Tell me why...

My blog template showed up incomplete all day. All I saw was a green screen with text and photos, in other words, things I had posted and filled in. So, I went ahead and installed a different template, but I have the same problem with it, so I have no idea what's going on. I'm assuming the problem will correct itself, since it is happening with both and I'm stubborn enough to believe it. If not, I will turn into a toad again and when I'm kissed, I will not turn into a beautiful princess, but an old hag. How many people go around kissing toads anyway? I've never done it.

The Exfactor did a good deed today. He took the train and specifically came to visit me so I would have someone to talk to. He knew I was having a hard time and he brought a lighter too, so I wouldn't have to go back to the store to buy one. I told him everything that was on my mind and he could only agree with me and saw the logic in what I was saying. I don't have emotions, I have symptoms and for all these symptoms there are labels, and for every label there is a pill. Every time I have an emotion, there is a pill or an increase in a pill to kill the emotion. I'm not supposed to feel anything. Every deviation is dangerous.

Well, the domestic help was here this afternoon. It was the same girl who was here last week and I hope she becomes my regular help. I may have to call about that and see if I can arrange that. She wasn't upset that I hadn't done anything, but she did tell me to ask for more time for her to do her work in. So three hours instead of two. There's lots of cleaning left to do in this apartment. Things have been neglected for a long time. At first glance it looks okay, but when you look closer it's not and those girls know how to look. They see dirt that I don't. It's getting harder not to be embarrassed.

Tyke is so fond of the domestic help. He wants all her cleaning supplies, but he listens well when I tell him that no, he is not allowed to steal things. When it was time for her to vacuum, I took him for a walk so he wouldn't bark the whole time and drive the neighbors crazy. That was a good solution. Too bad I can't do that when I'm supposed to vacuum.

Now for me the best time of the day starts, after I have taken my 6 pm medicines. I don´t know why that is, but soon afterwards, I always feel the best of any time of the day. I take my medicines, walk the dog, and when I get home, I feel good. It´s not that everything is suddenly okay and that all the problems have been solved, but I feel more courageous and a little more happy and not so drained, while there´s really not much to look forward to but loneliness. I think that is one reason why I write so many posts. I feel that I´m in contact with you all while I´m writing them, as if I´m having a conversation with you and we are connected through the words. When I´m done writing a post, I feel immediate regret and want to start writing another one, so I won´t lose the connection. I will still be part of something bigger than just me and the animals.

On Thursday afternoon, I´m meeting my friend Von at our café on the Our Dear Lady Square downtown. I think it´s been 5 months since we´ve met at the café. I´ll go see if the trees have any buds on them and if the outside of the church has been fully restored. If it is at all possible with my schedule, Thursday afternoons are going to be our regular afternoons.

On Wednesday morning, I have a meeting at the SPC for an intake for the creative classes of which I don´t know when they are going to be yet or when there is a place for me available. I can´t go Monday afternoons or Thursday afternoons, so hopefully there will be something available on other days.

So you see, I have plans and they will be good for me, I have no doubt about it. It will be good to get out of the house and amongst people and have activities and create things. And hang out with Von and drink cappuccinos. I do have to add those to my budget, mustn´t forget that.

Okay, this post is done, because I´ve told you everything that will go in this post. I don´t know if there will be another post. It depends on how the mood strikes me.

Have a good evening!

Ciao,
Nora

Decisions...

My SPN and I have decided that I am not going to start at the SPC until January. At least, I have decided that and she has concurred. She said for me to say that it was my intention to start in January, so I won't feel like I let anybody down if I don't quite make it then. I found out today that I can go there three afternoons a week and that I can start immediately, but the therapist there that I talked to over the phone this morning, after missing my appointment, also said I could start in January if I wanted to. She was not upset about me missing the appointment, by the way, but concerned about me not being able to make it. That's what I'm running into, people who are concerned about me and want to help.

My SPN and I are going to try and get me help in the household. She is going to send away for the papers to apply for the budget now and the whole procedure will take about 8 weeks. I purposely did not clean up the apartment before she came over this afternoon so that she could see what a mess it has been for the last 3 weeks, nor did I have the energy to do it. It totally defeated me.

I was pretty much a mess when she was here this afternoon, after I had already been a mess over the phone with the therapist from the SPC. This afternoon I bawled my eyes out, simply because that's what I needed to do and I felt very much in despair. Now I feel that I need to be over that and that I have to pull myself together and not make such a fuss. I also feel that the sword of Damocles is still hanging over my head, but maybe I can ignore it for a while. I so very much want a feeling of peace and serenity that I am willing to ignore whatever is about to happen in the future, however unpleasant that is.

Look, I realize that I'm depressed now and that it colors my perspective on everything in my life. That's why I want to step out of it for a while and not participate. If I act from this frame of mind nothing much good is going to come out of it. I can put as much as possible on hold and wait until I am in a better frame of mind to deal with it. That takes a lot of the pressure of. I won't feel so terribly stressed that way.

I also want to talk about other things.

The dog is healthy again. I have been feeding him a combination of gourmet dog food and white bread and now his diarrhea is gone. He has finished his antibiotics and should be cured now. The ointments that I apply twice a day have made his eyes a lot better. They no longer have that discharge and they are not as red. I have to keep applying them nonstop. I can't take a break from them and let any time go by without using them, because the problem recurs after a while. He likes the white bread very much and thinks it's a real treat. Since he has a tendency to have loose bowel movements anyway, I'm going to keep giving it to him. It makes the pick up easier.

He's been such a good dog and not at all badly behaved. I find that if he gets enough to eat and gets his regular walks, he is fine, although he does have a tendency to want more of something if he likes it a lot. I just have to ignore him then and I pretend I don't see him looking at me with his big droopy eyes. If I show him my empty hands and tell him it's all gone, he gets the message too, although it's very dubious how much he actually hears and how much body language he interprets. I know he is always watching me to get his clues from me and I don't depend so much on him hearing me as I do on him seeing what I want him to do. I think he knows how to lipread and read facial expressions.

The cats are fine and are always in their vigilant positions in the kitchen hoping something exciting will happen, like maybe I will open up a package of dog food or pour myself some milk or turn on the cold water faucet. Never mind that there is a dish of water standing right there. That is old water and they don't want that. They want new water from the faucet.

I don't know what to blame this depression on, but it could be a number of things. It could be a coincidence of circumstances. A piling up of all the wrong things at the wrong time. I'm usually very good at the ostrich policy. I guess that this time it's not going to work.

Ciao,
Nora

Friday night and I ain't got nobody...

Aren't I happy about that, though.

I woke up about an hour ago from a comatose nap on the sofa. I slept for about 3 hours and I wonder how I am always capable of it. I slept well last night, so I don't really have a shortage of sleep. All I can think is that I must have been emotionally exhausted from this week and that allows me to sleep so much. I feel it coming on in the afternoon, this incredible urge to go lie down on the sofa and to just close my eyes for a while, and I look at the clock to see how much time I have to do it. I always end up sleeping longer than I plan to, though, and because I fall asleep watching the television, I'm wearing my glasses and they make indentations in my face that hurt when I wake up. Luckily, my glasses are made of titanium, so they are not going to break easily, but the way I squash them, they ought to. I wake up and am surprised by the time on the clock and can't believe I slept as long as I did. I mean, really, these aren't naps anymore. These are regular 'sleep through anything and everything major time outs.'

You see how I can't get enough of talking about sleep. That's because it plays such an important role in my life. It all revolves around sleep and how much I get of it. Or how little I get of it sometimes. How much I need to catch up on it at other times. Or the overdose of it I need at times. Sleep is the same to me as the medications I take. It settles something in my brain and I need certain amounts of it at certain periods of my week or month, otherwise I don't function well. When I have a hypomanic day, I need little sleep, but since that is always followed by a depressed period, I need a lot of sleep. Anxiety causes exhaustion, especially after the issue has been resolved.

Anyway, I thought today was the last day of my Monday and Friday creative classes, but I was wrong. Officially I'm not supposed to be there at all anymore, but the therapist is breaking the rules and letting me stay until my classes at the SPC start. I think that's a damn decent thing of her to do and I'm going to take full advantage of it. I have an appointment for an intake on Tuesday at the SPC and then I'll hear about my classes there and when I can start. Our head therapist, whom we all liked so much, has gone to work there and now everybody from all the different classes wants to go to the SPC. There's a regular run on it. The classes there are going to fill up quickly. I hope that what I want is still available. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

The dog is getting better. His appetite is back and he is a little happier. His B.M.'s are also looking better. He really likes the gourmet food I am spoiling him with, but he also likes his white bread sandwiches. I should put the gourmet food on his sandwiches, like Sloppy Joe's. Oh, I haven't had a Sloppy Joe in a long time, that would sure taste good. Or a hot dog, kosher with ketchup and mustard and onions. It would have to be French's mustard, though. No Dijon or anything like that. Or that horrible spicy Dutch mustard I bought the other day. Man, that stuff is so hot it makes your eyes water. It looked just like plain mustard to me, there was no warning on the label. Maybe all Dutch mustard is hot. I don't know. I never bought the stuff, because the Exfactor didn't like condiments. And to think that the first sandwich I fixed him had mayonnaise and mustard on it and he ate it. That's true love for you.

As is usual, it's taking me forever to write this. I'm allowing many interruptions to take place. A whole evening goes by before I've written one post. Sometimes I just sit and don't do anything, but reminisce while I drink my juice and smoke my cigarettes. I've slept right through the news, so I missed that and I will catch the repeats when I go to bed in a while. I don't know what the state of the country is at all, but as far as I know we're not at war, except in Afghanistan where we are involved in a 'peace mission.' Our prime minister didn't get to be president of the European Union, so we're not going to have elections, which is a shame. He said he wasn't really running for the job anyway, but that's just talking after the fact. He would have loved to have the job. We all wished he had gotten it.

I am utterly boring tonight. I don't have anything exciting to tell you. There's been no drama in my life today. It has been an utterly ordinary, run of the mill day. I am tired and I'm going to take my medicines and go to bed. I'm reading 'Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God' by Joe Coomer. I don't know if I like it yet, because it's a male author writing from a female perspective in the first person. I think he is getting his gender characteristics mixed up and he uses a lot of details to describe anything and everything, which I find boring. So, it's probably a book I'm not going to like. But I'm giving it a chance.

Have a good night, sleep tight and then have a good morning.

Ciao,
Nora

Sense and sensibility...

I just made an attempt at mooching two more books over at Bookmooch. I'll find out if I was successful soon. I have my fourth cubicle on the bookcase filled up with mooched books and have to make room for a fifth one. Greediness doesn't come into play at all, of course! No, really! Well, the truth is, that whenever I have any points, I spend them on mooching books as quickly as I can, because my wish list is long. There are many people in the States who have good books, but who only send inside their own country, so I have to take advantage of books that are offered in European countries or other countries closer by. That's not always easy, not if I want to get the books that are on my wish list. I do deviate from it sometimes and try something else, but then I usually just end up enlarging my wish list to include that author as well. That got me to try Margaret Drabble's novels again and David Gutenberg, whom I had never read before. Some novels that I mooch I have read before through books borrowed from the library, but I want to reread them and own my own copy of them, like Beloved from Toni Morrison, a hauntingly beautiful book. I'm also trying to get as many books from Alice Adams as I can, but it is hard. I'm going to have to do another search for more of her books and see if I missed any.

In the meantime, I'm sitting here yawning and that is a good sign for the night to come. It will hopefully mean I'll have another good night's sleep like I had last night. I was so awfully cozy in bed and when I tried to read my book before I went to sleep, none of it made any sense at all, because I was incapable of reading it. I was too sleepy to be able comprehend what I was reading and it is the last story in the collection of stories by Alice Adams and especially poetic as she talks about her childhood home and she describes the garden and all the growing things in it. I remember thinking to myself that she was not making any sense at all and that she must be writing in some very special language and that I obviously needed to pay special attention and that I was not capable of it at all, try as I might. It was like being in the Twilight Zone.

I think my days off are not so very good for me at all. I sit and fret too much and don't actually get anything done, because I'm too busy being anxious about things. It would be different if I were actually productive, but today was another wasted day and I don't have much to show for it. I must make a change in that and get a different start to the day. Start off with more momentum and keep it going somehow. The computer is also taking up too much of my time and I have to do something about that. I allow myself to waste many precious hours behind it and turn it on first thing in the morning, instead of waiting until I have gotten some things done first. I waste the first hours of the day behind it, when I could be more productive doing other things. It's a habit I'm going to have to break. I'm a junkie, that's for sure. I must stop being one. My whole day revolves around the computer and it must stop.

Resolution made.

It's an awful lot of fun to sit here in the evenings, though, and and write my thoughts down. I shouldn't do that in the morning when I don't have the proper time for it, except on the weekends maybe. I do enjoy the serenity of the evenings and the peace and quiet and the idea that nothing else is required of me. That's why I need to fill my days in differently and be more productive, so that the evenings really will be those resting points that they are meant to be. The dog has the right idea. He makes sure he's eaten well and that he's made his pit stops and settles down for the evening, only coming around to be petted every now and then. I guess what a body needs is consistency and structure and I'm not giving myself that. I think that's what's causing the anxiety, I'm not living a structured life. I'm the only one who can change that.

Tomorrow morning I have creative therapy. It will be the last Wednesday class. I will work on my silly pen and ink drawing that I have no idea of what it's supposed to be. Maybe I'll do something completely different as long as I can finish it in one morning. I like working with the pen and ink and would like to invest in them myself and also get the colored inks. They are a lot of fun to work with. I like them better than working with paints. I like how they are just a bit transparent, yet cover the spaces quickly. You can use any size brush and work as small or as large as you want with them. Or just use the pen and draw. I have a lot of ideas of what I could do with colored inks if I had them myself. I'm going to look for them when I go to Action and hopefully they'll have them there and they won't be too expensive. I am participating in a Card Exchange in January and would like to make some of my own cards and the inks would be prefect for that.

After that, I have one more creative class on Friday and that will be it. Then I have some time off until the therapy starts at the SPC. That stands for the Social Psychiatric Center, by the way. It's almost the same in Dutch as it is in English. Het Sociale Psychiatrisch Centrum. I'll miss my creative classes, but I think it will also be good to do something different in a different location with a different therapist. It will give me a whole new point of view and maybe I'll learn new techniques and discover hidden talents. A new environment can be stimulating and release new ideas and give me courage to try new things. I sure hope that I don't start repeating myself and redo all the things I have done so far just to prove that I can do it. I already know what I want to start with there. I have the idea about that fixed in my head and it has to do with aboriginal art. I saw some examples of it there and I want to try it myself.

Alright, it's time for me to go to bed. First I will take my medicines and have something to eat. Then I will get my books and go lay me down to read and, perchance, to sleep. Well, I better. I have to get up early.

I hope you will all have a good night and that your morning will bring you good weather. Unfortunately, it's going to rain here, which is really a bummer. I do so dislike getting wet, but you already knew that.

Ciao,
Nora

Stormy Weather...

We're having a lot of wind with gusts of up to 90 km per hour and big old rain showers that you don't want to be caught out in. Of course, I had to go out in it this afternoon, on my bike. I had an appointment at the SPC, which is a place where you can do all sorts of interesting things if you are a psychiatric patient and you need a place where you can find an outlet for your talents. It's in an old building right on the main square downtown where one of the basilicas is and where there are a lot of cafés. It's about a twenty minute bike ride away from here.

When I went there, I rode my bike into the wind and sometimes had a hard time getting ahead and at other times almost got blown sideways. The storm came from the south west and it was mighty strong. It stayed dry pretty much when I went over there, but on the way home, when I had the wind in my back, it started to rain and I came home drenched. I peeled my clothes off in the bathroom and dried my hair with a towel, resulting in sticking up hair, which is an interesting hairdo too.

The dog hadn't heard me come home and was sound asleep on his pillow next to Gandhi, who was taking up half of it. I was home fifteen minutes before he realized I was here and he very sleepily came to greet me. I couldn't take him out, because of the weather, and he had to go, so I let him out back where he quickly did a little piddle before he very hastily came back in again. He doesn't like rain and will avoid going out in it at all cost. If we are out in the rain, he walks very close to the houses, right beside the walls, so he will not get wet, or so he thinks. I waited for it to really stop raining and then took him out for a quick walk, but it started to rain again before we even got home. Well, it's Autumn, what do you do? You pray to the weather gods!

The SPC is going to be alright for me. I have to have an intake, which is a formality, and then I should be able to go two full days a week, which is nice, because it means that I will be busy all day and will be plenty tired when I get home. I'm looking forward to it, although it does mean a longer bike ride as opposed to the 5 minutes it takes me to get to creative therapy now. That will be my sacrifice I have to make. After going there in today's weather, I think I can manage anything,

This is not a very coherent post, is it? I am tired and hungry. I need to have something to eat and I have to just put on my pajamas and relax for a bit.

I wish you all a good evening and I hope you have good weather, not like ours here.

Ciao,
Nora