Stories - FD Thornton

I remember reading in one of Paul’s letters about having a “thorn in his side”. I seem to recall it being there to remind him he was only human. I’m sure one of my preacher family members will clarify that with me at some point. The point I wish to make is it seems each of us has some “thorn in our side” that reminds us, “hey, let’s not get too big for our breeches”.  Recently I was reminded of this with one of my kids. We were having a conversation about something and basically in my Daddy way, I was questioning their judgement. Needless to say the kid wasn’t very happy with my opinion. Now I’ll give it to that particular one, they said they did not appreciate my opinion. Now in the world I grew up in I usually listened to whatever my mom or dad doled out and did what I wanted. But to be honest I appreciated them reminding me they adults. So soon after our “discussion”, I apologized for being an ass.  Now I’m not saying this to say, my kids are the “thorn in my sid...

I’d like to say my life runs like a well-oiled machine. But in all honesty, a good bit of my day is spent running with my ass on fire. You’d think by now I’d matured enough to be a responsible adult. But I don’t think my problem have as much to do with my maturity issues as it does with everyone else’s. I’ll be the first one to tell you, I don’t handle pressure like I used to do. Ever since panic, anxiety, and depression walked through my door; I have to be real careful about how much pressure I put on myself.  Telling you this may not bode well with fact I call myself a consultant. But it does allow me to see myself and the situations around me with a more realistic eye. Even as I suffer with bouts of anxiety, I can usually pull things together and complete tasks rather successfully. I feel the key to my rate of success is due to my ability to breakdown large or complicated job tasks. I noticed early on in my career that breaking tasks up into manageable sections lends the ove...

For those of us that have been diagnosed with Panic Disorder you find yourself becoming hyper-sensitive to the things going on around you. I suppose in one way that just means you’re paying attention. But for those of us with PD it can mean sleepless nights, excessive amounts of worry, and prolonged bouts of confusion. Even at this moment I’m fighting through an attack of panic. I can often tell when one is happening because of my shallow breathing, pounding heart rate, and just plain ill feeling.  You’re maybe wondering why I’m choosing to write through this attack instead of just relaxing. I suppose my answer is, after putting up with this problem for so long I’d rather go down swinging than just cower in a corner. But while getting mad at the situation can help to motivate you. I’d also say that by recognizing when panic starts you can have the control by just allowing it to be.  One method of overcoming panic is by seeing it for what it is and just floating through t...

I won't to say I had a rough night, but I did wake up around 3 am and end up making some popcorn, drinking out of the milk carton, and watch mindless TV till around 4:30 before finally going back to sleep. This may have been due to the sleep study I went to the other night. If you’ve ever spent the night in the hospital you know what it’s like. They wire you up from head to toe, put you into a strange bed and tell you to go to sleep. Yeah. Needless to say I didn’t sleep much, but the study did conclude I have sleep apnea. (Which by the way, I’ve known for over ten years.) Anyway, at least I got the calibrations set for a new CPAP machine.  Other than that I've been trying to get off my lazy ass today and get some things done around the house. It seems that when I shutdown the whole house shuts down. So I made up my mind to at least chip at the mess around here a little till I got some things done. The thing I've noticed with the vicious cycle of Panic, Anxiety, and Depr...

Last night I went for my fourth sleep study to see if I have sleep apnea. You see, over a decade ago I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. And for a number of years was successfully treated with CPAP therapy (you know, the vacuum clearer thing your fat grandpa wears). Anywho, after several years without one I hope to get a new one soon.  While I'm sitting here I'm asking myself, why bring this fact up? I mean other than my immediate family, why should anyone care? I suppose I’m mentioning this to say that I honestly love life and I'm not ready to "shed my mortal coil", as it were. Now some of my more zealous friends and family may take this as the words of a coward. But hell in reality I'm only just being honest. You see, I got a new lease on like just last year. I'm a lot healthier than I've been in a while. I have a new grandbaby to make rotten and damnit I'm living past the age of 59. So I feel I got things left to do.  For those who are ready...

Time has a way of changing who we are. Rather we see it or not over the course of time we all change. I know that in many ways I’m not the person I was when I was younger. Things like death, life, health, and love change us in ways we can’t see clearly when measured from our own prospective of time. It’s kinda like how we don’t notice the changes in our own appearance over time. But when you find a picture of an old friend on Facebook and the first thing you think is, “damn they look old.” In its own subtle way that’s how time changes us.  Several years ago my health changed and so did my attitude toward family and friendship. I became much more isolated, preferring to spend my time either alone or in the company of a very close few. It’s sorta strange to me how I came to be this way, considering how openly friendly I can still be. But over the past year or so I’ve been gaining a whole new prospective about who I feel comfortable being. The sly reclusive that doesn’t have much...

You know I can be such an odd duck. For one my taste in music is very different that most anyone I know. Music has always been a very important part of my life. Rather through listening and even at one point from creating it, music has held me in its spell most of my life. It’s nothing for my wife to catch me lying on the bed with my earbuds in rocking out to Van Halen or Green Day or maybe Rage Against the Machine . Other times she may work in, like the other day, and catch me singing off-key with Kris or Willie or The Hag . I just don’t ever know what mood I might be into at any given moment.   Like must music fans I take my music very personally it something I feel deep in my soul. No matter the genre the music I enjoy feeds my soul; it can only be described as a spiritual thing if I have to describe it. Like I’ve heard some say, “it’s just something that gets into your bones.” Even with the more simplistic styles of music like rock or country it’s the lyrics and the ton...

In case some of you don’t know for a long time I was a closed book. In my younger years many that knew me would say I was a good listener and a bit of a jokester that could make you laugh. As I got older my circle of friends closed in and I became a bit more cautious with the things I let out. But during the past 20 years that circle has tightened ever more, mostly due to my Panic Disorder. To the point that even the humor and joy I had was escaping like air from a slow leaking tire. Oh for the most part I was able to function, I worked and I went to family functions. But beyond that I really felt like a zombie just moaning and walking slowly through my days. But deep in my soul there was still a small flicker of light. A light that told me there is more than just this dead man walking I was doing. It was that light that led and drove me through school. It was that light that taught me little lessons every day. That led me by my own examples that I was more than just the zombie...

Well it's a little after 5 pm here and once again I sent the early afternoon asleep. Which usually means when I do go to bed around 11, I’ll sleep till around 3 in the morning and pop-up wide awake. This is nothing usual since I have a habit of getting up anyway at some point during the night. While I think my current situation has more to do with my untreated sleep apnea; my sad sinus condition isn’t help the problem either. Anywho, lately it has made for some crappy days and nights where I just "feel" lifeless and totally not of energy. You know how it is you just go through the motions and pray for a better day. It's usually at this point of my writing where I dig myself out of the muck and give a little pep talk about moving on one step at a time. Today isn’t one of those days. All I'll simply say is this, here is what separates the real from the make believe. Because not every day is going to be a cake walk nor is everyday going to be a wade thr...

Please note our Grandbaby has a smartphone I try not to be one of those parents that don’t whine about how easy our kids have it now compared to me and their mother. Cause I’ll be honest I think the “kids” today have it worse than we did. I mean we did raise our crew during the late-80’s into the new millennium. Now your kids they had to go through college and find work during the Great Recession of all things. Besides I’ve seen my kids paychecks and being single ain’t as fun as it used to be. With that said one of the things I’d like to caution my monkeys about is, getting sucked into depending too much on today’s social media. Of course I realize the first thing they would say is your one to talk Mr. Social Media. While may give them that one, the thing I’m stressing is not is much using social media as depending on it to replace human contact. I know I’ve mentioned this point on more than occasion, but honestly after the last few times hanging with friends and family, I w...

To give my Facebook friends a laugh I posted the image you see here with the caption “the devil’s alive and well tempting me through the mail”. While it may be easy to blame the devil, each of us has some addiction we must bear. For some of us it’s one of the seven deadly sins, for others it can be work, others still it can even be sincerity. The thing is life isn’t easy, so along with moments of joy we all experience moments of pain.  Often times we look to blame others for our actions and in some situations that can be very true. But more often than not, we take tragedy and turn it into an excuse to harm ourselves as well as others. The bottom line is we have to responsibility for ourselves despite the cause. It could be easy for me to blame my parents or my peers for the shame I experienced as a child. But I’ll never find relief from the pain unless I forgive others and myself.  Other important thing I discovered is that without forgiving myself for past stupid. I’d n...

As we get deeper into spring little pockets of summer are now popping up kinda like it did today. When I take my morning walk on days like this I usually end up sweating to death; while in the evening time the gnats want to tote me away. But such as it is living here in the Deep South. Alone in my office writing this post reminds me of just how isolated we all can be. I mean there are hundreds of individuals around me in their homes and places of work. Yet when it comes to the actual number of people I come in physical contact with each day the number is usually less than five. I don't know if it's me or just the era in which I was raised, but I miss people. I miss shooting the shit with my friends over a bonfire drinking a cold one. Or simply driving down to a friend’s house for no other reason than to just go. What happened? Have our lives gotten so busy that a simple phone call eats up too much of our precious me time? The "gift" of social media seems to have d...

If you watch enough television you will notice that pretty much every commercial is trying to sell you a cure for something. Rather it’s a rub to regrow your hair or a pill to give you a thrill; if you have a problem they have a solution. What I have learned is that with most every cure they throw at us; a whole other bag of problems usually show up at your door.  Most every problem we face starts with something within ourselves. A good example is my weight, because rather you know it or not I’m fat.  Yes I know there are extenuating circumstances like childhood asthma and mental abuse that contributed to my weight. But the fact is I carried my weight through adulthood, and that with other life stressors put me into the hospital. I don’t say this out of self-hatred as much as I realize I got things to change. But isn’t that how it is with all of us? We see a problem and we want it fixed.  While medicine can be a miraculous thing (I ought to know, I take enough), it ...

Ever have one of those days where you’re not feeling too good to start with; yet as the morning progresses things only get worse and worse. For starters I was stopped up (sinuses) all night, then had to stop by the convenience store and fill a slow leaking tire. If you know me or know my story, bending over to put air in a tire is no small feat. In fact it nearly caused me to pass out. Even at this moment my legs are shaking from the pressure.  For a few weeks now I’ve been way more active then I have been for a while. Since the old heart situation it’s been stressed that I take my recovery easy. But my doctor last week did approve my walking and getting more active. So while I should have let one of my kids check the tire; being the man and the provider, it is my job after all to beat my chest and grunt. Well I ended up doing a little more panting then grunting and as far as beating my chest, it was doing just fine all by itself.  My little nugget of wisdom here is this...

I’m sitting here this morning doing my usual routine of answering emails and checking my social pages. Also I’m making phone calls and putting together arrangements for future business. Then in between all that I might get a few moments to type out something profound or something totally crappy, who knows.  Anywho, I hope everyone’s day is good, mine so far has been productive. At the moment I'm sorta pecking around the keyboard looking for some good words to say. But you know what sometimes your mind just doesn't have a lot going on, which in my situation can be a good thing. You ever have times when your mind focuses on something like your chest feeling a bit tight. Or maybe your nose is a little congested and you have a slight headache? Years ago, I would have thought nothing of those things. But ever since my first panic attack, some 18 years ago, now it's like my mind laser focuses on such things. You'd think by now I'd learn that it's only my over ac...

Earlier I was texting a young person from the Great White North who has started suffering from Panic Attacks. They asked was it normal to feel fatigued and light headed after a panic attack. I responded to them as only I could from my own experiences. I also recommended a book I got a long time ago that really helped me with my fight with panic. For a number of years I have spoken honestly to a select group of panic sufferers. It hasn't been until recently that I have talked about my situation with the general public.  My reasons for keeping my Panic/Anxiety Disorder to myself are not much different then anyone else keeping their medical history to themselves. For one it's my business and two when dealing with a mental issue; the general public tends to have their own misguided opinions. When your livelihood depends on the public's perception of what you can do for them. You tend to want to keep any perceived weaknesses to yourself.   Rather it's because of my rec...

Sunrise on the Atlantic - Jekyll Island Georgia Usually when I’m writing one of these post, I draw from my own experiences to tell the story. I find that by drawing from my own experiences it lends to the authenticity of what I want to say. More often than not, a large amount of self-help literature I’ve read all reads the same with no room for failure; which contradicts my own experiences where I’ve had way more failures than successes. In a nutshell what I’ve discovered is that it’s how well you handle those failures that dictate rather you’ll ever be successful. We all know when we are not satisfied about a given situation. We all know what it’s like to drudge through the day doing meaningless task to put money in someone else’s pocket. For some of us it’s a fair trade-off, we do the meaningless tasks and at the end of the week, we are rewarded with a paycheck. And there’s nothing wrong with living that way if you choose.  But then there are a few in which that way of li...

I surprised by the fact that I hadn't posted in a few days, but to be honest I've been a bit busy just taking care of other things around here. In this crazy everything needs your attention now world, we tend to get distracted by nonsense. (Or at least I think of it as nonsense.) The phone rings all day, email notices pop-up; or  my favorite co-workers and family members dropping in with nothing important to say while I'm in the middle of something. It's this kinda stuff that can ruin a normal schedule.  But what can you do?   For me I try and give my undivided attention to whomever drops by the office. In my situation I work from home but I have a dedicated separate office. Although the kinds of distractions I get are mostly from family. The good thing is my adult kids are pretty good about knocking first before entering. If only I can just get my lovely, dear, endearing wife to do that .  When it comes to phone calls, since I work for me, I pretty tight abo...

I woke-up around 7:oo am, at the moment it’s just after 10:00 am and so far I talked with my father-in-law, put on a load of clothes to wash, took my morning walk, hung out the clothes, went of the store, then went of the dumpster and cleaned trash out of the back of my truck. Now on most days that would normally be my chore list for the day. I don’t know what to tell you other then, maybe this wasn’t one of those days?  Like I said, it’s a little after 10 and now I got a second load of clothes on. My wife’s worried it might rain, but we were told that it would rain the last two days without a single drop. So even though it’s Sunday, and my mom would have a fit. Mom’s not here to fuss and the Baptist next door will just have to put up with my underwear hanging on the line.  As you may can tell I’m sounding a bit indifferent this morning and the reason is I am. Indifferent is defined as unconcerned or uninterested: it can also be defined as mediocre or uninspired. It pret...