April 6, 2009
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Stupid, Stupider, Stuporous
Saturday night, I was tired, fatigued as ever, when Doug crawled out of the bed that overlooks the woodstove in our front room. I wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing while I tended the fire and got ready for bed. We have been using that bed in shifts all winter, since we closed off his room to conserve heat. If I’m still in bed when he wants to sleep, he sleeps on the couch. If he’s still in bed when I want it, I find something to do and wait for him to wake up. I don’t know how he, even taller than I am, sleeps on that couch. If I try, I wake up soon and hurting.
Anyway, I’m digressing. It has been even harder than usual, the last couple of days, to stay focused. I was sitting with a pillow at the small of my back against the wall at the head of the bed, with a book on my lap, trying to get him on task. Routinely, the shift change goes this way: as I’m unwinding, I’m trying to get him in gear. There was a short list of tasks, and one — scooping the cats’ litter boxes — had priority because he hadn’t done it before he went to sleep, as he had said he would. In the minutes when we were both on our feet, moving around, I had said the litter boxes needed to be done, “now, before you start playing,” and he had said, “okay.”
From where I sat, I couldn’t see what he was doing at the computer desk. I assumed he was eating breakfast, but after he had been there a lot longer than it would take to put away a bowl of cereal, I asked him what he was doing. “Playing,” he said. “The litter boxes aren’t done, are they?” I asked.
He acknowledged that, and casually acknowledged my next allegation: “So, you lied, again.” Maybe you can tell by now that this is a longstanding issue between us. If you have been here with me for even half of the six-going-on-seven years I have been blogging, you already know that. If you’re new here, maybe I should mention that Doug is my son, he is 27 years old, and the closest thing he has to paid employment is the work he does around here, chopping wood, carrying water, washing dishes, scooping litter…. As we often joke, he pretends to work, and we pretend to pay him.
I wasn’t in a joking mood, then. I started talking about how much I hate his lying, and how important it is to keep the litter boxes clean enough that the cats don’t go under the furniture and off in dark corners in search of cleaner places to shit. Fueled by hypoglycemia (which I failed to recognize at the time) he came back loud and angry, and I yelled back at him. Both of us ordinarily keep our controversies in moderate tones and civil words because we have observed the futility of this tendency we have to let the volume escalate and the tones heterodyne. But my fatigue combined with his low blood sugar brought us rapidly to screaming at each other.
He had barely interrupted his gaming to yell at me. All he wanted was to be left to indulge in his favorite addiction of the moment, which I assume is still Dwarfortress. I could be wrong about that. He has a variety of games, and plays many on a regular basis. He has a wireless controller for the XBox 360 and a long extension cable for the PS2 controller, so he can play a game on one of the consoles, watching the monitor over the back of the couch, as he lets his dwarves dig and delve on the computer screen with only minimal supervision from him. ADD doesn’t mean he can’t focus his attention. What it seems to mean is that he can’t keep it focused on work.
I’m digressing again, right? There are three people in this family, and at least five cases of ADD, it seems, much of the time. But to get back to the screaming fight, I suddenly heard what I was doing, and shut up. I let my chin drop to my chest and just breathed a moment, then, still tense and angry, whacked the back of my head on the wall. Again and again, three good hard bangs, then let the chin drop again for a little pause before the final hard head bang. Then I just sat there and gazed off into space.
Doug screamed himself out, then got up and went outside for a cool-down. Peace was restored. When he came back, I asked if he’d had any breakfast. He sounded a little bit sheepish when he said no. I reminded him, once again, that he needs to eat as soon as he gets up because if he doesn’t, hypoglycemia can lead to arrant stupidity and unwise acts. I didn’t use those words. I was being sparing with my words at the time. My head was reeling and my ears were ringing, and I was focused more on my own stupid, unwise headbanging.
When I was a little kid, I used to bang my head. I remember whacking it on my crib in frustration because I wanted out of it. As far as I know, I stopped headbanging before I started to school when I was four. A little remnant of the behavior remained, in the form of a gesture, a gentle *thwock thwock thwock* of my forehead against a desk or wall in times of frustration, but the hard banging of the back of my head had been, I thought, a thing of the distant past — six damn decades past! I know all about regressive behavior, and I am not happy to find myself doing it.
I know that ADD is part of the autistic spectrum, so I guess I should not be too surprised to find myself regressing into old autistic expressions. It did take me by surprise. I sat there with my head spinning and ears ringing, and marveled at what I’d just done to myself. I couldn’t see straight, so I put away my book and turned out the light. On Sunday, when I confessed to Greyfox that I had given myself a concussion and a case of whiplash, I could hear the incredulity, not just in his voice, but his words: “Naaah… you didn’t. You’re serious?” I don’t think Doug even realized what I had done. Neither of us mentioned it. He had been focused on his game and might not even have registered the *bang, bang, bang… BANG!*
I assured Greyfox yesterday, as I had told myself, that I wasn’t going to do that again. I felt that, thought it at the time, but now I’m not so sure. Five minutes before I banged my head, half a minute before that first whack, I wouldn’t have thought I’d do it. I didn’t think about doing it. I just did it. I don’t like doing things like that.
I am still processing this on the psychological level. The head and neck are still healing on the physical level. Interpersonal issues and addictive problems obviously need to be addressed with Doug. I think I’ll let the head heal a while longer before I bring it up. Maybe I’m avoiding. Maybe I’m a mess. “Maybe”… hell! I’m a mess.
Comments (15)
i’m sure you’ll work thru this and come out wiser on the other side. you’re very good at that- not everyone is, you know! so you’ll figure it out and we’ll all learn from it!
Wow, that all sounds terribly familiar… So tell me, did he clean the litter boxes?
My youngest sister used to do that banging thing. She stopped doing that once she had an emotional outlet to talk. Now she calls me when very upset to talk it out. Maybe you need to try that. When I get frustrated at the males in my life. I call my buddy. It works great or else I would end up hurting someone. :p
willing to do what it takes. i want to go back to school.
I am thinking of trying crawling for exercise.
i went through that headbanging thing too when i was a young lad, that and spinning around just to get dizzy…sound familiar?
perhaps you two need to understand the ‘frustration’ trigger for your escalation. i find that, if i am concentrating on anything whatsoever, any distraction is annoying..and i react. given a moment or two to shift gears helps, i tell the wife, “be certain you have my attention first.” since doug was involved in the game (perhaps more than one), his focus was shattered by your intrusion. maybe you should give him a chance to shift gears before you ream him out (in this case? justifiable).
i’m just so humble aren’t i?
When I go to Hoops and put a hand on him to connect before we speak, our communications go much smoother. You hang in there and I’m sending some “New Spring Beginnings” vibes your way. (pats heart) We all need to let our frustrations out and you two are in very close quarters. Good thing you love each other. Hugs to you.
there are many people I know who I really believe would consider this proposition: first, let us get those glasses you can see a screen in..get a catheter and a colostomy thingee…put in three IV’s with an adequate drip, one for hydration, electrolytes and carbohydrates, the second a good liquified protein drip and the last one a mixture of amphetamine and antibiotics for the “floor sores” you will get with sitting down in one position for over five days. I know people who play games four days in a row and one guy stands out from all the others because he was so proud he went five days straight without sleep. Many of them, if they are interrupted from their routine, they become very angry. Kinda reminds me of being asperger and getting locked into that mono–subject fixation….
you’ll find peace though..I just cannot play any video game longer than two hours no matter how great it might be. When I was in the ARMY, I was a platoon sergeant and I had two very bright boys who I tried to get them to change what they were doing as they were literally playing a game of dungeons and dragons for two years straight no matter where they were or what they were doing. They got kicked out on a less than honorable discharge under the labeling of mental illness. Oddly, that gave them some VA benefits but to me it would have been a badge of shame to have not been able to turn that around.
The ARMY was very hard for me but that too was funneled down only into one focus: it was either succeed at this or fail at life itself, there was no room for error or quitting. In most things for me and the people I know who have this condition…it comes down to being firm and resolute on “I will do this or bust!”. It seems like a form of extremism to most normal people…there is hope though..
It’s possible that you were channeling your Heavy Metal roots. You head banger, you.
A quick search on Google reflects this:
The term “headbanger” was coined during Led Zeppelin‘s first US tour in 1968.[1] During a show at the Boston Tea Party, audience members in the first row were banging their heads against the stage in rhythm with the music.
Lemmy from Motörhead, however, said in an interview on the documentary The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years, that the term “Headbanger” may have originated in the band’s name, as in “Motorheadbanger”.
First impulse, laugh. Second impulse, cry. Third impulse, identify.th impulse is a gleaning, a glint, a glitter. I have no advice!
Sixth impulse to just remain mute and hope you see the sympathy in my eyes, telepathically, of ocurse.
I don’t know what to say. When I lose it I just want to smash things. It hasn’t occurred to me to smash mySELF. Oddly enough, I don’t get to that level of “losing it” too often, odd, because I no longer have a beer to numb whatever emotion is causing my distress. Heal your head soon
I haven’t got anything useful to say– but still I wanted to express my support.
Have you tried crying as an outlet? Crying is good for the soul.
@moondancer555 - If one has to TRY to cry, it’s phony. I do cry when I feel the urge to cry, but I don’t cry when I feel the urge to maim or kill. Perhaps I failed to make myself clear here. I was not trying to bang my head against the wall. It happened, an unconscious regressive behavior. I certainly didn’t feel any urge to weep at the time.
Crying might (or might not) be “good for the soul.” It is demonstrably hard on the heart — the physical organ, not some emotional analog. Shedding tears is a release for certain toxic brain chemicals, but the sobbing, choking, and other physical manifestations that usually accompany what we generally call, “crying,” is as hard on the physical systems as laughter is beneficial to them. I prefer to laugh off my destructive urges.
@SuSu - Well, when I get angry and I am not in a position to vent that anger, like when I am in work, I usually end up leaking tears. I guess it has to come out some way. I know you weren’t trying to bang your head. I understood that. I was just trying to offer up alternatives…even though you had no idea it was coming. I am sure that you will figure it out and sorry if I have offended you in some way.
@SuSu - Did I sound offended? I get that a lot, probably because I say what’s on my mind, without attempts at tact. I had no noticeable emotional reaction, felt no offense, just couldn’t see any sense in trying to cry.
Your work situation sound horrible to me. I have been in situations where I felt constrained to repress my emotions and have “leaked” tears, but that was long ago. Now I just let it all hang out.