The latest news.

After getting off the anti-psychotics completely, I did have to go back on a small dose of them but they did not cause the unpleasant  side effects that they did for a little while and I'm now completely adjusted to this dose. It's been a pleasant journey of discovery and getting to know myself all over again.

I am very rarely scared or sad like it turned out I was so very often. It's the near absence of them that made me realize it. If I ever am, it's because I'm having a momentary energy dip and it's quickly resolved by drinking a cup of coffee. Fear and sadness are not emotions that are hovering in the back of my mind all the time any longer.

I'm mostly very alert and upbeat and fearless. I am now who I´ve wanted to be for a long time. I´m not intimidated by life anymore or by the details that are involved in living it. I am not overwhelmed and things are back to their proper proportions and manageable.

I suppose I get to be the optimist I wanted to be all along. It´s nice that I was prepared for it.

Withdrawing...

I have had some very tough days and I don't know if they are over yet. I am sitting here now in the peacefulness of the early morning with a cup of coffee and things seem to be bettter but it can be a temporary situation and the storm may pick up again any moment. I will take advantage of this quiet time and put down my thoughts.

Since I quit the anti-psychotics completely I have had withdrawal symptoms that have been most unpleasant. What I felt more than anything was wave after wave of stress and anxiety which made me wish very often that I was taking something stronger than the Valerian tablets to help me relax.

The stress and anxiety aren't triggered by any outside events because I keep everything very free of triggers. It is a process that takes place inside of me. On top of that, I've not been sleeping well and I'm sure that's not helping the situation.

I can't say anything about life without anti-psychotics because this is not a reflection of it. This is just some odd chemical reaction in my brain I am going through. 

I do use my willpower and strength of mind to not lose the plot completely. I am not completely at the mercy of this process that's taking place. I feel that if I stay as calm and collected as possible, I can see it through. A sheer amount of stubborness does come into play also.

I will let you know what happens next.

On a quiet night...

I find myself in a relatively peaceful state of mind and will take the opportunity to share a bit of what has been going on around here with you. Not that an awful lot has, I spent most of my days in the pursuit of quiet activities. That is because I'm in the process of quitting the last little bit of my anti-psychotics because it became impossible for me to take it any longer. 

The last little bit that I was taking was giving me hot flashes and a case of nerves that only wore off over the course of the day. It was kind of unpleasant and it became a real bother to take that pill in the morning. It was not something that I was looking forward to. 

Because I was taking such a small dose, I will probably not have much of a withdrawal effect but I am not completely steady on my feet. It will probably take me the better part of a week to get back to normal but I am not doing too badly for the most part.

As a result of that, I don't have any big expectations of myself this week and I keep daily life relatively simple and very structured. I try to spend time living in the moment and to not anticipate what is going to happen too much. It is a real reward when I achieve that. 

I suppose I will always be a bit of a Buddhisr and always be in pursuit of my Zen moments. I do strive for peace of mind. 

I've lost weight and fit into my summer dresses really well which is good because the weather has been very agreeable. We will have summertime yet.

More than enough...

I am going through some changes now that I am on a much lower dose of anti-psychotics. I feel much more alert and aware of my emotions and no longer sedated. After having felt so for a long time, this state of mind is a whole new experience and it takes some getting used to. I don't think it is unpleasant, but these changes are something I constantly observe in myself and am surprised by. 

I find that my attitude about a lot of things is changing and while it is, I don't want to make up my mind about anything because I don't know what the final outcome will be. I've completely lost interest in some things that I liked. Some things that I was convinced of about myself I am now less sure of. I am in transition and time will tell with what sort of state of mind I will end up.

My psychiatrist had always felt that I was on too high a dose of the anti-psychotics and wanted me to lower it some time in the future, although I don't think he had counted on me ending up on a dose quite this low. The high dose was a legacy from my old psychiatrist.

I will keep you all up to date as the changes continue and I am more sure of myself.

Ciao,

Irene

In the end...

After all the trouble I went through to quit my anti-psychotics, I ended up having to go back on a low dose of them in the end because I was just not making it without them, not even with the help of a high dose of the Valerian tablets. I was only hanging in there by the skin of my teeth and things got very precarious. 

I made the decsion to to return to the anti-psychotics after consulting my psychiatrist and he was in total agreement with me, of course. I think I heard a big sigh of relief coming from his general direction. He reluctantly lets me try things, but that doesn't mean he agrees with me. 

I am doing much better now and can just about function normally again. I'm certainly capable of thinking straighter and not besieged by panic attacks and other strange phenomena. Going out of my mind comes close to describing it. 

After this unpleasant experience, I want to pick up my life and carry on from here. I want to get back to normal as quickly as possible while in full appreciation of what that concept means. I've never appreciated ordinary life as much as I do now. 

Ciao,

Irene

Staying out of trouble.

I'm still going through the withdrawal process of having quit my anti-psychotics and the Valerian tablets are still keeping me sane. I'm not fundtioning very well as a result and I can't do anything too complicated. I will have to look at this as a big time out and not have too many expectations of myself. Sooner or later I will come out in the end in one piece. I have to be as patient as possible untill that time and wait it out.

I can manage to walk the dog, but not for any long walks because I have too much anxiety to be away from home much. Luckily, not much needs to happen in the apartment right now and I don't feel that I'm letting a lot of things slide. I can only pay attention to little things that take a short amount of time to do.

I watch a lot of television and smoke a lot of cigarettes and drink many glasses of cold milk. I've discovered many new programs on channel two and they keep my mind distracted. 

I don't regret doing this no matter how hard it gets. 

Ciao,
Irene

It ain't eay.

I don't want you to get the impression that quitting my anti-psychotics nearly cold turkey is easy. The first few days weren't too bad but my body is going through withdrawal now and I've been told by my psychiatrist that there will be days in the first week that will be very difficult. It takes two weeks for the medication to leave your system, but it's the first week especially when things are hard, 

It's a good thing that I have the Valerian tablets and I take those four times a day. They do calm me down and help me get through this process. I wouldn't be able to manage it without them. I get terrible anxiety attacks and break out in cold sweats, but the Valerian tablets keep me from losing my mind. 

I knew ahead of time that it wasn't going to be easy and expected some sort of reaction. I just didn't know what it was going to be. I have to be very tough with myself and not give into the desire to grab a pill to alleviate the stress of the withdrawal. 

I think by next week I will be doing a lot better. In the meantime, I'm keeping my life as simple and structured as possible and make sure there aren't any triggers that set me off.

Ciao,
Irene

The overcast sky.

All day long the sky has been overcast and huge gray clouds have been traveling through it making it look like it was continually going to rain but never really doing so. We were promised some sunshine at the end of the day but I haven't seen any yet and I have been waiting very patiently. I've worn my winter coat today because it was blustery outside and too uncomfortable for just my short leather jacket. And do I have to remind you that I do like to be warm at all times? 

Last week, over the course of three days, I decreased my anti-psychotic medication untill I was taking none. I decided to do it very quickly because in the past I had tried to do it gradually and never succeeded and always had to go back to the original dose. 

The first few days I was without, I was a little bit on edge, but now I feel fine and am not bothered one bit. I did inform my psychiatrist and I have an appointment with him tomorrow. 

The reasons I wanted to get off the anti-psychotics is because they always made me feel drugged and dull and I very much disliked feeling that way. I had been on them non-stop for 18 years and I was aware of the fact that they influenced my functioning very much. I thought it was about time that I found out what I was like without them and after making all these recent discoveries about myself, I was more than willing to try. 

I didn't want to tell anyone until after the fact in case there would be any doomsday thinkers that would warn me off. I wanted to find out for myself what would happen. 

I think they are out of my system now and I no longer feel drugged or dull. I'm much more alert and active. It does mean that I get a little bored more easily and I have to try harder to find ways to occupy myself. Some things that I used to do no longer interest me. Other things are more appealing. Over the course of time I will have to find satisfying things to do to keep myself busy. 

I have less interest in drinking coffee and that's because all this time I had been using the caffeine to keep me alert. It was a way to fight the sedative effect of the anti-psychotics. That's not necessary anymore now and one cup of coffee every once in a while is more than enough. I only make enough coffee for one cup at the time.

That's a total of three mediactions I have managed to quit in the last two months.

I'm happy.

Ciao,
Irene

Back to the future...

I've stopped reducing my anti-psychotic medication and have gone back to the original dose.I figured there was no need to go through all that stress and anxiety and near craziness because I had it in my head to get along on a lesser dose. I consider the reduction to be a failed experiment and I will let my psychiatrist know on Monday. 

I do have to tell you that since increasing the dose, I feel a lot better, but that maybe because of the sedative qualities of the medication. I will have to be on this dose for a couple of days to really be able to tell the difference. I do feel a lot of relief and am glad that the reality of the situation dawned on me. 

It did take a while but in the end common sense prevailed. I was short of that for some time and could not think straight very well. It was especially bad in the morning when I was run over by an avalanche of anxiety. That was a tough way to start the day and I don't recommend it to anyone. 

It's better to sit in peacefulness and solitude and drink your coffee quietly when you first get up. The most you want to do is pet your dog or cat. That's how it should be. A person should always have a gentle start. 

I've had some coffee just now and walked the dog so I am in near perfect shape. I've had my caffeine and some fresh air which were just what I needed. I'm no health nut but I do know that I have to get out of the apartment every once in a while and stretch my limbs. Thank goodness that I have the dog to take me. 

It wouldn't quite work out with the cat unless I was willing to jump over fences and garden gates. That would be one way to get a work out but I'm afraid I'm not that limber or strong. I probably couldn't pull up my own weight to clamber over a fence. I would have had to have long years of practice. 

I hope you're all having a good day. 

Ciao,

Irene

The better stuff...

At least I can tell you one thing for certain, I'm having better instant coffee now than I have been having. I got the better brand today which I won't mention by name but it is very well known. It sure makes a difference in how good the coffee tastes and I'm drinking it with more pleasure. I no longer make an ugly face when I take the first sip. I'm even looking forward to the second cup.

I've got groceries in the apartment and I can eat good things again. I celebrated that by eating vanilla pudding and I peeled an apple for the dog which he ate with much enthusiasm. The only problem is that I cut myself in my thumb while peeling the apple and it went deep. For a while (about an hour) I was bleeding all over the place. I have to be careful with my thumb now or it will start all over again. Do you know how difficult it is not to use your thumb? 

It is raining outside and has been for a while. I thought it was just a shower at first but it kept on raining and hasn't stopped for the past hour and a half. The dog very enthisiastically wanted to go for a walk just now but I let him out back and he got the message. He's now lying belly up beside me with his four paws in the air, sound asleep. He's so exposed, it does make you want to tickle him. I'll be kind and not do that. I've got to think of my thumb too. 

I'm still yawning from the nap I took. I thought, while I wait for my thumb to stop bleeding I might as well take a nap. The animals slept on the bed with me and it was very cozy. I like the room I sleep in now and am used to it. It is very much my room. I would like to add some different furniture to it but those are just future dreams. I can go to the Ikea website any time and long for all the things I want to get. Because I smoke again, I won't have the money to get anything. That's the price I pay. 

Since it's Saturday evening, there will no doubt be many boring television shows on. I will have to find another way to amuse myself. I don't hang out on Facebook much anymore having become completely bored with it for the moment. So that's one activity behind the computer that has ceased.

Today I started reducing my anti-psychotics some more. This is in order to elevate my mood just a little bit. I'm not depressed but I think I can be a little bit more cheerful and I think the anti-psychotics are dampening my mood just a little bit too much. I'm just reducing them by 1 mg at first and if all goes well, I'll reduce them by another 1 mg. I'll go slowly on this and not hasten anything. The first week is the most important and will tell me a lot. 

I hope you're all having a good weekend and that your weather is kind to you. 

Ciao,

Irene

Full of longing...

The headache that I thought was gone is back with a vengeance and I also have that pain in my neck again. They're both on the right side and all I can think is that it feels like a migraine but it's lasting an awful long time. I've made an appointment with the GP for tomorrow afternoon just to make sure I don't need an antibiotic or an antihistamine, although officially I'm not supposed to be allergic to anything. It is a bother and I don't like having to take paracetamol all the time. 

Other than that I'm in great shape. At least I am mentally and that counts for a lot in my book. To me that's the most important thing. I don't mind there being something physically wrong with me as long as I'm mentally okay. 

I saw my therapist today and I had a good session with her. There's always some work to be done and she doesn't make it easy on me. And I don't want her to. I don't want her to mollycoddle me. Let her make it as hard on me as she can. I need to be able to take a licking. 

Cutting down on the anti-psychotics has worked out well and isn't bothering me at all like you maybe would expect it to. Sometimes cutting down on a medicine is a problem and it doesn't go well. I no longer feel depressed and can enjoy the good weather. I would even more if I didn't have a headache. 

I don't feel the need for a nap this afternoon because I've also cut down on the tranquilizers and have more energy now. I don't feel like lying down all over the place. I've also had some coffee and that perked me up quite nicely.

The weather is great, although I've heard that it's going to be less so in a while. I haven't watched the weather forecast in a few days but it is said that the temperatures are going to drop a lot. That we're even going to need our winter coats. I'm not too pleased about that because it means that I'll have to close the windows and turn on the heater again. I was more than ready for it to be nice weather from this point on. 

The birds are singing in the trees as happily as they always do. They have their hearts set on springtime. It's a joy to listen to them. There's a large variety of them that all take their turn being noisy at different times of the day. I hope they are smart and stay out of the cat's way. I would hate for her to come home with one like she did last year. I didn't realize that she was such a hunter. 

The dog is lying on the floor in the light of the sun that's shining in through the windows. He is basking himself. It must feel glorious after the long winter of hardly any sunshine in the living room. I still have to make an appointment to get his fur trimmed. He looks like a wooly mammoth now. All he needs are a couple of baby tusks. He already has the large ears. 

I've got to go do a load of laundry and change the bed. It is time for clean sheets. I have a longing for them. I hope my head can stand me bending over to change them. It will be worth the sacrifice and to go to bed tonight in a clean bed. 

I hope you're all having a good day.

Ciao,

Irene

Onward forever and then some...

I can tell you one thing and that is that I'm not depressed anymore. That bird has flown the coop. The mood has escaped me. I am so relieved. I thought it had during the night but I didn't want to jubilate ahead of time. Now that it's daytime, I know for sure. I'm in a fine mood and all my worries seem far away. Hey, isn't that a line in a song? No, that goes a little bit different than that. 

I've reduced my anti-psychotics from 8 mg to 6 mg and I think that's made the difference. I think I was taking too much. That former amount was okay when I was hypo-manic but it was too much when I came down to earth again and I think it made me depressed. It was a temporary measure anyway and was never meant to be of permanent nature. 

I think my psychiatrist can trust me enough to make these decisions. I do have some personal leeway when it comes to some of my medicines. I know damn well what they do with me and it's not always the right thing at the right time.

So now I'm sitting here with my good mood and the best of intentions. The apartment is cleaned up, but I do have a stack of mail to plow through. I will do that shortly. Since it's Saturday, I've got all day to do it and no phone calls to make about it. Everybody on the help desks will have the weekend off. That does give me a break. It's nice when something is impossible to do. It gives you time to think about it. 

I was outside with the dog in the beautiful warm sunshine and wore my summer top. I do want to get a little bit of color before it gets too hot. I can't believe how pleasant it was out there and have opened all the windows to air out the place. Now it's really springtime and tonight we set the clocks ahead one hour. I do look forward to the extra hour of daylight in the evening. 

My older sister is going to have a galstone operation. Apparently there is nothing else wrong with her and that is a big relief. She did have us worried there for a while. She's very sick with them and it's about time something is done about them. She's just not assertive enough when it comes to her health. I don't take after her.

The dog is lying down on the dining table in the sunshine that is coming in through the windows. I think he likes it very much. This morning he tore the outer layer off a tennis ball. The rug in the living room was covered with fuzz. He had such a goood time doing that. He's got three balls left to go. He always does find ways to amuse himself and then there's always the cat to bother. 

The Exfactor bought me chewable vitamins and they are as good as candies. They are forest berry flavor and I want to keep eating them, but I'm not supposed to. That makes me think that I have a secret longing for sweets. I ought to buy a bag of them the next time I'm in the pharmacy. They have a good selection there of old fashioned candy. The vanilla drops are especially good. 

I hope you'll all have a good Saturday.

Ciao,

Irene

Delaying tactics...

I was already laying in bed when I realized I wasn't really tired and couldn't fall asleep. I was just basically laying there for the coziness and to listen to the radio. I decided those were not good enough reasons to stay in bed and got up again and put my bathrobe on. I will try again later when I'm truly sleepy. When I really, really want to go to bed. 

Now I'm sitting here with a cup of coffee, but I'm not going to make the mistake I made last night and drink a pot of it. I will switch to a glass of milk on time so as not to get too wired and cause myself a sleepless night. I learned that lesson the hard way and I don't want a repeat of the day I had today in which I rapid cycled. That was no pleasure. Luckily, I was able to fix that with some extra anti-psychotic medication when I finally thought of it. 

I'm fine now and I'm calm again, although I have to say that everything is precarious and I'm aware of that now and I realize that I mustn't push my luck. I have a tendency to do everything to extremes and I mustn't do that. I will not stay up until the wee hours and do complicated things that require a lot of mental energy and emotional input. The desire is there, but I will have to ignore it and not give into it. I want each night to be an adventure in contrast to my relatively dull days. 

I have to be my own guardian and monitor my own behavior and do the things that are sensible, much as I don't like to do them sometimes. It's so much nicer to give into an impulsive idea and let it happen and not think about the consequences. Today should have been a lesson to me that I should not forget and I can't pretend that it wouldn't happen again the same way. It's no laughing matter when you get suicidal thoughts because you're rapid cycling. 

I have a great desire to keep playing with the design and names of my blogs. I think possibly I'm not satisfied enough with the way things are now. I think they are too tame and ordinary. I'm striving for a form of perfection without knowing if I will achieve it. I can't leave well enough alone. It must represent a basic dissatisfaction I have with my life that I'm projecting onto my blogs. If my blogs are perfect, my life will be too. 

It's a small psychological insight that's not going to help me much. It's not going to get me over my urge and desire. Only some amount of sensibility is and sometimes that is hard to find. When it is nighttime anyway. At night I always have great desires and lots of plans. It's when my head is in the clouds and my feet aren't firmly planted on the ground.

It's not quite bedtime yet. I don't yet feel the urge to go to sleep. I want to prevent myself from waking up in the middle of the night because then I'll really be in trouble. The Exfactor is going to be here in the morning to do the groceries and I have appointments with my psychiatrist and my SPN early in the afternoon, so I have to be in good shape.

I hope you're all having a good evening. 

Ciao,

Nora

No rest for the wicked...

I've tried to sleep, but after tossing and turning for a few hours I've gotten up again and heated up a cup of left over coffee. I will be up for a while and try to sleep again at a later time or some time early in the morning. I will see how well I manage to amuse myself and to which time zone in the world I can adjust myself. Somewhere in the world people are up living their lives and going about their business and I'll pretend that I'm in tune with them. I'll disregard the fact that it is bedtime here. As a matter of fact, I should be in tune now with my daughter who lives in Texas, so I'll pretend I'm over there. 

It's possible that I've been stuck in the Texas time zone ever since I was last there and that I never got adjusted again to the one here. I'm constantly running about 7 hours behind schedule. Maybe that's my problem. The little bit of sleep I get initially at night is only induced by my sleep medication. It doesn't really count as real sleep. I don't get that until I go to sleep in the early hours of the morning. In Texas I slept well. I went to bed at a normal time and slept through the night. I always sleep well when I'm in the States. I guess I feel safer there. 

This is all just a mad theory I'm making up as I go along. I'm only being silly, but I am looking forward to the moment when I get tired and I'll want to go to bed and I will really be ready to go to sleep. That's when I have my sweetest dreams, but I suppose that if I want to sleep well, I have to go to Texas. I may even go so far as to try California. That's 9 hours difference. That really ought to do the trick. 

I'm drinking cold milk now as I didn't think it was too smart to drink any more coffee. I've had enough caffeine during the evening to wake up a village. No, that's not true, I didn't drink that much coffee. Just enough to get me out of a slump, but it probably didn't help me go to sleep. I'm just too pepped up. I have to keep in mind that I reduced my anti-psychotics some more today. That can make a difference in my mood and energy level. It can make me hyper. I do have to keep an eye on that. 

I think I'll go find something to do. Some sort of trouble to get into. There must be something I can undertake. 

Have a good evening all you people who are still awake. 

Ciao,

Nora

Also known as...

It's April 1st, be careful, I may fool you.

I just had to drink a cup of coffee real fast, because one of the drawbacks of taking the anti-psychotics during the day is that they make me feel sleepy. That's nice if I want to take naps nonstop, but I don't want to do that, because it will mean that I won't sleep at night. Other than that they do what they're supposed to and make me not feel angry when I take the Welbutrin.

This morning I wouldn't have known, because I went back to bed at 7:30 and slept until 12:30. I was awakened by my mobile phone, the one that I do hear ring when I'm asleep. It was my sister who wanted to know if I was ready to go grocery shopping. Well no, I needed at least an hour to sit and have a cup or two of coffee and come to my senses. At least one hour, if not longer. It turned into an hour and a half. My sister is very cheerful from the moment she gets up until she goes to bed. She doesn't need an adjustment period. My older sister is like I am and needs to sit in silence for a while. We both need to get our doses of nicotine and caffeine in first. Self medicate.

It was busy at the store and we hardly found a space to park. We first had to dump our empty containers of plastic and glass at the recycle bins and then braved the store. A lot of people were already shopping for the Easter weekend. On Sunday and Monday the stores will be closed. I first got the things I wasn't supposed to forget and then got the things I always get. I also bought myself a pint of "real farmer's vanilla pudding." I had seen it advertised on TV and wanted to know if it was the real thing like I ate when I was a kid.

When we were done shopping, I bought 3 lighters at the customer service desk and my sister bought me 2 bunches of orange tulips, which was very sweet of her. I have them standing in a dark yellow vase on the dining table and Tyke has shown the necessary interest in them. I'll keep him far away from them, because they look very nice and I hope they last a while. I do love tulips, like a real Dutch woman.

I tried the farmer's vanilla pudding and it tasted exactly like it was supposed to and I wonder why none of the other puddings do anymore. It seems so simple to keep making them like they were always made. Now you have to pay an arm and a leg for a pint of it. Of course, I can only eat a little bit at the time, so I'll make it last, but still... I remember eating yogurt when I was a kid that your spoon would stand up straight in, that's how thick it was. We're getting ripped off left and right nowadays with these light products that we pay so much for. All the goodness is taken out of them.

Boy, that cup of coffee sure cleared my head. That's a good trick I have to remember. I was so sleepy that I was ready to lie down on the sofa, but I'm totally over it now, until I have to take the next pill, that is. That's one thing about me, though, I have to learn the same trick over and over again. It seems I never completely learn from experience. I'm the donkey that repeatedly stubs it's toe on the same rock time after time. I have the same "eureka!" moment once or twice a year, every year. I reinvent the wheel all the time... I guess I've made myself clear. I wish somebody would remind me of that. That's why I need a very attentive and loyal husband. Do you know of one?

I just took Tyke for a quick walk around the field, but the weather is miserable. We've had rain and hail storms and thunder and lightning and cold wind. It's no pleasure to be out there and it's not going to get any better for a while. It won't be a sunshiny Easter. When we got home, I turned the heater up again, so I won't sit here with cold hands and I'm going to put my warm cardigan on in a while.

I haven't been fooled by anyone today. I'm glad, because I always take it very personally. I'm not very good as the butt of a joke. I was one too often when I was a child, accompanied by belittling laughter. Never make fun of your child and belittle it.

That's all I have to say for now. I took my medicines 45 minutes ago. Not much is happening, or I'm not noticing it. I'm going to eat some farmer's pudding.

Ciao,
Nora

Rain...

It's always like I try to erase one confessional post with another less confessional one, so I will look better in your eyes because I momentarily feel better. Because I feel conflicted about this, I start writing the other post, but take a very long time doing it, so it won't look like I'm too eager. I do have some sense of decorum. It's really silly that I bother going through all of this, but it's a compulsion in me that drives me to do it. It's probably a symptom of what's wrong with me, but it hasn't been described maybe in the DSM. Compulsively writing blog posts. Obsessive compulsive behavior. There you go. It has been after all, like the woman who sprinkled powdered sugar on her furniture. She couldn't stop herself either.

It's very hard to have something wrong with you. To know that you don't quite function as well as the average person does. That you come with an instruction booklet and that it needs to be read nearly every day and that if other people won't read it, you still have to read it yourself and I will tell you the truth, I don't think I will get off all of my medications. I think I need some of them. Not in huge quantities, but enough to help me function. I think I may go off the deep end if I were not to have them. I think getting off all my medications was a pipe dream and a lot of wishful thinking and very misguided. It's because some of us want to believe that I'm really a healthy person that we want me off the medication, but the truth is that I'm not and we better face up to that. If I'm going to be successful, it's going to have to be with medication. I'm a nut without it.

Well, there you go, we had another confessional. I don't stop, do I? That's because I do all my thinking on my blog. This is where I get everything straightened out. I talk circles around myself and finally find my way to where I'm supposed to be. Which is just a few steps ahead of where I started off. There is progress. I must remember to do things for myself, though, and not for other people, no matter how much I love them and want to make them happy. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot, but not everything. So much depends on me being able to deal with things and to have courage and self confidence. There's nothing worse than feeling out and out fear for the most ordinary events in life.

The computer is murmuring to itself again, no doubt looking for another update. The delivery boy from the pharmacy just came by to deliver some drugs, important ones that I can't do without. I was almost out of some of them and didn't realize it on time, so it was an emergency delivery. That sounds like I gave birth. I do in my dreams. Sometimes I have babies, as if by a miracle. It would be physically impossible for me, but in my dreams I can. I dream it quite often, but I think it symbolizes me giving birth to new aspects of myself. I'm hardly pregnant in my dreams and always surprised that I'm about to give birth. All the babies look like me, but one time I dreamed that I put my son back inside myself for safekeeping. I had a zipper in my torso because he was so big. Don't I wish I could have done that.

It started raining a while ago and at first it came down in buckets with a hard wind blowing too. It's only 7C outside and I have the heater turned up. It's still not springtime here, except for that one perfect day we had when I thought it was almost too warm. At least we don't have snow like some people still have. We are spared that and I did see some daffodils but they had been planted, so they didn't count. The jasmine bush is getting green buds and so is the prickly bush whose name I don't know by the clothes line. The rest looks bare. The Golden Rain is showing no action at all and should have been pruned this spring, but I'm not the woman to do it. I don't have the equipment. I think some man needs to haul his butt over here and do it. One with biceps, who also needs to fix the little gate that is falling apart in the fence. The one who uses it exclusively and keeps ignoring the problem. I will very tactfully point that out.

I've solved the problem with the anger issue with the Welbutrin. Instead of taking my antipsychotics all at once before I go to bed, I now take them spread during the day and I notice that it takes the edge off quite a bit. I took one in the afternoon and one when I took my medicines at 6 pm and I feel a lot better. Tomorrow I will take them at breakfast, lunch and dinner when I take my other medications. We'll see how much better I do.

And now for some Brie and Camembert.

Ciao,
Nora

All done with that.

I've done chores and I read blogs until I got blog-reading-tiredness and couldn't even leave comments anymore. That's because I was behind on my blog reading and hadn't realized how far behind I really was, so I gave up and I hope that I will be excused by all of you who have not received a sign of my presence to your blog. I may have been there, but have been too overwhelmed mentally to leave behind a sensible comment. You should never do too much of one thing for a long time. It will drive you crazy.

I've just made myself a cup of coffee, because I'm starting to give up the ghost. I am yawning very badly and am in serious need of sleep, but I'm trying to fight it because of the time of day. In another 20 minutes I need to take my medicines and I hope to get my second wind from this cup of coffee. If everything fails, I'll go to bed for a nap, but it can only be a nap. I don't want my body to get the mistaken idea that we're settling down for the night.

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Well, I went to bed and slept for an hour and a half and it was nice. I'm now drinking decaf, but I think I'm going to need a regular cup of coffee to really wake me up. It will be an exception to the rule of not drinking coffee in the evening. I think one of my medicines will need to be adjusted to make me less sleepy during the day, and that will be fine with me, because as far as I'm concerned, I'm still taking too many. I think the anti-psychotic is the culprit, because one of the side effects is that it makes you very sleepy. That's why I've stopped taking them during the day. I was constantly sound asleep on the sofa. The other culprit could be the tranquilizer that I take at a high dosage during the day. I need to start reducing those, but I can't do that on my own. I need to do that in consultation with my psychiatrist.

I very much regret getting on some of these medications. I thought they would help me at the time, but more and more were added and now I'm stuck with the consequences of trying to get off them. And they all have side effects. I would not recommend to anybody that they get on some of these medicines. I think they are dangerous and unhealthy and the pharmaceutical industry is pushing doctors to prescribe them. There's supposed to be a pill to fix everything, but sometimes the cure is worse than the symptom and medicines get misused. Heavy duty medicines get prescribed when something lighter might have worked too. I have to get off some of these drugs before it's too late. I want to keep my antidepressant and my mood stabilizer and that's it. All the rest can go.

Well, now you know the true feelings I have about the drugs I take. I'm not such a blind believer in them. I shouldn't be on most of them and I'm on my third psychiatrist and they all inherit me with the drugs. Oh yeah, I forgot about the sleeping pill.

On to other things. My body has been tricked by the decaf and thinks it has had a real cup of coffee. Isn't that funny? I'm going to have another one. Maybe they should give me placebo pills instead of the real ones and they will work because of my believe in them.

I'm going to try and read a book in bed tonight and hope I have enough sense to put the book and the reading glasses away before I fall asleep. I haven't read anything for such a long time and I really miss it. Tyke will have to be on his best behavior if I mess it up.

I'm going to get ready for bed, I think, although it's not that late and tomorrow is Saturday. There is no humor in this post and that bothers me. I should write another funnier post now immediately, but I don't know if there is anybody funny home. I could have a look.

Have a good evening, or a good night, whichever applies to you.

Ciao,
Nora

A long nap.

I suddenly had to stop writing my last post, because I was overcome with sleep and had to go take a nap in my bed under the duvet. I slept for nearly 3 hours and felt better when I woke up. All day long, though, I have been trying to get rid of a sad feeling that is at the root of everything I do and say. There is a distinguished lack of happiness and courage to the point that I have to force myself to act like I felt two days ago, so that nobody will notice the difference and think that my medicine isn't working, while in fact that is probably just the case.

I think I'm not functioning well on just one tablet of the Welbutrin and that I miss the second tablet very much. I've always reacted immediately to the tablets from the first moment I took them and I think not taking the second one is draining me. I noticed it again tonight when I took my other medication at 6 o'clock. I sat here all worn out and unenthused and unhappy and I just could not get excited about what I was doing. At 7:30 I made a decision and took a second tablet and I'm now waiting for it to start working.

I'm turning things back to the original scenario and will have to inform my SPN tomorrow. I am going to see what I can do about influencing my moods myself by going to bed on time and getting enough sleep and not letting myself get pulled along by the drama of the events. I have to try and stay calm and in control at all costs and I know that I can do that. My psychiatrist and my SPN made their decisions based on my interpretation of the event and that influenced their reaction to it and it may have been totally overdone.

Anyway, here I am sitting writing another post again and eating Brie, which is very good, but I can only have a little bit of it. I bought some expensive decaf and I'm now going to taste it. Well, it's not bad as decafs go. I can live with it.

Outside the weather has changed. It's a lot cooler and it's raining. I just had to let Tyke out back, but I was cold standing there with my bare arms. I'm wearing a short sleeved top now and my green scarf wrapped around my neck, which provides a lot of warmth. It's the best invention since the wheel.

As is usual, I'm wasting a lot of time writing this and it will be bedtime when I'm done. That's okay, I'm ready to go to sleep, I think. I'm looking forward to crawling under the covers and sleeping. I'm a little bit worried about taking the antipsychotic, but I'm going to take it at the normal amount, so it should be okay. I'd like to take even less than what I take now, but that's something for the near future to be decided upon.

I'm boring and I'm going to quit writing,

Have a good night, everyone.

Ciao,
Nora

A hot day for springtime...

My sister and I took the dogs for a long walk and the sun was shining and it was warm outside and I regretted my choice of clothes and the fact that I didn't have anything to drink with me. What I wanted more than anything was a cold Coke, but there weren't any around where we were walking and we only passed a hardware store. When we got home, Tyke immediately went to his water bowl and I went to the refrigerator to drink a lot of cold milk straight out of the bottle. I can do that, because I'm the only one who lives here.

I wanted to change my clothes, but I didn't have time, because my sister came to pick me up to go grocery shopping. We drove there with the windows rolled down and it felt good. Luckily, it was cool in the store, so I wasn't too miserable. I was done shopping quickly, because I almost always get the same old things and I know my way around the store by now. I got the French cheeses and Mr Muscle Cleaner. It's got to work as good as anything and it was on sale. I hope my domestic help is happy with it. She's got to scrub with it.

I first put the groceries away when I got home and then took my tights off and changed my top to a tank top and that was quite a relief. Now I have cool legs and cool arms. It's 20C and much warmer than they had predicted. The sun is shining and they said it would be 17C and cloudy. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 11C and rainy. I hope they get that wrong too. I complain about the cold, but 20C is plenty warm enough for me. It really doesn't need to get warmer than that.

I feel surprisingly unexcited without the urge to write many posts and without the feeling that I have much to announce. I don't feel that I need to declare myself on all sorts of subjects anyway. I'm a bit more subdued than I have been. I'm not quite happy with that, because I like to be a little more lively, with a little bit more spirit. I'll blame it on the too much of antipsychotic that I've had and that is slowly leaving my body. I don't think that was a very good move of my psychiatrist and I'm not happy with it. I've written my SPN an email letting her know, but she is out of the office today and won't get it until tomorrow morning. I'm taking my normal dose of antipsychotics tonight.

I'm going to lie down and take a nap.

Ciao,
Nora

Too much for me...

I'm up again after having been asleep for 4 hours. I thought I would go to bed early tonight, because of the missed hours of sleep last night, but it didn't quite work out the way I had planned. Now I'm awake, somewhat stoned from the increase in antipsychotics, which I do not like at all, and I've made myself a cup of coffee to try and sober up a bit. I had no other recourse. I think I will not take the increase again, it is too much for me and it did not help me sleep and for a while I actually felt sick from it and broke out in a sweat.

I think the coffee is helping, though, and I'm slowly starting to feel better. I don't enjoy drugs to the point that they alter your mind in a negative way and that was the case here to the point of quiet deperation. In my mind's eye I was calling the SOS line asking them what to do if you had taken too much of something, though not an overdose. In the meantime, I think I've solved the problem myself. I was typing emails earlier and making a lot of mistakes in them and it took me twice as long to write them, but now this is going better.

So in the end, the only thing that will have changed, is that I will take one tablet of Welbutrin instead of two, and less is better, right? I have to have the same amount of faith in it that I had in the two tablets and I think I can if nothing negative happens. I'm assuming everything will be well and will see the glass half full. So, I didn't take my Welbutrin at 6 o'clock and you would have thought that I had expected the sky to come falling down on me. Of course, nothing happened and nothing will, because I haven't taken it long enough yet. My reaction was funny, though, like Chicken Little.

Don't you hate it when you hold the mouse and your middle finger keeps clicking on the right button when you don't want it to at all? It happens to me constantly and I really have to let go of that mouse when I don't need to hold it, but that habit dies hard. Even when you need to hold it, your middle finger reflexively keeps pushing down that right button, showing that whole little menu that you don't want and then you have to find a white space to left click on to make it disappear. It's just one of life's little irritations.

I just went on the scale, which is something I said I would not do regularly, but I thought, "What the heck, lets see the state of affairs," and I have lost 4.7 kg. That's more than 10 lbs. Not bad, eh? I celebrated that by eating a couple of teaspoons full of Nutella. Mmm... Those are Dutch teaspoons, not American teaspoons, which are much bigger and would be dessert spoons here, except that we eat pie and cake with little forks that are especially made for it, and we don't eat ice cream with them so we don't need a spoon for them. But if you are an American, and you come to my place for apple pie, I'll make sure you get vanilla ice cream with that. But if you're a non smoker, you don't want to come to my place, because if you spend any time here, your clothes and your hair will smell of smoke and you will find it very unpleasant. So, only smokers please.

I'm being a real slow poke in typing this. Hours have passed since I started this and I don't know what I do with my time either. Proof reading, because I don't have a spell check, although I just imported an American English dictionary, but I don't know what happened to it. I'll have to figure that out later. I don't know what else I do, except daydream a lot about what is important in my life and what is not and I think about all the different ingredients and people in it. I don't ponder and worry, these are very light hearted thoughts. I lightly touch on each subject and linger there for a while. Basically, everything and everybody is okay. Everyone is busy leading their own life and doing a good job of it. There's not much to worry about, except the little every day things, but even those aren't real worries. It's kind of nice, isn't it? A worry free life?

I'm keeping myself upright now with coffee. I've had two cups. I think I will sleep in the morning like I used to do. I may be getting back to my old schedule. It's not such a horrible thing, because at least I have the quiet nighttime hours to sit and write in. I've got the ringer on the phone turned down low, so when I'm asleep, I don't hear it and I can't be wakened up. I hardly hear it if I'm in another room. If they are people who really know me, they've got my mobile number. If not, it's tough on them.

For the post with the information about my hypomanic episode and my medication change go here if you're interested. If not, don't worry about it. In the end it doesn't really matter.

Have a good morning when you get up. I hope it's a bright day.

Ciao,
Nora