Mental health

Ttr seems to be a good way to vent.
My life was always crazy so I try to shake it off.
If anybody needs to call me that's fine.

 

If anyone is aware of MH, it will be me. If PTSD applies to me Im classic presenting for it. HOWEVER...

Trucking is a form of battle. There are not nice people out there trying to do things sometimes. You do deal with it as best as you are able in your favor as it would be said in the Hunger Games movie. When the bad day is over and done with, whatever it is you personally enjoy in life you take time off and go do for a while. Decompress.

My Dispatchers have tapped a trench under the desks over the years waiting for me to come off home time or come off earned time off somewhere three days or a few more. They get impatient. But what I am doing is letting go the bad days that happened that month on the road and clearing my mind ready to hit the road again when it's time.

For example I could roll into Lancaster to Strasburg. Step back 120 years into time in the steam train for a couple of days. There are other activities based on the Amish life style that part of my family tree shows apparently (Still working on that) so I don't see a semi truck, No technology cellphones etc nothing. Just straight enjoyment of a earlier life, and what food. I decompress rather fast.

If Im near the Bay I get to either Somerset or the St Micheals for some seafood. I don't do well with seafood myself but combine that with some sailing while the dispatchers wonder what in the world am I doing THERE? Literally on the water. It don't take much. Baltimore used to offer overnight shuttle via water to certain spots in the upper bay. I don't know if they still do that now.

Going Home? My family leaves me the hell alone for about half a day roundabouts. It's a very grumpy bear cave in my room. Let me be a rest. I'll be human and remember my place in the family and then come out to visit and greet everyone and probably attack as a husband the honey do jobs and so on. It is not long before dispatch is calling you ready to go yet? Yer running late. Ugh. You leave when you are ready, not before.

Once I had appendix taken out in 1990, docs ordered me not to work at 6 weeks. I was throwing butter at hunts point in three. The operational incision is still holding, but that's because it's all scar tissue binding everything under there. Ive had other operations being born premature to age one prior to that such as hernias etc. (You would think that would fail a DOT exam... but they never found any.)

Once in a while after a encounter, fight or whatever. I just park it and have dispatch send a team and get this load gone. I'll sit with a empty trailer and rest a while. I don't care how much they yell or threaten to fire etc. But once in a while you take time to clear your mind. When you clear your mind you clear everything else is the theory. A night in the mobile chapel singing gospel songs would be one example. (Very badly I might add...) But you get the bad day out of your system because you have 18 wheels and potentially hazmat or what have you on there.

Im still here. I have not gone crazy or anything. But Ive gotten somewhat harder than I like to be because the boy i was when I started is long gone. Once in a while I'll revert to those young days but it's not often.

Trucking as a industry has changed since we left OTR in 2001 and stopped after 2009 due to blindness
The industry evolves and continues to tighten up so much that its a wonder how anyone can move a foot anywhere or do anything without asking mother may I? I see the losses in individual freedoms mostly. Probably cut on the altar as Solomon made a choice to cut the baby so to speak to almighty dollar.

The lucky ones I guess are still with us. Everyone else has been eliminated for a variety of reasons.

I can tell you that if you showed signs of mental defective or poor MH generally, you probably will not get to touch a semi truck at all. So.. being able to and allowed to do that work is something pretty good.

It's just the bad days that if you let it eat you up you are going to dish it back out and hurt or kill people and probably lose your freedom or life in the process and for what? What a waste.

Do not pay attention to the suicides or the daily bad media news pounding that this nation is going badly. If you have been anywhere at all in this USA you will find a number of places where the people by and large are still pretty good and carrying on as they always have. Sometimes it seems in god's country far far away from say West Central Chicago or some other really bad thug pit.

 

But our job is easy.
Easiest job I've ever had some say on ttr.

 

Some expect that humans are intelligent, remember that they average everything out and give participation prizes to make everyone feel good. That makes half the people you run into smarter, then the other half. It really does not matter, the smartest can do the most silliest things and just keep on. It all comes down to the rat race, they fooled us all into wanting to much, we do not need it. You can be perfectly content with not a possession but time, breathe in, relax, .We all get the same prize at the end of the journey.

 

Try several long weeks consecutive. #### things can start compounding fast. Than you start to question reality.

 

If you go through Williams, Az you can take a train ride up to the Grand Canyon. Very relaxing.

 

That would be fun I think.

 

Not for people who know how railroads should be run. :^)