On top of the world...

I'm having a very sleepy day. Each time I get up and think I'm done sleeping, it turns out I'm wrong and I have to go back to the sofa and sleep a few more hours and that is how I've been passing the time today. No cup of coffee has helped me get over it yet and I don't want to drink too much coffee, so I've switched to drinking cold milk. Tyke has been very accommodating and only wrecked the plant on the coffee table while I was asleep. That's the most damage he's done in all those hours and I couldn't even get mad about it. It wasn't his fault that he was left unsupervised and bored to tears.

I'm trying to pull myself together now, but I'm still sitting here in my pajamas and bathrobe and I don't know when I'll get dressed or if I'll get dressed. If I hadn't just been sick, I'd say I was getting sick, but I know I'm not. It's purely psychological, this tiredness. Maybe it is in reaction to the excitement I've been feeling at the prospect of me quitting my medication and that playing such a large role in my life these past few days. The thought has consumed me.

I'm also looking a lot at my feelings and emotions and behavior and deciding what is within the range of 'normal' and what could be labeled as pathological, or what could actually be a side effect of all the drugs I take. I've decided that a lot of it is 'normal' and that I'm not as far off course as I think I am. Certain feelings disappear quickly if I don't put a label on them. Like snow for the sun. It's the labeling that makes them important and pathological. It makes me look crazier than I am. It's something that I can change right now this minute.

The drugs I take have so many side effects that it's not even funny. If you read about the side effects, you would think long and hard before taking them, and taking them in combination with each other too. It's really no wonder that I have such altering moods during the day and that I have anxiety attacks and that I'm so tired so often and that I basically lack a personality.

Well, that's enough about that for now. It does rile me up.

The sun has been shining all day as far as I know. There's a bright blue sky and it's 5C. It's warm inside the living room because the sun shines right into the windows, which is nice in the wintertime, but not so nice in the summertime when it's hot. Oh look, I'm complaining about the summertime and it's not even spring yet.

I'm going to get dressed and walk the dog. The poor animal does have to go out once in a while.

Have a happy day.

Ciao,
Nora

I din't get it quite right...

Well, I slept on the sofa with two cats on top of me the whole time. The good news is that I didn't have any night sweats, the bad news is that I didn't sleep long enough. I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning and got up and made myself a cup of coffee and wild horses couldn't have dragged me back to sleep. I would have gone kicking and screaming. I was bound an determined to be awake and alert and functioning. Where there's a will, there's a way. It only took one cup of coffee and two cigarettes to be completely there. I was answering emails before my brain was at the right speed. It was in first gear and I took off, switching gears as I got up to speed. I have just taken my medicines and in a while that antipsychotic medication will make me sleepy again and then I will go back to the sofa. I'm assuming that that's what the problem is, anyway.

I'm not going to be concerned about being sleepy during the day anymore, because I just am and there's not much I can do about it. I don't know if it's a side effect of the medicines or if it's because it's wintertime, but I seem to want to sleep through the most important parts of the day and night. I am alert in the evenings and very early in the mornings. That's just the way it is. I'll have to see what happens to me in the springtime. Maybe things will get more balanced then.

I've been having sleeping problems on and off for 16 years. More on than off. I got them when I came to the Netherlands and have never gotten over them. That's because I've never felt safe anymore. I've always felt that I need to be hyper vigilant and alert, especially now that I live on my own, but I was this way before too, when I was still married. Before I had my computer I watched MTV with headphones on and waited for it to be morning so I could make noise. The computer was a real lifesaver. It made the hours go by quickly and kept me entertained. I don't know what I would do without it. Go back to watching MTV I suppose, although it's not what it was. I like the fact that I can do what I want now and make noise or not and turn on lights and talk to myself and the dog and listen to music. The last time I slept really well was when I was in the States. I kept very normal hours then and slept like a baby. That's 5 years ago. Just imagine that all this time I haven't felt safe. There's something deeply psychological going on.

My father murdered my mother at 4:30 in the morning while she was asleep. I very often wonder if that has something to do with it. It's something I can think about on two levels. One way is on a very rational, non-emotional level where I just keep myself to the facts, but there's another level that lies much deeper and where I shudder at the horror of it all and want to scream and cry and turn away my head and not look at it. It's too horrible to remember. I wonder how I walk around with that, subconsciously, to this day. I think you never get over something like that, really.

Okay, I'm going to eat and go lie down on the sofa again, or maybe on the bed, I'll see. No, not on the bed after what I just told you.

Have a good morning.

Ciao,
Nora