You know that’s one of those terms I think about a lot these days. I like to point that out to my psychoanalysist, and he likes to point back to me, asking myself to explain what I mean by that.
It’s pretty easy to see a cut or a broken bone. You can test if someone is infected with the COVID virus or has the flu. Symptoms are pretty obvious. Mental illness is a much more complicated thing, if it really exists at all or is just in your head. There really is no right or wrong way to view the world.
One of the things I struggle with is figuring out whether or not a thought it mentally ill or not. What part is my beliefs, and which part is the illness? Are my beliefs right or wrong? But it’s not that simple. My analyst — and honestly most of the books I’ve read on mental illness point out — that beliefs are only harmful if they cause actual harm to myself or others.
I think part of my problem, is I don’t fully agree with the liberal consensus that is so dominate in Albany-area. But that also doesn’t make me a Trump-loving conservative. I believe in the right to be left alone, especially out in the country and in the woods. I believe in the second amendment and gun rights. I’m not worried about a little smoke in country — things that happen on the farm or in the wilderness are far less impactful then what happens in the cities, multiplied over thousands of people.
I really like the idea of going down to West Virginia and spending the majority of my week in the Blackwater Falls – Canaan Heights area. But it’s such a long trip, and it’s one that puts a lot of wear and tear on my big jacked up — and now old truck that turns 12 next week. How fast time goes! I know this trip is always the ultimate in stress test for my truck, with the long drives, the high speed, the hairpin turns, the hills.
My truck seems to be running well, but it’s been through 12 years of rough dirt roads and salt seasons. I’ll check the fluids and make sure there is no new noise or behaviors noticed over the coming weeks. I could jack it up and check for play in any of the suspension components, but I’ve not noticed any unusual behavior. I guess I could take it to my mechanic for an inspection but without much direction I don’t think it will be a help. But at the same time, I don’t want to spend a fortune replacing every component that is worn or kind of beat but will survive the trip.
I realize I continue to wage the last war in my mind. It’s no longer 2021 when I had issues that November, I have replaced both hubs and wheel bearings on the front of Big Red, and the lower ball joints and control arms at least one one side if not both have been replaced. It’s a longer trip then I can probably limp home, but worse comes to worse, I can stay in a hotel or rent a car for a few days. I’ll have my tent and bicycle with me that offers options. And I can’t live my life constantly in fear. I am on vacation to enjoy myself, not feed my anxiety.
Obviously, breaking down a long ways from home, having to rent a car or stay in a hotel is an expense. But it can be a new adventure should the worse-comes-to-worse, and it’s not like I will struggle for money, as in an emergency I can always tap various sources of money I have in various accounts, to say nothing about my credit cards. And it’s silly to get too worried about it, the last two times I broke down — one was stupid loose lug nut on summer vacation, the other the wheel bearing — I was able to get my truck fixed the same day and be back on the road a few hundred bucks less.
I should take the trip I want and not worry about feeding the anxiety machine, but instead sit back and enjoy life. And make sure I maintain a nutritious diet throughout my trip, so I can have a good healthy blood sugar, drive safely, make it to my destination, and relax at camp and all the fun things I do hiking and exploring on my mountain bike. Anxiety shouldn’t be paralyzing or keep me from living the life I want to live.
Sixteen years ago, when Calliope Holingue was in high school, she had a problem. Two, actually. She developed gastrointestinal symptoms severe enough to force her to give up running, plus she had a long history of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
"And I wondered if maybe there was a link between my mental health and the GI symptoms I was experiencing," she recalls now.
Her doctors shrugged off her questions. "That led me to start reading a lot about the gut microbiome, the autonomic nervous system, and their connection with the brain and mental health," she says.
Today, Holingue has joined the ranks of scientists seeking to understand the interplay between the brain (and the rest of the nervous system) and the gut microbiome – that is the vast array of organisms, including bacteria, fungi and viruses, that thrive in the human gut.
Months before Martial Simon pushed Michelle Go to her death in front of a subway train, his mind had been seized by an unusual toothache.
Simon was confined at the time to the Bronx Psychiatric Center, a state hospital. A nurse offered to connect him with a dentist, but he refused. The dentist was working with the FBI, which was using satellites to loosen his teeth, he said.
Despite Simon’s tenuous grasp on reality, the hospital discharged him a few weeks later, in July 2021. He had been hospitalized for five months. Workers escorted him to an apartment building in the Bronx, where he could live with on-site services. They left him with a 30-day supply of medication and a next-day appointment with a psychiatrist.
He never showed. In all, he spent hardly two hours in his new home. He left only a trace of his presence: a brown paper bag stuffed with his medications.
