Braaaaaaaains

So last week I participated in a "sleep study" to find out whether or not I have sleep apnea, which is something you don't want to have.  A "sleep study" is where creepy people file into your bedroom (by way of overhead cameras) and watch you sleep to see what you're doing.  Well, there were no actual people; there was instead an apparatus that I strapped to myself and which measured my heart rate and breathing and things of that nature.  There was a little clampy thing on my finger to take my oxygen saturation, and I presume one of these little gizmos told them how long I was asleep and how often I woke up.  I'm not really complaining, by the way, about the apparatus.  When Joan had a sleep study there actually were people watching, which, again, is pretty creepy.  Having to sleep with an apparatus really wasn't so bad.  Not even the cats seemed to mind.

And what should happen, in the next few days, is my doc will look at the results and tell me if I need a CPAP machine or not.  If I do, Joan and I will be like the CPAP twins or something, dozing away in matching masks and making noises like Darth Vader.  If not, then I'm off the hook, at least for now.  (And what I actually expect to happen?  I expect to be told I have sleep apnea, but it's not bad enough to warrant treatment.  That's how it seems to go with me on any number of issues.)  

For this privilege I am shelling out some $275, which, again, I'm not complaining about.  When actual people watch you it costs more like $400. I guess you have to buy the people watching a pizza, or something?

Anyway.  This whole episode got me to thinking about brains, and how they work, and what happens when they don't work the way they should.  When you're asleep, for example, your brain is off, or it's supposed to be.  If it doesn't shut down the way it's supposed to, it can stay connected enough to your body that you get up and sleepwalk around like a zombie, acting out your dreams.  If you have anxiety disorder, all the fight or flight neurons that should be nice and quiet when everything's fine keep firing anyway, making you feel like the floor is about to collapse or a plane is going to fall on your head or something like that.  (I have anxiety disorder.)  If the parts of your brain that process sound start telling you that somebody's talking to you when no one is, you will hear voices that sound like real voices.  And so on and suchlike.

Also, when people have something truly shitty happen in their lives, like being hit by a car or being in a plane crash (and surviving, obviously) or losing a loved one to a tragic accident, particularly if it happens right in front of them, they can get a thing we call PTSD.  Humans have undoubtedly been suffering from this malady for thousands of years, but we didn't give it a name until World War I, when soldiers began experiencing something they called "shell shock."  The mistaken impression was that the shells exploding all around them caused the disease, instead of the conditions that the soldiers were fighting under during World War I.  (And if you ever want to listen to a truly great podcast about trench warfare during World War I, look no farther than Dan Carlin's "Blueprint for Armageddon," which is available here.)  What they didn't know then was that, when truly shitty things happen to you, you can have actual measurable changes in your brain, which causes it to process information differently and results in hallucinations, flashbacks, unreasonable fear, panic, ritualized behavior and all other manner of unpleasant goings-on.

Brains, by the way, are great things.  When they're working the way they're supposed to, life hums along pretty well.  When they stop working the way they're supposed to, hoo boy.

What I'm wondering, though, is if smaller traumas and goings-on cause smaller versions of PTSD.  I'm wondering, particularly, if excessive stress at work can cause a milder form of PTSD.  I had this one job where stuff happened that I'm still not over, if one does in fact get over these things versus just learning how to live with them, or around them.  

Ah, and here we get to a thorny problem that inevitably comes up in a blog post like this; What I Can Say And What I Can't Say.  I can't tell you much about my current job, for example, because confidentiality and ethics and besides, somebody might figure out it's me and point me out to my boss and they'd find that one blog post that I did about Donald Trump and they'd have to fire me or something.  (Well, probably not over Donald Trump; we are pretty much on the same side where that goes.)  And I'm not sure how much I can tell you about my past jobs.  Because, again, confidentiality and ethics and so on and suchlike.

There is one place in particular that was so bad I'm embarrassed to admit I ever worked there,  So I just don't.  Admit it, I mean.  And I don't mean the working conditions were bad, though they were, and I don't mean the pay wasn't very good either, though it wasn't.  I mean what went on there was bad. Very bad.  Almost the apotheosis of all possible badness.  If you wanted to look up "bad" in the dictionary...

Well, anyway, it was kind of traumatic.  It was quite a few years ago and I still cringe that I didn't turn around and walk out the door five minutes into my first day, when I started figuring out how bad it actually was.  And I did have nightmares and flashbacks and so on, though not really any hallucinations, unless you count the one about the giant purple dinosaur that apparently shilled for a kid's show, and somebody told me that was real, though I still have my doubts.

So I'm wondering: Is there therapy for working people who get badly rattled by something that happened at the office but can't tell anybody about it?  I bet they have this figured out at the CIA.  Of course, the CIA probably has on-call therapists on duty 24/7.  I dunno about you, but when people start yelling at each other and calling each other names, I look for a nice desk to hide under.  I am not a big fan of screaming fights.

I'm also not a big fan of pretending everything's normal and carrying on once it's all over.  I mean, look, I grew up in a Lutheran household, okay?  And when I took my vows to become a Buddhist I solemnly promised that if I ever said "Everything's fine" even one more time, I'd be washing my mouth out with--nag champa incense, or something. 

Is this normal?  I mean, does this sort of thing happen in offices?  I know it sometimes happens in households, though not my household.  And hospitals.  In fact, doctors are kind of known for ranting and raving.  I've worked in law firms for a long time and law firms are pretty volatile places, all in all.  I've seen yelling matches break out before.  In fact, one time I saw a guy throw a Bible at another guy and say--oh, wait.  I can't tell you about that. 

I guess if I just knew that human beings sometimes behave this way in situations that aren't law offices, I'd feel better.  I mean, they say that lawyers are human beings, but I don't know. 

(Update!  I just got the results from my sleep study.  I have mild sleep apnea but not bad enough to warrant treatment.  I'm not making this up.)