Blogging.

Because of my newly acquired change of attitude, there is a difference in how I approach this blog. I am not sure anymore what I want to write about while that has never been a problem in the past. In the past I wrote down the minutest details of my life whether they mattered or not and now it seems like a silly exercise. 

I don't know what I want to share with you instead although I have already given it a lot of thought. It doesn't seem important anymore to write down all sorts of things that I ponder on and that happen in my life and this blog's use as a kind of confessional has certainly ended. It's also not the life line it used to be. 

I've got to find a different use for it and I can only do that by trying out different subjects and making myself comfortable writing about them.

My daily life hasn't changed a lot, so I am not suddenly going to entertain you with stories of all new adventures. My attitude and inner life have changed, that's where the difference lies. 

It's good for a body to do with less medication. In a less drugged state, a whole new world opens up to you and you get to be in touch with your emotions which turn out not to be such scary things after all.

Changes...

I'm putting together a slightly different instruction booklet to how I'm put together now which is different than how I was put together untill just yesterday. A change has taken place that I'm adjusting to and I'm in the process of getting used to myself. I suppose this adjustment will not happen overnight and will take some getting used to. I learn things about this new me as I go along and try not to be intimidated. Change is not bad and this comes from me who always saw security in things being the same and predictable.I now find that I'm willing to stick out my neck and embrace change. 

I must have reached a point in my life when a sudden spurt of inner growth is taking place. Maybe I have, unbeknown to me, reached a mile stone that is important. I'm ready to throw off some luggage and continue on my way less heavily packed. I've thrown overboard some notions that I thought I was sure of and am starting to take on a few new ones that weigh less. It's not a big chore to do this. It's happening almost as if by itself. 

I do have to guide myself in this process somewhat and give myself emotional support. and courage. When the going gets a little rough, I tell myself to hang in there, but many times the going is a pleasure. It's a journey of discovery. It's interesting to find out how I feel about things now that I have this different attitude. I find that I look at things in a new light and have actually changed my mind about a lot of them. I feel less restricted by negative emotions and more free to feel all embracing ones. More free to have emotions at all. 

That's what I need to get used to -  having emtions that cover the whole range. That's not easy when you're used to being cooped up in a little square box. I suppose that now my emotions are all sorts of shapes and don't fit in there any longer. 

It's with some amount of curiosity that I look forward to the day to see what sort of new challenges and situations it will bring me to try myself out in. I will not go out of the way of anything because they will all be new learning experiences.

Ciao,
Irene

Post haste...

Outside it is raining hard and it has been almost non stop all day. Whenever I think about taking the dog out for a walk, it starts raining again so he has only been able to go out back. He's not too enthused about it and doesn't really want to be outside. Neither does the cat who's been very cozily staying in all day. I think we are hibernating today. 

I'm glad it wasn't this weather yesterday when I had to go out twice. Once to go to my GP and once to go see my therapist and to go to the pharmacy. I would have been miserable on my bike if it had rained like this. I do always seem to get lucky and avoid the worst of the weather. It's usually on my days off that it rains so bad. 

I saw my GP for the stomach problems that I have been having for quite a while now. I can't eat or drink anything without it causing me trouble and I very often have a stomach ache or cramps. I thought it was more than high time that I had it looked at. For now she prescribed some medication that should start working in a couple of days time, but I have to see her again in two weeks. 

I also had to donate some blood to run some tests on and to also check my thyroid function which had not been done in two years. I was one year too late with that. It goes to show you that I don't go to the doctor enough. I kind of neglect that.

I had not seen my therapist in a long while and had to fill her in on the latest news. I did that in the shortest amount of  time possible without making it sound dramatic. The conclusion was the most important thing to tell. It's what lesson you learn from your experiences that counts. How much wisdom do you gain? 

I made an appointment with her for a month from now. I want to be self reliant and not be guided in every step of the process along the way. I think I should be my own support and inspiration.

I am well on my way to having figured out a lot of things now and I know that I can count on myself a lot when it comes to making decisions. I'm wiser than I thought I was. The wisdom just gets snowed under now and then by my sometimes fragile emotions, but less and less so. 

The seed of optimism is growing larger inside myself and taking up more room. It's hard to get around its presence anymore. It has taken on a life of its own and exists whether I want it too or not. It is an almost independent entity. Pretty soon I'll call it the tree of optimism. 

I think I have to take the dog out now. It has been dry for a while. I will have to take the chance.

Have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

Great and small...

I'm having my second much needed cup of coffee after experiencing serious brain drain when I got up from my nap this afternoon. I slept a little longer than I had intended to, but I must have needed the sleep. As a result, I was a little foggy when I got up and needed the caffeine very much. 

I was reluctant to make a pot of coffee because sometimes my stomach revolts against it and I never know when that is going to be. I sat here bleary eyed and had no other choice but to make one if I wanted to get anything done and be in a good mood. 

Luckily, the coffee was quickly made and the first cup not only agreed with my stomach but also put my mind in working order in no time at all. I was tremendously cheered. I felt that I had triumphed over evil forces and that the goodness of the caffeine was allowed to do its healing work. 

Outside it is raining hard and the wind is whipping it against the windows. I don't think the dog and I will be going for a walk any time soon. The weather has been bad for the past few days and I don't know exactly when it is supposed to improve. I'm hopelessly out of touch with the latest news. I haven't been watching TV at all.

My daughter and her father are on their way back to the States. I'm in the process of getting used to their absence and that will take me a while. I must be careful not to fall into a big hole and I have to hang on to the sense of optimism that I got out of the visit. It did me a lot of good and I feel like a reborn woman.

I have made some resolutions for the new year and I hope I can stick to them. They are not too complicated and some of them are just continuations of ones that I had last year. Others are new and take some effort to get used to as new goals. It's easier to leave everything the way it was, but not wiser. 

There is such a thing called emotional investment and I've decided to do much more of it. In the past I've always been afraid to take the chance in case I got hurt, but now I'm willing to invest. It's going to be a theme throughout my life this whole year and I'm going to put a lot of effort into it. It's not just going to be a hobby that I do on the side. 

The focus will not be on me but on other people. My look will be outwards. I will not be self centered but social. There is enough of me to go around. 

Have a good day, all of you.

Ciao,

Nora

Better get it straight from the beginning...

It's ever so pleasant to sit here with my cup of coffee in the middle of the night and to think that I'm the only person up in a radius of one kilometer. It's very necessary that I pretend that, otherwise I would not nearly feel the amount of freedom that I do now. I assume that anyone who is up, is also doing so quietly and reverentially in honor of the hour and the solemness of the darkness. He or she must be a fellow nighttime worshiper.

I'm making this statement with some amount of irony, in case that was not obvious. I'm really making fun of myself. I do have a tendency to take these nighttime sessions when I'm supposed to be asleep very seriously and give them more importance than they deserve. I need to lighten up about them and think of them in more humoristic terms. They are not as holy as I make them out to be. As a matter of fact, they are merely times out in my quest for sleep. 

I've switched from coffee to ice cold milk and the drinking of it will change my general attitude. The coldness always works on my frontal lobes. I think that's where the regulation of your emotions is. I probably freeze them and they go into shock. A general sort of malaise and giddiness comes over me. Of course, it all could be in my imagination, although I'm generally well grounded and not given to flights of fancy. At least, that's my own personal impression of myself.

It's with some amount of pleasure that I sit here because today is Friday and that means that it's almost the weekend which still is the part of the week that I enjoy the most and don't ask me why. It just is so.Today the Exfactor will be here and the domestic help and the day will go by quickly. At the end I will have groceries and a clean apartment and what better way to start the weekend? It's the little things like this that are so important to me. 

I'm going to wear something completely different today. Clothes that have just come out of the laundry and that I've looked forward to wearing. I love wearing freshly washed clothes and always feel like a new person in them. This outfit is especially good because it's almost brand new and hardly worn. The newness of it is still exciting. I can get so into my clothes at times, but I'm glad that I still care enough. It's when I stop caring that I'll start to worry. 

I've got to go back to bed. I need to get the rest of my sleep before the Exfactor shows up in the morning. I must get showered and dressed before he gets here. That's quite a feat. I don't know if I'll make it. I'm on the slow side in the morning and can't be rushed. I do need to sit in my bathrobe for a while and drink some coffee. 

I hope you'll all have a good day. 

Ciao,

Nora

Singlehandedly lucid...

I've downed my first cup of coffee as quickly as I could and now I'm drinking the second one at a more normal rate. I wanted to inhale the first one quickly so as to become clearheaded as soon as I could. I was slightly discombobulated when I got up and not completely in charge of all my faculties. Yet compelled to stay up I was anyway after having gone to the toilet and having let the dog out back. 

The cold night air did help a bit and it was great to stand by the back door in my pajamas. I purposely stood with the door wide open so I would get extra chilled. It was all the more pleasant to put my bathrobe on afterwards. But it's the coffee that's really waking me up as usual. The caffeine cleared all the cobwebs from my mind. 

For a change I made the coffee somewhat strong again and I must say that I appreciate the punch it's carrying. It's like having someone rattle your brain in a very pleasant but assertive way. I had forgotten that about strong coffee. I'm almost instantly carried to a higher plane by the caffeine. It's elevating my thinking capacities and putting me in a good mood. 

Actually, my mood was good enough when I woke up. It's not that I got up on the wrong side of the bed. I very seldom do that anymore. Mostly I'm a mild mannered woman when I wake up. Only rarely do I feel grumpy and that's easily remedied. I'm not the volatile woman I used to be, full of emotions and always on a roller coaster. I seldom take that ride anymore and if I do get on it, I get off as quickly as I can. 

But a contented person is a boring person and that's probably why these posts are not so very interesting anymore. I very seldom have anything earth shattering to report. I don't run into huge problems and don't on a daily basis spill all the beans like I used to. I feel that I mostly write for my own sake to keep a daily record of what I do. It's like writing in a diary and every once in a while I can look back on the days that have passed. 

The weekend went by very quickly and I hardly know where the time went. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, but the hours sped by. I did the odd chore, walked the dog, took some naps and that was about it. I didn't even read like I had planned to. All I did was enjoy some 'Far Side' cartoons. I have a collection of them. I look at them every now and then and am always amused. They put an evil grin on my face. 

I'm glad it is Monday now and the week will be properly started. I'm ready for some action. The days of being lazy are over. But first I've got to go back to bed to get the rest of my sleep. The night's not nearly over yet, even though I'm already prepared to start the day. It's a little premature I think. 

I hope you're all sleeping tightly.

Ciao,

Nora

Bravely starting off the week...

Because it's officially Monday now, I should be quaking in my boots and be worried about how the beginning of the week is going to go because I always dread that first day. By my standards, I have had a very leisurely weekend with hardly any stress, but it does have a tendency to creep up on me once it is Monday again.

I have been as relaxed as I could manage to be and if I wasn't, I did whatever I could to get myself in a more relaxed state. That consisted very much of finding as much diversion as I could and by concentrating on very much living in the moment.

I find that these things get easier and come more natural as the day progresses. I'm more uptight at the beginning of the day than I am toward the end of it and I haven't figured out why this is so. It's a mystery I'm determined to solve. 

When I first get up in the morning, I have a huge struggle with myself and my identity and I really have to set straight the outlines of who I am and who's in charge here. I feel very vulnerable at that time and have to really do my best to define myself and fight for that person. 

As the day continues, and my bravery grows and I'm able to better function, I become more sure of myself and more clearly defined and I can relax and let it all happen naturally. I don't know if the amount of sleep I've had or if the medicines I take have anything to do with that.

I do know that I do better on less tranquilizers. I don't sit here high as a kite in the middle of the night anymore and I'm less befuddled when I get up in the morning. Tomorrow night I will stop taking the last tranquilizer and then I will really see how I will do without them.

I've been on barbiturates for the past 17 years on a bigger or lesser dose nonstop. I've never completely done without them. I never realized how much they influenced my daytime moods. I just recently really became aware of that. I knew they physically affected me, but it didn't dawn on me that they affected me to my detriment so much emotionally.

Well anyway, it's Monday and I mustn't let that spoil the fun. I did all my chores this weekend so I have nothing to feel bad about. I didn't lie down on the job. I even did the awful dishes without a hitch. I'm prepared for both my personal helper and the domestic help.

It's time to take my medicines and go back to bed with a cold glass of milk. I'll get a few more hours of sleep. I've already set the alarm clock so I'll get up on time. 

Have a great Monday.

Ciao,

Nora

Conclusions...

Okay, so I saw my psychiatrist on Friday and he didn't tell me to quit whining and get on with my life, but he may just as well have because that's how I interpreted what he did say to me. That's the message I came away with. He also said that the tranquilizers didn't discriminate between emotions and didn't just eliminate the unpleasant ones, but also the pleasant ones.

I left the office with a lot on my mind and the first thing I did was stop taking the tranquilizers during the day because I did want to feel whatever pleasant feelings I had. I don't miss them one bit and am not going through any kind of withdrawal. I still take them at night with my sleeping pill to help me sleep, though I'd like to quit them altogether. 

I spent the rest of my free time thinking about things a lot and I realized that I don't spend enough time living in the moment. I'm constantly anxiously thinking ahead of time and worrying about all the things I'm supposed to take care of and dreading them. I don't live in the 'here and now.'

I'm now making an effort to do that and to constantly call myself back to the present moment and to not worry about the things that are supposed to happen. I could keel over from a heart attack and all I will have done is worry about  what I was supposed to have done and not enjoyed the moment I was living in.

I also realized that the person who had been in charge of my life lately was my 'frightened child' and that all my actions and reactions and emotions were coming from this entity. You can't let a frightened child be in charge of your life. All will come to naught and the whole thing will turn into a disaster. 

What I had to do was let my 'sensible adult' be in charge of my life and let that person make the decisions and react to the different circumstances. I do have a very well developed sensible adult in me, but I had acted like I didn't and had regressed to the frightened child and let her run the show in the hope that someone would come along and rescue it.

I realize now that I don't need to get rescued and that my sensible adult is quite capable of taking care of things so now, all day long, I'm posing this question to myself: who's in charge here? Once I find out who is, I make sure that the sensible adult takes the lead. 

Sometimes I have a happy child who's more in the foreground. I do give that person some space and let her enjoy herself while at the same time satisfying my adult curiosity. There's room for both, but there's no room for a frightened child, although it does need to be soothed every once in a while. It does get scared, but is not allowed to be in charge. 

So Friday and Saturday were big learning moments and I made huge steps in the right direction. Once you understand the mechanism, you can make the changes necessary. It's also important to know what triggered the frightened child to come to the surface. I'm starting to learn to lay the link now, but let's just say that she came to the surface an awful lot. I was almost constantly frightened. 

Learning to live in the 'now' is a real challenge and one that I constantly have to remind myself to do, although at times I'm so relaxed and caught up in something enjoyable that it happens automatically. But it's something I'm going to need to work at. It won't happen overnight. I have to learn to mindfully hang up the laundry, for example. And to mindfully sit in my armchair. 

When I do this, I realize how many aches and pains I have in my body that I'm not normally aware of. I also get a headache that's like a migraine and one sided like the ones I used to get when I was a kid.

I'm seeing my psychiatrist again on Monday, but I will be seeing him with a whole different attitude. He will not see a tearful victim of circumstances who is wishing for a 'happy pill.' He will see someone who's taken charge of her life. Timing is everything in life and he said the right thing at the right time and I don't even remember exactly what it was. It's what I came away with that counts.

That's enough of a long ramble and explanation. I will stop now and save the rest for another time. I'm sure I will do more philosophizing. 

I hope you're all having a great night and a good weekend. 

Ciao,

Nora

Delaying tactics...

I was already laying in bed when I realized I wasn't really tired and couldn't fall asleep. I was just basically laying there for the coziness and to listen to the radio. I decided those were not good enough reasons to stay in bed and got up again and put my bathrobe on. I will try again later when I'm truly sleepy. When I really, really want to go to bed. 

Now I'm sitting here with a cup of coffee, but I'm not going to make the mistake I made last night and drink a pot of it. I will switch to a glass of milk on time so as not to get too wired and cause myself a sleepless night. I learned that lesson the hard way and I don't want a repeat of the day I had today in which I rapid cycled. That was no pleasure. Luckily, I was able to fix that with some extra anti-psychotic medication when I finally thought of it. 

I'm fine now and I'm calm again, although I have to say that everything is precarious and I'm aware of that now and I realize that I mustn't push my luck. I have a tendency to do everything to extremes and I mustn't do that. I will not stay up until the wee hours and do complicated things that require a lot of mental energy and emotional input. The desire is there, but I will have to ignore it and not give into it. I want each night to be an adventure in contrast to my relatively dull days. 

I have to be my own guardian and monitor my own behavior and do the things that are sensible, much as I don't like to do them sometimes. It's so much nicer to give into an impulsive idea and let it happen and not think about the consequences. Today should have been a lesson to me that I should not forget and I can't pretend that it wouldn't happen again the same way. It's no laughing matter when you get suicidal thoughts because you're rapid cycling. 

I have a great desire to keep playing with the design and names of my blogs. I think possibly I'm not satisfied enough with the way things are now. I think they are too tame and ordinary. I'm striving for a form of perfection without knowing if I will achieve it. I can't leave well enough alone. It must represent a basic dissatisfaction I have with my life that I'm projecting onto my blogs. If my blogs are perfect, my life will be too. 

It's a small psychological insight that's not going to help me much. It's not going to get me over my urge and desire. Only some amount of sensibility is and sometimes that is hard to find. When it is nighttime anyway. At night I always have great desires and lots of plans. It's when my head is in the clouds and my feet aren't firmly planted on the ground.

It's not quite bedtime yet. I don't yet feel the urge to go to sleep. I want to prevent myself from waking up in the middle of the night because then I'll really be in trouble. The Exfactor is going to be here in the morning to do the groceries and I have appointments with my psychiatrist and my SPN early in the afternoon, so I have to be in good shape.

I hope you're all having a good evening. 

Ciao,

Nora

Working the odds...

I'm drinking coffee to increase the chances that my mood will improve, because coffee generally seems to have a positive influence on how I feel mentally. I'm telling myself that after this second cup, I already feel better but, of course, it could all be a question of mind over matter and a huge illusion. On the other hand, maybe caffeine really does do something for me and it is beneficial to my state of mind. 

At any rate, I feel somewhat capable of writing a post, although I have no idea where it's going yet. I'm in a rambling sort of mood and I don't have a specific subject that I want to discuss, except that I want to say that feeling depressed is not my idea of spending quality time with myself. I have been in much better moods and have enjoyed my own company more. I think you bother yourself the most when you're not doing well emotionally. 

But anyway, like I said, the coffee seems to have put me in a better mood and I think I can handle putting my thoughts down on paper (ha, there's that Freudian slip again).

We're having summer weather in April and lots of pollen is blowing through the sunny sky. I don't seem to be in the least bothered by it, so apparently nothing is blooming that I'm allergic too or I'm not allergic at all. I'll just assume that I'm not. It will simplify my life tremendously if I'm not and I would probably have eczema anyway. All those allergy tests I had in the States may have been false positive. I'm also supposed to be allergic to dogs and cats.

The temperatures have been very pleasant and warm and I now have all the windows open on a crack. That means the apartment can air out properly and that some of the warmer air gets inside too, slowly but surely. It is still cooler inside than it is outside. I'd rather keep it that way, but I know that by this summer it won't be. I'll have to try and keep the sun from shining through the living room windows as much as possible. That means keeping the shades drawn for the most part.

It was almost too warm to walk the dog at noon, especially when we were between buildings and out of the breeze. You can tell that I'm not used to this kind of warm weather anymore, nor is the dog. He will have to be trimmed soon because now his fur is too thick and hot. We both laid down in the cool bedroom when we came back and took a nap. It was very pleasant. I'm lucky that the sun only shines on the back of the apartment very briefly in the morning. 

Oh, I see that it's almost time to watch the 6 o'clock news. I will keep this short. I do want to know what has happened in the country and the world. 

I hope you all had a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

And all that jazz...

I'm having my second cup of coffee early on a chilly morning. I've got my bathrobe and slippers on, but I've just turned up the thermostat to get it a little bit warmer in here. I do think I deserve a little bit of comfort. My hands are cold and so is my nose, although I'm not suffering from frostbite yet. Conditions aren't quite that bad. It's only going to be cloudy today and not even rain, so we are blessed, although a little bit of sunshine would have been nice too. 

At least my feet are very warm and so is my stomach from the hot coffee. Pretty soon the rest of me will be also. It won't take too long for the apartment to heat up. That is the pleasant side effect of not living in too big a place. 

After having cut down on my tranquilizers yesterday, I managed to last on one that I took in the morning until 8 o'clock in the evening. Then I started to get stressed and anxious and I knew I would have to take another one. I didn't think that was too bad, because I had lasted all day on just that one in the morning. 

I hadn't really needed the one in the morning in combination with my other medicines and I won't take one this morning, but I will wait for the day to unfold and see when I need to take one. I'm going to try to limit it to one tranquilizer a day, but if I need to take two then I will. I'm not going to go through unnecessary stress when I don't have to. Reducing them a little at the time is fine. I can't expect to go from three of them during the day to just one all at once without any problems. I will see. 

Today my other personal helper is going to be here and so is the domestic help. That means it is Friday again and once again I find it impossible that it is. I still don't know what happens to the weekdays. They seem to speed by. Every time I turn around it is weekend and I wonder what happened to the rest of the week. 

It's not as if I have that awful many things to do during the week. It mainly seems to be a matter of trying to stay on an even keel and dealing with whatever events take place calmly. It's a good week if my mood is stable and if I can deal with the emotional things well and give them a place, like I'm doing right now with the subject I'm tackling in therapy. 

So, today will be the first day of the beginning of the weekend or it will be when everyone has been here and has gone. I will be left with a clean apartment and a sorted mind, at least I hope so. I hope my personal helper and I can put the world to rights or at least do the chores that need to be done together.

Now it's time to take my medicines and to get dressed and take Tyke for a walk. I really don't want to go out there yet, it's so nice and warm in here. I suppose that I don't want the day to start yet officially. I'd like to postpone it another hour or so. It's still dark outside and not very enticing. I suppose it's the human condition to want to be warm and cozy and in the light.

Alright, off I go. Have a great day. 

Ciao,

Nora

 

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

Spare time not spent sleeping...

I'm having myself a cup of coffee to get rid of this sleepiness I feel and have been feeling pretty much all day long. I've succumbed to it and slept a lot, but I'm yawning again and don't want to dislocate my jaw like I did this morning. It's making a lot of noise when I open and close it, so I better be careful. 

I'm looking forward to going to bed, though, and I can't wait for it to be late enough to go. I do want to wait until a decent enough hour. I want to make sure that I don't wake up too early in the middle of the night as I'm bound to. I don't have any appointments tomorrow and I can actually sleep as late as I want. So if I do get up in the middle of the night, I can go back to bed later and finish sleeping. 

The Exfactor was here today to do the rest of the grocery shopping. It was quite a relief to see a friendly face. Someone who didn't make any demands on me. That was nice. I didn't experience the visit of the personal helper that way yesterday. I felt that I had to perform and do something special while I was not up to it. I couldn't adequately explain how I felt to her. 

I don't know if I explained it well to the Exfactor, but it seemed to matter less. We had coffee together and chatted and he did the groceries and afterward we chatted some more. We didn't talk about anything really important. It didn't seem that way to me anyway. My perception may have been off a bit, though, because I still felt a lot of anxiety. It hadn't left my system yet. 

I saw my SPN in the afternoon, and without going into the details of the long conversation that we had, I have to say that she helped me get to the core of the anxiety and the cause of it, and that since then I feel a lot better. The free floating anxiety is gone and I'm only left feeling very tired and wiped out, but with the feeling that I've really reached a destination that I had to get to. Something has been resolved. It will have to be talked about more, but the beginning is there. 

The tiredness that I feel is purely emotional tiredness. It's from carrying heavy loads around. It wears me out. Whenever I have periods when I'm in need of a lot of sleep, you can be sure that it's because I'm bearing a big emotional burden.

I do want to say that I have a lot of grief about my first marriage and the break up of it. I have a lot of unresolved feelings about that whole marriage and about my relationship with my first husband, There is an untold amount of feelings that I have not dealt with ever. I'm going to have to deal with them and I'm planning on doing that. There is an awful lot of pain there and I can't keep walking around with it. It's like constantly being in deep mourning. 

I'm going to put on my pajamas now and at least get ready for bed. It's another matter if I will actually get there right away. I may get sidetracked by some blogs. The intention will be there anyway. 

Have a good evening.

Ciao,
Nora

On a Sunday afternoon...

Even though I slept for a long, long time, I had to make a pot of coffee, because I was getting so sleepy that I was getting ready to lie down on the sofa for a nap. I didn't want to spend a whole afternoon sleeping, though, therefor I made the coffee and I just drank a cup of it. It is so strong, that it is waking me up already, although I won't jubilate too soon and better wait for what the second cup will do to me. 

I don't know why I thought I could do without a cup of coffee when I woke up. I actually did without for more than three hours and in that time I also let Tyke out. Am I a silly woman, or what? I didn't even have a glass of juice to compensate, nor a glass of milk. I sat here with my cigarettes and acted like I didn't know what I was doing. Maybe I didn't for a while. I have been know for my absentia.

Now Tyke is expecting me to play with him and the ball and his rawhide bone at the same time that I type this, so I am slightly distracted. I throw the ball and he brings it back, but he won't let go of it. I'm supposed to get it away from him. He finally lets go of it if he gets too frustrated with me. That's when I ignore him, tired as I get from trying to get it away from him without success. It's basically an exercise in mutual frustration. 

When we went out for a walk, we met the Yorkshire Terrier puppy and I let Tyke off the leash so he could play with it. He had a very good time running around with it. Tyke towers above that puppy, but he thinks he's still one himself, so it's lots of fun watching them play. That little puppy is fast and runs underneath Tyke and jumps around him like a rubber ball bouncing. It's good for Tyke to try to keep up. It wears him out. 

It's a colder and overcast day today. It's already on the dark side in the living room and I really ought to have the lights turned on. I'm sitting by the light of the desk lamp. There are kids playing outside, so that does create some liveliness. Otherwise it would be a dull day. I am doing alright today, though, compared to yesterday when I was not doing well at all. Yesterday was also my daughter's birthday, so I'm sure that contributed to my feeling bad. 

Oh, it has just started to rain outside, that must be why it is so dark in here. It is because of the rain clouds. We are nice and cozy inside here and don't have a thing to worry about. I don't mind the rain as long as I'm inside and I don't have to go out in it. It's a different matter altogether if I have to go out on my bike. It's better to walk places under my umbrella if it is at all possible.

Yesterday afternoon the sun was shining, but I was not in the proper mood to enjoy it. As far as I'm concerned it was a wasted day and not one worth repeating. Days like that are so unnecessary and I don't think I learn anything from them either. They are a complete waste of effort and emotion. 

Thank goodness there are Sundays on which you can recuperate from Saturdays. You can sleep a lot, which is usually what you need, and you can take your time and do whatever is right for you at the moment. 

I like to be a bit unstructured, because it's the only day on which I allow myself that. I sleep more, as if I have to catch up on that. It's the one day on which I don't worry all too much about how I'm dressed. I take a break from that. I just wear whatever is lying in my rattan chair. I don't worry about my hair and how it's fixed and if it's good enough. In other words, it's a real day off. 

The coffee has completely cleared my mind of cobwebs and I'm not sleepy anymore, although I am looking forward to going to sleep tonight. That's just the coziness of getting into my pajamas and under the duvet. A person can look forward to that very much. I still have the windows open at the top and it's still not very cold in here. It's 46F outside, but for some reason the apartment stays warmer. 

I hope you're all having a nice Sunday. 

Ciao,
Nora

Music and comedy...

I haven't been to bed yet, although it is well past midnight. I've spent the whole evening watching music and comedy videos on YouTube and I have been very well amused. The time flew by and I laughed a lot at the comedians and was moved by the music. It does a person good to have the emotions moved to a greater degree than just the ordinary every day ones. It sure felt good and it was worth staying up for. I feel like I've had a night out.

Of course, now I'm so wide awake that I won't be able to go to sleep for a while. I have to sit here for a bit and calm down and get in a go-to-bed mode. I've only been drinking milk for the past couple of hours, I haven't had any coffee for a long time. I should get tired soon, although maybe it would help if I heated the milk up. But wait, I've just yawned for the first time, so there is hope. Maybe writing a blog post makes me sleepy.

I've used the Bright Light Energy Lamp for several hours today. Besides having it on this morning, I also had it on later in the day while I sat behind the computer. Maybe I got too much of it and that is why I'm so full of energy. I must make sure I get enough darkness now. I do have to get enough hours of sleep, but tomorrow is Sunday and that means sleeping as late as Tyke will let me. That energetic little guy does wake me up when he has to go outside. Well, he is house broken, so what can I expect, right?

I discovered a top in my closet that I had no knowledge of and I put it on right away. It has three quarter sleeves, so it is perfect for this weather. I don't know where I got it, but it fits. I seem to remember another top that I'm supposed to have in my possession and I have to go look on the top shelf and see if it's there. I only have some vague idea of what it looks like. I do know it's black, but I don't remember if it has long or short sleeves.

I did do the ironing, by the way. I found a summer jacket that had been in the ironing basket for ages and I had forgotten all about its existence. It's a short, beige, cotton jacket with metal snap buttons. I ironed it and didn't even try it on, I think it will fit. I hung it on the coat rack and will try it on in the morning. That's exceptionally incurious of me and I don't know how I got that way either. I remember buying it a long time ago, but I don't remember wearing it. I must not have been very fond of it. I also found two pairs of Capri pants that I didn't realize I had. It's kind of late in the year for them now, unless we get a hot spell.

I think I will dye the jacket black. As a matter of fact, I think I have the dye to do it somewhere in a kitchen cabinet. I'll have to look for it. I will like the jacket better black.

I'm so wide awake, I'm not going to worry about what time I'll go to sleep. It will just be whenever. I'm going to sit here as long as I'm comfortable. I will take my sleep medication, that may be a good idea. My body is going to crave it and it would not be good to suddenly withhold it. I do have to decrease one medication at the time and not try to do everything at once.

I'm going to put on my pajamas and my bathrobe and get at least ready for bed. Then I'll be halfway there.

Have a good night if you're about ready to go to bed, if not, have a good morning.

Ciao,
Nora

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

Don´t complain!

I´m having withdrawal symptoms again. At least I assume that´s what they are. My life is quickly falling apart and my emotions are in an uproar. I´m trying to stay sane and rational and not intimidated by what is happening to me. The hardest part is going through this alone, because I so very much would like someone´s shoulder to cry on. I guess that´s what I want to do more than anything, is cry and cry and not be brave at all like I feel I have been this past week.

A lot of times I act as if everything is okay when really it isn´t, I don´t know if you can tell that. I keep being cheerful when I don´t really feel cheerful at all. I´ve been worried about my medication this past week, if I´m taking too much of some or too little of the other and I don´t really trust my psychiatrist to know that. I think he made a blunder this week and that has caused a dent in my confidence in him.

I´ve been feeling awfully tired these past days, although I have been out and about in the fresh air. I thought springtime would give me lots of energy, but I´m not having any. The time I feel best is late at night again, when it is dark out and the world is quiet and silent and at rest. That´s new, after sleeping so well for two weeks. I wish I could always be a night person and only marginally participate during the day. Unfortunately, I have to take my nighttime medicines and they do drive me to bed at a certain hour. It´s all medicine I hope to do without some day.

Maybe this is not withdrawal, maybe this is just a plain old case of unhappiness and disappointment for not having the road that I travel be as smooth as I had anticipated and for feeling very lonely in the whole process. I always think that everything should be a nonstop upward movement, but for some reason it doesn´t work that way and you climb the hill and roll down it before you get up and start climbing it again. I don´t know why this is so and why this is necessary. Somebody will have to explain that process to me in logical terms. This really mystifies me. It seems to work that way for everything, even when you think it ought not to, when it is pure science, although when applied to people it never is.

The problem is, that I´ve come to see my emotions as pathologically wrong and put labels on them, instead of just seeing them as emotions that all people have. I have decided not to do that anymore and, for instance, never to use the term hypo-mania again to describe an excited mood that I may find myself in. That way it´s not a psychiatric condition and it doesn´t need a medication to be cured, because a mood like that usually clears up by itself and for all I know I´m doing something that millions of people around the world do every day spontaneously. I mustn´t mistake happiness and excitement for an illness and allow it to be killed by drugs, so that I will be mentally straight jacketed and subdued.

I´m feeling better for having written this down and knowing that it will have a few readers who will hopefully understand. It takes a diversity of people to make the world go round and if we medicate everybody who falls outside the norm, we´ll have a lot of drugged up people. Cure the part that hurts and leave the rest alone.

Ciao,
Nora

Evaluation.

I think it is important to remember that what happened to me yesterday was due to withdrawal from my medication. I have very drastically gone from 450 mg to 150 mg a day, which is quite a change, and I was bound to run into trouble. It is going to take my body about 2 weeks to get adjusted to the new dose and then I will have to reduce the rest that I'm taking. In the meantime, the new medication needs about 2 weeks to build up into my body properly until it is at a constant level, so you see that these 2 weeks are going to be difficult for me. I didn't know ahead of time how difficult they were going to be, but yesterday afternoon showed me a glimpse of it.

I went through a long crisis and somewhere towards the end it started to dawn on me that I was having withdrawal symptoms. Once I realized that, I started to deal with it differently and not take everything so very personal and serious. I did take the withdrawal process seriously and knew I had to get through it the best way I knew how. I decided to let myself cry as much as I wanted to. So that's what I did and I cried about everything. After that I was so exhausted that I fell asleep on the sofa and slept for a couple of hours.

This morning I feel better. I had a long night's sleep and didn't get up until eleven o'clock. It took me a good hour to come to my senses. It felt like I was awakening from a coma. I drank my coffee on the sofa and cuddled Tyke, who likes it when I sit on the sofa, because it gives him the opportunity to show me all his tricks that he thinks of himself. Like, how to jump from the sofa to the coffee table without knocking over the coffee cup that is standing there. Life is a circus here thanks to Tyke and his ingenuity. We rarely have a dull moment.

Having Tyke sleep in the bedroom with me at night is working out well, because he behaves very well and patiently waits for me to wake up. That's why I get to sleep so late in the morning. There's not a sound out of him all night and when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he follows me in and out of the bedroom with few problems. He does get sidetracked by Gandhi, but that is easily solved by calling him to order.

He also lets me know when he needs to go out back for a piddle. He's figured out how to do that on his own. He puts his front paws on my arm and looks at me very intently. That does not mean, I want a cuddle. It means, I have to go now! How I tell the difference I don't know. I think it's mostly guess work.

I realize that with me being comatose until the late hours of the morning, I can't make any appointments until the afternoon and I can't go shopping with my sister in the morning. I just talked to my sister and told her that we can't go shopping at 8 o'clock in the morning tomorrow, so we have to do it in the afternoon after my domestic help has been here.

It also turns out that my other digital alarm clock is broken, so now I'm without an alarm clock, but I'll tell you honestly that I'd hate to be awakened by an alarm clock in the morning before I'm done sleeping. It would be a disaster to not get the sleep I needed and to have to function on not enough. I think it's better if I just wake up on my own and get started at my own speed and save whatever appointments I have to make for the afternoons. I don't want to upset the precariously balanced apple cart.

I hope the episodes like I had yesterday are few and far between. Right now I feel so good, that I can't imagine having another one, but I know I mustn't tempt fate. Things aren't finely tuned right now and everything is unbalanced. I feel that I walk a tight rope and I could fall off at any moment. So, I must enjoy the times that go well and I do, believe me. Every moment that is pleasant is savoured. Nothing is taken for granted.

I have to get dressed now and take Tyke to go and have coffee with my sister. She is home from a week in Italy, so we have some catching up to do. Besides, she has very good coffee.

I hope you are all having a good day.

Ciao,
Nora.

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

In the wee hours again.

As is usual, I'm having my second wind in the middle of the night after being woken by night sweats, but as is also usual, I don't mind one bit, as this is that time in my 24 hour cycle that I function well and that I like being up and passively active, because, let's face it, I'm not doing gymnastics here, but very quietly sitting behind the computer in the silence of the night. It's only my head that's performing tricks and that's not too much effort right now. I always seem more than lucid at this time of the night. I'm more clearheaded now than I am at any other point during my circadian cycle, though I don't know exactly why that is. I'll accept it as a given and not argue with it and take full advantage of it. It seems that's the way I'm put together right now, so that's what I'll work with.

Finding out that I have an overactive thyroid, I looked up the symptoms for it and found out that I have a bunch of them, such as over-tiredness, muscle weakness, (night)sweating, fears, emotional instability and depression. Imagine my relief when I read those things and the realization hit me that I had been suffering from these symptoms for at least the past six months to one extent or the other. I suddenly felt like I was not doomed anymore and I know that with an adjustment of the medication I will get better. All the hopelessness fell off my shoulders and suddenly the sun started shining again. I am not going crazy, I am just not hormonally adjusted well. What a relief. My GP was right to check my thyroid, although it was the furthest thing from my mind. If I could throw a party for myself right now, I would do it.

Well, that doesn't mean that I suddenly feel better now, because I've still got the symptoms, but at least I know the reason why.

Emotionally I'm not stable at all. I fluctuate too much for that. I very quickly go from a hallelujah mood to an agitated downward mood. It can happen within a few minutes and suddenly everything looks very different and I think the opposite of what I was thinking just before. My needs change and what I want to do changes. I want to find my safety somewhere else and no longer be exposed. I have to wait for that mood to change and for the other mood to return. It's a guess as to when that will happen. It's a very confusing thing. It's frustrating to think that there are hormones at work in my body that influence so many of my systems and that right now there's nothing I can do about them.

I'm sitting here in my bathrobe and my slippers and outside it is 0C and it's snowing just a tiny bit. There's supposed to be rain or snow today and that certainly brings us a lot of joy. At least it's not as cold as had been predicted, but next week we are supposed to get colder temperatures again and it's going to be freezing during the day also. Let's hope the weather forecasters get that completely wrong.

For me it means dressing in layers again and I don't mind that, but it does require some planning on my part. It means that I have to do some serious digging through the closet again and that's always such a frustrating job, because things slide off their hangers to the bottom of the closet. Luckily, all my clothes are clean, so I have a lot to choose from. Unfortunately, I have gained some weight and not everything will fit well or look good, but if I run fast nobody will notice it.

Well, it's time for me to go eat breakfast and take my medicines and find my bed again. There's nothing nicer to do on a cold morning.

Ciao,
Nora