If You Want to do Something Right...

It didn't take long for me to get back to my peak strength levels on the Starting Strength program. I even exceeded my previous bests on my squat (235x5 reps). After doing that, I decided that I need to work on becoming faster and have better endurance as well.

Some time last year, I heard about a book called Hybrid Training, which is one of the few books that is dedicated to making someone an all-around superior athlete. Their workouts look great, but they're suited for someone who is in moderately good shape in all areas. My speed and my endurance are lacking.

With that in mind, I decided to start a bodybuilding routine to keep my current strength levels, and be able to run until I can run three miles in under 30 minutes.

I decided to pick the Buff Dudes 12 Week Plan, Third Edition. For those that don't know, Buff Dudes are two fitness models that have their own YouTube channel. There's a thousand different weightlifting channels on YouTube, but their videos are by far the most entertaining.

Here's a playlist of the videos from that plan.

As far as bodybuilding plans go, it's great. If your primary goal is to get a great looking body, I highly recommend it.

And the first phase of the workout was good, too. There were only two days when you worked your legs (and this is only because Buff Dudes are under the mistaken impression that the deadlift is a back exercise and not a leg exercise), so I was able to run on the other days I worked out.

Unfortunately, by the time phase two hit, I was working my legs three times a week. Two actual leg days, and one back day where you're doing deadlifts. I couldn't run with a shit on phase two.

Watching their videos, one of the brothers said that he wasn't even doing cardio anymore because the weight training was too exhausting. And all they do for cardio is fast walking!

Walking is fine if all you want to do is gain cardiovascular endurance. But I feel the need, the need for...

You 80s kids know the rest.

"Well, fuck it", I told myself. "If you want to do something right, you're going to have to do it yourself."

So, I created my own workout plan, mixing all of what I know about lifting and running, and doing a goal assessment.

My long term goals are:
1. A squat and deadlift of 450 pounds
2. A bench press of 300 pounds
3. Be able to do pullups
4. Run a sub 8:00 mile

My short term goals are:
1. At least maintain my current strength levels, if not increase them
2. Run three miles under 30:00
3. Decrease body fat so I can run faster
4. Do this in as short as workout as possible (I still got kids at home!)

The short term goals are harder than they sound. I've found since having bariatric surgery that the following is true:

1. Gaining strength is easy
2. Losing body fat is easy
3. Doing both is extremely, extremely hard

So this plan isn't intended to gain strength. It's just meant to keep what I have. If my strength increases, great, but it's not necessary.

I'm combining bodybuilding with megsquats' program to get you to do your first pullup, and Higdon's novice 5k plan.

The first exercise is the primary exercise, done in four sets of 10/8/6/4. The exception is back day, where my primary exercise is the reverse pullup from the megsquats routine. The primary exercise is meant to make you worn completely down by the time it's over. The weight you lift is based on your one rep max. There's plenty of apps to download to your phone (and this website) to help calculate your one rep max. Based on that, you figure out how much weight to lift on each set.

For example, if you know that you can lift 205 pounds for five reps, your calculated one rep max would be 236 pounds. Based on that, you would do a set routine of 180x10, 190x8, 205x6, and 215x4. You're rounding up to the nearest five on every one.

By the time you're done with the first exercise, the muscles you worked should be officially done for the day. That's where the rest of the workout comes in.

You have to do at least one more isolation exercise for that muscle group for 3 sets of 10, and then on most days, you'll be doing two accessory exercises for the arms for 3 sets of 10.

The idea is that you work your body past its breaking point. It builds endurance, and you get to spend the rest of the week recovering, so you don't have to worry about muscle strain, either.

So here's the first week of my six week plan to get me ready for Hybrid Training:

Sunday (Chest and Biceps):
1.5 mile run
Reverse Pullups
Bench Press: 10/8/6/4
Cable Crossovers: 3x10
Bicep Curl: 3x10
Zottman Curl: 3x10

Tuesday (Back):
1.5 mile run
Reverse Pullups
T-Bar Row: 3x10
Pull downs: 3x10

Thursday (Shoulders and Triceps):
1.5 mile run
Reverse Pullups
Overhead Dumbbell Press: 12/10/8
Barbell Upright Row: 3x10
Overhead Tricep Extension: 3x10
Overhand Cable Push-Downs: 3x10

Friday:
Squats: 10/8/6/4
Deadlifts: 1x5
30 minute incline walk on treadmill

The running routine falls in line with the Higdon program. The next week would be a 1.75 mile run on the first and third run days, 1.5 miles on the second, and 35 minutes of incline walking on leg day.

There's a lot of people that like to save the cardio for after the weight lifting. When it comes to running, I like to do it first, just because running is always harder for me than lifting.

As the weeks pass, if I find that I'm not able to break my muscles down into mush after the first exercise no matter how much I lift, I'll add another compound exercise (for example, an Incline Bench Press on chest day). The goal is to leave the gym feeling like I've got my ass kicked. The workout is broken down enough to avoid injury, short enough to have a life outside of the gym, and can meet my short term fitness goals.

So far, the workout has been great. I've noticed that my strength is increasing slightly, and even though this isn't my goal, I'm seeing a lot of added muscle on my body. While I can say that it's not my goal to look strong, it feels pretty damn good to see that in the mirror. :)

If you decide to give this routine a go yourself, remember to see a doctor before beginning any new exercise program. That's my legal disclaimer so you can't sue me. Enjoy!

Time

I don't have enough time.

Time for what? Everything.

I'm constantly working. I was promised more money at my new job. I get paid more by the hour, but I also work a lot less hours than I did than at my previous job. This means I'm making less money.

So I beg for overtime. I get what I can, but my new job picks overtime on a seniority based scale. My old job had an overtime policy of, "Just give it to The Grasshopper. He'll take it." That was much more preferable to my current situation.

What little time I have when I'm not working, I either spend at the gym or watching my kids.

I make this complaint because after I posted about my return as a political blogger and activist, I literally have no time to do either.

If you don't write about politics everyday, good luck keeping up with the clusterfuck that our latest presidency has become. Another day, another new heaping pile of bullshit. As of today, Trump is accusing Obama of having tapped his phones during the 2016 campaign, and is doing so because he read an article on a right-wing blog.

Trump has access to literally everything that our government can get its hands on, and he's relying on morning news shows and conspiracy-theory websites instead of our intelligence agencies for information. It's beyond mind-boggling stupid.

And yet tomorrow, there will be some other clusterfuck coming from this administration. What will he do next that will boggle the mind? Start a dog fighting ring? Make a sex tape? Start a war based on his viewing of Killer Clowns from Outer Space? We don't fucking know. We just know that he'll be a bigger idiot than he was the day before, and it'll be equal parts entertaining and horrifying. We'll keep worrying about how low our country has sunk while being mesmerized by the spectacle all at the same time.

I don't have the time to keep up with all of this dumbfuckery. How do you occasionally blog about politics when Trump's dumbfuckery comes at you at a 1,000 miles an hour?

I wanted to be more politically active in the real world as well. I was hoping to attend political meetings, attend some rallies and protests, and otherwise do my part to make some change.

That's hard to do when you have two kids at home, and work 48-56 hours a week.

Every time I see some rally or meetup on Facebook, I look at the day. It's always on a day that I'm working. I tell myself, "Well, maybe I can do it before work...oh, wait. I've got kids. Nevermind."

A few months ago, I watched an incredibly cathartic video of the white supremacist shitbag known as Richard Spencer get punched in the face by an Anarchist.

There's been hundreds of videos, but this one is my personal favorite

I started reading up on Anarchism after that, because I knew that they didn't believe in the concept of a government, but didn't know much else about them. It turns out they don't like any groups at all. No governments, no corporations, nothing. Just all men on their own.

I don't agree with that philosophy, but it is damn nice to see them punching Nazis. I can disagree with their philosophy all I want; if there comes a time for punching Nazis, I'm calling them. You can't count on liberals for that shit.

One of the things I did read on them mentioned that most Anarchists are active either in a) Early adulthood, or b) The years after they turn fifty.

The author explained (sorry for no link, I can't find it right now), that this is because like just about every other activist, they get married, have kids, and have to work to provide and pay bills. Raising a family takes priority over setting the world on fire.

So it's going to be up to the college kids and the grandparents to save the world. Again. As per usual.

I still hope to do what I can when there's time. My wife will stop teaching in the summer, so hopefully I can do something other than call my representatives until they get sick of hearing from me (that's about all I can do right now).

In the meantime, I still wear this around town while I run my errands:

Come at me, wingnuts. Y'all ain't shit

Stronglifts and Starting Strength Suck

You might be looking at the title and thinking, "What the fuck? The Grasshopper has been singing praises of these workouts for the better part of a year. Why is he telling us not to do them?"

Look, despite my many posts talking about how great they are, I was completely wrong. Sure, it made me lift heavier weights than I ever had in my life, but they just aren't going to do the same for you.

I could give you all sorts of reasons for it, but all I can say is that you have to trust me on this one.

It has nothing to do with the fact that every time I've hit the gym as of late, no matter what time of day or night it is, I find that there are lines for the squat racks at my gym.

Nope, nothing to do with that at all.

It has nothing to do with that fact that I go to the gym after work at midnight, MIDNIGHT FOR CRISSAKES, and find that the gym's TWO (not ONE, but TWO) squat racks are already being used!

It has nothing to do with the fact that I see the guy in front of me doing sets of five, and I know he's doing the exact same fucking workout that I'm about to do, and I have to patiently wait as he gets done with all his sets before I can jump in and claim that squat rack as my own.

It has nothing to do with the fact that when I go into the gym I turn into Samuel Jackson, and all I can think is, "I'VE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING GUYS ON MY MOTHERFUCKING SQUAT RACK!"

What kind of lunatic goes to the gym at midnight, anyway? Except me, of course.

There was a time when I could go into the gym late at night, and there'd be one other guy there running on a treadmill like a hamster on a wheel. Not anymore!

Look, if you want strong legs, there's a leg extension machine with your name on it. Go ahead, give that a whirl.

Squats and deadlifts are just bad for you. Don't worry about all of the scientific data that directly contradicts me on that, just go with me on this one guys!

Pretty please?

The Grasshopper Returns!

Ten years ago, I was one of the top political bloggers in the state.

That and a dollar will get me on a bus. It would have done the same ten years ago.

In the years between 2006 and 2009, the liberal "netroots" had reached its peak, and there was no stronger a state to find it than in Michigan. While every state had its own network of bloggers, in the netroots community, Michigan was known as "the Juggernaut". At our peak we had over 80 blogs discussing politics in our state. We were the largest collection of bloggers in the country, and we were damn proud of it.

I had my own blogger handle that was picked out for me when I was young.

In the 90s, back in the days of usenet groups and dial-up modems, I was given my name when I was 15 years old.

I got it because I had just started doing karate in those days, and every time I advanced to the next belt, I wrote about it on those usenet groups to my online friends to boast of my accomplishments. Those friends named me:

The Young Grasshopper

Like any 90s kid that does martial arts, I was a fan of the show Kung Fu, and loved it. I owned that name. I made email addresses out of it. It was my name on every internet related thing I had to sign up for (back in the days before you could simply sign into something by giving your Facebook profile).

So when I started political blogging in the mid-aughts, that was my name. DJ The Young Grasshopper, usually as the acronym that had all the first letters in that name. I blogged because during the beginning of those times, I was in Iraq, and netroots activism was all I was able to do to do my part to fight against the Bush Jr. administration. In 2004 I was mad that the war in Iraq (before I deployed) had already gone to shit, and wanted to do my part to get the war to end. By the time I deployed, I was writing.

I became one of the top bloggers in Michigan for that very reason. Blogging when you're serving in Iraq (and even after I came home) gives you a ton of street cred, and also makes you a powerful weapon against chickenhawk assholes that would dare call anyone against the war traitors. I would remind any trolls that we came across that I did my time in the sandbox, so where the fuck where they? I didn't serve with them. They were at home preaching about the need for this needless war, while I was over there, wondering if I would see tomorrow.

The years passed, and I made a name for myself in the Michigan juggernaut by having both an extremely sharp wit and equal parts cynicism and self-righteousness that made my posts as entertaining as they were biting. I would attack both Republicans and Democrats alike (but mostly Republicans) when they were involved in any kind of state or national fuckery.

While my name carried zero recognition in 99.9% of the state, politicians in Lansing knew me quite well, and many were scared of me. I was told by another liberal blogger that the state GOP had files on all of us. We were scary enough to them that they did opposition research on us. I gave zero fucks on that, because they had nothing on me. What are they going to say, that I'm an angry Iraq war veteran? Shit, at that time in the war, if you were going to go after an angry veteran that had become disillusioned by the war, you'd have to take a number. Three quarters of us were against the war at the time.

But, things changed.

Because of a situation that I can't discuss much about because it ended in a lawsuit settlement (I can tell you that I ended up being on the better end of it), I stopped blogging. I really can't discuss that lawsuit, but what I can tell you is that the actions that happened before that lawsuit scared the hell out of me. I feared for my life for a very long time because of actions taken by a certain person.

Back then, before the neo-nazis and the mens right activists fucked it all up, even trolls had rules. You kept the shit online and impersonal. That person broke them. That's all I'll say on that.

By the time the dust settled on that situation, blogging had become archaic. I was fine with that, because I was too scared to do any political blogging again. It was easier just to post news stories on Facebook.

After I had kids, I had very little desire for any type of political activism, even the type that you do online. Hell, it's one of the bigger reasons why I wish that Clinton had won the election.

I still debate politics online under names that aren't remotely related to my blogger archetype. After the election, I told right-wingers that they didn't realize what they had done. We old(ish) activists were tired. I was hoping that Clinton would win for many reasons, but a big one was that I was just too damn tired to be an activist anymore. Yeah great, Clinton wins. She already knew that she wasn't going to get any cooperation from the GOP in Congress, so she'd carve her own path. Great, it means that I don't have to get in the dirt anymore. I can just do my day job, raise my kids, continue to kick ass at the gym, and be done with the whole damn thing. Her victory would have been the best thing to happen to the right, because we on the left were just too goddamn tired of fighting, and her victory would be enough to take a long rest while the right would continue to do battle.

But here we are.

Yep, here we fucking are.

The right didn't realize that Trump's win would do more than energize us. It made us lose our fucking minds! I'm now hearing conversations from the left about arming ourselves and getting concealed weapon permits (I already have guns and permits, but thanks for joining me guys). That's a sharp turn from just a few months ago. We didn't just get motivated, we got fucking militant. We saw a guy become president by not just losing the majority of the voters, but one that was actively helped by white supremacist groups. One that was helped by Russian interference into our democratic process. A man that has no goddamn business having access to the nuclear codes.

The left isn't tired anymore, and we're a fuck-ton more motivated than we were in 2005. We're ready to do one thing, and one thing only. Destroying Nazis.

We want our scalps.

Before this election, I would listen to "Fight to Live" by The Bouncing Souls, and scream about how, "the fight to live is the only fight, I got left in me". After the election, I got a lot more fight left in me. Enough to last four years.

I started this blog with the intention of logging my weight loss and fitness journey after I had bariatric surgery. I found that this wasn't enough, as parenting and mental illness were just as much as part of my fitness journey as hitting the gym and watching what I ate.

I never intended to start writing about politics on here, and did my best to avoid doing so, but I can no longer pretend that politics isn't a big part of my life and interconnected to my health and well being. Politics is a major part of what happens in all our lives, whether we want it to or not. I can no longer talk about fitness, health, and mental illness and leave discussions of the fate of the Affordable Care Act out of it. I can't blog about my mental illness without discussing the fear of our country being ran by an insecure, narcissistic idiot that is both Russia's puppet and has the ability to get us all blown to hell in a nuclear holocaust at worst and will lead us into another recession where I'm scared about money problems at best. I can't blog about raising two wonderful girls to be strong, independent, and healthy without talking about feminism. I also can't refuse to talk about racism, implicit bias, and prejudice and call myself a decent person.

Hell, at this point, net neutrality is being threatened, and I may not be able to blog at all without that!

I can't separate the political and the apolitical on here anymore. They're both connected, and I'm done with pretending that they aren't.

The Grasshopper is back from retirement. I'm too old to be The Young Grasshopper anymore. Just call me The Grasshopper, or Grasshopper for short.

And should any trolls try to come after me, keep in mind what happened to the last guy. The local trolls can tell you all about him, and it's why they fear my name. I could always use another settlement check.

Just sayin'

I'm also armed, carrying, and I train while you sleep.

A Rant That is Two Months Overdue

I was doing really well on November 8th. I had just been hired for a new job that provided better pay and more opportunities for advancement. I hadn't had a panic attack in months. I was physically stronger than I had ever been. My mental, physical, and financial state were all looking great, and I was optimistic about the future.

It was election night. All the polls pointed towards a win for the first female president in history. A flawed woman, so it was, but a woman that was far more qualified than her male opponent. I looked forward to telling both my daughters when they were older that they were born just in time to see history being made; to tell them both that they too, can be president someday.

My wife and I watched the results of the election on CNN. She doesn't follow politics as much as I do, so I showed her the states where Hillary Clinton was expected to win. That includes my state. Michigan. A state that had been reliably blue for over two decades.

We watched the election results unfold. I laughed when I heard that Florida was turning red. Clinton's firewall was strong enough to withstand our craziest state going red. Yeah, great. "Florida Man" is going to a guy that brags about molesting women. What a shock.

And then, I saw Michigan going red. And with it, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Prior to that moment, I didn't have the slightest bit of fear over this election. Donald Trump had revealed himself to be the most unqualified candidate to ever run for the highest office in the land. Over the last year and a half, he showed that he not only doesn't know how our government or Constitution works, but he didn't even care to know. He says he wants to register Muslims? Fucking great. It goes against the First Amendment and is racist as fuck, but he's not going to be president, so who gives a rats ass? Seriously...

But watching those states fall, all I could think was:

"America, what have you done?" 

I know now that the majority of America didn't choose this, but it doesn't matter. It happened. After watching the whole block of reliably northern blue states fall, my fight or flight response was activated, and all it said was, "RUN!"

The next two months were awful for me mentally. Jesus Christ, I was doing so well before election day, but my fear of what's to come caused me to go into panic attacks routinely. My anxiety was through the roof. I pleaded with my wife to take the kids and run away to Australia.

I fell into a deep depression. This kind of depression is a new mental illness for me. I've had depression in the past that masked itself in anger, but this is far new. This is what classical depression feels like.

Where I had depression in the past and it manifested itself in anger, this classical depression came with the symptoms of non-stop sadness and a severe lack of energy. I stopped going to the gym, not because I no longer had a desire to achieve maximum fitness potential, but simply because I had no energy. I could barely force myself to get out of bed, let alone hit a gym. I felt hopeless. I ate very little, but I drank A LOT. It was those eating and drinking (booze) habits that caused me to lose much of my muscle mass and still keep my weight the same as it became replaced with booze-calorie infusing fat. All the time, I wanted to run away to a place far away from the damage that's about to consume this country.

Why run, you might ask? Well, if I wasn't a white man, I could say that it was due to Trump's desire to put Muslims in camps. I could say that it was his desire to use racism to convict innocent black people of a crime they didn't commit. But I am a white man, so as horrific, racist, and unconstitutional those stances are, they don't affect me.

But no, here I am, a white man in his 30s, scared of a Trump presidency for this reason:

He thinks nukes should be used as conventional weapons.

Seriously, he had briefings with intelligence workers, and openly wondered why he can't use nuclear warheads as conventional weapons.

On top of that, Trump spoke favorably about dissolving NATO, the greatest military alliance the world has ever had, and the one alliance that kept us from nuclear war.

In a reasonable, sane world, that would have been enough to disqualify this openly stupid piece of shit from holding the office of dog catcher, let alone the presidency. But apparently, we are not living in a sane world anymore.

These things are what have kept the Western World from falling into chaos. They're what protects us from a nuclear war, and Trump has declared that he just doesn't give a shit about any of them.

That's why my "fight or flight" response told me to run. I spent the next couple of weeks trying to convince my wife that we need to leave America for Australia.

She refused, so here we are, still living in the United States.

So if I still have to live here, let me ask those that voted for Trump (or who voted for Gary Johnson but now support Trump now that the election is over) a few questions:

1. Why didn't Trump's stance on nuclear weapons (based on all the links that I showed above) scare the ever loving fuck out of you?

2. If you're not racist, why did Trump's history of racism not offend you? Why did his Hitleresque talk about registering Muslims not disgust you? Why didn't his hiring of Steve Bannon, an honest-to-gosh, card-carrying member of the white supremacist movement, not piss you off enough to vote against him? Why in the goddamn, ever-loving fuck, did the KKK's endorsement of Trump not be enough for you to be like, "Fuck this shit I'm out" as far as his election was concerned?

3. If you're not sexist, why did his comments against women not offend you? When multiple women came forth and said that Trump had molested them, after he had admitted that he molested women, why was that not enough for you to vote against him? Why, to any man that has daughters, was that not enough for you to want to send that piece of shit to the dustbowls of history? I know that if any man grabbed my daughters like that, I'd douse gasoline on them, set them on fire, and gladly do the jail time. Where the fuck were you, dads?

4. When Trump openly mocked a disabled reporter, why in the fucking hell did you not decide that Trump is a worthless piece of shit that should die of canceraids?

My good friend Charles Gaba posted a tweet that sums up all that perfectly:

Yeah, you might not be personally racist, but you decided by damn sure that you weren't offended by it. Congrats on coming to terms with knowing that you aren't offended by racism. Do you feel great (again)?

And for those fragile snowflakes that might feel some white fragility from that line, let me throw something else in to make you see the sickening reality of what you voted for:

Yeah, you sold the rope and looked the other way. Fuck you.

You gave a madman access to our nuclear stockpile and looked the other way. Fuck all of us.

And it's with that line above, I'm going to address something that's pissed me off royally the past few months.

I'm fucking sick of being gaslighted. I'm sick of people acting like I'm the weird one for worrying that Trump is going to get us killed. I didn't come to this because of some stupid, irrational thought process (you know, like the one that wingnuts came to when they claimed that Obamacare was going to lead to all our rights being taken away).

Jesus Christ, you shitbags were protesting against people having HEALTH INSURANCE!

No, this fear is rational. This fear is based completely on the things that Trump has said he will do if elected president. He talked about using nuclear warheads as conventional weapons. He's said that he will disregard the Constitution and discriminate against people based on religion. He has said he would go after the media in a blatant violation of the First Amendment.  He has shown a complete and utter disregard for what the Constitution says, and for how our checks and balances system of government works. So yes, I am afraid, and that fear is completely rational, so any attempts to claim that I'm paranoid are simply a refusal to either admit that you voted for a psychopath, or from a desire to normalize what isn't normal.

None of this is normal. I refuse to be gaslit, and I refuse to normalize any of this.

And for those few that might be whining that I got all political on a blog that's supposed to be about weight loss and fitness, just eat a fat dick. I constantly post my love of the Starting Strength program. The founder of that program, Mike Rippetoe, constantly posts videos of right-wing extremist James Yeager on YouTube (go ahead and search it, I won't link to any of that shit). Rippetoe constantly lets little right-wing zingers into his videos as well as videos with right-wing extremists, and I let that shit go because I want to get better at fitness.

If he can make videos with right-wing extremists, I sure as fuck can post on MY OWN FUCKING BLOG our political situation that is currently scaring the ever loving shit outta me!

I'll still post about fitness and mental health for sure, but I won't begin to be silent on politics on this blog anymore. Not when our country and democracy are at stake.

I will end this blog on a hopeful note, though.

I hope that I'll be wrong and Trump doesn't do a bunch of shit that causes us to all get nuked into oblivion. If that happens, I can say that all of the forces against Trump - all of the anti-racists, the pro-women's rights people, the LGBTQ rights advocates, didn't and aren't going anywhere. We were around long before the election, and our presence was made known at every protest, and in every piece of pop-culture that has been around in the past few years (yeah, racist shitbags, we even have a black superhero in the mainstream now, and he's awesome as fuck). Black Lives Matter isn't going anywhere, and neither are those that fight for the rights of any other minority group.

We're still here, and we will resist.

I've also gone back to hitting the gym, so to all the white supremacists still fighting for Trump, come at me, fuckers. I'll be ready.

I'm also armed, and better trained than you.

Epiphanies and Shit

Most of the people that read my blog are also friends on Facebook, so I don't have to talk to you about the emotional hell my week has been as I started my new job. Lots and lots of panic attacks all around, and a crippling fear of failure has gripped me all week, but most of you know that already, so moving on...

Today, my wife and I had to go shopping, but we stopped at a coney island because a) We had no food in the house (hence the need to go grocery shopping), and b) a coney island was all we could afford.

While we headed to the restaurant, I felt the same familiar feelings hitting my body once again.

Crippling fear. Anxiety. Feelings of impending doom. The fight or flight response.

Yep, I'm having a panic attack. Again. Just one of many this week.

For those that are friends of mine on Facebook, I've told you in detail about the panic attacks this week. I would sit in my classroom training for my new job, and I kept having an emotional response that said:

"You're gonna fail. You're gonna fail, and they're all gonna laugh at you!"

This was different. For the first time, sitting in the coney island, I had the guts to tell my wife:

"I'm having a panic attack right now. It's been going on for about ten minutes."

Writing about past panic attacks is one thing. Telling anyone (even my wife) that I'm currently experiencing one is another. It's not something I do.

I grew up thinking that men aren't supposed to talk about emotional problems. Admitting that I was in a total state of freak out is a hard thing for me to do.

I'm plenty strong on the outside. I'm stronger than the average guy physically. But when I have a panic attack, emotionally, I feel like a small child. Fragile, easy to break. I want to run and hide from the world. I have to deal with being an adult with two children when I'd rather just curl up in the fetal position. Having a panic attack is hard. Having a panic attack when you have to adult with kids is the fucking worst.

My wife did her best to console me and take my mind off of things. She did a good job. She held my hand. She told jokes. We found other people in the restaurant to gossip about, whether it be good or bad. It took my mind off things for a while.

The thing about my panic attacks, is that they last for A VERY LONG TIME. I'm talking several hours at a time. When they happen, they come in waves. I go from slightly depressed to HOLY FUCKING SHIT DONALD TRUMP IS ABOUT TO PUT YOU INTO A REEDUCATION CAMP GRAB YOUR GUNS for at least six hours. So my wife consoling me helped to calm me down to at least keep me in the "slightly depressed" position for a while.

During those hours, I found myself entering a period of contemplation. I kept looking at what was causing me to have these panic attacks.

While I was having the panic attacks during my job training, I realized it happened mostly when my new employer was talking about all the ways they could fire me. They activated my fight or flight response. All the tales they were telling me about how tight a ship they were running, that response was activated, and I nearly sabotaged my new employment by telling them all that they should go and fuck themselves with a very sharp object before I walked out. I thought about getting out of the business of private security and finding some new job where I would be my own boss. Maybe mental health, as I love to study the subject, if only it's so I can figure out what the hell is wrong with me.

During this time, I had an epiphany. I realized what I really wanted.

Freedom.

Just fast-forward to the :30 mark.

There's many kinds of freedom that we have in the United States, but there's a type of freedom that's not guaranteed by our Constitution. I want economic freedom. I want the freedom to be able to pay my bills by just working my job without having to beg for overtime. I want the freedom from my job to be who I choose to be after hours. I want the freedom to not have to worry about money.

My new employer has said during my training that they won't offer this freedom, and that's why I've been having constant panic attacks this week. I've been freaking out over my lack of freedom to have a job that doesn't have an overbearing employer.

When I go to my new job site, maybe I'll find out that my employer isn't as overbearing as they made themselves during my off-site job training. It'll be good if that happens. I've worked under plenty of people in private security that were great bosses. They let you do your job and just left you alone. If you fucked up in some way, they'd defend you so you kept you job. I'd be fine working under someone like that if I made enough money to pay my bills.

If not, for the sake of my mental health, I'll have to look for a new line of work. All of these panic attacks are not worth the small amount of money I'll get to pay my bills (which, given my larger-than-before-promised-salary, still means I have to beg for overtime). If I have to choose between sanity and paying bills, I choose sanity. I choose mental freedom. I'll deal with paying the bills some other way.

In the meantime:

We Are Warriors, Tired Though We May Be

This is my post for Veterans Day.

Or as I've long known it as: Free food at Applebee's Day!

I joined the Army Reserves on my 21st birthday. 9/11 had happened just a few months prior, and I wanted sign up both to do my part, and also to protect one of my friends that was also in the Reserves (hi, Ger!)

I had planned on signing up the year prior, but they said I was too fat. I wanted to join because of the college money, but also because my heavy training in martial arts gave me the mind of a Samurai, and I wanted all the warrior training that Uncle Sam was willing to give me on the taxpayer's dime.

Still, I was too fat to join.

But after 9/11, they were willing to take just about anyone. So I went to the MEPS station, sucked in my gut, dipped my neck, and a month later I was at Fort Jackson.

I signed up to be a 71L, what was known then as an "Administrative Specialist". It's admittedly the most wimpy MOS (Army job) of all MOS's. "Administrative Specialist" is a fancy term for "file clerk".

But that was the only job I could take to be in the same military company as my friend, so I took it.

I ended up liking the job. With that job I took two overseas tours (including one in Iraq), that for the most part, had me working behind a computer with access to the internet. It's how I found my love for blogging.

There's a slang for people that do our job: Chairborne Ranger. I wore that label like a badge of pride. We were office workers, but we were also combat ready. I told people, "We are the toughest secretaries on the planet!"

Being an office drone for Uncle Sam didn't mean we were exempt from danger. In Iraq, we had attacks on our base from insurgents, and I nearly died the day after Christmas in 2005 from an IED during a convoy mission. Fortunately, it was found before it could blow anybody up.

I met some of the greatest people I will ever know during my time in the service. There's something about being in the military that connects you with those that also serve. There's very little that we found offensive in terms of humor (where else can you make jokes about kicking babies and everyone around you laughs?) and our personalities just clicked.

Then, we went home. We went back on Reserve status, and had to go back to civilian life.

Most of us didn't re-up. We had done enough time on behalf of Uncle Sam, and decided that our time was over.

Adjusting to civilian life has been hard for some of us, and not as hard for others. Some of my friends went on to have good careers, while many of us struggled to pay the bills.

I tell people about the military, "We had a bunch of problems, and none of them were about money. Now, we have 99 problems, and every one of them involve money."

The civilian world still doesn't make a lot of sense to me, even though I've been home for over a decade. In the military, no matter how bad it sucked, we always had each other to look out for one another. But in the civilian world, it seems like it's every man for themselves. You're on your own out here, whether you like it or not. It's a dog-eat-dog world, so they say.

Of all the problems with civilian life, that tops the list. Why are there so many people that just don't care about the well being of others? I just don't get it.

Now, most of us are married or divorced, and ended up with kids. We're in our 30s now, and even with the spirit of the warrior in us, we're tired.

Just after Basic Combat Training, I could get four hours of sleep and run two miles the next day. Now, I have to keep a strict diet and exercise regiment to have enough energy to be able to function.

I miss being that young warrior and having all that energy.

I also joined the Army while having General Anxiety Disorder, even though I didn't know I had it at the time. The military and the combat zone cranked that disorder up a few hundred notches. Living for a year in a desert everyday where you're not sure if the next day is even going to come will do that to you. It's why I struggle with alcohol and other drugs (mostly weed) to self-medicate. Some days, I'm still stuck in that desert, and I need to get wasted to come back home. It is what it is.

Despite being old and tired, there are days where I still know that the warrior spirit still dwells within me. A while back, I stood guard in another Army buddy's front yard because his neighbor was threatening to kill him (he lives in a fairly bad neighborhood). I had no problem putting my life on the line and being willing to bring all sorts of pain to anyone that dared cross us that evening. I've had people threaten me or my family in the real world and I dare them to come at me, refusing to back down to them, even when I know doing so might bring death. I switch from mild-mannered guy to war-ready psycho in a matter of seconds.

We vets are still warriors, tired though we may be. We are old, we are tired, and we have mental issues. But we are still fighters, and always will be.

If anyone feels like thanking a veteran today (or any day), do more than just use words. Write your congressman to tell them to do more to help with the clusterfuck that is the VA health care system. Tell them to have better mental health so that vets aren't stuck with some nurse that just pushes pills on them. Tell them to do something to deal with the veterans that are sleeping in the streets tonight. None of us ask for anything more than to be able to work for a living, to have enough money to provide for our families, and to be able to retain some degree of mental sanity. We did enough for you to have earned that much.

If anyone needs me, I'll be eating free steak at Applebee's.