Rest...

I want to stop being in this drama now. I realize I created it myself, but I did not do it on purpose; it was not my choice. I want it to end and for things to get back to normal, as far as that is possible in my life. I'm aware of the fact that I will never know a "normal" life by regular standards, but I can act as close to it as possible. Or at least try to. I have to give myself a chance to get back on the rails and that includes not rehashing everything every time I turn around. I am wounded, but I'm still alive and I need the opportunity to carry on with things. So, I'm going to ignore emails now that deal with this past weekend and not answer them anymore, because it's just like raking up the coals and starting the fire all over again and very exhausting.

I also want to point out that I have two diagnoses: manic depression and borderline personality disorder, and sometimes it's hard to tell where one ends and the other one begins. Sometimes I don't know if I'm undergoing the rapid cycling of the manic depression or the quick mood changes that belong to the borderline personality disorder. The latter has a lot of drama in her and an overdose of emotions that comes pouring out of her as if her whole house is being flooded. That person is very unstable and things are not good when she has the upper hand. I think she had the upper hand this weekend. That's also the person who self damages as I did this weekend. I cut my wrists, but the knife was dull and I did limited damage.

I talked to my psychiatrist yesterday over the phone. He had gotten the report of the crisis hot line and knew what had happened, but had me tell it in my own words anyway. He agreed on the increase in medication, but said it would take a few days before I would really notice a difference. That's what I thought too. It wouldn't be so that I would take one pill extra and that would be it. He made an appointment to see me next week Monday and I thought that was an awfully long time from now, but I guess it can't be helped. I'm seeing my SPN the day after, because she will be back from her holiday by then.

This is the only time I'm going to talk about the weekend anymore and the aftermath. I went to my GP in the afternoon to have my wrists looked at and they were disinfected and had some strips put on them and they were re-bandaged. They have to stay that way for a week. They are sore.

It's early in the morning and I'm drinking my second cup of coffee. I've had one glass of juice, because despite the fact that I think it makes me sad, I want to get my vitamins in. It's the fresh multivitamin fruit juice that I like so much. The coffee tastes awfully strong this morning. It packs a real punch. I think that's one of the reasons I'm only going to have two cups.

I'm sitting here yawning and I'm really ready to go back to sleep. I will in awhile, after I've taken my medicines. I'm reading a good book called The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. I've only just started it and I'm already hooked. She has such an engaging way of writing. That's what I'll read this morning before I fall asleep again.

Right, off I go. Have a good morning when you get up.

Ciao,

Nora

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At times...

At times you have nothing to say at all, or rather, nothing you can say, but you feel that you need to reach out and communicate anyway through putting down words, any words, insignificant words even, as long as you reach out and say something to somebody who is reading you. Tonight is one of those night when I could tell you many things, but am unable to for various reasons, and yet I so very much need to feel that I am in touch with all of you who read me and that this somehow is going to help me feel better and like not such a lonely, sore person.

I feel very alone tonight and am in desperate need of company, yet there is no company to be found anywhere beside the dog and the cats. My sister is in Tokyo and the Exfactor is at home a half an hour away from here. I have to get through this night on my own and I´m not doing that so gracefully up to now. I´m afraid I´ve cut myself in my arm in an effort to get rid of the bad feelings I was having and was unable to get rid off. I have carefully cleaned the wound and taped it closed and put an bandage around it and for now that will do. I hope that will do.

I don´t write that down to shock you or to get you to feel sorry for me, but to give you an idea of my state of mind, which is not good, of course. I´m in an awful place and you don´t want to follow me there. I promise not to lure you there, but to try and come out of it. To talk myself out of it. To help get me in a better mood I have turned on some music and I´m listening to Bjork now. There is drum music in it and its rhythm is like the rhythm of a fluttering heart beat and very strong. I have the base turned up high so it sounds extra nice.

I have let down my guard this weekend, which is something I should never do and had not planned on doing. It happened quite unexpectedly and by accident. Once I had let it down, I kept it down, despite a little nagging voice in the back of my head that was warning me of the potential danger. That voice became louder today and I listened to it and came to a conclusion and acted on it and made a decision. I am dealing with the fall out of it now and I hope I will be okay again tomorrow morning after I have seen my SPN at 9 am. God forbid that I should sleep late and not make it to that appointment.

I didn´t sleep well last night and as a result slept until noon this afternoon. I tried to get up a few times before that, but I was unsuccessful. Every time I got up, I was still stuck in quicksand until the final time when I felt good and able to face the world. I got deeply wounded between then and now. I will not allow myself to be hurt. I can not afford it. I will not fall into the trap again. I have built up my life so carefully to be self sufficient and autonomous and free of entanglements and I almost threw it away.

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I've slept on the sofa for a few hours and feel less melodramatic now, although equally sore. I mean sore on the inside. I accidentally closed this without saving it and I thought that if it was still here, I would continue writing it. If not, I wouldn't bother with the whole thing and as you can see, it was still here. That's fate for you. Fate determines whether or not you get to read this. I'm s great believer in fate and how it determines the course of your life. That doesn't mean I take it lying down, because I do protest, but in the end there is a reason for everything, I suppose, a cause for why things happen and a lesson to be learned from them, no matter how obscure it may look at first.

So I must draw my lessons out of this current episode. After I have gone through all the pain of it. Buddhism is a handy religion and I let it be my guide. There is no punishing God and revengeful Father. There is only the desire for insight and understanding and the search for peace and tranquility. Those are the states of mind I wish to find. It's too bad I need to go through the motions of the old religion first to get to the newer one. Everything in life is a journey through your old habits in a reaction to what happens to you, and you need to make the journey quicker and in a straighter line every time something happens, until you skip certain things altogether and not bother with them anymore.

And now I need to go to bed, because I'm awfully tired. My thoughts are becoming sluggish and my mind is slowing down. It will be good to lie down and go to sleep, I'm ready for it.

Have a good night.

Ciao,
Nora

Today...

I saw my psychiatrist this afternoon. Every time I see him, he teaches me something about myself in a parable. He tells it in such a way, that it is completely understandable to me and that makes it really sink in and leaves me wiser when I walk out the door. He is like a wise guru and I am his student and every time I see him, I have to learn a lesson.

It was very fortunate that I had an appointment with him today, because today of all days I needed it very much. I started off my day with a huge panic attack that would not end and I thought it was going to drive me around the bend and I feared for my sanity.

The reason for my panic attack was that I had received two big bills from two different companies that I was in dispute over and I had to make some phone calls about them and I knew I was not going to be treated nicely and that I was not going to have the winning hand, and the more I thought about it, the more precarious my situation seemed to me.

I tried to call my SPN, but could not get a hold of her, and as a matter of fact, she did not call me back until just now, when the whole thing is behind me. I took an extra tranquilizer on top of the ones I normally take, but nothing seemed to be able to calm me down, until I finally sought my refuge in self damage and that worked, and after I had taken care of the wound and dressed it, I was able to make the phone calls with no good results for me. All I got was a stay of execution to try and get the money together.

They are playing an unfair game and I am the victim of it, but they've got me by the balls and are threatening with fines and collection agencies, and I can't prove my right, no matter what I say.

Anyway. What I had was a nervous breakdown and at one point I was crying and the dog was so confused and didn't know what to do. It was all just awful, but now it is all behind me and I have done what I could and I got to discuss my reaction and my behavior with my psychiatrist.

I don't know where I was on the crazy scale. I think way off the top, probably.

I'm not happy discussing this with you, but I feel it must be said. The fact is, I'm just an unhappy camper right now and I guess that's not so strange after today. I have to live with the results of it.

It is so hot in here and I finally got smart enough to open both the kitchen window and the back door and now I've got a decent draft going that's very refreshing. I've got the blinds closed of the living room windows, so the sun won't shine in them so much. It does make me feel cooped up, but it's worth it.

Jesker is eating his evening meal after barking very loudly to let us all know that it was time for it and nobody better touch it. Now he is doing his after dinner exercises, which means rolling on the ground and rubbing his nose on the area carpet. Gandhi is very disappointed, because there were no leftovers. She is laying on the ground like the Queen of Sheba, being very regal and aloof and oh, so untouchable. She knows she's very pretty. Toby is outside in the flowerbed under the winter blooming jasmine. He's decided that's his place to observe things and be king of the mountain off.

I'm the Queen of the dramas and the ever changing moods. Don't throw anything complicated my way, please. I'll make a bet with you that I can't handle it gracefully, though I am supposed to learn. See what a difference there is between me yesterday and today. Tomorrow morning I'm seeing my SPN and I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about. The bandage is very hot around my arm and the wound hurts, I think I'll take some paracetamol.

That's all I have to share with you today. A lot of confusion. It's tough being a grown up. I think sometimes I'm not quite ready for it.

Ciao...

Knowledge.

Since this morning I know why I suddenly went into a downward spiral and why I ended up cutting myself. It was because of me buying that new second hand bicycle.

When I first saw the bicycle I liked it right away, but I thought it was too expensive, even though it was the cheapest one there, and I left the store pretty much determined not to buy it. When I got home, doubt started to settle in and I thought that maybe I should buy that bike and that if I waited too long with making a decision, it would be gone and I wouldn't be able to afford any of the other ones.

So I called Eduard to ask him for advice and he said he would come the next day and have a look at it for me, but I said no, that if I was going to buy it, I was going to do it immediately.

With a great deal of trepidation, I transferred the money into my bank account and convinced myself that it was okay for me to buy that bike for myself. I felt very unsure about it and had to call on every bit of nerve that I had to get on the bus to the station and walk into the store to buy the bike. I didn't think I deserved anything as nice as that bike.

After I rode it home and parked it in the hallway, my nerves were highly strung and I felt very nervous and uneasy about having bought the bike and I could hardly look at it without feeling all sorts of guilt and other bad feelings. I thought, "Now you've done it, you fool."

It took me the rest of the evening to settle down and the next day I tried to push all the unpleasant feelings associated with the bike away and to only pretend that I was very happy with it. I pushed very hard against those feelings, but they kept nagging at me in the back of my mind subconsciously, making me feel uncomfortable and unsettled and uneasy until I ended up in a downward spiral, but when that happened, I didn't associate it with having bought the bike, because I had pushed away the unpleasant feelings and didn't make the connection.

My discomfort grew and grew and took on enormous proportions, until I cut myself. That brought me hours of relief and an opportunity to talk to my psychiatrist and have my medication changed. Finally, this morning, I was so calm that I could retrace the past week in my mind and make the connection and I had a real "Eureka" moment and suddenly felt a lot lighter about everything.

Since then I've had a conversation with my psychiatrist on the phone about this and he understood the situation immediately and said that it is not an isolated incident, but that it is probably something that happens often to me and that it is connected to my childhood and that the link can be laid there. He said I had given him very valuable information and that he was glad I called and that we would work on this in the future. In the meantime, I am to be aware of these feelings when they happen again and rather than push them away, I am supposed to feel them very consciously and acknowledge them and let them happen no matter how uncomfortable they are.

I hope this clarifies it to you as much as it has to me. Once I knew what had happened, I felt so much better. Suddenly there was no mystery anymore.

Ciao...

This is what you do...

After I finished writing my last post I made the decision to harm myself. It was, what I thought, a very well thought out decision to get rid of the tension and anxiety in my mind, because it is my experience that self harming always does this. The act of self harming creates so much anxiety of its own, that it overrules the other anxiety that you feel and once you've self harmed, you feel such a release of stress and tension, that you actually feel a lot better.

I took care of the wound myself, having much experience in this now, and dressed it and put a bandage around my arm. Of course, it's like a white flag and everyone will see that I've done it again and that is not my purpose, that is just a not so pleasant side effect. It's better in the winter when I can wear long sleeves.

After all that, I did feel a lot of relief and for a while I felt better and I stayed up most of the night, being unable to go to sleep, and being unwilling too and I didn't go to bed until early in the morning where I crashed with my clothes on and I don't even remember falling asleep.

I woke up at 10:30 am from the phone ringing. It was my older sister who wondered why I was still in bed, so I told her I wasn't feeling good and that I did not have a reason why. We talked for a short time and then hung up and I laid on the sofa, petting the dog and trying to come up with a plan.

Then my younger sister called me and said that she had heard that I was not feeling well and that she was available for help. I told her that I needed a plan and that I didn't have one and together we decided that the best person to call would be my psychiatrist, because he knows the most about my medication.

And so I did. I left a message with the secretary and he called three minutes later. Unheard off! I explained the situation to him as well as I could and we brainstormed together about what would be best to do. After going over all the possibilities, we decided to temporarily increase the antipsychotic medication and if I really feel the need, I can take some more tranquillizers, but he hopes I won't. That's his least favorite option.

He also gave me some practical instructions on how to get through this period and that was helpful and made me feel better. It's nice to know that someone takes the time to care and gives you good advice. He emphasized that it was good that I called and that I could call anytime I felt the need or could in any way shed light on the situation.

Because I still felt the need to harm myself, I had called Eduard to come and take away the sharp objects. He got here at one pm and gathered them in a baggy and put them in his motorcycle jacket pocket. Now the temptation is gone and I won't be thinking about it anymore. I'm not crazy enough to go to the store and buy a new supply.

I took an antipsychotic tablet right after I talked to my psychiatrist and they usually work pretty quickly, but what I feel mostly now is the sedating effect of it, so I am pretty calm. That is a nice side effect.

Eduard is so sober minded about the whole thing. He listens, he looks and he says, "Well, in a couple of days you'll be as good as new." That's as excited as he gets about it and he is right, because he lived with me for a long time. He has seen many battle wounds and he knows I land on my feet again.

While he was here, he raised the seat of my bike and tilted it backward a bit, so I will be more comfortable riding it. He also reattached my headlight, which I didn't realize was undone. It was hanging by its wires. Silly me for not noticing that.

That's my story for right now, my confession. I was in doubt as to if I should tell you, but I can't leave out something that important.

Ciao...

Whatcha talking about?

Here I am sitting amongst the debris of my life and I can only surmise that I am on a downward slope, because I am not getting my act together and little by little things here are getting out of hand, even though I make token gestures such as organize stacks of dishes and empty ashtrays and get rid of empty juice and milk containers.

It makes just a little dent in the real work that needs to be done and that I find impossible to face and that I can't get started on without having an enormously big cloud of doom and gloom hang over my head that defeats me before I've even begun. It's a sorry state of affairs and this afternoon, after I did the groceries and ate lunch, I laid down on the sofa and slept, as it was the best thing I could think of.

I've been trying to get out of the job for several days now and every day I find an excuse why I can't clean house. Today I've run out of excuses and must find the real culprit and the real culprit is my enormous lack of enthusiasm in life. Frankly, I don't give a hell of a lot right now about anything to the point that I want to do something about it, although I am acutely aware of this lack in me and I just wish it were different, but it isn't, and I can only hope that one of these days soon, I wake up with the right amount of enthusiasm again and straighten this place up as it's supposed to be.

I was afraid of this happening, but I was not expecting it and thought I was going along steadily at a nice pace, but isn't that always when you stumble and fall and find yourself flat on your face? Having moods is a terrible bothersome thing in that it effects your functioning so much and you want to plan your life, but almost feel that you can't, because of the unexpectedness of your disposition. I completely feel like not leaving my apartment now, although I know I will, because I have obligations.

I only want to perform kind deeds for myself and do nothing that will upset me further and avoid anything unpleasant. Going to the store this morning I didn't experience as something unpleasant, though it was a chore that had to be done, but I got to buy nice foods that were no longer in the refrigerator and cupboards and in a way that was the reward for the effort.

In the meantime I'm avoiding some phone calls I have to make and I'm not going to make them until I feel better.

The good part is, that on this downward slope, I'm not condemning everything about myself to hell like I used to in the past. At least I don't do that anymore. I can sit here and say I'm not happy and I have a hard time doing things, but I don't hate myself. My whole personality doesn't disintegrate, although I do feel a strong desire to hurt myself and I don't know where that is coming from. I will try to ignore that wish.

The most important thing is to accept the mood as it comes and to not make a huge big deal out of it, but to lean into it a little bit and let it be. For all I know it's going to be over in the morning and I will be fine again and my enthusiasm will be back.

I have to go now and see a man about a horse.

Have a good evening.

Ciao...

Stubbornly!

There is someone very stubborn in my head who keeps me from laying down and taking naps when I need them most. When I am so depressed that I think the sky is falling down on my head and I can hardly drag myself off the chair to walk the dog or find the enthusiasm to make myself a mug of coffee. When I am so down that I think there is no purpose to get up off that chair at all and to just sit there mindlessly forever staring into the middle distance with nothing but feelings of dread in my head. Somebody in my head prevents me from having the good thought to go lie down and go to sleep. It is like that knowledge is hidden away in a dark area of the attic of my mind then and I can not see it, but only accidentally stumble upon it when I finally make it to the sofa to watch the news and subsequently fall asleep and feel 100% better when I wake up.

It's such a simple solution to a big problem, but I am reinventing the wheel every day and relearning this lesson every day, and that is that I must sleep when I am down and out and I feel at the end of my rope. When I have no coping skills left, I must sleep. When my thoughts turn morbid, I must sleep. After I have slept, there has been a shift to the positive side of things and suddenly the glass is half full again and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like walking the dog and I feel like doing a load of laundry and I feel like blogging and generally just being a good egg.

You would not believe how hard it is to live with a mood disorder that takes place several times a day, because you forget who you were in each different mood. When you are down, that's all you know and you don't remember feeling anything else. When you are up, you trivialize your down mood and don't take it seriously anymore, even though it may have cost you your life. They are so extreme in nature.

I was so down today, that I was glad that Eduard had taken away every hobby knife that's in the apartment and that it would be useless for me to go looking for one. That was a relief. It took the decision out of my hands, otherwise there would have been the temptation.

I have a book called, "Self Damage Made Understandable," and I am in it quite extensively, because I was one of the people who was a subject for the book. It's my dubious moment of fame. I am also in another book, but because this coincided with my son's death, I can't find my copy of it now and I can't even remember the title. I'll have to track it down somehow.

I have noticed very often, that my long term memory is very bad and that there are events that I have partially or completely forgotten, or don't remember the outcome off. They are just little snips of film in my memory with no beginning and no end. A lot of things are permanently lost. It's a little bit like being demented for certain periods of my life. Or having amnesia for portions of it.

I changed my clothes again half way through the day and went from demure to a little bit hippy style, I got these baggy trousers that have a built in skirt that I can wear my tunics over and wear leggings underneath for warmth. I wear a long sleeved tight T-shirt under the tunic for warmth and as a color accessory and a necklace, of course. I always wear the same earrings and those are the little titanium studs that my daughter got me so I will not have an allergic reaction.

Eduard and his brother were here this afternoon. It was a short visit, because for some reason his brother didn't have the patience to sit down properly and have a cup of coffee. Eduard had to download something from a website to a memory stick to fix his notebook and when he was done with that, his brother was ready to leave. I thought it was all kind of odd. I had expected a proper visit and one or two cups of coffee and some small talk, but there was none of that. Maybe his brother was uncomfortable with the situation, although neither I nor Eduard were. I sure didn't appreciate it and I must talk to Eduard about it and find out what was going on.

I saw my SPN this morning, but I'm afraid I was not in the proper mood to have a very productive discussion with her. The words wouldn't come, not did the thoughts and we only had half an hour. I always feel rushed when we have such a short amount of time and don't think I can start on anything important.

It's been a pleasure talking at you, but I must go. Read some more blogs and get ready to go to sleep. I bid thee adieu.

Caio...