Suebob's Red Stapler

My mom thinks I’m pretty, too.

The guy was talking to himself in the dollar aisle at the drug store.

“Hey, Leo,” I said. “I saw your picture in the paper. You’re a hero.”

“Aw man,” he said. Aw, that wasn’t anything. I just wanted to make sure nobody wasn’t in there. I mean, it could have been me. I didn’t hesitate.”

“You did good, Leo.”

I could tell he was pleased that I had seen his picture in the newspaper. I wondered if he knew who I was, especially since he has some vision problems.

“Hey,” he said, suddenly, earnestly, as if he was reading my mind. “I do remember you. I want to apologize for that last time.”

That surprised me. Leo and I had met on the street almost a year before and had a conversation that lasted about half an hour. He had been drunk and had said some fairly cynical and mean things, as well as spilling a lot of his pain and frustration. It was a random encounter that began with him asking me for 18 cents and ended with a hug. Overall, it was a sweet conversation. I couldn’t believe, given his confused mental state and his level of alcohol consumption, that he remembered after all this time.

“I didn’t mean any of that,” he said. “I have a lot of anger.”

“We’re ok, man. No harm, no foul.”

He threw his arms out and gave me a big hug. There’s something sincere and raw and soulful about Leo. He is short, with long grey and black hair and he smells like a campfire. He’s a mess of emotions and chemicals and questions.

“Hey, you’re a pretty lady,” he said.

“That’s what my mom says, too,” I replied.

“Then why don’t you believe it?” he asked.

I loved his fairly transparent attempt to work his way into my emotions through pop psychology, but I refused to go there.

“We’re all beautiful,” I said. “All of us.”

“Yeah, we are,” he said. “Can I borrow five bucks?”

“You’re amazing, Leo,” I said. “You DO remember that whole conversation.”

“Yep. You told me to ask for more than 18 cents last time.”

He was absolutely right. I had told him he had to think bigger. Oprah convinces people to live their dreams. Meanwhile, my sphere of influence extends to getting one homeless guy to raise his prices.

“How about it?” he said, cocking his head to one side. “Did I mention that you’re a pretty lady?”

He got the $5. I got another hug and he played me a song on his harmonica. Best entertainment value in town.

Just ask any of the many, many people I have slept with – I SUCK at sleeping.

(I may have exaggerated a little there. I haven’t slept with a lot of people. I usually went home right after. Ba DUM bum).

No one in their right mind would want to sleep with me. I toss, I turn, I get up, I remove the pillowcases in my sleep. Really. It is a fairly common occurrence for me to wake up in the morning and find the pillowcases, sheets and blankets on the floor.

It used to be worse. I would routinely wake up about 2 a.m. and stay awake until 4 or 5. Most of the time I wouldn’t get up or read or do anything. I would just lie there and worry.

Worry about what? ANYTHING. It really didn’t matter. One time it was raining and I started thinking “What if it never stopped raining, ever?” That’s how sick my brain is at 3 a.m.

Now I sleep, mostly. I usually wake up to put eyedrops in a couple times, and sometimes I’m awake for 15 minutes or so, but it’s never like it was before. So I have some pieces of advice:

1) Get dark curtains. I bought the dark blue fabric shown above (because I have this whole tropical theme going on) and had my friend Laura make me some lined curtains (the lining is solid dark blue). I never realized how much sleeping in a dark room really helps with sleep.

2) Quit drinking (mostly). I think I used to always go to sleep a little buzzed, and when the alcohol wore off, THEN I’d wake up. San Pellegrino water never has that effect.

3) Be single (sorry, married people. I hope the divorce goes smoothly). My sleeping problems were always compounded times 10 when I had to put up with someone else and their annoying sleeping habits as well as my own. My ex-BF loved to snuggle. I do not snuggle. I don’t want to be touched while I’m sleeping, because then I’m not sleeping. It seems obvious to me, but he could never get it through his head, so we would spend all night with him scooting closer to me and me moving away. I remember lying right on the edge of the mattress, trying like mad to get some peaceful sleep, away from his touchy touchiness.

4) Confront your inner worrier. Now when I am tempted to do the middle-of-the-night panic attack thing, I tell myself “Hey, this is just the 2 am worrying. It isn’t a real problem.” Or if it is a legitimate problem “You can worry about this tomorrow. You’ll be wide awake and ready to do something about it.”

5) When all else fails, I chant Hare Krishna. It’s not a religious thing. I don’t know why it works. A couple rounds of
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare
and I am asleep. I almost never make it to five founds. Thanks, Krishna. If you object to Hindu gods, maybe a prayer or a chant or an affirmation would work for you. For me, I think having something I’m not emotionally attached to helps me.

6) Smooth out your sheets. I found that I always sleep best on clean sheets. I’m too lazy and cheap to have a new set of sheets for every day of the week, but it is almost as good if I completely make the bed as if I have new sheets on – pulling the corners tight, all Army-like, and re-doing the blankets to be perfect. Some of you freaks probably do this every day anyway, but I never did, so this is a revelation. Instant better sleep.

Ok, go, sleep. You’ll feel better if you do.

Today on Twitter, someone said that the one thing we have learned so far from the tragic shooting in Arizona of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (and others) was that we are failing at dealing with mental illness.

It used to be different. It used to be easy to lock people up for mental illness and keep them far too long. The system was reformed, which led us to err too far on the side of the rights of the mentally ill. The idea was that, as long as people weren’t actively a threat to themselves or others, they should be allowed to do whatever they wanted.

We can see the results of these policies in every city, as terribly mentally ill people with few resources to take care of themselves wander the streets cold, hungry, sick and alone.

Jared Lee Loughner was clearly mentally ill, so much so that teachers and others tried to get him help and failed. The system failed him, and it failed all of us.

The Arizona shootings reminded me of a post I wrote about some friends a couple of years ago –

Note: names have been changed to protect the rightfully nervous

I got a phone message Saturday.

“Hey, Suebob, it’s Ken. Wow, a lot has happened since I saw you last. Call me. I have a new number because we had a murderous psychopath living next door so we had to move out of state.”

Huh? THAT’s not the type of message you get every day. I called him right away and we ended up talking for over an hour.

Here’s the story: Ken, his wife Leila and their 2 young (under 5) children lived in a rural area where they could have chickens and ducks and goats and fruit trees. Living the good life, back-to-the-land style.

They had a neighbor, Dan, who seemed a little odd, but he and Ken worked on a few projects around the place together. Dan admitted to Ken that he had had some mental health issues, but they were controlled by medication and he was seeing a doctor.

As time went by, Dan began to talk paranoid crazy talk, saying that someone in town was out to get him. In fact, she was trying to poison him.

Ken asked Dan if he was still taking his meds and seeing the doctor. Dan said yes.

The weeks passed and Dan got more and more paranoid, saying that other neighbors were ganging up and trying to poison him, and that he thought that maybe he should kill them before they killed him.

What? Huh? Ken began to realize that this was a serious situation. He called mental health to see if there was anything he could do to prevent Dan from going on a killing spree. They brought Dan into a hospital for three days, then released him. When he got out, he was even worse and now he had transferred his paranoid thoughts onto Ken and Leila, saying that they were trying to poison him and control his mind.

Ken got in touch with the police. He found out something about Dan that made his blood turn to ice. About 15 years before, Dan had taken his wife and kids out onto a country road and murdered his wife in front of the children. He had thought she was trying to poison him.

He spent more than 10 years in a state mental health facility, then was released. No probation, no parole, no supervision. Just released.

Ken hired a lawyer and got a restraining order against Dan. He said the courtroom scene was surreal, with Dan saying “But I don’t have anyone! I’m a widower!” Let us remember that he was a widower because he had shot his wife to death.

Ken also contacted mental health again. They suggested that he get a firearm to protect his family. THAT was the advice they gave him – basically kill him before he kills you.

Ken tracked down the police detective who had arrested Dan when he killed his wife. The detective wanted to help and asked if Ken had any evidence that Dan was engaged in illegal activities. Ken knew Dan sold drugs and told the officer that.

The police raided Dan’s house. They found a bunch of meth – including some lined out on a mirror – and a whole bunch of pot. Apparently Dan was not only off his meds, he was high on meth and it was playing into his paranoia.

The police took him into custody. At the bail hearing, Dan’s court-appointed attorney argued that he be released on his own recognizance. Ken went to court and gave the judge a long letter stating all that had happened and the judge, bless him, set the bail very high so Dan could not get out before his trial.

When Ken got home, he looked at Leila and she looked at him. Dan was in jail, but they knew someday he would get out and he thought that the two of them were his worst enemies. They had 2 little kids sleeping in the next room. They packed up their stuff and moved. Far from their friends, far from their families, but safer.

While they were in the moving process, Dan’s brother came to clean out his house because Dan had been evicted for not paying rent. He told Ken that Dan had mentioned Ken to him, and that Dan said he sometimes sat in his chair in the dark with a gun and stared at Ken as Ken moved around inside his home, thinking about shooting him or his wife. The brother showed Ken the gun that Dan had in his house.

“I realized,” Ken said, “That we were probably almost dead.”

So that’s the story. My friends got away from Dan, but those people in Arizona couldn’t get away from Jared Loughner before he started shooting. It was just a matter of luck and timing. That shouldn’t be the case. There has to be a better way to keep people safe – both safe from being hurt and safe from hurting others.

Photo by Alex E. Proimos. Used under a Creative Commons license.

On the way to Vegas. Not doing the duckface. Doing the “I’m gonna smack you” face.

I know you. I see you.

You walk into rooms and glance around, dismayed. You flip off buzzing fluorescent lights, pull the table out from the wall three more inches, arrange the chairs so no one will have glare in their faces. You ask to have the music turned down or off. You shut the door and open the window just a bit.

You’re happier in a quiet corner than a happening spot. You hate to shout over the music. You sometimes leave in a hurry when you can’t take it. You ask “What’s that smell?” and everyone else says “What smell?”

People say you’re too sensitive. That you’re irritable. That you don’t know how to have fun. That you should learn to deal.

I write this post every couple of years because it was such a relief to me to find out that I wasn’t crazy – that I was a Highly Sensitive Person.

I first heard of Elaine Aron maybe 10 years ago, and read her book, recognizing myself on every page. From her website:

Highly Sensitive People have an uncommonly sensitive nervous system – a normal occurrence, according to Aron. “About 15 to 20 percent of the population have this trait. It means you are aware of subtleties in your surroundings, a great advantage in many situations. It also means you are more easily overwhelmed when you have been out in a highly stimulating environment for too long, bombarded by sights and sounds until you are exhausted.” An HSP herself, Aron reassures other Highly Sensitives that they are quite normal. Their trait is not a flaw or a syndrome, nor is it a reason to brag. It is an asset they can learn to use and protect.

There’s a reason I’m always trying to find the cozy spot, the place where music isn’t blaring at me, the seat away from the lady wearing too much perfume. My nervous system can’t take it. Things that, to “normal” people aren’t even noticed are like sirens going off in my head.

It’s never more obvious than when I am out and about in Las Vegas. Vegas is an HSP’s nightmare. In most places where you stand, you can hear two or three different kinds of music playing at once, a fact that by itself makes me itchy. Combine that with crowds, cigarette smoke, flashing lights and it all adds up to Get Me Out of Here.

So I just wanted to let you know, if you are HSP, that you are not alone. And if you find me shuddering from overstimulation, just walk me over to the quiet corner. I’ll be happy to hang out with you there.

The winter waves start to roll in, green, cold and glassy:

One lone surfer appears like a tiny black seal out among the waves, waiting…

Then the word gets out, magically, rapidly. It’s like those trees that signal each other with pheromones or something. Within an hour, every surfer who has the day off or who can sneak out of work is on the way.