George Floyd's Death / My Panic Attacks (2016-2017) / Recent Happenings

The month of May 2020 just simply disappeared out of my life, it went by so quickly. And Wow again for 2020 what a year it has been!

Get ready for it, this is going to be a long blog.

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RIP George Floyd. Deaths like these make me keep saying, I love visiting the USA, but I could never live there.

I remember the first time I visited the USA back in the summer of year 2000 (at 19 years old). I was going through immigration in NY with my aunt and her son. 

The immigration officer was a white man and he asked my aunt, "are these 2 with you?", she answered, "Yes, they are with me." So he looked in my passport and said, "but wait a minute, this one is not your son, why did you say he was your son?"  My aunt said, "I didn't say he was my son, I said he was with m..." and before she could finish her sentence, the dude called over his supervisor and said, "This lady here said these 2 are her sons, but this other one here isn't her son." ... The supervisor guy didn't do anything, but he stood there folding his arms, and gave us a really bad stare, along with the other guy. I said, "but she didn't say that." They still stood there looking on, and we just went through the gate.

Me and my aunt were wondering what the heck just happened! And why on earth did he do that? So yeah that was my very first experience on US soil. 

Since then, I have been to the states probably more than 50 times but nothing like this happened again. However, I had already made up my mind that I would never want to live there. 

I am really sorry about how George Floyd died and America seriously need to change their entire system top down. Unfortunately I don't think that will begin to happen under Trump's administration. 

I agree with peaceful protests and blocking traffic etc., I definitely don't agree with looting, starting fires and destroying property. BUT....If this is the ONLY way to bring about a full on positive change (better jobs, better schooling, better housing, justice etc. etc.) for minorities in America, or elsewhere for that matter, then I can't speak out against it. I don't think people should just stand around and enjoy benefits, they should at least try help to bring about a change for the better.  

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Here are a few highlights since my last blog.

Day 4332 (New Games)Monday, April 27, 2020

Had a long chat on zoom with a couple of my long time friends who used to live near me in Jamaica. I did this while working from home today. 

Since I got my 3DS, I've downloaded a few games from the nintendo network. 

Recently I've just been playing Mario Kart and Zelda. I'm also reading a book about leadership in business, trying to study Japanese at least twice a week and jogging a lot lately. 

Day 4334 (Baking and Cooking with Takako)Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Baked cookies with Takako today and made some homemade jerk chicken. It was soooo good.

Day 4335 (Adobe Premiere Pro)Thursday, April 30, 2020

My co-worker taught me how to use Adobe Premiere Pro today. Very interesting software for video editing. I've made a couple videos since then. 

Day 4337 ( More Baking and Cooking with Takako)Saturday, May 2, 2020
Because of the success with baking cookies and cooking jerk chicken earlier, we decided to do it again!

https://www.facebook.com/609905525/videos/10163398670230526/

And it was fabulouso!


Day 4339 ~ (Guess Who?)Monday, May 4, 2020 ~

Again, watched a couple movies since my last blog. Today we watched "Guess Who?" 6/10. RIP Bernie Mac. 

Here are a couple others that we watched ... 

Of course I watched this a looong time ago but I forgot every single scene, since this was a 1992 movie. It was showing on Japanese TV so decided to watch it again. 6/10.

This one was also showing on Japanese TV and it surprised me because it was pretty funny. 8/10

Also on Japanese TV. Every Friday at 9pm, on Nihon TV (Channel 4 in Kanto area) they sometimes show some pretty good movies. This one if you are not a pokemon fan then it's not for you lol. 6/10.

Action packed but lots of blood. 7/10.

Chick flick but funny-ish 6/10.

Not a Godzilla fan at all, I've seen a couple of the movies and this so far is the best one I've seen. 8/10.

It took me about a week to complete watching this movie. It's over 3 hours long, so I watch bits of it during my lunch break while working from home. 7/10. 

Mysterious and funny. 7/10. 


Day 4341 ~ (Raising Dion)Wednesday, May 6, 2020 ~

My wife has been watching a couple of Netflix dramas in the evenings. I sometime peek on them and ask her a bunch of questions while not really paying full attention. Recently she just finished watching: 

And....

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Day 4353 (Bug bite / In the Japanese Newspaper)Monday, May 18, 2020 

So since working from home over 2 months now, I try to jog regularly. Maybe not every single day but at least every other day or so. Recently I have been jogging up some mountains and trails near my area, and because it's getting hot, I wear a shorts. This is the area I jog to sometime.

While jogging, apparently I got bitten by a bug and it started showing the following day. 

A couple days after, it turned into a sideway heart.

And it hurts. A weird kind of pain. I thought it was a centipede but my wife said more than likely it's a horse fly or "abu" in Japanese. 

It also takes a while to heal, because I got bitten 3 weeks ago and below is my most recent picture of the bite.

And now it itches... like seriously itches! 

Anyway, I found out that I was in the Japanese education newspaper today.

Day 4355 (Cooking Pasta)Wednesday, May 20, 2020 

So I got an idea from a friend of mine to cook for my wife for her birthday. I wasn't sure what to cook for her so I was asking her about what's her favorite food outside of sushi. She said she like pasta so I asked my good friend for a pasta recipe. Thanks Vany!

However, because I don't cook very often, when I'm buying the stuff, she sees them and start asking questions. So I decided to just tell her what I'm planning to do. But, before I prepare the dish, I need to practice first. And today was that day! 

I did the first practice session for lunch today while watching a youtube video!

 

Not bad. I think I put too much tomato sauce on this one tho. So I did it again for dinner. And it came out pretty good. Except I may have boiled the penne a little too much, but, that's how she liked it!

Day 4362 (Video Recording in the Office)Wednesday, May 27, 2020 

So for the first time in 2 months, I went to my office today, to do some video recording. It actually felt strange taking the train. I could get a seat going to work but the train wasn't as empty as I thought it would be. 

We pretty much spent the entire day at work setting up the cameras, recording videos and packing up the equipment.

It was actually refreshing getting out of the house. 


Day 4363 (Olivia's Podcast)
Thursday, May 28, 2020 

My singer friend Olivia, invited me to be a panelist on her podcast this evening. It was an interesting discussion surrounding the topic of relationships in Japan.

Day 4364 (Happy Birthday Takako my wife!)Friday, May 29, 2020 

Today was Takako's birthday, and I gave her a couple of presents, including my presence (get it?).   
    

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I mentioned in my last blog post that I was going to write about my panic/anxiety attacks of 2016-2017. I guess it's just now after 3 years I feel confident enough to write about it. Actually, I think my situation wasn't just panic/anxiety attack, I diagnosed myself with Anxiety Disorder (based on information I read). Here is the difference between the two:

A panic/anxiety attack is just a one off thing that occur because of a specific fear or situation then goes away. While anxiety disorder lingers for a while and just suddenly hits out of nowhere.

So here is my story:

Actually even just writing about it makes me nervous, but here goes...

My panic attacks of 3 years ago (2016-2017)

Just letting you know, this is a long and intense story so prepare yourselves. 

Back in Dec 2016 I decided to embark on an ambitious project, which was to buy a house. This was without any pre-planning of any sort. I just saw an ad in the train, downloaded an app and started looking at houses to waste some time on my 2 hour journey to work.

I saw some nice houses and then I brought the idea to my wife and in the space of a couple days we were on the road looking at different houses. 

Now, during this time I was sort of having some personality conflicts with my boss and my co-worker. I’m no stranger to these situations, plus my job can be pretty stressful, exciting but stressful. I was also teaching at a school in Harajuku Tokyo 1-2 weeks out of every month and I had a part-time job on Saturdays at the YMCA. 

The process of getting a house in Japan is quite tedious and very stressful. As with almost any process in Japan. Quite detailed and hectic and add another layer of difficulty if you are not fluent in the language. So looking at the houses was just the first step. After settling on a house, there was like a million papers to sign and several interviews with several different people all in Japanese!!! I had no idea that I was actually stressed. Because I’m used to running around doing all manner of different things since like 2001. 

I remember clearly one day at work while sitting around my desk, I looked at my right hand and saw it trembling. I totally dismissed it. Anyway, finally after one month of paper work and interviews, we actually got the house. I had to take a day from work and finalize the loan and payments and sign some papers. This was on Dec 15, 2016. 

So now I thought yes, this is off my chest now. But there was something nagging my subconscious. Stuff like what if I lost my job and can’t pay the mortgage, how in the world can I afford over 30 million yen (US$300,000) what if this, what if that. And I was imagining all kind of negative “what ifs”

Then one day while coming back from a wedding on Dec 24, 2016, I remember heading home with my wife beside me on the train. I started playing a game on my phone (Monster Strike), but suddenly it wasn’t interesting anymore. My head started to feel strange. So I walked to the bathroom. While walking, everything seemed blurry and the only word that was coming out of my mouth was “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus”. I felt like I was in this weird dream world and everything seemed like it was going slower and blurry. 

I went back to my seat and started crying. My wife asked what was wrong and I told her, "I don’t know, I just feel really really strange". She also started crying. 

Then I noticed I started having some nightmares of all sorts. I dream pretty much every night, but nightmares aren't common.Then one night I remembered jumping out of my sleep and my head felt like it was spinning out of control. I thought I was losing my mind or that I was being attacked by demons, and I was soooo scared. Until now, I think that was the scariest experience in my life. Even scarier than the train experience I mentioned. I grabbed my Bible and started skipping through. I didn’t even know what to look for. I then in a panic called my pastor in Jamaica.

He got me to calm down and he asked if my marriage was going ok. I told him yes as far as I know. He asked if there was anything stressful that I did recently. I thought and thought and I said yes, I just bought a house. He said, “there you go, that’s it right there”. Then my phone battery died lol. 

I went back to sleep then called my mom and sister in the morning and told them what was going on. They had no idea what to tell me. And was pretty much playing it off and saying stuff like “don’t worry” - (this is one of the worst things to tell someone with anxiety issues) and “don’t do this” and “stop doing that”. Of course that didn’t help. 

At the end of the year (2016), I wanted to check my head before the new years holiday of 2017, so I did a CAT scan. The doctor said my brain is fine and that I’m just stressed. So he gave me some anti-depression meds. Pretty much what doctors do when they don’t know how to deal with these issues. Psychiatry isn’t big in Japan at all. Many people just work and either kill themselves or get brain or heart trouble. Some even get stuck at home and fear going out. And people here tend to bottle up everything inside because of pride and to not feel like they are bothering people. 

Well, I’m no Japanese and I’m no good at bottling up my feelings. So I reached out to who I could. Unfortunately in my reaching out, no one understood what I was going through. I started asking people I trust to pray for me. Finally a pastor friend of mine in the states said he has some idea of what I was experiencing. He said he experienced something similar in one of his toughest times while being a pastor. He said the best advice he could give me was to read up about my situation. And so I did. 

Let's backtrack a little to those antidepressant meds.

So my wife is a nurse, and she knows very well about antidepressants. She told me to take one set, and not to ever take them again! So I took them and actually all the million things I was thinking about stopped. And I felt really relaxed and great for the first in a long time. But my wife said this will be the first and last of that. This is what these meds are for and before you know it, you kind of get fully dependent on them. In some cases, they can make the situation worst.

I did some extensive reading on what I was experiencing and found out that it wasn’t as unpopular as I initially thought. Quite a few people suffer with anxiety silently. I started praying more. And started wondering if I got God upset which was why I was experiencing this thing. I went to sleep every single night for about 2 month listening to gospel music because I couldn’t fall asleep. A million things were going through my mind and mostly negative things.

So anyway, 2017 started, and I’m having all sort of nightmares every night and I’m still on holiday. I thought as soon as I started going back to work, this would all stop. So each day I was just waiting for work to start back. 

I remember once going for a jog while listening some reggae music. And it felt amazing. Then suddenly when I got close to my apartment, I felt a weird tiredness come over me like I was going to pass out and like my mind and body were shutting down. I thought I was going to faint. I pretty much used my will power and dragged myself back to my apartment and fell asleep on the floor. To this day, I have no clue what happened and it never happened again since. 

I remember another time while shopping for furniture and I felt like my head/brain vibrating. I actually ran in the bathroom and started to cry and kept it to myself. This vibrating head thing happened to me a couple of times afterwards. The first couple a times I would just go to the bathroom and cry, pray and then it would go away. I read about this and saw that a few people experience it. I found out that it’s pretty much stress and I needed to calm down and shelf some of my activities. And that is just the beginning, because for some people it actually take years for them to calm down. One guy said it took him 8 years to kind of get back to normal. 

I ended up buying a book about dealing with anxiety stuff. Written by a lady whose daughter committed suicide because she had some bad mental issues. Yes anxiety is a mental issue. Pretty much the book gave some tips about dealing with anxiety and I remember one thing that stuck with me about what it said. It said if you don’t feel like hurting yourself or hurting people, then just live without the medication. Exercise, eat right, hangout with positive friends and just live! And that’s what I’ve pretty much been doing. 

So my first big challenge came. It was now time to go back to work in January 2017. I woke up early because I had to record the ALT awards at my company.  I thought I would be happy to go to work. I woke up with tears in my eye not wanting to go to work and not wanting to leave the apartment. It got too comfortable. It took me every ounce of will power I had to open the door and get out. Every single day for the month of January 2017 I had to drag myself out of bed in the dark cold and power through the negativity that was circling in my mind.  

One day, something in my mind told me to speak to a specific person at my workplace about my situation. “Why that person?” I asked myself, “just do it...” the voice said. So I did and I ended up having a 1 hour long conversation with that person who also used to have very bad anxiety attacks, and it took them a while to get back to normal. That person recommended me to another person who helped them. So I went to that other person and we also spoke for about an hour. That first day of work was tough. Really tough. Actually that week was pretty tough. One day during that first week at work, I felt like my mind was crashing and like I was about to have another panic attack. I told my boss that I’m not feeling well and he said I could leave. I left and kept feeling like I was going to have an attack. Took the 2 hour journey back home, no attack came. 

I remember the first time I felt like a breakthrough was coming. I was having one of my usual nightmares. I saw some monsters or demons, whatever they were. I also saw my wife. I was about to run from the monsters but my wife was standing up to them. I started cursing at her and telling her to come on. But my wife stood up to the monsters until they disappeared. I woke up thinking “what am I afraid of?’” If my wife can stand up to my monsters, why can’t I? 

Then there was another dream I had, don’t remember what it was about, but I woke up with this Bible verse in my mind... “The battle is not yours, it’s the LORD’s”. I woke up and searched google to see where that scripture was from (2 Chron 20:15). I think this was the time when I started on a journey to simply not be afraid and leave every single thing to God.

Now, I'm not trying to scripturize everything and say this in and of itself works for everyone. This is how it happened in my situation and that's how I'm telling it.

I am a Christian, and have been a believer since I was 11. I have done some questionable things in the past but I always end up going back to what I believe is the core of my belief. I also always wanted to be in full control over everything I do. But from these anxiety issues started, I decided to at least try to let go and leave every single thing to the Almighty. And so I started to take things one day at a time. These anxiety attacks are pretty darn scary trust me.

After months of praying, crying, reading and shelving some of my “money making” activities, I started to feel normalcy return. The first big test was in February 2017 when I had to MC a Black History Month event in Tokyo. Nobody there except my wife knew what I was going through at the time.

To my surprise it went really well.

Another test came in March 2017 to give a presentation in front of 200 new ALTs from all over the world.

During the times of these presentations, I was having huge disagreements with my co-worker, but anyway that’s another story all together. Time for the presentation...I practiced, and everything but I was really nervous. The show must go on. I did the presentation, it didn’t go as well as I wanted, but hey I did it! This was when I started to feel like, “Hey, I can do anything, stop doubting yourself”. 

I started to feel better and better. Some days really bad some days ok. A few very good days. On my teaching days, I would come home early, get home by 3 or 4ish and sometimes I would just cry. Very often I would come home, watch a funny animated movie and fall asleep. That helped me big time to relax. One that sticks out is this one...

Anyway, another big test was to go on a trip to Bali in September 2017. Can I fly in a plane for 7-9 hours without suffering a panic attack? Let’s see. Well I did it and there were no issues. I actually thoroughly enjoyed the trip. 

However, I started to have a different feeling. I started to feel as if I need excitement for me to enjoy life. So there would be days at work when I started to feel like, I need someone to say even "hi" to me for me to feel good. Somehow I slowly made this kind of thinking disappear.

After talking with several people about this, I realized that many people go through it, even another co-worker of mine that said it hit them pretty hard, similar to what I went through. Another person said they used to vomit quite a bit.

I remember there were days where I just needed to hear an encouraging word from a friend and none would come. And times when I'm going somewhere and suddenly felt like I was lost and got confused. And other times that just felt, dark, sad and lonely.... My wife did her best and that helped quite a bit. Also Sandy and Suzette helped with just some random greeting messages, those also helped a great deal. Sometime it would even take a sneeze, a cough or even a loud sound to reset my thinking.

If it all possible, we should try to avoid stress or try to take ourselves out of stressful situations.

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Things I experienced almost daily for a while going through anxiety disorder:

Below are some of things I experienced, at least one or a combination of them during my several months of anxiety disorder.... Most of them pretty much disappeared since 2018 but every now and again, even now, one or two of them might pop up.

• Spiraling negative thoughts (gone for the most part)

• Scared to go to sleep because of nightmares (totally gone now) 

• Sometime uncontrollable shaking that would sometime wake me out of my nightmares (gone by mid 2017) 

• Memories of the bad things I did (Still pop up every now and again) 

• A near constant weird feeling at the left side of my head. Not a headache, just a very weird and uncomfortable feeling (It still happens now whenever I get stressed or think too much)

• Shaking legs - feeling like I want to run somewhere. I remember the 1st one hour meeting I had to attend after these attacks started. I felt the urge to always say something or do something so I didn’t have to think about my legs shaking. I felt like if I didn’t do something, I would get an attack during the meeting. (Still happens but I don't let it bother me nor do I feel like running anywhere) 

• Afraid of getting an anxiety attack (Pretty much gone, not afraid anymore)

• Going to work and my eyes feel funny like the place is too bright. Everything seem hazy. (Pretty much gone)

• Can’t make up my mind. (occasionally)
• Easily agitated (occasionally) 
• Mind all over the place and can’t focus (very very occasionally)
• Pains or tightness in my chest (yup still happens)
• Feeling like I can’t breathe properly (very very occasionally)
• Feeling lonely and like all my friends left me to suffer alone (totally gone now) 

• Mentioned this already, head vibrating at random times, even waking me out of my sleep (Pretty much gone, if it happens, I know I'm stressed about something) 

• If someone told me a sad story, I felt like I was experiencing exactly what they were. Almost like my mind was getting attracted to sadness. (I can seriously still empathise with people but I try not to make it affect me)

• Overthinking every single thing (Unfortunately this still happens, but to a less extent)

• An intense feeling to do whatever my mind says or the intense feeling won’t go away (Pretty much gone, except for work or playing a good game lol) 

If I didn’t experience any of these things for even one day, it felt amazing. But that didn’t happen for several months. I lost a lot of weight during this time. 

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Some of the things I believe helped me:

• Prayed all the time
• Asked others to pray for me
• Cried for days (seriously!)
• Just relax sometimes
• Deep breathing exerces and meditation (still do this sometime but not really)
• Positive thinking - 3 positive words a day (I don't need to do this anymore)

• Somehow stopped myself of being afraid of getting an anxiety attack. If I did then so be it, if not then great! (This took a while to achieve)

• A bit of CBT (cognitive behavioral theory) on myself. Kind of rewiring my own mind to think positive and telling myself that everything is ok. Example when I started thinking too much I just tell my mind to STOP! and when the negative thoughts came, refute them with positivity. Even if I lose everything, I will be fine. Life still goes on.

• Writing down achievements and amazing days I had each month (keeping a memory of things I was grateful for each month.)

• Taking everything one day at a time. If I wake up in the morning, that is a victory for me. If I make it back home, that’s another victory. Since 2017, whenever I made it home safely, I look up to the heavens and say “Another day, Another victory”. I still do it now. 

• Monthly meeting with good friends. (can't do this now of course during COVID19)

• Started reading my Bible more and even did a daily devotion/meditation exercise with a few people for more than half a year. 

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What have I learnt and decided to do since: 

• Love my wife more
• Love my family more
• Appreciate people more 

• Enjoy each day as they come. Actually at least try to enjoy every single moment. Of course there will be tough times, but that's just life. That too will go away.

• Spend more time reading my Bible and learning about God in a deeper way. 
• Appreciate everything I have. 
• Help someone when I can. 
• Don’t take life too seriously. 
• Laugh more
• Try to spread happiness where I can. When I can. 

If you have never experienced this, then you will have no idea what I speak of. But those who experience it, knows at least some of the stuff I mentioned. Some even more intense. I was fortunate that I didn’t have suicidal thought, or thoughts of hurting people, because I’ve heard that many who experience this get those thoughts. It crossed my mind, but not to actually do it. Just more like “what if I should die?” I certainly wouldn’t want it to be by my own doing. 

I found out that anyone who has these terrible anxiety attacks it comes in different ways and everyone approaches it differently. What works for me may not work for someone else. But some general things help. I must say that this experience changed my life and thinking pattern.

The main thing I’ve decided to do is to seek God more and try to stop arguing with people who don’t believe, because this is a decision that I’ve made by myself. If others don’t believe, then that’s totally up to them. 

Thanks for reading.