Attn: whiners, complainers, quitters

[Snoredog]

but just in case, don't quit!!

Let me first find a bridge you can jump off !!

[jnk]

but just in case, don't quit!!

Let me first find a bridge you can jump off !!

You don't fool us, Snoredog. We all know you were the one vote for 'bleeding heart, poor me, poor me support' you big-hearted teddy-bear! You can't hide that.

[carbonman]

Which is why I think the title of this thread may turn many struggling people off, and I would respectfully ask you, carbonman, to change it into something like:
What do you want when you whine and complain?
O.

O, with all due respect, I have to decline your request.
Your suggested title is covered in the body of the post.

I chose that title to provoke an emotional response.
I wanted it to be a "made you look" title.
No matter what catagory someone puts themself in, if at all,
they are going to look.

As I have said before, the psychology of cpap involves personal introspection,
which is difficult in many cases and down right scary to some.
CPAP requires one to step outside their routines and comfort zones, and in some cases
to leave them behind, for good.
I am still a newbie trying to come to terms w/this condition and mask and
clearing the fog thing, too. Because of the incredible help and support I have
received here, I have been successful in my therapy. ....and I thank God,
that this forum is here. I want to give back, anyway I can. I don't know enough
to give technical help, someday, maybe. I can be supportive, though.
My path in life has brought me all of those options, but the one that has always
provided the most success, was the 2X4.....so, I tend to go for that first.
You and others point out that is not always the best first choice.....and
I agree. That is why I created this poll. I need to learn how is the best way
to help others as they find their way here. This OSA business is emotional and
volatile, because we are talking about life and death. Everyone who comes here
needs to acknowledge the elephant in the room ASAP, however painful that maybe.

So, if you have come to this forum, for whatever reason,
probably looking for help w/OSA/cpap, and are offended or frightened
by this thread, there maybe an important message there for you.

I will admit that I created it for my own selfish benefit with the
hope that others would get something constructive out of it, too.
With that said, THANKS! everyone, I have gained a hugh insight
into this entire process and the cast of characters that hang out here.

O, I hope this explains my position.
Please don't be angry w/me.
It is just the way I needed to do it.

As always, thoughts/comments/suggestions welcome.

[Songbird]

Please understand that I'm painfully aware of my very own tendancy to engage my mouth before my brain. This isn't intended to be a critical note, and the only finger being pointed is aimed at myself.

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said here. (Well, not that bridge thing, except in special cases. ) Ozij in particular made excellent points, starting with this:

Not everyone who comes here whining is a whiner
Not everyone who comes here complaining is a complainer
Not everyone who tells us they're planning to quit is a quitter.

This forum is a lifesaver, a lighthouse and a safe harbor; and if it weren't for the help I've gotten here, I know I'd be floundering with my therapy. But it's never a complete picture, and I tend to forget that.

When two people talk face-to-face, they have the benefit of hearing nuances in the other's voice and seeing them in his/her face and body language. And if they spend any amount of time together, they develop reliable assumptions about the other's behavior. For example, my closest friend and I understand we'd never intentionally do anything to hurt or insult the other. If I say "Shut UP!!" while we're talking, she'll start laughing, because she knows I'd never say that to her with any degree of seriousness or anger and therefore must have been joking around. It's a reliable assumption and a correct one. One day, I was having a conversation with a coworker. We were "work friends," which means we weren't terribly close, but we got along well between 8:45 and 4:45. It was a lighthearted conversation, peppered with humor. At some point (apparently forgetting who I was with ), I jokingly said, "Shut UP!!" She did. For the rest of the day. It took a long time to sort that out. She and I didn't have that close understanding, and she thought I was being serious.

I just realized we have the perfect example right in this thread. If any of you thought that -SWS was being nasty with his "Now shut up and get back on the hose!!", you haven't been around here very long. Of course, his use of the smilies and "just kidding" were clues , but anyone who's read a fair number of his posts knows he just wouldn't do that. But -SWS has been here a loooooong time, and he talks a lot. Someone who doesn't speak up as often or has trouble with the written word could easily be misunderstood. (Hmmmmm..... unlike -SWS, whose words are always understood? Something definitely wrong there. Oh, yeah!! Their INTENT could easily be misunderstood. )

Another thing I tend to forget is that everyone who shows up here also has a "non-xpap" life -- family, friends, jobs, bills, others' problems -- in short, the usual stresses of everyday life. So if someone snaps here, it might actually be a reaction to hearing one too many earsplitting hip-hop songs (and I use the term loosely) blasting out of their kid's room or the realization half an hour before that there's not enough money to pay the electric bill. We just don't know, and it's easy to forget that it's NOT "all about me" or even this forum.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's easy to get tunnel vision here. It's a normal reaction to try to figure out what another means by what he/she is saying, but we know each other only to a certain extent -- certain facets of the whole that we're able and/or willing to reveal -- and our conclusions aren't always right. Sometimes what comes out as anger or haughtiness or condemnation might actually be whistling in the dark. On the other hand, it might be anger, haughtiness or condemnation. In writing this, I'm reminding myself and asking others to remind themselves to err on the side of compassion. It doesn't always work, because we're human, too; and there certainly are times when the 2X4 is needed (hopefully with some of Den's padding). Let's be sure about that before using it, though.

Marsha (who is printing this and taping it to her monitor)

[-SWS]

I just realized we have the perfect example right in this thread. If any of you thought -SWS was being nasty with his "Now shut up and get back on the hose!!", you haven't been around here very long. Of course, his use of the smilies and "just kidding" were clues , but anyone who's read a fair number of his posts knows he just wouldn't do that. But -SWS has been here a loooooong time, and he talks a lot. Someone who doesn't speak up as often or has trouble with the written word could easily be misunderstood. (Unlike -SWS, whose words are always understood? Something definitely wrong there. Oh, yeah!! Their INTENT could easily be misunderstood.

The truth is I believe in at least trying to administer compassion and humor above all else. When it comes to my own aches and pains I tend to be a shut-up and just suck-it-up type of person---unless the discussion turns interestingly academic. Then I'm a talker.




Now shut up and get back on the hose!


P.S. Just kidding! ...because that is such an absurd response IMHO.

P.P.S. I think some of the people voting for that 2x4 option just might be the ones who are hoping to administer it.

[Songbird]

Now shut up and get back on the hose!
P.S. Just kidding! ...because that is such an absurd response IMHO.

Yes, because I had already shut up. Until now, that is.

P.P.S. I think some of the people voting for that 2x4 option might be the ones wishing to administer it.

Or else it's because that's how they've been dealt with since they were born, so it's the 2X4 that is their "normal."

Marsha

[ractar28]

You can hand out tough love AND solutions at the same time.

Hand out tough solutions instead

Actually, what they want is to vent... they want to know that others are putting up with the same crap and how they overcame the issues. God knows most of us have quit CPAP more often than smokers have "quit smoking".

[blowfish]

.

[blowfish]

.

[robrdavis]

robrdavis, you really nailed it for me, though.
I have that image of you standing on the boulder, when times are tough,
yelling down to me, "suck it up, Sissy Boy!"
I will.

carbonman: I'm there for you, siss...umm...dude.

Guest: Though you choose to remain unnamed, you are still one of us. Welcome to our crazy, sleep deprived, slightly-dysfunctional fold.

I understand that while some of us can stand there and poke fun at ourselves, it's not for everyone. For some the best means to cope with our issues are to stand on the outside looking in on ourselves, reevaluate the circumstances and realize that it's not as bad as it could be. Yes, we're destined to sleep every night hooked up to our new bed partners. For me, that's much better than waking up in the hospital connected to ventilators, ekgs, etc., or worse, waking up in the morgue long before my time.

Some of us are more unique than others. Some of us have some original ways to get people to read our threads. After all, that's why we start threads; to spark conversation. carbonman has done just that with this thread.

Some of us are more thick skinned than others. I'm one of those "thick skinned with extra padding around the middle" types. I admit that sometimes I can come across as harsh or uncaring. That's not my intention whatsoever. If I've come across that way to you, I apologize. I sometimes forget that others aren't as well padded as I am. At those times, I usually have both feet in my mouth and don't realize it before I've nearly chewed a toe off.

My best suggestion is to spend some time reading through posts on the board and get to know each the inhabitants. You'll soon come to realize that carbonman has a knack for getting peoples' attention, but there's usually a nice gem to be found in his writing; RestedGal has a post somewhere with all the answers (and all the varients ) to any question you can come up with; Babs will tell you that whatever you need, Pur-Sleep will make it even better ... The problem with each and every one of us is that we all have our own personalities and we're not afraid to show them off.

Now that I've realized that there's 4 pages to this thread and not just two, I'll read the rest and see how many people I've repeated with this novel I'm calling a post.

[Kiralynx]

When you come to cpaptalk.com to whine, complain, can't get started or want to quit your cpap therapy,
what do you want to hear??

In point of fact, I came to this Forum for information about something which was totally new and very distressing to me.

I was freakin' scared. 2008 has not been a good health year for me, with cancer surgery and a 24" incision to deal with. Now I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life sleeping with some god-awful mask and hooked up to a glorified hair drier?

I was crying when I came out of the doctor's office after getting the apnea diagnosis. I cried even harder when I realized it was not just OSA, but Complex Apnea. It was just too freaking much -- I'm claustrophobic, and the idea of the d@mned mask was more than I could handle. So I came home and started to research.

I solved the irritable bowel syndrome problem which plagued me for 25 years, not the GPs who told me that diet had nothing to do with the problem. (Oh, just quit stuffing your face all the time and try getting a little exercise, like pushing yourself away from the table. Lose some weight, and it'll clear up.)

I am solving my obesity issue, with 180 pounds down, and 110 pounds to go. And I'm eternally grateful to the wise orthopedist who sent me for water therapy, and told me to continue doing tai chi, since it was one of the best exercises in the world for joint health. (Not all doctors are idiots.)

I came to this Forum for information which would enable me to understand what questions I needed to ask in order to get the optimum out of my therapy.

What I did not come for is to be told I am a whiner or a complainer just because I ask typical newbie questions.

I own a list dedicated to the diet I follow. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't see newbie questions about, "Is this food permitted? Why can't I have...? Oh, it's just too HARD...." I have my impatient days where I want to scream, "Why the bleep can't you use Google and look it up?" Or, "It's so obvious, how can you NOT know that?!"

And then I take a deep breath, and remind myself that they're NEW. That I, too, asked stupid questions when I was first on the diet, but I learned what the basics were and learned how to apply my research skills to a new field of endeavor.

When someone tells me, "I want to quit," my first question is, "Why?"

"It's too difficult" is way too vague, and doesn't break the problem down into concrete pieces, each of which can be addressed in turn.

That's the only way I know of to turn, "It's too hard" and "I want to quit" into "This is tough, but I can handle it, one day at a time."

To the old-timers who have been on CPAP forever, it's a way of life. But I'm betting that if you tried my diet for a month, you'd have conniptions. I've been on it for seven years, and it's just the way I eat. Just as for you, putting on your mask and settling in for a restful night's sleep is just the way you sleep.

So yes, I'm new. And yes, I'm probably going to ask really dumb questions, like how to change the colors on the freaking conferencing software so I don't have white letters on a grey background. Or how to deal with occasional mouth-breathing when I can't tolerate either a full face mask or taping or a chin strap. Or how to introduce my pets to my new Darth Vader mode of sleeping.

But by, Deity, just because it's something YOU solved five, or ten, or even longer years ago, don't you dare think that the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented, 'cause it does. Every single one of us is unique, and every single one of us has to find our own way of solving it -- by looking at the paths of others, and figuring out which one works best.

[DreamDiver]

... by, Deity, just because it's something YOU solved five, or ten, or even longer years ago, don't you dare think that the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented, 'cause it does. Every single one of us is unique, and every single one of us has to find our own way of solving it -- by looking at the paths of others, and figuring out which one works best.

Kiralynx,

You absolutely rock. Nice writing.

[dsm]

Kiralynx,

Great machine you have there

DSM

PS - do you know your settings for epap, IpapMin & IpapMax and BPM= ?

D

[Kiralynx]

Great machine you have there PS - do you know your settings for epap, IpapMin & IpapMax and BPM= ?

EPAP = 10
IPAPMin = 10
IPAPMax = 14
BPM = not sure of this abbreviation?

Yes, it seems like a good machine. (Though I'd've preferred NOT to have Complex Apnea, y'know! Truth to tell, I doubt there's anyone here who likes getting dolled up in mask and hose, but as it happens, I prefer that to the alternatives!) If I can just get the bleeping thing to stop bleeping alarms when I'm just dropping off to sleep!

[dsm]

Great machine you have there PS - do you know your settings for epap, IpapMin & IpapMax and BPM= ?

EPAP = 10
IPAPMin = 10
IPAPMax = 14
BPM = not sure of this abbreviation?

Yes, it seems like a good machine. (Though I'd've preferred NOT to have Complex Apnea, y'know! Truth to tell, I doubt there's anyone here who likes getting dolled up in mask and hose, but as it happens, I prefer that to the alternatives!) If I can just get the bleeping thing to slop bleeping alarms when I'm just dropping off to sleep!

Kiralynx
You can turn the alarms off - they are there for clinical monitoring.
To turn them off requires going into clinical mode (I think) and setting the alarm thesholds to 0.

Your settings are an interesting variation - no bilevel mode but only pressure support mode - am guessing you would find that quite comfortable.

PM me if you want detailed info on resetting those alarms

DSM