It ain't eay.

I don't want you to get the impression that quitting my anti-psychotics nearly cold turkey is easy. The first few days weren't too bad but my body is going through withdrawal now and I've been told by my psychiatrist that there will be days in the first week that will be very difficult. It takes two weeks for the medication to leave your system, but it's the first week especially when things are hard, 

It's a good thing that I have the Valerian tablets and I take those four times a day. They do calm me down and help me get through this process. I wouldn't be able to manage it without them. I get terrible anxiety attacks and break out in cold sweats, but the Valerian tablets keep me from losing my mind. 

I knew ahead of time that it wasn't going to be easy and expected some sort of reaction. I just didn't know what it was going to be. I have to be very tough with myself and not give into the desire to grab a pill to alleviate the stress of the withdrawal. 

I think by next week I will be doing a lot better. In the meantime, I'm keeping my life as simple and structured as possible and make sure there aren't any triggers that set me off.

Ciao,
Irene

Hardly any fools around here...

It's in the middle of the night as usual and I'm sitting here with my excellently brewed cup of coffee. I can say that about myself, that I brew coffee well, because it's the truth. At least, according to my tastes it is. I like a cup that packs a punch and this one does. If I had socks on, it would knock them right off, as the saying goes. 

Luckily, I'm sitting here barefooted because it isn't that cold inside. The hot coffee is heating me up and I'm wearing my warm bathrobe. There will be no socks flying around the living room, although that would please the dog very much. He's always stealing my socks if I don't put them away carefully. It doesn't matter if they're clean or worn. 

I had a good day today, except for not having gotten enough sleep initially. That does affect your outlook and makes you just a bit less cheerful, even though you try to be. It feels like you have jet lag and constantly need to lie down without being able to. I finally managed to get caught up on my sleep and felt a heck of a lot better after that. When in doubt about your mood, always take a good nap. It will fix you right up. 

Right now I keep falling asleep behind the computer, but I do have little revivals during which I have bursts of energy. I am yawning something awful and it makes me hopeful for when I go back to bed. That coffee doesn't seem to have made much of a difference.  I'm going to drink a glass of ice cold milk and see what that does to my thinking capacities. Hopefully it will jar me awake a little bit  temporarily. 

I have no big plans for tomorrow other than to do some chores and to feel good. It's only a very short time ago that I felt miserable every day and I'm still getting used to feeling well. I still feel that it's all very precarious and don't quite believe in it yet. 

I have to get used to having steady mooded days in which I regularly feel the same way all day long. I also have to get my sleep schedule in order better. I get up too early in the morning and suffer for it all day long. I need to get it back to how it used to be and not over optimistically get out of bed too soon. I must take a nap in the afternoon and not skip it. It's very important that I do. 

I always have to remember that I have to build in predictability and structure. Those are the two very important ingredients for me to function well. It's not a good idea to start messing with them. It's the sameness of each day that does me well. 

I suppose I will go back to bed now and try to get as much sleep as I can. I hope I'm sensible and don't get up too soon. 

Have a good day you all. 

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

A barrel of fun.

The title is an out and out lie, because I didn't have a barrel of fun at all today. It was way to ordinary for that. No wait, it wasn't even an ordinary day. What am I saying? It was a screwed up sort of day, so I should have titled it, a barrel of screws.

I woke up way too late this morning. It was nearly ten o'clock when I got up. I couldn't believe my eyes. That meant I was going to miss creative therapy, because I need at least an hour and a half to get ready before I can leave the house in any sort of well put together way, because I don't only have to take care of myself, but of the animals as well and the Überhund does take his time with all of his rituals in the morning. As do I.

I decided not to rush around like an idiot and to skip creative therapy, even though that meant foregoing that fun work with the clay. Once I made that decision, though, I relaxed and drank many cups of coffee and woke up at my own speed while I checked my emails and wrote comments on blogs. It was a little bit like taking a mental health day from school, although I like my therapy classes much better than I ever liked going to school.

I was expecting a package from a mail order company and had to stick close to the apartment between noon and six, but after a while, when nobody showed up, I checked the website to see the state of affairs of my package and saw that it had not been sent yet. So I called the company and was told that it would maybe get here tomorrow morning. No guarantees, which is odd, because they have next day delivery and it has already been paid for. Frustrations abound.

Things like this throw me for a loop, because I could have gone to Specsavers and had my glasses done, but now I'll have to see if I can go tomorrow afternoon. I usually don't like it when things go differently than I had planned and I had already screwed them up myself by not going to creative therapy. That was purely my own fault, though. I should have set the alarm clock.

The Exfactor did come by early in the afternoon and stayed for about an hour and we had coffee and talked about the state of the economy and what the government was planning to do about it. Those bright lights! Don't get me started. I have my opinions and this is not the coalition government I voted for.

Anyway, then he left and I turned on the computer and amused myself with non consequential things, which is a good thing to do when you're trying to fill your discombobulated time. I don't want to have a day like this again soon, though. It was an absolute waste of time. If I had spent it laying in bed, it would have made the same difference. It goes to show you how important structure is. You're lost without it.

I've got to stop now, because I want to watch the news and do something else but sit here behind this darn computer all the time.

Have a good night, all of you.

Ciao...