I thought that I would write about something pleasant for a change.
As many of you know, I started going to the brand new Y in our county in early June 2016. It has changed everything in my life.
I overcame my extreme fears of going someplace by myself, driving by myself, and being in a position where no one knew me. I also changed my schedule to being awake during the day and sleeping at night.
I also fully expected to go one or two times, and then blow it off. That has not happened (and it's a miracle!) I missed three days for swimmer's ear, 2 tropical storm days, and one day where the pool was closed for construction on the retractable dome roof. Something like that hasn't happened since 6-grade.
There are lots of things I love about my Y, and about water exercise and swimming, and I thought that I would write about that.
I haven't met a mean person that has worked for the YMCA yet. And some of them even like reptiles!!
Needing to know what to bring. I ended up separating everything into two bags. One for swimming crap, one for shower crap. They get a lot heavier when I leave. I think the three wet towels and the bathing suit add at least a ton on.
Chlorine Removal!! So to keep my hair healthy, there is a routine I do. I don't shower before going since it removes any natural oils that could protect hair and skin. When I get to the Y, I wet my hair, put in coconut oil - organic, unrefined, and stinky. and then put on a swim cap for long hair. And I'm ready to go!!
Afterward, I take a shower in one of their family bathrooms off the hallway leading to the pool (there are also lockers in this hall too.) I use chlorine remover shampoo and conditioner, and chlorine remover soap. After I'm out of the shower, I use a body lotion that moistures the dry skin that is caused by...yup, you got it, chlorine.
Another thing to keep in mind is *start evil music* swimmer's ear. I got it once and it was painful. I felt like my canals were swollen shut and the pain - OW! I think I hit the ceiling when the doctor put the speculum in. Apparently, the cheap ear plugs that came with my goggles did not work as they should.
Remedy for swimmer's ear as follows: Mack's Aqua-Block flanged soft earplugs. It kind of looks like a purple Christmas tree with a long trunk. They're reusable and washable. And they're purple. What more can you ask for?? I also use an "ear dryer"...basically, a bulb with a speculum that blows air in your ears. The coup de gras... a solution of 50% alcohol and 50% white vinegar. The vinegar kills any bacteria and the alcohol dries it up. It's much, much cheaper than the solutions you can buy over the counter that dries your ears out.
And that's not all. When I get home, I soak my chlorine-resistant suit in a sink full of cold water and chlorine remover...for water to be used in aquariums. It's the same thing as those products that are to remove chlorine specifically for swimsuits. It's cheaper.
And don't forget any equipment you use. To make it last longer, it's important to rinse any goggles, ear plugs, face masks, snorkels, nose plugs, and swim caps. (In the case of swim caps, you also have to coat it with talcum powder, both sides. It keeps it soft, and it also helps when you're putting it on.)
Back to the Y...since I mentioned showers, I have to talk about the bathrooms. And I'm by no means complaining. In fact, I think it's hysterically funny! Everything there, except the faucets in the sink and shower is motion sensor activated. And the lights can't detect me in the shower cubicle. The lights go off when I'm in there at least once, sometimes twice. I have to stick my arm out of the curtain and do some serious symphony conducting with large swirls and loop de loops until they come back on. The toilet mysteriously flushes when you walk by it. It flushes when you are sitting on it and bend down to pick something up...and flushes. When you actually are using this device correctly, and stand up and walk away and it doesn't flush!! That's when you start dancing and jumping in front of it until it does flush. Yes, it is as hysterically ridiculous as it sounds, especially right before my shower when I don't have a stitch on. There isn't any knob to push to get it to flush, so sometimes you just have to do the Twist. And if you have to use the Twist to get the toilet to flush, you also have to learn the Hand Jive to operate the paper towel dispenser. It's really good at sensing your hand the first time. The second? Not so much. I finally figured out that if I tugged at the first sheet that comes out, I get it to give me a second sheet. And when I walk away, it offers me two more sheets!! I must be Sandy to the paper towel dispenser's Danny when we're dancing that Hand Jive.
One more thing motion activated that isn't in the bathrooms...water fountain. It's filtered water and it's set up so you can put your water bottle in and it will fill.
One of the competition pool's coolest feature is the retractable dome roof. It was finished shortly after New Year's Day. Up until then, it could be quite chilly. Not the water, that was heated. But the air temperature - I went once when it was 37 degrees out. Now that it's done, it's wonderful. It can still be a little cool on deck, but nothing like what it was. Especially important are the side panels when I'm in water exercise class..no more side breezes!!
The pool is a 25-yard short competition pool, which means that it's 25 yards long (or 75 feet) and 59 feet wide (or 20 yards - actually 19.6667 but I thought that was a little possessed, er, I mean precise. Easier to round up.) When fully set up for a local high school swim team to use it, there are 8 lanes. Normally five lanes are swim laps with lines in place. The remaining three are open so people can exercise, where exercise classes are held, or for people who can't swim straight and gets bruises when swimming in a lap lane from the lines (I take the Fifth.) Nineteen laps equal 1/2 mile or 880 yards (19 laps for 900 yards - .51.) One mile equals 1,760 yards. That would be 36 laps for 1800 yards (1.023 miles.) On Mondays and Wednesdays, I swim the half mile and on Fridays the mile.
My water exercise class!
It deserves a gazzilion stars! First off, our instructor is just the sweetest. Her technique is to get in the water and do the same work that we are doing, and I like that. It's more one on one, and personable that way. I love hearing about her horses too. We use noodles and dumbbells and sometimes nothing. And the people that come to the class are so very nice. We love to laugh and joke while working out. It's what I look forward to the most during the week. If any of my Aqua-Nuts are reading this, thank you for being a part of my life, and for all the laughs!!
The YMCA is my happy place. It is where I go to relieve stress, think things through, and just totally zen out. If I lived closer, I would be there every morning of the week. Except for Saturday and Sunday. I don't like crowds.
My only goals in going to the YMCA was to show up and have fun. I'm on medication that not only causes weight gain but makes it almost impossible to lose it. One of the swim instructors told me that I look great and that I've lost so I took a look. It was like 30 something pounds! I'm still not emphasizing weight loss in going, but I do keep an eye on it, and so far, as of this writing, I've lost 57 pounds.
I learned that I could commit myself to doing something to the point that on weekends I'm desperate to go. All of my appointments are made on Tuesdays and Thursdays so it doesn't interfere, and there is a trip that I'm going on that involves me missing a Friday and I hate it. This is nothing less than a miracle.
Other things I noticed - chewing gum helps keep you awake and alert when driving at the crack of dawn. Watching the sun rise while in the pool and seeing all the colors that God has to share fill the sky, I'm more flexible and love swinging my legs up on the bathroom sink to dry my legs after a shower, I stretch constantly at home, I can sit on the floor at home and don't have to worry about how I'm going to get up, and swimming is a great stress reliever, gives me more energy, and helps to structure my days - whether that it's a swim day or not.
And finally, I love being a Pisces ♓️
In October of 2016, I posted a blog about mental health and stigma. A part of that blog dealt with Donald Trump and all the armchair psychoanalyzing that went with it. Here's a direct link to that blog: Mental Health, Our Society and Stigma. I urge you to read it if you haven't, because I write about mental health in today's society and how those with mental illnesses are affected. It also has a lot of links that provides a great deal of information.
I'm not writing this to rehash if Donald Trump is or isn't mentally ill. I'm writing this to maybe shed some light on personality disorders, and how we, as laypeople, look at them through personality and character.
Persona is Greek for mask and character is French and Greek and means to engrave or furrow a distinctive mark. Thus personality is what a person presents to everyone and character represents our deep down beliefs.
It's easy to run to the DSM-IV to read about Narcissistic Disorder or something else in order to "diagnose" another person. But here's the thing: The DSM-IV was written for one thing. And that is to aid psychiatrists and other mental health professionals who are trained to diagnose mental illness. It is easy to look at a list of signs and think that a person has a particular disorder. But personality disorders are basically normal behaviors, actions, and feelings that are manifesting abnormally.
Personality disorders are hard to diagnose even for the professionals because symptoms overlap with other personality disorders and/or mood disorders. For the same reason, it is also hard to diagnose a mood disorder, sometimes taking years, different doctors, and multiple medications to come to a correct determination. One personality disorder overlaps another and looking at all of them as a group can be confusing to a layperson because the same signs can be found in more than one personality disorder and the typical person hasn't had the extra training in psychiatry to know the nuances of each diagnosis.
It's important to realize that mental health professionals went to school to learn, not only about mental illnesses and personality disorders and how to treat them, they learned about human behavior.
So I delved into human behavior, specifically, the differences between personality and character traits, and the results I found were interesting.
Personality traits are what a person is born with. It's inborn, and it is believed that genetics plays a significant role in those traits. Furthermore, it is immutable. It does not change.
Some personality traits are being an extrovert or an introvert. Conscientiousness or spontaneous. There are people who have an agreeable nature, and ones that are "neurotic." Neuroticism was a class of functional and non-organic mental illnesses that involved stress and anxiety. However, modern psychiatry no longer uses neurotic/neuroticism in any current diagnosis.
A personality is easy to read. Within the first or second meeting, you can tell whether someone is outgoing, shy, energetic, lazy, positive, negative, optimistic, confident, overly serious, funny, or not too serious. It's a personality that brings about that all important "First Impression."
Character traits, on the other hand, are not so easy to read. Character is who a person is, their attitudes and beliefs toward life, work, family, and community. What a person believes in is very important because character is determined by beliefs, they can change. It's not easy to change, but it can be done.
Character traits are not as easy to detect. A person attracted to another by that person's personality may find out that soon after meeting that they actually lie regularly or treats people cruelly. When someone meets a person with a good personality, one that is outgoing, fun, confident, they are more likely to think that person is also honest, moral, and kind. However, personality traits and character traits do not track with each other. A person can be outgoing, fun, and confident and still lie their butts off, sleep around with their best friend's spouse and pelt pennies at the homeless. Unconsciously, we want to connect personality with character because we want to continue to like people we already like. And it is just easier to assess personality because to assess character is too time-consuming and too much work.
The best way to see what kind of character has is when the person is in a very stressful situation. Character beliefs like lying or honesty are present at all times but can remain dormant until they are triggered. And character traits rarely can be deliberately hidden away.
So what does this mean in the spectrum of psychiatry? Well, first of all, personality disorders are highly controversial. There are a lot of traits that overlap with each other. In fact, Narcissistic Personality Disorder was almost left out of the DSM-IV.
According to Dr. George Simon, Ph.D., people with personality disorders have traits that are in a certain manner and intensity that makes it harder to function easily in society. They tend to interact with people influenced by their own fears, insecurities, and the defenses they build up to protect themselves from emotional pain.
Traditional psychiatry can explain these traits and can help the person deal with their emotional issues.
Character disorders, on the other hand, presents itself in such a way that causes a person to function in a socially irresponsible and uncontrollable manner for a great deal of the time. Traditional psychiatry is outdated when it comes to character disorders. They fail to explain how people with character disorders act the way that they do and how to help them. This is also the reason why they victimize others or become victimized. People with character disorders rarely seek help, no matter how much their loved ones urge them to get help. And if they do seek help, it doesn't last long and doesn't change them for the better.
Character disorder is different from personality disorder in every way possible and imaginable. Obviously, there needs to be a whole new perspective developed in order to effectively treat them.
In terms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association, only 1%-6% suffer from it. In fact, "Narcissist" is a term that is commonly thrown around as an all-purpose insult to people who act obnoxiously or pretentious. No one stops to realize that there are actually 3 types of narcissism - a characteristic that in the right amount, is a part of a perfectly healthy ego; a troublesome kind that is often too much to deal with; and a pathological state that overwhelms and swallows a personality.
Now here are some logical assumptions regarding President Trump I made while reading about this.
~While his traits might point to a personality disorder, it is his beliefs that we use to judge if he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder are actually all character traits. His views on Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, Native Americans, Jews, women, the wall, immigration, torture, ISIS, war crimes, Middle East, nuclear weapons, healthcare, changing Social Security, Medicare, the VA, and welfare, jobs, conflicts of interests, the LGTB community, abortion, minimum wage, veterans, Russia, Hillary Clinton, etc. are all beliefs and those are character traits.
It makes him an asshole, but NPD?
I have another thing for you to consider.
What determines what is abnormal and normal as far as personality and character disorders? Everybody lives by their own moral standards. Just because you or society doesn't agree with them, doesn't mean that they are immoral. Homosexuality was once considered a mental illness. As long as they aren't breaking the law, who are we to judge a person that has a mental illness or personality disorder? Morality, integrity, who makes a "good person" are all subjective.
Everyone has an image that they portray in public and one that they have at home with people they trust and where they feel safe. They act differently around strangers than they do their friends.
To look specifically at Donald Trump, look at his background when it comes to considering things. I call it the Entitlement of the Wealthy. Yes, Trump is way to easily offended, acts childlike, has a temper, and does things that are unbelievable that leaves people flummoxed jaws on the floor. I know for me I often ask myself what world he is living in. He lives in the world of the wealthy...and he always has. He lives in a world that is insular and has no consequences where he never had to really grow up or take care of himself. Despite his bankruptcies, he always had money and knows he can get away with bombastic behavior. And he did as a child. Accounts say he got away with everything, and into schools on his daddy's coattails. He took over his dad's business, with the help of a "small" loan (one million dollars) from his father. He thinks he can get away with everything because he always has gotten away with everything. He's always broken laws or been sued...for whatever good that was. He's wealthy, he owns all these buildings, his penthouse is gold. Is it any surprise that he puts himself in a high enough position that no one can criticize him. The man isn't accountable for anything because he has never been held accountable. For him, he doesn't need to repent all of his sins to God or ask for forgiveness because he believes he did nothing wrong, and everything in his life reinforced that. These things aren't genetic, they're learned behaviors, and that goes against the definition that mental illness is a physical disease.
I'm not saying that Donald Trump doesn't have a personality disorder, I'm saying that I don't know. And neither does anyone else. It is wrong and extremely unethical to diagnose someone without a diagnosis or examination from mental health professionals. For laypeople, it is a judgment against a person without any true knowledge of that person, and that is wrong, in my opinion. If that person is a celebrity, then it's even worse. It's foolish to believe the image that is being portrayed as that person's private persona. After all, they are paying something to PR firms that quantify their image.
Another reason it is wrong? There is no other disease that I know of where a person can look at another and say that they have a disease. It is not automatic to look at an overweight person and say they have diabetes based on their weight - or to look at a very thin person and say they have anorexia. However, it is extremely common to look at someone else and declare them mentally ill. And that is wrong. An organic illness can only be diagnosed by a qualified doctor, and mental illness is an organic disease. Not only is it doing a disservice to the one you claim to be mentally ill, it hurts people who have been diagnosed mentally ill, and those that need to seek psychiatric help.
There is a horrible stigma that comes with mental illness. In the media, it is never dealt with in a way that shows people can function with mental illness, it is always seen as a negative. They want the scoop on the celebrities that had a "break down" and is in an institution. Or those that have committed suicide. Really, it's disgusting.
And where do we draw the line? Is the executive office only for those that don't have a mental illness? Is someone really incapable of having mental illness and the ability to run the country?
Trump's problem isn't with possibly having a mental illness. It's the learned behaviors like hate that proves to be the most dangerous to me. Hate leads to wars.
