THE ADVENTURES MK III - Still doing it my way

Well I don't want to be one of those that just kind of stops posting and disappears off into the aether, so here's an update from my end. Just got back from delivering my first load to NYC (although my truck was a good 1,450ft/lbs short on torque and my trailer 45 feet shorter than the usual LOL) so I still can't mark that one off my big boy trucker list.

I'll try not to ramble on for three hours as I tend to do sometimes, but to make a long story short I've started taking a prescription that I cannot drive a CMV with. Over the past several years I have really struggled with some anxiety and it has gotten progressively worse, to the point where I finally had to do something about it, even if it meant not being able to drive for a while. Unfortunately I'm one of the unlucky ones when it comes to how anxiety affects me - I don't get frustrated, or mad, instead the best way I can describe it is it makes me feel like I'm in the middle of the nastiest flu possible - down to the point of making me incredibly nauseous - everything short of having a fever. When I feel this way, the only thing I want is to be away from it all - which of course when you're in a truck, isn't really possible. Then it spirals into anxiety about the anxiety itself. I remember the first time I had it really bad was taking the first heavier load I pulled with my KW up 71 near Fancy Gap. I had spent the past hour heading towards that hill worrying over "the truck is gonna blow up, I'm gonna break down on the hill, then be late on the load, it'll cost me a lot of money" yadda yadda. I made it to the rest area and just about called an ambulance because I seriously thought I was maybe having a heart attack or something. After I laid down in the sleeper for a while, threw up what little I had ate that day, and slept for around 30 minutes it calmed down, but was on and off for the whole rest of the trip.

And that is how every day of trucking had become for me. Every morning I would wake up feeling sick to my stomach. I couldn't eat anything until the end of the day. My mind would run over every possible worst-case scenario over and over and over again, completely consuming my train of thought. It got progressively worse to the point where even running the same loads I had run over and over again, I still felt that way. It has been the most defeating thing I have every experienced because it's ALL in my head, I KNOW it's all in my head, (sometimes I could even trick it by just walking up and almost immediately hitting the road), but there was nothing I could do to control it. It would come and go at random times, set off by something as small as a new rattle, a traffic jam where I couldn't pull off, etc.

So since I've already hit the ramble train, might as well ride it till it runs right off the tracks. I started off by going to see a therapist, who charged roughly $100 an hour to ask me how I'm feeling and after the second visit, tell me "Dennis this anxiety is bad, you can't keep going on like this" and "this is probably the worst case of anxiety I've ever seen". ***** YOU CHARGE $100 AN HOUR TO TELL ME THAT? NO ****. YOU DON'T THINK I REALIZE THAT WHEN I'M WAKING UP FEELING LIKE PUKING MY GUTS OUT EVERY DAY?

And that was the last visit to the therapist.

So I went to a regular doctor, real nice guy, but of course this kind of thing isn't his specialty so he just recommended some different medications. Unfortunately these types of medications often take weeks to take effect, so it was just a process of trial and error. The types he first started out prescribing were the ones that I could have continued driving with. None of them did the trick, unfortunately. Eventually I told him I was to the point of if I needed to take something that would prevent me from driving a truck, then so be it. He then decided to try out a medication called Atarax, which for the most part worked great for me. I could get out and do simple things again like going to eat dinner with my family, without worrying myself sick over the THOUGHT of being sick and feeling that way. I couldn't drive a CMV with this though, due to the drowsiness that it can cause.

My sister recently moved up to NYC so I took some stuff up to her place yesterday. I took my medication and was excited and happy to go and it was great until I hit the standstill traffic on the NJTP before entering NYC. It was all I could do to finish up that trip across the GWB and into Queens. It didn't matter what I took, that was just too much. I look back to my very first trip as a truck driver up to Maine from NC and going up through the same route, minus the going into Queens part. There is absolutely no way I would have been able to do that today, I wouldn't have made it past Richmond.

Anyway, I made in and made it out today, but it was rough. And disappointing to see that my anxiety was even more powerful than yet another medication that for the most part, worked for me.

Come next week, I'm going to see a doctor the specializes in this kind of thing and see if she can really work with me to find something that I can take that will help me out and still allow me to drive. I'm trying to remain positive and hopeful that I can find something that works. Honestly, if I can find something that truly gets rid of the nausea part, I'll be fine. I can work through the rest and the rest of it should subside as time passes and my mind realizes that it's not necessary to immediately go into worst-case scenario mode.

I finally sucked it up and terminated my contract with SNI last week. I just couldn't justify continuing to pay for insurance, tags, etc. on my truck when all it's doing is sitting. Having one less bill chipping away at the savings I have worked so hard to build up over the past several years will be nice. Thankfully, due to how low my payment is for what I still owe on my truck through the credit union, I have no plans of getting rid of it. I really hope that I can get back on the road again and I imagine I will, it will just continue to take some time.

My ICA with SNI was great, supportive and understanding throughout the whole process. We ended things on great terms and I was welcomed and encouraged to come back when I'm ready. I still need to take the MCP, black box, and antenna off of my truck and ship them down to Charlotte, and then that will be that for now.

WHEN I get back on the road again, I'm not really sure what I will do. Depending on how my savings look, it may be in my best interest to go back to driving company for a while, probably a dedicated account (moosc, got some inside connections on that Target account?), just to get back in the swing of things and have a very regular and predictable schedule. I don't know if I'm interested in coming back to SNI with my own truck, due to what I have observed as a bit of a downward slide over the past few years. When I'm ready to get my KW going again, I may look to Landstar, or may just save up, get my own trailer, and completely run my own show.

Who knows what's to come.

Hope everyone has been safe and successful and staying busy.