Happiness
More or less
It’s just a change in me
Something in my liberty
Oh, my, my
Happiness
Coming and going
I watch you look at me
Watch my fever growing
I know just where I am
But how many corners do I have to turn?
How many times do I have to learn
All the love I have is in my mind? – Verve “Lucky Man”

Since I can remember I have always maintained a depressed demeanor. Clinically speaking I suffer from severe depression and this diagnosis seems apt. I can’t explain why I am such a downer but the sad reality of this matter is that I am perpetually bummed out.

 It makes no sense why I am perpetually sad. I have a good life. I have a lovely wife and a beautiful son. I have a career that pays the rent and I even write on my blog when the mood suits me. Simply put, I live a good life. I am healthy, despite smoking and never exercising. We have a lovely home in a nice neighborhood. Each Sunday I am free to go to the movie of my choice to relax (last week was X-Men First Class and then the Hangover 2). If I wish I could join a bowling league and use those three-semesters of bowling I took at the University of Nevada. I get to go to Arizona Cardinals and Phoenix Coyotes games when I wish.

 But despite all of the aforementioned blessings (and there are others that I won’t bore you with)I am bummed out, sad and down. It needs to stop. I need to make a conscious effort to focus on the good as opposed to the bad and I need to realize that, like Richard Ashcroft said, “I am a lucky man.”

 I think part of my sadness is my sense of isolation. “Alone with everybody,” like Charles Bukowski said. I am gone 12-hours a day. I leave the house at 5:45 a.m. and get back home at 6:00, Monday through Friday. My work day consists of a 112-mile commute on the 101 and then 8 hours in the cubicle. I am away from my family 60-hours a week and when I get home I bum around, eat dinner and I am sleeping by 9. There aren’t many opportunities to relax with my wife or play with my son during the week.

 Despite all the good things in my life I can’t function without heavy doses of Efexor, my anti-depressant of choice. Without it I am doomed. One would think that psychiatric drugs geared towards combating depression would make the patient happier. But they help me function and don’t make me happier.

 I think it’s my outlook on life that has lead to my perpetual doom & gloom. I am pessimistic by nature and the glass is not half empty, it’s just empty. I have the unfortunate tendency to focus on the negative in all of my actions and as a result I stay down. My Mother always taught me to expect the worst, because anything less than the worst is a good thing, and as a result I see a lot of doom and gloom on a daily basis. I head to work and I assume my car will break down. I get to work and I assume that I’ll be fired. Cramp in my calf and I have a blood clot. Coughing more than usual and I have lung cancer. This mindset is heavy and weighs me down but I can find victories if something moderately goes my way.

 Another reason that I am down all the time is because I was raised as a Chicago Cubs fan. They’re loveable losers and in my lifetime they have broken my heart a few times. In the 1989 NLCS they were dominated by the San Francisco Giants. My disdain for the Giants stems from that defeat. 2003 the Cubs were about to knock off the Marlins and head the World Series but choked it all away. On top of all that their best player, Sammy Sosa, likely used PED’s and bleaches his skin.

The Cubs are doomed. They haven’t won a World Series since 1908. It’s been 103-years of futility and that weighs me down. Being raised as a Cubs fan get you used to disappointment and even when they’re winning (Steve Bartman and 2003) you know that fate will damn them to lose again. There is no upside to being a Cubs fan except it gets you used to losing and handling defeat.

 But not every team I root for are doomed to the bottom of the standings. The Nevada Wolf Pack football team finished 11^th in the AP rankings last season. The Chicago Bears played in the NFC Championship Game. I’ve seen Nevada men’s basketball ranked as high as 11 in the AP and in 2004 they made a run to the Sweet Sixteen. The Montreal Canadiens have made the Stanley Cup playoffs the last two-years. Juan Pablo-Montoya is 15^th in the latest NASCAR Sprint Cup standings.

These are some good things in my life. And most importantly I have a lovely wife and a beautiful son. Yes life can deal me a crappy cards, making me 5’8” with abnormally small hands with the attention span of a jack rabbit on meth, but those are minor setbacks when compared to what I truly have and cherish.

Tomorrow after work I will make  a stop at the Unforgiven Tattoo Company to get my third tattoo. My first tattoo was the 63-Hexagram of the I Ching aka the same tat that Storm Shadow from G.I. Joe has. After getting that ink I swore up and down that I would not get another tattoo. Five months later I was back at Unforgiven getting a Phoenix tattoo on my upper right arm.

For my third tat I am getting some lyrics from one of my favorite bands, The Verve, on the inside of my left wrist. The tat will say,”Tie yourself to the mast my friend and the storm will.” The lyrics are from the song One Day, on their classic album Urban Hymns.  I am Verve fan and I consider Urban Hymns to be one of the best albums I own. In a drunken haze I said they were better than Oasis.

Life In The DPC has had a rough ride lately and I am doing my best to persevere despite the storm that seems to be perpetually swarming around me. I thinks tats should represent something, except the Storm Shadow tat, and there will always be rough patches in life but you have to stay driven and focused on the big picture and persevere.
DavidPatrickCastro.net

It has been noted a few times on this blog that I have ADD and that I take Adderall to combat it. The Adderall works and because of it I am a better employee. More focused and a bit more driven. As of late I have mixed in a bit of grounded up Adderall with my morning coffee and this cocktail makes DPC quite alert during my 55-mile commute to Chandler.

Each day for the last two-weeks I have been using Adderall laced java (which I will refer to as Nitro Java from this point forward)with good results. I am awake while commuting at 5:45 in the morning and an alert driver is a safe driver.

Assuming that you can never have too much of a good thing, when I mixed my Nitro Java this morning I doubled the amount of Adderall and assumed that I would be hella alert on my way to work. As Strongbad said, “Too much of a good thing…is an awesome thing.” I occasionally live by that notion but within 30-minutes of my commute my heart felt like it was going to explode.

After 30-minutes of driving I am approximately half way from my destination in Chandler. I get the pedal  to the metal and I’m cruising at 80mph  and I drive on with pain in my chest and some numbness in my arms. It’s hard to drive when your appendages conspire against you but I did my best to stay in my lane. Listening to Urban Hymns by The Verve helped me stay calm as  I made my way past Tempe.

While The Drugs Don’t Work made its slow, melancholy ode to the failures of drug use, I was close to Chandler and to the Ativan that would calm me down. About five-years ago I had a panic attack , which felt like a heart attack, and ended up at the local emergency room. It wasn’t a heart attack and my diagnosis was shortness of breath and they prescribed Ativan. Since then I have been prescribed Ativan and  I use it to calm my nerves when I am in a panic or in this case a meltdown from too much Adderall and java.

I made my way to my usual parking spot and ruffled through my bag. I found my bottle of Ativan and washed down a tab with my coffee.

30-minutes later I was at my cubicle getting ready for work. I ate my bagel, drank my coffee and got ready for another 8-hour shft. I felt fine. Alert and calm like usual, like when I mix Ativan and Adderall, but I still have the unsettling feeling that my use of prescription meds will cause my early demise. I don’t think man is supposed to ingest amphetamines mixed with salt, four or five times a day for five years and walk away with no health problems. At this point I’m stuck. I need to work and make money for my family and to work at an acceptable level I need Adderall. Take away my meds and I am unemployed. Keep working and I will have a heart attack before I am fourty and if I do I will have no regrets because in my heart I will know that I did my best for my family.

Davidpatrickcastro.net