This person -- I'm leaving sex, ethnicity and age out of it because assholes come in all shapes, sizes and colors, male and female, as my dad says ... God must love assholes because he made so many of them! -- so, this person was riding my ass today as I drove down the road in the little bubble that is my car ... bubble as in my personal space, not bubble as in Jake Gyllenhaal's bubble in "Bubble Boy."
Anyway, the car came so close to my back bumper it was absurd. I don't know you and we ain't playin' bumper cars! I, in turn, was stuck behind some slowpoke, a slowpoke who took their sweet ass time, never daring to go one mph over the speed limit for fear of a pig-nose cop magically appearing out of the mist to arrest them for breaking the law! A slowpoke I had no opportunity to pass, so there wasn't much I could do. Yet, this person continued to hover on my bumper.
After 15 miles of this nonsense, my annoyance level was reaching its peak. I'm not trying to play when I'm driving somewhere, i.e. drag race, check out what you workin' with sexy mama, blast music so everyone pays attention to my awesome-ness. I am trying to get somewhere and am too much in my head to worry about others.
So ... I began thinking about what joy it would bring to give this person a piece of my mind. You know, go all Sha Na Na on their ass, slam on my breaks and jump out screaming or maybe signal them to pull over and let the hate pour from between my lips, pour out of me like a caged demon, with one hand on my hip and the other with my pointer finger flinging around in the air, saying, "oh no you didn't!" Maybe do a little "Better Off Dead" and scream for them to get out of the car! Get out of the car. I'm going to activate your dental plan!
I know this will only give this person shit to complain about -- i.e. you'll never guess what happened to me today! -- and not make them change their driving habits so my thoughts turned to ...
How does this person know I'm not a complete psycho, wack-job, oh Papa Tooney, we got a Looney? How does this person know if I'm having a bad day? Maybe riding my ass like it's going out of style is the cherry on top of my psychotic-break sundae. With mental breakdowns becoming more common everyday, with parents shooting their families and drowning them in rivers becoming more frequent, this isn't completely inconceivable.
According to a 2009 article in USA Today, 10 percent of Americans (27 million) were taking anti-depressants in 2005 ... a number on the rise. The article also noted among anti-depressant users, the percentage of those receiving psychotherapy (talk therapy) fell from 31.5 percent to less than 20 percent.
As a skeptic, this leaves me a bit unconvinced. How did the people forming the numbers get this information? Was it part of a study? How do they know this and who are they?
Statistics aside, think about the people you know. How many of them are taking medication for emotional problems? Would you even know if they were? It's not like many people are comfortable sharing they take an anti-depressant because of the social stigma.
However, when you are sad, anxious, upset ... any negative emotion ... you want a quick fix. Maybe it's because you had a traumatic situation when you were a child and you were raised in a unstable household causing you low self-esteem, anxiety, extreme introverted tendencies ... blah blah blah ... let's dig deeper (hopefully you have a good psychotherapist) to find the problem and deal with it (soul searching) or you could take a mood lifting pill. Pop a pill and smile! You have the issues, the baggage, but you can forget about it and get on with your life ... well with some side effects from the medication but it's all good! Scary because there is no miracle drug, even though we want so badly to believe in miracles.
You are going to have ups and downs and need to know how to deal and learn from them sans medication. I'm not saying no one should take medication because some people need medication and everybody is different with different minds, situations, etc. However, not everyone needs medication. Medication isn't going to make your problems go away because the problems are still there, growing, feeding on each other, feeding on new problems because we all know shit is going to happen. That's life!
So, next time you are driving down the road, late for an appointment or for work or maybe you want to get home after a long day ... whatever ... next time you get stuck behind some slowpoke, slowing you up, think about this ... how do you know this person isn't a complete nut job? How do you know? Maybe you should keep your distance and wait until you can pass. Chill out, relax because wouldn't it be a stupid way to go out? Death after a slowpoke you tailgated got so angry they shot you? Pretty lame way to die.
You can't change the slowpoke but you can change yourself.
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