Feeling Combative

My buttons have been pushed.  Provoked by my synagogue.  Provoked by friends who ride on their high horses.  Imposed upon in various ways.  My responses have recently been more candid than cordial.  Not hostile, but direct enough to transmit a message of irritation.  

Even my recreation has fallen victim.  After supper, I retreat to My Space most evenings.  Having largely abandoned scheduled TV, I default to YouTube in search of some learning.  It seems Google, which owns the service, thinks I would prefer to watch a few Conflict Entrepreneurs promote their pet agendas.  A series of Oh My selections, though admittedly with contributions from both extremes of a political divide.  Never a discourse.  I know which sponsor is which.  My Recommended videos of Road Trips, interviews of religious figures by people seeking to enlighten viewers, some history or geography that I like to watch.  None recommended for me anymore.  Instead, I get how Florida, China, and Walmart are all on their last legs, so I should beware.  Made me testy.

Testy may be a good place to be as America's political overload becomes insufferable.  I know how I will vote, I know the limitations of who I select.  I know what an Islamo-Leftist alliance is and how much disdain I have for them.  My mind is probably combative for a good reason.

Despite this, I have legitimate distractions from this.  A talk that I am looking forward to giving needs preparation.  I can keep my distance from the synagogue for a few weeks.  Travel looms not too many weeks off, with perhaps a day trip before that.  And there's a doctor's visit.  These are usually disposition upgrades.

Irritations

Back home for two days and irritations accumulating.  Note from attorney handling a case for me that we have a trial date in about a year and a half.  I was hoping for a dismissal instead.  Note from car insurer that a claim has been filed against my car.  It has never been in a collision.  I was nowhere near the collision on the date of the collision.  Bet I know what happened, but we'll see how good their investigators really are.  Now getting more toll violations from car that has my stolen plate, after a lull.  Very likely the toll violations and the collisions, each assigned to me in absentia, are intertwined.  And some residual irritations from my trip to Florida.  Also people who should have gotten back to me but haven't.

I understand a little more each day why so many people want to replace the underperformers among us, done in the most visible way by voting them out, though sometimes by voting with our assets and shopping someplace else or changing doctors or responding to those many ads which tell us we will do better with a different insurance company or with that law firm on cable TV that really will represent us in the most vigorous way.  We don't really have very good advocates.

Or as Hillel advised us:  If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

Rather Irritible

Been off my SSRI for a few weeks, compulsivity and irritability symptoms did not take long to return, though I think my mind is a little sharper off the treatment.  An article from the NEJM recently looked at SSRI withdrawals in stable patients using the medicine for depression.  https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2106356 Symptoms were more likely to return off the medicine, though some staying on the medicine still had breakthrough symptoms while others sustained remission from their depression.  You pay your quarter, or your shilling since this study came from England, and take your best shot.  I prefer to stay off and control how I respond to the various triggers as they come my way.

My car AC started failing intermittently, so that gets added to the list.  Ordinarily I take the car to the dealer but they underperformed on AC repair last time, my interaction with the technician did not endear him to me, and at 213K miles, the extended warranty has long expired, so I'll try someplace else of good reputation if it can be done before next week's expected day trip.

Had a few adverse events in my own bedroom with what should be minor maintenance.  Clutter prevented getting into my closet to repair a shoe rack or even change the closet light bulb.  I could not make the bed properly because I could not get to my wife's side of the bed.  When the laundry baskets were removed, they had clean but crumpled clothing unattended for weeks at a time, which I folded.  I checked Angie's List for housekeeper options, as by now it's clear that my wife has no interest in making the housework gradient less lopsided. We meet with our financial advisor soon.  I simply lack the ability to do the needed interior upkeep, so I will either have to get help or we will have to downsize, as many of my contemporaries have already done.  Better to do this voluntarily than abruptly as a byproduct of nursing home placement.  But it certainly adds to my diminishing personal fuse.

And some chronic musculoskeletal discomfort hasn't helped.  Since the pain concentrated in two locations anatomically, I started applying topical Voltaren to the one I can reach.  It's helped the discomfort, no effect on mood.

And a vacation might help. Or there's always that chemical inducement to tone me down.

Too Irritable

Most things have gone my way of late, better than for others it seems.  I feel well except for some nagging lower thoracic discomfort.  I sleep pretty well.  I don't miss the groceries I stopped buying.

But I've also gotten restless of mind and of physical position.  Things irritate me more than they should.  I snoozed my synagogue in protest, asking nothing in return from them.  My FB friends have gotten a little out of hand with not moving on from what for most were disappointing election results.  One OLLI course bores me a little, though I remain polite.  I want to go somewhere else, but not where I actually drive to.

Obligations get fulfilled very easily, though.  I make dinner, have been doing my scheduled treadmill session increasingly early, get up at the appointed time, tend to my indoor plants without fail. My scheduled reading proceeds to expectation most days.

But as much as I want a better level of connectedness, maybe even some appreciation, it doesn't arrive and its absence annoys me, and I probably don't deserve it.  

Amid the irritation, though, the screen and where it connects remains my loyal friend.