Breakdown

Today at work I had a breakdown. It was the worst anxiety attack that I’ve had in years.

Today I was stacking pallets just like the last 5 days, and we were actually making great time and had 32 done by lunch. Then came some guy that works in the shipping department, let’s call him Troy. It started out as a simple “3 boxes were stacked wrong”, and the whole time I was continuing to stack boxes on a pallet. Yes I should have been paying better attention and being respectful and look at the gut, but I was more focused on finishing the pallet and not getting backed up on the line. He said something about the boxes and I turned towards him and we made eye contact and he was like “were you listening?”. I said yes and then he moved over to where I was and was only about a foot from me and he asked my name so I told him it and then he was all like “Well Brad, people in my department have been complaining about you and said that you’ve been arguing. If you want to argue I can march you straight to your Aerotech supervisor and we can talk there”. After saying that he walked away and went and talked with my lines lead guy.

Any of you who have met me know I don’t like to argue and I avoid doing it if I can, so between that and being in shock at how rude the guy was being to me, I just kept stacking the boxes and went on for a little while, but then what the guy sunk in and it started hitting me. With my anxiety I can tell when its bad when my hands start cramping and sweating and sometimes start shaking. As soon as the guy walked away the guys in my area of the line started saying things like “you never argued with anyone” and they all said that they would go to our supervisor and stick up for me because the guy obviously had me mistaken for someone else and had a stick up his butt.

After about 15 minutes I asked my line lead if I could go to the bathroom because I was gettmeds.really upset, so I ran to the bath room and I told myself “OK you have 5 minutes to let it out and then you have to get back to work” and I did, I cried put of frustration and even prayed a little. After the 5 minutes I went back to the line and everyone was cool and supportive though I’m guessing its because my eyes were still red and my hands were still shaky. I knew I needed my anxiety meds and I asked my friend Jed who works in the shipping department who takes our pallets it he could run me home so I could get some of my meds, but he said he couldn’t. The leader of our line also briefly told me not to worry and that I’m doing good.

As soon as our lunch break started I hurriedvand clocked out and started calling everyone I could think of that might give a damn and listen to me worry. After calling 3 or 4 people and geyring their voicemails I called my best friend Mark who has been a real life saver at times (literally). Thankfully he answered and ad time to talk. He recommended going to HR, but I am so new that I don’t know who that is. After 30 minutes or so of talking he calmed me down enough that I felt I was composed enogh to go in and have lunch.

After lunch I went back to work, but for the rest of the day I was in a funk and my mind was racing a lot and I was worried I was in trouble. My pallet parter/friend said that he went and told “Troy” that he had the wrong guy. “Troy” came back to our line a few times through out the rest of the day and he kept watching me and a few times he pulled the line lead aside and talked to him.

Update (sorry, I’ve been busy)

Wow my life has been busy the past two weeks, I am just now getting some free time to update this thing. I’ll do this post a bit differently and do it it sections.

The Job– Awesome! The job at Nintendo has been great and I’ve made a bunch of friends there already. I can’t say much about the job (had to sign tons of papers and I’m sure there was something in there about not talking about the specifics of what we do), but I can say that it’s pretty physical and it’s actually really fun. I have already received one pay check that was just for one day and I can say that the pay is good too. My hours are from 7-3:45 Monday- Friday so they are good, the job keeps me busy during the day.

My first pay check

 The only problem I am having with the job is that my hands have been super sore the last few days. My knuckles hurt and my middle finger on my right hand goes numb a lot for some reason. Luckily once I start working I really don’t notice the pain at all.

New House- John and I moved into a new apartment this past week and we both really like it so far. We are almost completely moved out of our old place and should be done there this weekend.

John at the Oregon Zoo

John’s Changes– John has started at a new job and school has started up again. He is pretty stressed, but I’ve been trying my hardest to help him out.  I’m sure he will do great at both once he gets going.

Riding The Bus– Along with the new job has come a big change for me and I have begun riding the bus. I’ve always had some anxiety with having to use public transportation, but I don’t really have any other option and it’s been surprisingly easy. I am still having to work on knowing what stops to get off at though,

The Seahawks- Man have they been good so far! I am really liking how the defense has been and if the last game is any indication of what the season is going to be like for Russell Wilson, I guarantee we will do well. I don’t wan to jinx the Seahawks, but I can actually see us going undefeated this season. I think that if we make it to the Super Bowl we will be playing either the Broncos or the Patriots.

The End of Dexter- I will try and keep this as spoiler free as possible, but if you haven’t seen the finale yet I’d recommend not reading this part… OK first off I am really sad to see it end, Dexter had become one of my favorite shows. The final episode had it’s highs and lows for me, but the two major things that I took away was wow why did they have to kill that character off and why did they need to show that that character lives (if you saw it than you should know what I’m talking about). The major death was kind of a shocker for me, there has been rumors of a spin off series and and I thought it would be about that character. OK Hanna: I never has a huge fan of her to be honest. And having her come back to Miami and then have her pretty much become Harrison’s mother figure was weird, I mean she poisoned Deb not that long ago. OK now to the final scene in the episode: WTF. It didn’t leave much closure and it leaves me wanting to know more about that character and what they’ve been up to.

OK so that’s all that comes to mind that I feel you might wanna hear about. If any of you have questions feel free to ask in the comments. Love you

Change

Change can be good, change can be bad,

Change can make you happy, change can make you sad,

Change isn’t always necessary, but change is sometimes needed.

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A lot of things are on the horizon for me now. Since I got denied for SSI for the 3rd time I’ve started looking for a job and it’s scary. I’m not good with stress and I’m not good with change, so getting a job is kind of intimidating. I’m 24 years old and I haven’t ever had one and I need the medical benefits so I’m going to have to jump all the way in and get a full time job. I’ll admit it, I’m terrified of failing. I’m afraid that I’ll let everyone down.

Monday I have an interview with a big name company for what is honestly a dream job for me. I’m trying not to be nervous, but I literally woke up this morning from a dream about the job. this job could change my life for the better, but with my OCD the idea of having to jump right in is terrifying because my whole day stricture will have to change and I won’t have anyone there to talk me through my stress.

Can you all please pray for me to get this job and be able to deal with the stress. If you reading this now, just take a second now and just ask God or who ever you pray to to help guide me and help me adjust to everything that’s going on in my life.

Thank you (oh and sorry for not updating this blog more often, I never have much to talk about so I’ve been slacking)

Oregon Trip

John and I at Haystack Rock

Sorry I haven’t been on here to update this thing lately, I have been pretty busy with some stuff. Seeing as how I have another 7 hours for a doctor’s appointment and nothing to do I figured I would jump on here and give you all a little update.

About 2 and a half weeks ago John and I went on a little weekend vacation down to Oregon and we had a lot of fun checking it out.

First off on the day that we went down there was a BBQ that my cousin and her husband were throwing for my grandma’s birthday. It was really fun hanging out with family, because since moving to Kent I haven’t gotten to see them as much. Derrick, my cousin’s husband, made some amazing BBQ ribs and chicken and John and I loved it. We ended up leaving the BBQ around 4ish and hit the road to go down to Oregon.

After the long trip down to Oregon we ended up staying at a really fancy hotel only a few miles from Portland and really enjoyed the pool there. We met up and had dinner with a couple of Johns friends and it was really fun catching up with them. After dinner John and I went up to our room and went to bed.

We woke up the next day and hit the road for Cannon Beach because we really wanted to check out Haystack Rock. After getting there and walking around a little, John stopped me and told me how much he loves me and he pulled out a ring box from his pocket. I was literally speechless. He was just pulling the ring out of the ring box and he ended up dropping it (lol) and he quickly picked it up and put it on my ring finger telling me that it was a promise ring. Oh also if any of you are wondering, it’s a tungsten ring which are super good and really pricey if you go to a store to get it.

My handsome man 🙂

Haystack Rock

After giving me the ring we walked toward Haystack Rock and checked out the tide pools a bit, and I rescued a kids sandals and felt like a nice person hehe

After checking out Haystack Rock, we decided to go to Cannon Beach and check out the little shops there.

While walking around we found an arcade and we played a few games and I actually won a lot on one game, I got like 750 tickets from 50 cents. After doing the arcade we decided to walk up to a little over look of the beach and took some pictures there and really took in the view.

After being at Cannon Beach we drove up to Vancouver Washington while taking some pit stops in the city that John grew up in and we saw his old school and drove by his old house.

That night we stayed in a hotel that was pretty ghetto and I got the whole “there are cameras in this place” vibe from it. That night we watched Dexter on the crappy TV that was in the room and when we got there I literally had to plug in the cable because it wasn’t plugged in (why? I have no idea).

The next day we went to the Oregon Zoo, and after about 30 minutes of trying to find a parking spot, we finally got one. The zoo was super packed and my anxiety was acting up a lot because of how crowded each area was, but I fought through it because I knew how much John wanted to see everything and I didn’t want to ruin the trip for him. We saw some really cool animals and I took a bunch of pictures there.

Look at how handsome he is!

Of course we had to mess around a bit

After the zoo we went into downtown Portland and had an early dinner at a Bear pub and it was really good. After that we went a few doors down and went to a gay bar to have drinks and it only had like 5 people there and was a little to “twinkish” for us so we just paid for our drinks after we were done and left to come back home.

The trip was much needed for both of us and I can’t wait until we do one again.

The Origin of The Obsolete Life

Obsolete life? Wow that’s a bit depressing, don’t cha think? Yeah I do, but the word Obsolete has another meaning that is the complete opposite of what you might think. Obsolete (as an adjective) means that something is no longer in general use, but if you use it as a verb it means to replace with something newer or better.

That’s what I’m trying to do with my life right now. Without going into much detail, I can honestly say that my life was falling apart a little over a year ago. I had little hope of getting better and often times contemplated suicide, but God kept me hoping that things would get better and in early May of 2012 that all changed: I met John.

John is the best boyfriend anyone could ever hope for, he is loving, funny, patient, and kind and he shows me each and everyday by how he loves me that God does care and he does answer prayers.

This blog was actually his idea from awhile ago. At first I was like “Ppt who’d wanna hear about me and my problems?”, but earlier this year I had a bit of a medical anomaly on a blood test and ended up having to have a liver biopsy on the 3rd of July. Luckily everything turned out to be good, but that general shock of “What’s wrong with me?” made me start wondering what my impression would be on this earth and the lives of those around me if I suddenly got sick and died.

My hopes with this blog is to talk about my struggles and my joy, and hopefully it will be seen by someone that can relate and (hopefully) I can inspire them to not give up.

Random Bits About Me

To break the ice and let you all know a little bit more about me, and to help me get used to blogging I am going to answer some random questions about me.

So here goes nothing:

1. What color is your toothbrush? Pastel green and white

2. Name one person who made you smile today: John, he always makes me laugh

3. What were you doing at 8 am this morning? Sleeping lol I had a little OCD session this morning at 2:30- 4:30 and I was convinced that someone was going to break in to our house so once I finally got back to sleep I was OUT.

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Trying sriracha for the first time 🙂

5.What is your favorite candy bar? Reese’s Fast Break. I used to get one everyday back in high school

6. Have you ever been to a strip club? Never. I am convinced if it was a straight strip club I might get motion sickness from all the boobies flopping around and be grossed out. Also I don’t think I would find a gay strip bar entertaining either, unless it was chubbier guys.

7. What is the last thing you said aloud? “I love you girl” (talking to our kitten Cosmo)

8. What is your favorite ice cream? Vanilla bean ice cream (John called me boring)

9. What was the last thing you had to drink? Some sugar free Arnold Palmer

10. Do you like your wallet? Umm at the moment yes, because I just cleaned it out a couple days ago, but it usually ends up having a few receipts in it and it feels too bulky. It’s a nice brown leather wallet and I’ve had it for a few years.

11. What was the last thing you ate? A banana… I’m on a banana kick right now.

12. Have you bought any new clothing items this week? Sadly no. I’ve been meaning to get some new underwear lately, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

13. The last sporting event you watched? NASCAR. It wasn’t my choice to watch it though, we went somewhere and it was on.

14. Ever go camping? I love to go camping! I used to go to the ocean and camp at a relatives property every year for the 4th of July, but we haven’t done that in awhile. John and I try and go camping at least a couple times a summer, we both really enjoy it.

15. Do you take vitamins daily? Well it’s not a vitamin, but I do take some melatonin every night before I go to bed to help me relax. I’ve had sleeping problems my whole life and it seems to help out.

16. Do you go to church every Sunday? Honestly… no. John and I have both had some issues with the church in the past. We’ve talked about maybe going and trying to find a nice gay friendly church in our area, but haven’t tried yet.

17. Do you have a tan? Nope. I’m pretty pale, I need to get out of the house more I guess lol

18. Do you prefer Chinese food over pizza? Depends what restaurants the Chinese food and the pizza are coming from. Generally I’d take pizza, but I have had some amazing Chinese food before.

19. Do you drink your soda with a straw? I actually haven’t had soda in over 7 months now. John and I gave up carbonated drinks for our New Years resolution (his idea, not mine)

20. Creamy or Crunchy peanut butter? Doesn’t matter to me, they are both great!

21. Look to your left, what do you see? My phone, a bottle of water, a couch pillow, a lamp, and the window blinds.

22. What is your favorite number? 37. Never really had a reason why, it’s just always stuck out to me.

23. Who did you email last? Myself. I was emailing myself the info for a hotel down in the Portland area.

24. Any plans today? Finish writing this post hopefully lol It’s getting pretty late..
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OK so there you have it, 24 random questions and answers by me for my 24 years of life so far.

Feel free to tell me what you all think, and if you have any other random questions you’d like me to answer, you are more than welcome to leave a comment with it and I’ll be sure to get back to you 🙂

Much love;

-Bradley