Stories - FD Thornton

St. Andrews Beach - Jekyll Island I haven’t long finished supper (dinner) and just took my seven o’clock medication. After a dinner I try to make a habit of not eating anything else. I suppose that all got started when I moved in with my Grandma Geiger. After my separation and eventual divorce, I moved in with my grandmother, (it’s sorta a Geiger tradition). We had the standard agreement, I'd buy her treats (candy, soda, takeout), took her on errands, and mowed the grass. She provided home cooked meals, a comfortable bed, hot showers, and conversations about my personal life rather I wanted to hear them or not. Like I said, it’s a Geiger rite of passage. Anyway, just before dark it was a tradition to have a bowl of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, milk, and a spoonful of sugar. Laying here now looking out at the sunset, I’m reminded of the crazy conversations me and that woman would have over our bowls of cereal. She would pass on the me her decades of experience. Her crazy old sayi...

In a world gone crazy, we like to hide in imaginary little worlds of our own. The only problem with that is it doesn’t do a damn thing to make the real world any better. I often speak of the inner turmoil I live with, the self-loathing, the panic disorder, the physical problems. But if I stick my head in a bucket and try to ignore all those things, what good am I doing myself or anyone else? My dearest friend lived through a hell for many years. She suffered physical and mental abuse at the hands of her spouse. Now my friend could have licked her wounds and carried on. Instead she pulled her family out on that destructive situation, and found a better path. But much like myself, she still has a way to go both mentally and physically. The thing is, she’s moving forward. So every time I need a swift kick in the ass, I think about her. We all have situations in your lives we’d just assume forget. I know that I’ve made a boatload of decisions I’d love to take back. But life doesn’t ...

It feels like the blood is draining out of my head. I just got finished posting the announcement of my latest book launch and that’s when it began. The blood is draining, my breath getting shallow, and my heart pounding like a drum. The logical side of my brain knows what it is, it’s a panic attack. While it’s rare for me to have full-blown panic attacks anymore, they still happen. Especially if I’m under a lot of stress, like with this book launch. Even though I post stuff every day, I suppose it’s the idea that the public is putting their “money where their mouth is” that scares me the most about putting my work out there. It’s that remaining primal fear that I carry within me, that is triggered by that bottled up self-hatred I still carry. Whatever it is, it’s a feeling I don’t like, and I try and have to fight it every day. My biggest concern is knowing I’m not as strong as I used to be. Decades before I could fight my panic with shear will, now knowing my stress levels can i...

Left facing harsh realities leaves even the happiest of clowns sad. Thinking about the recent string of celebrity deaths, it’s not hard to see things from their point of view. I am no professional therapist, but I was an excellent patient at telling one what they wanted to hear. It’s so easy to tell someone your fine, when deep inside your dying a death by a thousand cuts. Even the best of us get tried of carrying on like everything’s okay. It’s hard to pinpoint any particular reason for this train of thought. Other than it being hot and I’m exhausted from working on the book. It could be the reading and re-reading all those stories that’s depressing. Looking at all that hope and potential and asking myself, what has it gotten you? Despite whatever tales we tell ourselves, reality comes with every phone call, every email. You can only ignore the knocking for so long. Yeah, I understand how the façade of happiness, purpose, and well being can wear thin. Because in those quiet ho...

I thought today I would talk about my ongoing treatment for panic, anxiety, and depression. For the longest time medication and some cognitive therapy are what I used to treat my illness. But over the last few years I have dove deeper into using meditation as a form of overall anxiety and depression treatment. While I still take two prescribed medications, facing my fears of death and agoraphobia also helped me to thrive while still living with this illness. When I suffered my first major heart attack a few years back, it forced me to face my fear of death. For years it was the fear of dying that stressed me and kept me up at night. But once the situation became real, I felt a degree of calm. Now it might have been the meds dripping into my vein that did it. But in all honestly that since of peace and calm has outlasted that medication. Once I got out of the hospital, I started taking my physical health way more serious. I discovered that walking meditations worked best for me....

St. Andrews Beach - Jekyll Island This morning my wife and I went to town to run a few errands. It's nice to know I'm able to do that now, because not so many years ago I couldn't. When panic disorder first hit me and kept coming back with repeated attacks, I was crippled by it. I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn’t leave the house, I lost my job; I basically cease to function. The biggest problem my wife and I faced was having no back-up plan. We lived 130 miles away from our families. We had four small children and my wife is disabled and not able to go out on her own. In those darkness hours it was by shear will that I was able to function just to go shopping and pay bills. Those are days I don't enjoy looking back on. But they are days in which me and my family lived. While I am thankful for the doctors and the medication that helped me. In all honesty it was the loving eyes of my wife and children that drove me to get better. When facing a life changin...

I often seem to enjoy writing about the tragedies in my life. The reason I seem to focus on that is because for so long, my mind focused on the negative instead of the good. So my way of purging myself of that negative energy is to release it in my words. Often I see friends and acquaintances who do nothing but bottle up the negative energy that surrounds them. They may think that by suppressing that energy they are overcoming it. The sad reality is instead of overcoming it, they are simply building a better time bomb, that will eventually go off. Oh believe me I know. For years I did nothing but press down feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness. To the point that for decades it did nothing but undermine every positive thing I ever tried. The thing I discovered was that in order to move forward, I had to learn to live in the here and now. My wife for whatever shortcomings the world may see in her. She lives in a perpetual state of being in the moment. It allows her to have a keen ...

I am not the easiest person to get along with, just ask my family. I can be extremely crude, sharped tongued, and very, very, very opinionated. I suppose growing up around extremely crude, sharped tongued, and very, very, very opinionated people will do that to you. I suppose I shouldn’t use that as an excuse, but it is what it is. My family has grown thick calluses when I comes to my winning personality. And I guess being isolated from the general population has made my “civilized voice” a bit rusty. But I try. Deep down I can be sentimental. I enjoy art, I love to write poetry, and I love creating fascinating images. At the same time I have people issues. Recently one of my children asked that I a little nicer to their “friend”. Needless to say, she asked that one of us “grow up”. I responded by mentioning I am much older and very unlikely to change. But is that really true? I mean, it is up to me to change my jaded ways, right? To be honest, I don’t have an answer to that que...

You know it’s funny, how surprises can come and blow you away. Confirming that all the arrows you have been shooting into the stars were true. Faith is rewarded in due time, it’s patience that is the key. I see so many searching for a grain of truth in their lives. Running from one message to the next. But often it’s just a waste of time. I ran from one bright light to the next, only to watch their flames eventually dim. It took me decades to learn that one true flame burned within myself. A spark that was lit by a connection. A spark that at times faded to an ember, but through the breath of hope and love has ignited again and again. We were placed on this Earth not to be alone. Over the years we travel, we are connect with others. Rather for a brief moment or a lifetime it is these connections that keep us going. Throughout my life there has been one steady candle. It started as nothing more than a single match and over the decades has remained the one constant truth in my life...