the timboucher experience

Dealing With Anxiety, Depression, Paranoia & Ordinary Life

If you’re anything like me, you’re a mess. At least sometimes. You manage to hold yourself together, for the most part, while publicly performing in the starring role of “you”, meanwhile breaking down like a rusty old jalopy at every pothole you hit as your mind and heart vascillate wildly from point to point allowing you no true moments of rest, relaxation and recuperation.

But I’m exaggerating a bit. It’s not always that bad. Just hamming it up for the cameras so that when the government frames me for an improbable crime, the media will be able to go back through and paint a compelling portrait of a “troubled young man,” an “isolated unemployed loner.” But again, that’s just rhetoric. I don’t really believe that’s going to happen so much as I want to get people accustomed to talking about the fact that we are - all of us - 100% batshit insane. Some of us just hide it better. Some of us don’t hide it at all. We often call those people “heroes” while those of us who struggle to hide behind socially constructed forcefields often hate and envy those people for just confronting these things directly.

Honestly, if you’re having especially anxiety problems, the biggest thing that I find helps is cutting out processed sugar. I’m not gonna go into any kind of thing about diet and science etc because I don’t know shit about that. But when I’m at a place where I am regularly freaking out, cutting out sugar helps a whole hell of a lot. It takes about three days for the effects to really sink in, and if you’ve a sweet tooth you will probably still be craving it like crazy even then. But just hold out and you will have an entirely different physical expression of your being within less than a week.

The second one is standing and sitting up straight. These suggestions sound so stupid, I know. But when you’re really far gone, all you can do is take the little steps like this. It’s not just a matter of putting yourself into a confident posture (because that changes your emotional stance as well) but it’s a matter of stretching out your limbs and organs so that they all hang and function properly because they have the space to do so. They are not all compressed together. You’ll have to find the stance that works best for you. I’m no expert in that either. But I have been an expert in anxiety these past few weeks especially, and taking these steps has really helped. You’ve got to tackle these things at the most basic level as this is their foundation.

And breathing…

Fuck. Breathing is really important. I know that sounds obvious. But if you’re standing up straight with everything properly aligned and taking deep breaths from your center of power in your diaphragm, well then you’re half-way there. Eliminating sugar (and probably caffeine), standing up straight and tall and breathing are your first and strongest line of defense against the “dark arts” of depression, anxiety and the rest. Everything after that point seems to hinge on your ability to discipline yourself into making internal changes. Which is much more difficult - but this is why making concrete physical changes is so key: it helps you train yourself mentally to make changes.

Then there’s drugs and alcohol. We ought to talk about that too. While they certainly have physical components, I personally find that their effects are largely mental or psychosomatic. I know, I know that if you drink ten beers in an hour you *will* be hammered chemically. And you probably shouldn’t drive. But in my experience, what substances tend to do for you is allow you to give yourself a sort of “permission slip” for certain types of behavior which you are otherwise unable or unwilling to access sober. Especially socially: “I was so drunk that I made out with so-and-so.” The intoxication is used as a wedge to separate a person from responsibility to their own actions: “I only said that because I was so high at the time.”

I’m not saying this stuff is categorically bad for you, because I don’t believe that and I have had a great deal of positive experienced centered around temporarily altering my biochemical makeup. But as an experiment the next time you feel like getting high or drunk or whatever, take an honest look at why you feel like doing so. What are the desired behavior states and social or other outcomes which you seek by taking these substances? Is there a way to give yourself permission to act these ways and achieve these goals without leaning on the external objects as a crutch? What if you wrote out an actual “permission slip” for yourself? Imagine like you’re in school and your parent’s signature is needed to allow you to attend a field trip. You won’t be allowed to go out without it. “I hereby grant ________ (insert your name) permission to go out dancing and act like a jerk without needing alcohol to do so.” It sounds stupid, I know. But just try it and see what happens. Be scientific about it. Experiment. Set up a control group: an ordinary night of drinking, and an experimental group: a night of “permission slip” behavioral acceptance of yourself. Modify your variables. Repeat your test. Compare notes with others. See what happens. You might be surprised.

Or you might not. Likely you’ll be resistant and angry and long for a drink. You may be someone who says, “But I can’t relax until I have a beer or smoke a bowl after work.” It’s important to remember in cases like these that the human biocomputer does what you tell it to do. If you keep telling it, “I can’t relax without such-and-such” then it is going to follow your orders and prevent you from relaxing until those conditions are met. This is why it’s important to root out these self-fulfilling labels and personal put-downs and transmute them whenever they arise. That is, change them so vigorously that the habitual change eventually takes the place of the original verbal command. If you wanted to be sort of sci-fi magical about it, you could give it a Star Trek style command in your head whenever something negative arises. When a thought such as, “I am worthless” arises in your mind, you could say to yourself something like: COMPUTER, CORE CODE CORRECTION: I have many skills and talents. With a statement like this, you’re doing two things. You’re setting up a recurring tool which grows stronger the more you use it, which would be the preface to modify an inner process by uttering “COMPUTER, CORE CODE CORRECTION”. You can follow that by whatever modified “code” sequence you like. Just use it again and again - or use a different one of your liking. Secondly, you are replacing a negative thought, “I am worthless,” with something else. But not just it’s opposite. If you say “I am not worthless” you’re on the right track but the train is out of steam. It’s better to come at these things from the side - zoom out your perspective - rather than just trying to change it directly. You’ll get to that point, but not at first and not without a great deal of self-discipline. You could even get more specific if you want and likely have greater results: when the “I am worthless” thought arises, do a code correction sequence by decisively saying something you are good at and that you enjoy: “I love playing the guitar.” Even better, hook that into a physical action which reinforces the new code correction sequence.

Starting to see where I’m going with all this? I hope so. It’s actually quite simple, but modifying your behavior on this minute level requires intense discipline and constant vigilance. It is not easy to maintain. Especially not at first and especially when there are real circumstances in your life that you can’t just wish away by giving yourself verbal commands. The point of all of this though is to bring you to a place of responsibility where you can admit to yourself two things: (1) that you are responsible for your own decisions, and that (2) you can decide to change things about your self, your attitudes, your feelings and your behavior. Unfortunately, these are two of the most difficult things to admit to yourself and practice in your life because it means that you can no longer live behind the excuses which you have piled up between you and the world and called your “life.” But there’s a great big world out there waiting if you can learn to look past your own problems and actually go out and grab it and let it grab you too.

• Santa, the Bear God
• Hippy Museum Dream
• Supernumeraries
• Morgan Spurlock Makes a Scene
• Coincidences & Dreams of the Dead