I'll not give it a thought...

The other day, when the Exfactor did the groceries for me, I forgot to have him buy the ground coffee and now I am almost out of it. Luckily, I still had some of the good brand of instant coffee left and I have been drinking that. It hasn't been as awful as you think. I make sure I get the water really hot before I spoon more than enough instant coffee in it and then add a generous amount of milk. 

This way I have an almost perfect cup of coffee and it doesn't taste bad at all. I don't make funny faces when I take the first sip and it doesn't make me shudder when I swallow it. I can actually say that I look forward to drinking it and that I sometimes even have a second cup, although the first cup usually suffices. I certainly make it strong enough and it carries a punch. 

I just had a cup and now I'm bright eyed and bushy tailed. I had to have some coffee because I was somewhat discombobulated by the unofficial nap that I took on top of the duvet but under the red fleece blanket in the company of the dog. Since it is a cold day, I had also turned on the heater so the apartment was nice and warm and consequently my nap lasted longer than I had intended. 

For a change, I'm very comfortable and not at all chilled. Even my hands are warm which doesn't happen very often. I think it must be because of my low blood pressure that they are always so cold, just like the tip of my nose. It usually feels like an ice cube but that is not a problem right now. 

I'm waiting for a package to arrive. In it will be my new and, hopefully, comfortable walking shoes. I hope they are everything I expect them to be because my feet really need them. I haven't had a pair of sensible shoes since I left the States and have always walked on shoes or boots that were meant to be pretty but not necessarily good to walk in. 

Now that I'm getting older, I'm becoming less vain and more concerned about my feet. And I do want to walk longer distances with the dog without getting sore feet and a backache. That much became clear to me when I had to take him to the trim salon. I can walk that distance but I do need good footwear. 

I'm completely trying to ignore my depression. I'm pretending that I don't have it and that everything is great. I think that's the best way to deal with it. That's one subject matter less to talk about. 

I hope you're all having a good day. 

Ciao,
Irene

Being awake is another option...

Optimistically speaking, it's very early in the morning, although it will be some time yet until it's dawn. I won't let that bother me and pretend the day is starting anyway. If I were a dairy farmer, I'd almost be getting ready to milk my cows, especially if I had a large herd.

I'm very cozily sitting here in my bathrobe with my cup of coffee. I slept well and was lovingly woken up by the dog who had to go out back. He's sound asleep now on the sofa. I feel that not much can go wrong right now and all is well with the world. I'm going to enjoy these first hours of the day as much as I can. 

When I was rearranging the bookcase the other day, I found '101 Crossword Puzzles for Dummies.' I don't remember exactly who bought me this, but I suspect it was my first ex-husband who knows I am crossword puzzle mad. I had forgotten that it was there and now I have been sitting down doing the puzzles.

I'm happy to say that I can solve most of them with only a minimum amount of cheating. I spent two hours on them yesterday afternoon until I was sick and tired of them. Still, I conveniently laid the book on my desk because I know I will want to do more of them today. 

I also have the Collected New York Times and Los Angeles Times Sunday Crosswords. It will be a while before I try those because they are a bit harder to do. I used to solve them when I still lived in the States, but I'm not as savvy now. You have to be more than a dummy to do those and be steeped in the culture. They are not for sissies. 

So, the interesting things you find when you rearrange your bookcase. There were books there that I hardly ever pay attention to and that are worth my time  looking at. Some have beautiful photographs in them and I haven't looked at them for ages. They are so neglected. If I don't look at them, who will?

I haven't got anything special planned for today. I'm hoping to get that phone call from the optician to say that my glasses will be ready to be picked up, but frankly, I've given up hope. I won't expect it and then I won't be disappointed. I already called them on Tuesday and they said it could be any day. Blagh!

I will take my medicines now and make a pot of green tea with lemon. Then I will sit in my arm chair and do some crossword puzzles until dawn. That ought to keep me out of trouble.

I hope you'll all have a lovely 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

The early morning...

I woke up to the same scene this morning as I did yesterday. The dog and Gandhi on the pillow and Toby next to me on the bed, very cozily, and I hate to upset the idyllic little scene, because everybody thinks they need to get up when I do. The cats think I will do interesting things in the kitchen, which I do, because if their milk dish is empty, or if the milk has gone sour, they get new milk straight from the refrigerator and they love that. The dog wants a treat, but he only gets one if he has gone out back for a piddle, so he does a small one to satisfy me and then gets his treat and goes back to sleep. I should know by now that this is our routine, but every morning the animals need to remind me that this is what we do. Well, I can't be expected to perform flawlessly first thing in the morning. I need to have some coffee first.

Yesterday afternoon, at around 3 o'clock, the same feelings of loathing and despair started sneaking up on me as they had the day before. I tried to outwit them for a while, but realized that I needed to go to sleep. I laid down on the sofa in a meditative position and closed my eyes and tuned out everything around me and inside of me and very soon afterwards, I fell asleep and slept for nearly two hours. I felt much better when I woke up, but I felt that I could have slept more, and later in the evening fell asleep watching TV. When I woke up, I took my medication and went straight to bed and slept until 4 o'clock this morning.

I think I need to remember that it is this time of year again, when I always have a harder time and I'm a little bit crazier than I am the rest of the time. It's when the leaves start changing color and start falling from the trees when I do, the same as I do when in the springtime the leaves start coming on the trees. Those are my crazy periods and my father had them too. It is more noticeable now that I live in a country with four seasons, where before in California I don't remember being so aware of that. I think my crazy periods were more haphazard, though they may have been seasonably bound, but I don't remember, because, like everything in my past, it is all very fuzzy and hard to recall.

I do know, for instance, that traveling to the United States makes me depressed and traveling back to Europe makes me hypo manic. That has something to do with the time difference, so I don't like traveling to the States, because I arrive there feeling very down and unable to get over it for the relatively short time that I'm there. When I get back to Europe, I'm full of energy and I have no jet lag and can adjust to the local time with no effort at all. I hate to disappoint my daughter by not going there, but that is the real reason. I'm not much fun when I'm depressed and I feel like a ball and chain around her leg, unable to cheer myself up, try as I might.

That's just a bit of information I thought I'd throw in gratuitously. The rhythm of the days and nights, and the hours of daylight, make such a difference in your mood. If you are susceptible to that. I being a Northern European am. By all rights I should be going into hibernation now, or moving to a sunny southern country. Many Northern Europeans move to Spain in the wintertime, especially people who live in Scandinavia where it really gets dark in winter.

Shortly we're going to have daylight saving time and that is really going to throw me for a loop. It will get so dark so early in the afternoon and I will always get up much too early in the morning. It will take a while before I get used to that. I wish we'd do away with it altogether, but I am just a lonely voice who can't make a difference. If there were a petition, I would sign it, but would it stand a chance?

Well. that's all very well, but now I have to get dressed and get the show on the road. I have creative therapy this morning and I'm going to be working on my third painting. The second one is done and I need to get the first two home with the help of my sister and her car. I can't transport them by bike. The wind will catch them and blow them to smithereens, that is if I were to take them one at the time.

Have a good morning. No doubt you will see me here again later today. I have an award to give away.

Ciao,
Nora.

For lack of...

Since it is early in the morning, and I have caught up on reading all the blogs I follow, I think it is a perfect time to write a post as I sit here with my third cup of coffee (decaf) and one of my numerous cigarettes. I think early mornings are one of my favorite times of the day, because nowhere around me the day has started yet and all is quiet and peaceful. Even the paperboy hasn't been by yet on his noisy scooter.

The reason I wake up so early, is that I actually fall asleep quite early in the evening on the sofa while watching the news and when I wake up, it is several hours later and then I drag myself to the bedroom to sleep in oblivion some more. It is very pleasant not to completely wake up in between, but sort of walk around the apartment in a half awake state and shut off the lights and turn down the heater and make it to bed where I almost immediately fall asleep again.

I take naps during the day too. I do so when I feel my mood plummet and experience tells me that the best cure for this is to go lie down and sleep for a while, because I always wake up refreshed and in a much better frame of mind. This is what happened yesterday afternoon, when I badly needed to sleep, but had to go to my gastric band appointment. I decided to reschedule the appointment and to sleep instead for the sake of my mental health.

It does mean that my schedule is kind of screwy right now, but it can't be helped and I remember going through a period like this last year and I blame it on the time of year, when I really have hibernation tendencies. Maybe I should be like a bear in his cave and burrow in and not come out until the early springtime. Except that I would miss the food, which I seem to need copious amounts of right now, but that also belongs to the time of year. Comfort foods that make me feel good. No, no sweets and cookies, just plain food.

I am still not cleaning the apartment the way I should, but today at ergo therapy, I'm picking up the daily schedule that I made on an hourly basis and that will help me get things done in some sort of fashion. I think that is exactly what I need to get the show on the road again, because it will give me some guidance instead of this aimless puttering around that I do now. Aimless puttering around is very nonproductive and you achieve very little by it. It keeps you a little occupied, but it shows no results and you may as well do nothing at all.

My appointment with my SPN went well. We talked about the coming holidays and how to best survive those and my plan to just treat them like any old day and to not get sentimental about them. She was also pleasantly surprised that I had not had any problems switching from the one antipsychotic medication to the other, because it seems that people do. I had a smooth transition and suffered no ill effects.

The Zyprexa is working well and sometimes I try to purposely form those compulsive thoughts in my head again, but nothing happens, so I know I am cured of them. It's pretty quiet in my head and all the demons have been put to rest. I think I may be the least bit melancholy, but again, I blame that on the time of year, when I have a tendency to not always be at my upper most best.

Even though I needed the sleep, I do miss going to creative therapy, but I am going to have a chance to work on my collage tomorrow when I go to the extra creative therapy class. Today I have ergo therapy, also called bother therapy, and I am curious if the obnoxious person will show up with her negative attitude. I think the therapist is beyond kind and patient with her and treats her very well, something I would not be capable of, but that is why I am not the therapist.

This afternoon I get to pick up my new glasses and I can't wait to put them on and see what the world looks like. I am very excited about that and I am glad that I've overcome my vanity and am willing to wear them now. I have been paying special attention now to people who wear glasses and see that they are used as a fashion accessory and make a statement about the person who is wearing them. You can be as fashionable as you want to be, although my glasses are more understated and not so very obvious. I am hoping to be thrilled to bits.

Last night I dreamed that I was moving back to the States. It was a quite complicated dream with all sorts of side events in it that I can't make heads or tails of. I had to leave a lot of my clothes behind, because there were too many to fit into two suitcases. I had to leave the country, because I had realized that I loved the Exfactor very much and that this was interfering with me building up a life of my own.

The Exfactor was very upset and tried to dissuade me from leaving, but I was adamant that I should, but I did it with pain in my heart. In my dream I realized how much he was the better half of me and how we had been split apart and how that would hurt me for the rest of my life. I had to leave in order to grow whole again.

In my dream I was under the impression that a better life awaited me in the States, but the details of it never became clear to me. I did get the feeling, that if I went there, I would grow in leaps and bounds emotionally as a woman and that I would be light years ahead of who I am now.

In reality, I know I will never go back the States, because I know I have no sort of future there as a psychiatric patient. I wouldn't even be able to get health insurance that I could afford or a job to pay for it. So, I must interpret the dream symbolically. If any of you out there have any ideas about this, please let me know. It may be that I have to regain some of my self assured and cocky American identity, instead of the meeker Dutch one that I have now.

Well, that's all the sharing with you I have to do at this moment. I hope you have terrific day.

Ciao...