What's it going to be today?

I just heated up a cup of coffee for myself. It is coffee left over from this morning, so it's not the best cup in town, but it will have to do unless I want to make a new pot and I'm not sure about that yet. I don't know how awake and alert I want to be at this time of day. It may be that this one cup is enough to have me function the way I should. I will have to wait and see what happens.

I took a long nap on the sofa this afternoon. After I came home from seeing my SPN, I was quite done in. I sat in my armchair for a while and tried to recuperate. I had dealt with so many memories and so many emotions. I knew I also needed to get a rational point of view on all of it, but I was too wiped out to do it. I walked Tyke and then decided to lie down on the sofa under the red fleece blanket.

Now that I'm awake again, and can think about things with some distance between them and me, I can let go of all of the emotions and rationally approach the subject. I can see that there have been huge flaws in my thinking all along and that these have been masked by my overwhelming emotions and that the story would not have gone how I imagined it, no matter how good the circumstances. 

The fairytale that I had tried to pull off was bound to fail, only I had my head in the sand and refused to see the truth and to this day believed that if only a certain event had not happened, I would have lived happily ever after. I now see how delusional that was and how impossible of me to think it. I really believed that if I ignored all the bad and concentrated only on the good, we all would ride off into the sunset and have a happily ever after life.

It's about time that I look at this in a rational way. That I start to doubt and pick apart all the feelings and assumptions I have had about this period in my life. The explanation and emotional reasoning I had in place was just as much a fallacy as the fairytale I was trying to live back then. My explanation doesn't hold up under careful questioning. My reasoning is completely flawed. It's time to cut out the nonsense and to get down to reality. To look at things they really were and not the way I imagined they were. Or wanted them to be.

I'm getting rid of a lot of old sadness about this, very deep grief, as a matter of fact. The kind of grief that makes you crazy and leaves wounds. I finally have the opportunity to heal them and to look at my own role in all of it. Why I reacted the way I did and why I handled things the way I did. That's much more realistic than believing in the story of wrong assumptions and explanations  I've been walking around with.

I'm getting this straight in my head as I'm typing this, but I also spend a lot of time thinking about it. The subject doesn't leave my head, but it is with a certain amount of clarity and relief that I think of it. I know I'm not done with it yet. There will be more sessions spent on it, but they all will be fruitful. I will not waste my time regretting things that are over and done with. I've spent enough time doing that already. 19 Years as a matter of fact. 

I've got to walk Tyke. It's time for our evening stroll. I will be lost in thought. 

Have a good evening!

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

Two cups of coffee...

I was so exhausted yesterday evening. I sat here behind the computer and almost toppled over from tiredness. I tried to resist it, but ended up going to bed before it was 7 o'clock, I think. It was early, anyway. I had clean sheets on my bed, so it was wonderful to get in it, and I fell asleep almost instantly.

I left the bedroom door open, because I've found out that Tyke pretty much stays there anyway for most of the night and doesn't get into trouble in the rest of the apartment. He's right beside the bed when I wake up. That's good, because I prefer sleeping with the door open. I don't like to be in a room with the door closed.

I've got a bit of claustrophobia that I've learned to live with really well and I do see the need for closed doors. I mean, there are circumstances under which a door needs to be closed, but all the doors in the apartment are open and I even go to the bathroom with the door open so all the animals can go with me.

I woke up very early in the morning and had a glass of milk first for the thirst, but then realized that I really did need that cup of coffee to function well and get the last bit of sleep out of my mind. It did its job and I soon performed up to par, so a cup of coffee does have its uses. Then I took a long time deciding if I was going to have a second cup and finally decided that I would, but this will be my last one, because I'm more than fully awake now.

I remembered to get on the scale this morning and I have lost 3.5 kg since I have been on the new medication. So. if I want to get to the weight that's supposed to be perfect for me and my age, and that is reasonable, I have to lose 14 kg. I think that will happen automatically without me worrying about it. I'm not making any effort now and I'm not obsessed by it. I will remember to get on the scale every now and then and keep track of how I'm doing. I'm not going hungry, but have lost my appetite for food and am easily satisfied. The Nutella is taking care of my craving for something sweet to eat and it's nutritious too.

Drinking fruit juice makes me sad. I've had that suspicion for a while, but now I am sure of it. It seems like a strange theory, but it's true and I'm not going to drink it anymore, because I had clear proof of it yesterday. I drank a glass of it after I hadn't had it for a few days and was sad for a few hours afterwards. I didn't know how to undo it, but wait it out. It finally passed after I had something to eat and took my medicines. People can have an intolerance for food, but I wonder if that can also affect them emotionally. I have a feeling it can. I think wine makes me sad too.

I think it's because I feel so good now most of the time, that I notice it very quickly if I don't and can find the cause and effect quickly too. I think a lot of times emotions are nothing more than the chemical reactions that take place in your body and mind. Shortages and overdoses happen and your feelings are a result of that. Why else do we have alcoholic beverages and foods that are pleasurable and nicotine and drugs? We have pleasure centers in our brains with chemicals that make us feel good. If you have a shortage there, you're not going to feel so good and you'll eat a chocolate bar to feel better, or have a drink, or sniff cocaine or any number of things. In my case, some of those things make me feel bad. They have an adverse effect.

This morning, very early, I heard all the birds sing as they woke up. I could hear them clearly, because all the windows are open at the top and that really does make a difference. It's a shame that their chirping doesn't last longer, because it's so cheerful and I would love to live in a wood and hear all the birds wake up. I can't identify any bird by sound, except the mockingbird, and he doesn't live in this country. We used to have one in our front garden in Costa Mesa and I always liked listening to him.

I've taken my medicines a while ago and high time it was too, though I may be reacting to that second cup of coffee. Maybe I shouldn't have had it, not being used to so much caffeine now. It makes you jittery. It's much better to just stick to the one cup. These are lessons you learn as you go along. You realize what sort of junk you put in your body and how unnecessary that is. More is not better. If one cup works well, than two cups don't work better.

It's cloudy and 12C outside. It's only going to be 13C today, not as nice as yesterday, but still in the double digits. We must remain optimistic and I have the windows open and the heater turned off after all. Oh, I just looked at the 10 day forecast and it doesn't look very good at all. I will be closing the windows again and turning on the heater. Darn, that's a shame. March is not very willing. We'll have to wait until April for the good weather.

I'm going to take Tyke for a walk. He doesn't know that yet and is sound asleep here by my feet. He's already had his breakfast and is now digesting it.

Have a great day!

Ciao,
Nora