I wanted to approach my visit to New Mexico in a very different -- and more refreshing -- light, with 'recovery' and 'connection' as the watchwords and 'minimal frustration' as the focus. And, by and large, I was successful in that effort.
In addition to visiting with my brother & sister-in-law and their families, and spending quality time with friends whom I often see when I visit New Mexico, I made a special point of contacting people who I hadn't met with in a very long time. I had, in all cases, been communicating with them via social media for the past 5 or more years [and made use of Facebook Messenger to arrange times to get together while I was in town], but in finally sitting down for extensive conversations, often for the first time in over a quarter of a century (!), I afforded myself the opportunity to 'get to know them' in a far deeper way that I'd known them when I was younger. I noted to many of the people I met with that "we've now lived long enough on this planet that a distinct 'arc' of our lives has manifested itself, and we can now view our lives -- and the value of our friendship -- with greater clarity". I learned things about people I'd known well, most often from political and social advocacy activities, that I found quite intriguing and intensely educational. On some levels, we discovered that, while we had worked together and had shared many endeavors over the years, we didn't REALLY 'know' one another very well at all. The depth of those conversations was both powerful and mutually empowering. It was, as though, now that we are 'retired' and in our advanced years, we can drop many of the 'cultural facades' that are constructed in our society, that block true emotional intimacy, and 'know one other for the first time'.
There were, no doubt, several points during the trip, when setting up appointments was sketchy or I had periods when I couldn't quite figure out what next to do with my time, that the 'overarching frustration' that I had felt when living in New Mexico began to take hold. But, being well aware that I did not desire to "go there" on this trip, I 'talked myself through' those moments and decided to not allow myself to become captured by those old and emotionally vacant feelings. It took a 'force of will' to continually maintain a positive and vibrant perspective, but once I had another appointment with an old friend, the energy and connection between us quickly and effectively dissipated such frustrating feelings.
One of the 'old feelings' I had, that cropped up even in the midst of my meetings, was "Why had friends, who were successful in their own employment opportunities, not assisted me, all the years when I lived in New Mexico and was 'hitting the wall' due to minimal decent employment, with some suggestions on where to look for jobs or people to connect with?" But, frankly, I had to step back from that frustration and see how many of my missed opportunities had to do with my own mental health challenges [due to the intense PTSD evoked by the incest & terror I had experienced in my childhood] and that others around me were either unaware of the challenges I had faced, or not at all clear on how to assist me, even if they had been willing to do so. It surely didn't help that I was deeply constricted by serious substance abuse until I was in my early 30s [due to the profound depression and suicidal feelings I wallowed in for years after the childhood torture], nor that I was effectively 'out of the picture' for 7 years between the ages of 35-43, due to recovery from a major nervous breakdown in 1985. [Shoshona, to her wonderful credit, reinterpreted the 'breakdown' as a 'breakthrough', stressing the recovery from the PTSD and encouraging me to rise above the often horrific feelings of self-victimization.]
Additionally, we were all 'victims' of a relentlessly crummy economy in New Mexico. Finding decent employment, for anyone, no matter how many graduate degrees they had acquired or professional connections they could muster, was difficult, and while people 'cared', the competition for good jobs was often brutal. (Many highly skilled and well-educated people in New Mexico, at least in the larger cities, are willing to compromise on employment just to live in an area that is topography stunning and which has pleasant, temperate weather most of the year.) And I knew many of the people I met with on this visit via politics, which is its own cutthroat business. While many of my visits were with very good and greatly respected political allies, many of whom I had worked with on multiple campaigns, all of us knew candidates who treated you like 'the best thing since sliced bread' while a campaign was being waged, and then often acted like they couldn't remember your name after winning [or losing]. If you were 'of value' to their own future, you were still welcome in their camp; otherwise, you quickly become so much flotsam. Given the Public Administration graduate degree I had acquired in 1978, politics was one of the few avenues of social and economic advancement in an economy that heavily depended on government funding [being a poor border state], but if your candidate had lost or was no longer in power, your 'value' in the overall economic standing was questionable at best. Even if the Democratic Party [of which I was a well-known activist and for which I was a seasoned campaigner] had won a subsequent election, if the candidate was not your man or woman, then you were subject to the same kind of [figuratively speaking] 'political bloodbath' as someone from the 'other' party.
Feeling Greater Comfort With The Choices I Made - Or Which Were Made For Me
But I tried to not 'go there', not go to the 'what if's', not wallow in the 'if only this had been true', when in fact something quite different had been the actual reality, on this trip and in my visits with old political allies. As one of many examples, after the Clinton-Gore Campaign in 1992, during which I was the Statewide Volunteer Coordinator for the general election and had, by the conclusion of the campaign, over 1700 volunteers throughout the state under my auspices, almost all of the campaign staff had been given patronage employment in Washington, D.C. or with the Arkansas Democratic Party. Except for me, that is. I had been caught in the unenviable position of being paid by the New Mexico Democratic Party, but working for the national staff. The Clinton-Gore staff felt no obligation to me [since I was not on their payroll], and the state party felt no obligation either [since I worked for the national staff]. I was cut out on both sides. No one felt any obligation to assist me with employment. But as a colleague later darkly joked, at least I didn't get indicted and have to obtain legal counsel, unlike many of the Clinton staffers who got caught up in the 'Travel-gate' and 'Whitewater' witch hunts.
After having worked on 50 Democratic Party campaigns by that point, I finally learned that it was not in my best interests to be a 'political whore', offering my services to almost any candidate just because I thought they were going to adequately serve the public, but whom I didn't know at all well. From that point forward, I only offered my campaign services to people who I personally knew and trusted, and even then had no expectation that any kind of post-election employment would be manifested due to such assistance.
As I noted in my previous "Paradoxical Success" post, as it turned out, having finally 'hit the wall of total frustration' with the employment and educational climate of New Mexico, I was motivated to actively seek admission to graduate programs beyond NM, and to seek employment in states where such possibilities were greater. That such employment was ultimately unsuccessful even in Missouri was surely depressing, but somehow life has worked itself out, and I'm in far better shape now than I'd been in my younger years.
My mental health is now more flexible, my emotional trauma more recovered, and though I still have many challenges to overcome in relation to the 'materials hypersensitivity' -- it is an ongoing challenge and one not easily scaled -- this most recent trip to New Mexico let me know, in a deep and comforting way, that the choices I have made in my life have managed to be fairly healthy and emotionally productive, and have allowed me to continue to 'fight the demons of my childhood' from a competent perspective. The very nature of life assures us that 'it ain't an easy journey', but I've managed to live far longer than I ever expected when I was younger and with a greater ability to bounce back from health challenges.
And finally, as both Shoshona said back in 1998, when I moved to St. Louis, and a very close friend reiterated on this visit, "Albuquerque works well enough for many people, it just didn't work for you. You needed a bigger playground, to spread your wings, and you've found it." I still very much enjoy visiting my former home, and will hopefully always enjoy the company of my many good friends and allies [as well as the love of my family and relatives], but St. Louis is now 'home', in a very clear and distinct way. I've been here almost 20 years and, other than from an employment standpoint, it has 'worked well for me'. I have a most enjoyable and loving decade-long intimacy with my partner and a wonderful religious community where I feel respected and appreciated. Life is good.
