"Shut the Frak Up, Cupcake!" by William Stone III http://www.wrstone.com Sun Nov 20 01:02:08 UTC 2016 Copyright (c) 1965-2065 William Stone III ------ You poor precious snowflake; you didn't get your way so everyone needs to run around like chicken little? - William Shatner, Thu Nov 10 12:35:00 UTC 2016 This election has been instructive on a number of levels. Most recently, I discovered that I live in a nation of cowards. I suffer from an anxiety disorder. I don't talk about it much, not even to my family. The only people familiar with it are my doctors. If I'm in the middle of it, I don't communicate much because I know my judgement is off. I might say or do something I'd not do in a normal state of mind. The biggest reason I become uncommunicative is that it takes a great deal of effort to hide it and look like I'm ok to the rest of the world. Why hide it? You might think that it's out of some fear of being ostracized or bullied. You'd be wrong. My father was a psychologist, my mother is a psychologist, and one of my children is studying to become a pschologist. The profession seems to run in the family. I'm not afraid to show it. I hide it because to do otherwise makes life difficult for the people around me. They can't really empathize nor understand why I can't just "relax and get over it." Anxiety disorders are difficult to explain to someone who's not had them. If you're scratching your head at what I'm talking about, you don't get them. Thank your deity for that. Profusely. Generalized Anxiety Disorder can be different for everyone that has it. For me, it's straightforward: Over a one-minute period, my emotions cycles from calm to sheer, irrational terror. There's absolutely nothing to be afraid of, and I know it. There's nothing I can do that will stop it. Progressive relaxation, exercise, you name it and I've tried it. After the first three-minute cycle, it immediately starts again. It can go on for hours, days, weeks, months, or even years. After three days, I start to feel like I'm going insane. It has once driven me suicidal, though I had sense enough to check myself into the psych ward of a local hospital. In the last few years, treatment has improved. I'm happy to say that my current medications have been working. Medication began reliably working for me at about the same time the Doctor Who episode, "The End of Time" first aired. I remember being struck by one of the Master's lines. In referring to a constant drumbeat in his head, the Master remarked, "I don't know what I'd be without this." I had been going through the same reaction. I still don't know what I'd be without this. Just being normal most of the time comes as something of a surprise. As a consequence of my disorder, I certainly don't consider myself a brave man. Unfortunately, my countrymen are even more frightened. No one ever called-off an election just because I was curled up in the fetal position for three days straight. I'm also a libertarian. That means that I have never -- not ONCE -- seen "my guy" win. Somehow, I've been able to cope -- even when curled into the fetal position. It's come to my attention that there are people claiming depression or anxiety because Hillary didn't win the Presidency. How dare you. You're neither depressed nor anxious. You're disappointed. That's all. Worse, you're so self-absorbed that you're incapable of neither perspective nor empathy. You don't have depression nor anxiety. Trust me: YOU DON'T. I am deeply insulted that you are so self-absorbed that you think the results of an election matter. It doesn't. Trust me: IT DOESN'T. Trump will be my tenth President. Uniformly, they have all been frak-ups. Occasionally one or two of them accidentally frakked-up in a way that did some good -- but only occasionally and accidentally. Unless you can talk to me about real depression and real anxiety -- the kind that have caused me to practically feel like I was insane after it went on for three days nonstop -- I would ask you to do something: Get over yourself. Your favorite candidate lost the election. You don't like the one you got. Welcome to my world. Except, of course, that you're not curled up in the fetal position. Get a life. Get some perspective. And then shut the frak up, cupcake. ----- If you need pointers in shutting the frak up, I have years of experience hiding overwhelming terror from everyone I know. Please send all requests for assistance to: getoveryourself@dramaqueen.net Or visit the Web site: http://www.dramaqueen.net for more information. -30-