Migraines On The Radio

I heard on the Diane Rehm's radio show a segment on Living with Migraines (please listen to the podcast).  I really liked it because of all the good new news on the subject.  I'm also a migraineur diagnosed with migraine with aura (or migraine with complex).  It seems that the medical field is still learning about migraines and that they took some significant leaps in the past twelve years.   I would like to share my experience with doctors and migraines.

Though I had migraines from childhood, I only went to the Veterans Administration Hospital for it in 2001.   Then, my doctor did not admittedly know much about migraines and she promised to get some more information and confer with other doctors.  She ended up giving me codeine and caffeine.  Hold on, there are many several type of migraines and it seems that some migraines get worse with caffeine and some get better.  This combination seemed to work for me.  I did substitute the codeine with ibuprofen and this also worked, and it would allow me to drive.

I moved from California to St Louis, Missouri and sought additional help in 2009 from VA doctors there because I was experiencing some numbness in my body, mainly on my right side.  I ended up seeing neurologists there and they took me off off the ibuprofen which I was taking every 4 hours.  This apparently could lead to some bad things with my internal organs.  They gave me Diltiazem to take every day and Sumatriptan as a rescue medicine.  They also identified the little 'fireflies' I see in my eyes from time to time are part of my aura.  I consider these doctors to be very professional and seriously interested in my case.  I was lucky.  The did not say anything about my body numbness and pain, but I believe them also to be part of my aura because of what I read and hear about migraine with aura.

If I think about it, I can see other aspects of my aura.  Growing up I would sometimes get up and my sight and my hearing would stop for a couple of seconds.  I wouldn't see anything but darkness and heard nothing in that period of time.  I would also get dizzy and see my 'fireflies'.  During a migraine headache, I couldn't stand light or loud noises.  I would also feel weak and would have to rest often.  My headaches usually lasted 4 days.  The Sumatriptan took away the pain, but not my auras, and not my weakness.  Being a migraineur is something I have to live with.

I can see that from 2001 to today, migraine information has indeed increased and there seems to be more help for migraineurs.  If you suffer from migraines, I suggest you find a doctor that is actively helping you and that you are managing it better.  It may still be hard to find the right doctor, but it seems more and more doctors and getting educated on this disease.  Good luck.

What Normal Person?

I don't see normal people on this planet.  I really can't tell that I have met one.  What I have met were unique individuals with various traits.  People are more diverse than you have ever imagined.  Let's explore together what people are like, what a normal person really is, and where can we go from here.

I've traveled through many countries to include Europe, United States, and Asia.  I've talked to many people; more than the average person would.  I have yet to talk to two that are the same.  Even fraternal twins seem to be unique in some way.  More often than not, you may find that people have traits in their character that make them stand out.  I've seen people: try to get away with as much as possible, yield to others consistently, talk to everyone they meet in depth, ignore anyone who approaches them, struggle with basic math or writing, have impressive understanding about construction/engineering, wonder at nature, think only of their goals, excel at fitness or sports, do nothing but sit at a computer or TV, appreciate the arts, thinks only of the bottom line, acts to impress as many people as possible, care little about what people think, have attractive looks or voice, have unattractive features, knows how to make a buck, knows how to spend money, forget to take stuff with them, always remembers what someone said to them, be that annoying and vocal neighbor, show kindness to their neighbors in need with coffee and blankets, and more.  People are unique wherever you go.

What do we mean by a normal person?  Normal means conforming to a standard.  A standard could be a law, a policy, a socially acceptable behavior, or even an unwritten rule.  Betty Crocker is a well known name among bakers and baker aficionados, and yet this person never existed in a single person.  Check out Who Was Betty Crocker? by Roy Rosenzweig.  Betty was a composite personality.  She was born out of popular responses to General Mills.  This is what a normal person is also.  A normal person is not a real person but an ideal of what society or a community thinks a person should be like.  The ideal also changes throughout history.  Imagine if you took a normal person today and put him/her in the 1800's.  Would they be considered a normal person? Absolutely not!  They would be considered liberal, radical, and strange.  That's because the ideals of today are not the same ideals as in the 1800's.  The idea of prejudice was different.  There was black and white prejudice like today, but worse, and there was German vs Danish vs Italian vs English.  Economy back then was more agrarian than industrial.  News was on printed newspapers not on TV or the internet.  You telegraphed someone instead of texting.  There were no phones, so you wore watches to tell time.  You actually had to be face to face with someone to carry on a conversation.  They wore more clothes and didn't have motorized washing machines.  You see that a normal person of today is not the same as a normal person of yesterday.

What does this all mean to you and me?  Most people see themselves as a normal person.  They pay taxes and obey the laws.  Some may not even do that and still consider themselves as normal.  The truth is; none of us are normal.  We all fall short of normal.  Not that it's a competition.  Normal is what we think we ought to be and perhaps strive for.  The reason is because we're afraid to stand out.  We're afraid to be ridiculed.  We want to hide those things that makes us look different.  Unfortunately, we often hide those thing form ourselves as well and disregard them entirely.  I say we should embrace those things that does not make us normal for ourselves.  If you think about it, those contestants on American Idol, or the other Idol shows around the world, that win are not normal.  The do stand out.  In the music industry standing out is important.  So not being normal can lead to good things.  I say embrace them regardless of what anyone else thinks.  I will caution you about being overt about them liberally.  You should gauge how much you show people and when to show them.  It helps to be more accepting by others.  As an extrovert, it's always been hard for me, if not impossible, to hide all the things that make me stand out.  I'm sensitive and quirky.  I'm opinionated and loud.  Different souls are attracted to me and different ones are repelled by me.  There are things that I do hide from people though.  I've never been fired from a job, but often I'm required to justify my employment.  I've learned to listen more to people and that helps a lot.  I give other people the stage to have their say.  That makes me look better overall.

People are too diverse to be normal, and normal is just an ideal.  We can claim our true nature and still work in society.  Fear is the only thing form keeping us form ourselves.  We are unique, and we are good.  We don't have to succumb to fear.  We can be unconventional and still operate in this world.

Slowing Tasks

If you have noticed, I have not been writing as frequently as I have before.  I have to go to writing biweekly rather than weekly.  It was too much to write two posts a week, one for this blog and one for my idea-writes STL Aeropspace blog.  Lessening my writing will help in two areas, quality of personal life and quality of writing.

There comes a time when doing gets in the way of quality.  As an empath and highly sensitive person (HSP) and a migraineur, I have limited capacity for activities.  Stress will take me down quickly.  Then my quality of life suffers, and it doesn't seem worth it.  Actually when I go down, everything seems worthless.  That's when thoughts of wanting to get away come and the desire to be in another world rise up.  Getting rest resets my brain and gives me back my optimism.

I'm not happy where I am as a writer.  I would like to grow.  Taking my writing frequency to two weeks  will give me more time to think of ways to be more creative and make better quality writing.  I am glad I'm writing for myself rather than for a manager or editor of some kind.  I feel that managers today fail to consider that their workers need not to burn out and they work them till they can't take it anymore.  I've been there and don't want to take my writing there.  I don't want to be put off by writing.  Writing is too important to waste it on bureaucratic deadlines and pressures.  Everyone who can write should write just as an civil duty.  We understand the founding fathers of the United States from their writings, and they were prolific writers.  Writing is just as important as voting.  Sure, you can say that you can get your message out via YouTube.com.  I say if your going to do that you should write your speech, that is what your going to say first.  Writing tends to congeal thoughts into messages.

Increasing quality of life and quality of writing are my goals for making biweekly posts.  I hope this does not put you off.  There are many blogs out there and articles to read.  So, I don't think you will have any lack of reading to do in the mean time.

Accounting For Weakness

Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Petreus, and a host of other powerful men have had their infidelities plastered all over the press.  More often than not these type of men have affairs in our society.  I don't doubt that there are powerful women who have affairs as well, but seem to not manage affairs well.  Sometimes our weaknesses get the better of us and we do wrong things.  This gives rise to the question, 'how do you manage weakness?'.  Let's look at some weaknesses, and how to manage them.

Everyone has weaknesses that need to be addressed in some fashion.  It seems that people these days major on their strengths and minor on their weakness.  I suppose some even ignore their weaknesses.  Other people, on the other hand, have no choice but to account for theirs.  Many weaknesses are of a personal nature.  How people manage their sexuality is a common one.  By nature, sexuality is supposed to be private.  These days, we understand that there are a variety of sexual lifestyles.  Most of them would abhor any one individual because were so diverse as a society.  Some sexual lifestyles are illegal, and some sexual acts are illegal.  People should find ways to keep their sexuality private and legal.  For some keeping things private is hard because there are people who pry for both personal and professional interests.  Romance is another area of weakness.  Some romance is fine to see in the right public setting.  Sometimes people are offended by public displays of affection.  People do tend to personalize the things they see.  I would avoid romance at work altogether.  I try to keep romance private or semi-private as well.  The less people know about your weakness, the higher they think of you.  There are weaknesses of a medical nature.  These society endures but prefers not to see.  How you take your pills shouldn't be public knowledge.  Talking about how gross your wound is might offend someone.  Some weaknesses are simple hygiene.  Wiping your nose on your sleeve is offensive in public.  Smelling in any way is offensive in public.  Too much perfume is offensive in public.  Contrary to the belief of some, perfume does not take away bad smell, it just adds more smell.  Sometimes just soap is not enough to take away bad smells.  You may have to use a disinfectant.  Some weaknesses are behavioral.  Touching a person in anyway may deemed offensive.  Many jokes are offensive.  Be very careful when it comes to joking.  Fights have started on a off color joke, and law suits have been filed for some as well.  Not smiling when someone smiles at you or not waiving when someone waives at you could be deemed offensive.  This is not to point fingers at anyone or for anyone to point fingers.  We all suffer from many of these weaknesses and more.

Weakness does not go away after it's addressed, it must be worked on continuously.  Making habits that compensate for weaknesses is a good idea.  Communicating in a good way is a habit that everyone needs to work on.  Cleaning yourself and dressing yourself appropriately are daily habits to develop.  Habits as to when and where to practice your sexuality and romance are just as important.  For the high profile people, it costs them a lot of money when they get caught.  What will it cost you?  Continual self evaluation is a must to keep face and a job let alone advancing these days.  I'm not talking about abstaining either.  The more you bottle up a need the more lightly it will explode at a later date.  No, it's better to manage it often.  If we have a desire to show violence, we play a game, or watch a movie, or read a violent book.  We don't go out causing fights.  In other words we let our minds simulate what we need emotionally.

Identifying your own weaknesses and learning how to manage them is important.  Though most people are not high profile or in the news often, it's still important to keep your weaknesses in check.  Even though you may not notice them, everyone you come in contact with will.

Sick Loved One

Taking care of your loved one while the're sick is quite common.  Sure, we have a lot of medicine for many things, but for the highly sensitive person, medication is not the worry.  My loved one was sick this week and I had to take off work to care for them.  I learned some thing in the process.

The first night, they were up all night.  Of course that just made things miserable for me as well.  Being an empth that communicates in a tactile/kinesthetic way I mimic their behavior.  When they are miserable, I am miserable.  So it behooves me to keep them healthy and happy.  The following two days, I gave them medication that was strong and also made them drowsy.  They slept and I was at peace.  Sometimes this empath thing takes a little time to kick in.  The next day, I was sleepy.  The third day, we slept a lot and got some good rest.  Now were on the recovery.

What did I learn?  I learned that keeping my love one adequately medicated helps me as well.  I've felt very overextended these last couple of weeks.  Fall season does that to you.  So many things to do and the sun goes down earlier and earlier.  I needed that rest.  Now, its time to hit the gym and shave off all the calories we ate while sick.

Precious Human Value

Value is a common word.  It's a word we use to describe something in a quantitative way.  I want to talk about the innate human value of everyone.  I use value instead of worth because worth has some negativity associated with it, such as "What's your worth?" or "How worthy are you?" or "Your worthless".  I feel value is impartial.  I'm taking you to the core definition of human value, then the past and present that shows our disregard for life, and then talk about championing human value.

Vietnam War Boat People

In this age of information,  we understand how computers work and often make comparisons between computers and the brain.  Sci-fi stories like the Matrix raise the question if we are in a simulation or not, and if we were, we would never know going about our own lives.  Therefore, our best understanding of our basic existence is 'Cognito ergo sum,' which translates into, 'I think therefore I am.'  It's a definition of ourselves that highlights the greatness of our reasoning and our sheer ineptness to affirm our own existence.  It does something else though; it shows our value as individuals to understand, change, build, destroy, and have emotional responses to the world we live in.  Now it's a statement that we more often than not apply personally.  Now consider that every human on the planet thinks.  If they think, they are.  They all have value.  They all have the same value as I do or as you do.  This is the beginning of compassion.  Their fate should be the same as mine.  The better the fate, the better for all.

If we think about how many people have died in wars, in accidents, in suicides; we can understand how lives have been extinguished before their time.  37,000,000 died in World War I, 60,000,000 died in World War II,  1,035,585 died in Vietnam War, around 2,000,000 died in the Soviet Afghanistan war, and around 14,700 and counting have died in the U.S. Afghanistan war.  There are countless wars; each with their own death count.  These wars are fought over ideologies.  We seem to adopt the notion 'Cognito ergo occidere,' which means 'I think therefore I kill.'  If we all really thought, we'd wouldn't be doing this.  If we considered that all have the same value, we would find other ways to solve issues.  What is the value of these people who died?  Well, instead of reaping the fruits of a free life and giving back to society, their value is to teach us to change.  Let it not be for nothing.

I like to talk about championing human value.  Yet, I find myself at a loss to understand how.  I suppose it starts small.  Kindness is a common word.  It's a word we take for granted.  When your kind to someone you show them that they are valuable to you.  We like to think of ourselves as kind.  We should evaluate ourselves though.  How kind are you to that shop person who is not giving you what you want?  How kind are you to the teammate on your team who is opposing you?  How kind to that person who just made fun of you and you don't like it?  As a highly sensitive person, I see a lot of frustration.  It's at work, it's in the stores, and it's at home.  Frustration can lead to anger, and anger can lead to violence.  Kindness can temper frustration.  Showing someone their value to them.

Examining what human value is shines bright in the darkness of our devastation of it.  Taking ownership of it anew and starting to show kindness to later take bigger steps is important.  We are in an era of post world wars.  Europe does not make war among its nations anymore.  Dialog has taken over.  The middle east seeks freedom.  The world is changing.  The change will be permanent.  Weapons will lessen.  We can help usher the change by being kind.

Pile Up

Sometimes things pile up.  Several conversations happen in rapid order with many people can cause emotions to pile up like some kind of multi-car accident.  It leaves the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP, empath) in a state.  I had this experience with a lot going on at work.  By a lot, I mean excitement and other emotions from about thirty people in a fairly small space.  It was all good things, but the emotions flooded in me and kept on pouring in.  I could sense each of the feelings and all of them at the same time.  They were good feelings, and they were strong but not as strong as anger.  All the same, I was affected.  My behavior was erratic; it was hard to focus.  It was like being in a crowd but not as intense.  Afterwards, I decided that I should get rid of them.  The following is what I do to get back to normal or some semblance thereof.

First, I push the emotion out.  What I do is get into a meditative state and then use my will (intent) to push out the emotions out of my body and away from me.  It's a simple and effective technique.  It can be used in a moment when needed.  A problem with it is that if you like the emotion, you may find it hard to push it out.  What I do is try it several times.  Every time I feel a little more like normal. I guess it's a judgement call on how much you want to feel the emotion.  It's like turning down the volume on a music player.

Second I try to get into a meditative state to allow emotions flow through me but keeping my soul untouched.  This does take some practice, and does take some getting used to.  I've called this being detached.  I guess it's a compromise.  I figure sometimes it's hard to hold back the ocean of feelings, so you might as well run with it.  Yeah, I've mentioned these two techniques in other posts and for other situations.  They can be a harmonious way of dealing with this world.

A good night's rest is good after the ordeal; though, the emotions can linger for a few days.  Did I really wanted to get rid of all of the emotion?  No, not really.  I just wanted to get to a manageable state.  This way I could have control over my behavior.  After the rest I had a calmer disposition.

  Some empaths like to use shielding to not be affected by others' emotion.  My problem with it is that it's not always necessary to go to such drastic measures.  I like to experience the feelings of my environment, and shielding just diminishes that.  It's like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Pushing out emotion, being detached from the emotion though it flows through you, and rest should help to get back to normal.  Yeah, getting back to normal. Some would question what normal is.  Of course if your an HSP, you may never know what normal is.  In this case, I am referring to what is normal for you.  It's a crazy world and from time to time it gets a little more crazy.