Introspective

The last couple of days were challenging.  After thinking about the cause of the downward spiral, I can come up with a few surficular reasons to blame, but I have to wonder if I am that fragile that some basic things are able to put me in a tailspin... or if it's a chemical imbalance... or am I downplaying the surficular reasons, and maybe they are actually valid.  While it must be hard for someone reading this to understand, having only a snapshot of the mood that I am in when I sit down to write and what mood I show them at the time... my friends (I would say 'and family', but there's not one of them that know a thing about who I am deep down, not seeing beyond their own needs long enough to even notice that something's wrong with me) see it up close over a larger portion of time.  The feeling of 'I wonder if he'll be up or down' when they see me is the same that I have every morning when I hesitantly open my eyes.  I will say that a good, long night's sleep usually recharges whatever imbalance I was experiencing and stops my mind enough to reset, which is why some days it's just better for me to go to bed.

I am fortunate to have the luxury of a schedule that allows me to reflect.  I can't imagine getting a few moments to think if I had a few kids or a partner... and I have made choices in my life to structure it that way on purpose, usually pushing people away.  To that end, I started reading the books that I brought down here, one on Tibetan Buddhism, one on meditation and another on yoga.  With a few surficular problems as well as internal issues, it's hard to figure out which direction would be the best to set out upon.  Armed with many different therapies, I think that I just need to not jump into any one yet.  All three of the ones mentioned, and the Body Electric that I recently took, all center around meditation, which would greatly help in getting control of my mind when it races out of control.  And so, I will start with some centered quiet time to start, even before I fully learn the techniques. 

Over the years, I've come to realize some things about myself and through knowledge and understanding, I'm trying to be able to cut off behaviors or thought processes as they emerge (which is what Buddhism is all about).  If I'm being honest, there isn't a day that goes by where I don't have suicidal thoughts pop into my mind like a craving for a beer to others.  With the right amount of beer in the fridge, a game on and a bag of chips, that could turn into a session of binge drinking, eventually passing out in a drunken stupor.  For me, the 'craving' is suggested (on the sunniest day at the happiest portion of my day) and the fear is that with the right circumstances (a period of melancholy, enough surficular problems, a gun laying about the house), that path would seem to be the best choice.  It becomes a game of me against my mind.  In a normal person, ending it isn't presented as an option in one's head.  And while that scenario wouldn't play out over a 15 minute time span, it could over a longer period (like in Vegas).  That may be hard for some people to understand... and hard for others close to me to hear.  But it is what I go through most days.. and it is the truth.  Being able to recognize the signs and behaviors has become important against my own self destruction.  Jolting myself out of a spiral has become more and more difficult, but through the blog and the different modalities out there, managing it is easier.

Anyone go through this?