I was right...

I was right, now that I'm sufficiently well aligned with the sun and the moon and the stars and all the other objects in the great wide world and universe, and I did indeed take two Welbutrin tablets this morning, but I feel good and not at all like the sad little woman that I have been during the day and who couldn't find any joy in her life to wrap around herself for comfort.

What an amazing thing this is, and so unexpected too, because I was already dreading the effect of the first tablet and having to sit here feeling sad and downhearted and ending up having to go back to bed because of this effect of it. I certainly didn't think that I would sit here having a good time writing posts and reading blogs and leaving comments. I guess my psychiatrist was right and the one who perseveres wins. He apparently knew what he was talking about. I had to bite through the sour apple, as they say. That's different from tasting sour grapes or getting your just desserts.

I was ready to call it quits, I was so out of patience, but now I'm glad I didn't and that I listened to and obeyed the professionals. Obedience is not my strongest point usually. I have a tendency to be stubborn and want things my own way, because at any given moment I will be convinced that I'm right and it's hard to change my mind. But I know this about myself and try to take it into account when these sort of things become important and decisions have to be made. My stubbornness can make me shortsighted and I lose track of the bigger picture and the details that go into it. It's important that I pay attention and listen well.

I'm just now having my third cup of coffee of the day. I don't know if you could call it a mug. It's on the small side for what Americans would call a mug. My daughter brought me a mug from Starbucks once and it really qualified as a mug. Two people could have easily had their coffee from it together. If they liked each other a lot, like lovers do. Do you hear that song in your head? I can't imagine liking anyone else that much again. I would worry about his germs. Besides, you would have to like the same things in your coffee and people either like it black or with milk and sugar, never just with milk.

I once accidentally put sugar in my coffee and couldn't figure out why it tasted so bad. The sugar was from one of those paper tubes that also held the creamer. I had picked it up along with the creamer, thinking I had two creamers, because that's what I always put in. I didn't finish that coffee, it was impossible. Since I've stopped eating porridge, I have a bag and a half of sugar on the kitchen shelf that's not going anywhere fast, because I don't use it for anything else. The Exfactor takes it in his coffee and that is it.

I was growing chubby from the porridge with sugar, although I kept saying to myself that it was healthy food. Lord, I did fool myself. I have kilos of porridge to get rid off. Not that I'm lying awake about this at night. I like sleeping better. I don't worry about my weight. I am just me, however I am built. The essence of me doesn't change and my mental health is more important. That's what it's all about in the end. I do have to get my priorities straight, but I'm not going to eat that bag and a half of sugar.

Tyke is completely distracting me. He had two rawhide bones, but he wanted me to try and get the one he had in his mouth, which I did for a while, but then I got the one that was lying on the floor and said, "It is mine." He can't stand it when I say that, so he had to drop his bone and get the one I had. We went on and on like this for a while until he got sick of it and laid down and started chewing on the bone he had in his mouth and that was the end of the game. It will start again in a while, I just know it.

No, instead of that I let him out again and when we were on the field there was another American cocker who is almost 3 years old. It's a female and she came over and challenged Tyke and then ran away and acted bitchy whenever he got close and he likes her so much. He wants to play with her badly and she won't do it and snarls at him. I feel sorry for Tyke, because he needs another dog to play with, but so far we're not having any luck, except for the neighbors' dog and he's never out when we are and I don't know them very well. She doesn't seem to like me and avoids me if she can. He is very friendly and always ready for a chat. Strange, isn't it? (he likes pudgy women and she's lost a lot of weight)

Things to ponder over in my spare time. I try not to ponder too much and to put a stop to it if it gets out of hand. I have an attic in my head where I keep those things and it's not all that full really, just dusty. No cobwebs, though. It's a fairly clean and uncluttered attic with a view of the sea. I have a treasure chest too. That's for very special people. The jewels in my life.

I can postpone hitting the publish button or get it over and done with, because I really have nothing more to say, or I could sit here for another hour and add another chapter. I must figure out the pictures that should head the post. Why don't I just go do that now?

Have a good evening.

Ciao,
Nora

Wish I could figure it out...

I slept more than 8 hours last night and it was wonderful. I thought I had lost my capacity to sleep long, but I need not have despaired and slept a hole in the day. I went to bed late, so I got up late and took my medicines late. Then, for some reason that I couldn't figure out, I realized that I didn't start feeling bad. I felt quite cheerful and was in a good mood, even though it had been well over an hour since I had taken my medicines.

I thought that was awfully strange and thought back on me taking the pills and then convinced myself that I had forgotten to take my Welbutrin. I had no other explanation for it. So I took that pill, but for some reason, I'm still in a good mood one hour later, so maybe I hadn't forgotten it and I'm over feeling bad when I take them. Now I may have taken 2 Welbutrins, so I won't take the one I was supposed to take later. You are supposed to take them all at once in the morning anyway, and the way I was taking them was an exception to this rule.

Anyway, the sun is shining outside even though it was supposed to be raining. I assume it will rain later on, it is forecast at any rate. I'm supposed to go to the tobacconist, because I won't make it through the long weekend, but I'll take an umbrella with me. Tyke will get wet, but I'll rub him dry with a big towel. I can also quickly go on my bike and take the chance that I'll get rained on. Then I'll have to rub myself dry with a big towel. My hair will be in ruins, but it already is anyway, so it doesn't matter.

It's very nice to sit here in the middle of the day in my bathrobe. I do have to get dressed, but I'm putting it off for now. My sister called me and we both decided that we didn't give a hoot that this weekend was a holiday and that we were going to live through it the best way we knew how and get on with normal life as quickly as possible. Maybe it would be different if we had a large family and a lot of celebrating to do, or should I say, commemorating? There does not seem to be much soberness to this holiday, but maybe there's not supposed to be. Over here it's a nonstop feast and food seems to be the main ingredient, not so much religion.

Well, I have to take Tyke for a walk before it starts to rain. There are clouds moving in. I hope you all have a nice day with pleasant weather. I just hope for a dry spell to go get my tobacco.

Ciao,
Nora

If you wish...

The colors for Easter are yellow and lavender, that's what people decorate their interiors with. I thought that was something you might want to know. And I have decided to make deviled eggs on Easter Sunday and to eat those all day long, so I will have a party from breakfast until I go to bed. I haven't had them in a very long time and right now I have a terrible craving for them. I hope my stomach will not be too disagreeable and allow me this simple pleasure. I will get a wonderful overdose of protein and light mayonnaise. I have 6 eggs, so I should be able to eat those in one day if I don't eat anything else. That doesn't sound like an awful lot of food, does it? I must be able to eat more than that.

The Exfactor was just here to borrow my bike. He is restoring a motorcycle and comes to town by train and uses my bike to go to the parts store. He buys things and orders them several times a week. Slowly he is making progress. When the motorcycle is done, he will use it to come to town. We had coffee and watched Tyke's antics who always makes a big deal out of the Exfactor being here and does all his stunts and other attention grabbing tricks. He's a cute dog. I was alright about the Exfactor leaving again when he did. My heart strings weren't pulled too badly. I am very stoic. He has an interesting life away from me and I don't blame him for holding on to it. He has all the things a man could wish for. Freedom, a relationship and motorcycles. Even his girlfriend rides motorcycles, so what more could he wish for? Well, maybe some men wish for fast cars and babes.

I just got a bill for my own deductible for my health care costs for this year. It is 165 Euros and I'm supposed to pay it by April the 19th. That made me laugh out loud. What a sense of humor those people have. It just kills me. I will call and make an arrangement with them to pay it off in monthly segments. You would suppose that somebody would know that people in the lowest income bracket don't have 165 Euros lying around. But no... In the new budgetary plans that were just presented by the cabinet, it is planned to increase it to 750 Euros. There was a large uproar about this, of course. It will make people go broke. It's the most loaded shoulders that carry the biggest burdens.

I'm expecting a visit from a manager of the institution that sends me the domestic help. I don't really know what she wants. Maybe she wants to know how incapable I am or how capable the help is. I can ask her for the third hour too while she is here. I haven't done any cleaning because she's coming. She'll have to take me as I am. Unorganized with full ashtrays. Well, I'll empty those. I may even organize the mail.

I don't feel good on the Welbutrin. I think it does my mood no good at all. In general it is on the low side and sometimes very low after I've just taken it. The first few hours I don't feel all that great and worry a lot. It is especially in the morning that it is bad. I just don't have the courage and the necessary happiness to face the day. The last days I go back to bed and sleep some more, but when I wake up, I feel like I have a hang over and it takes me a while to get myself together. Overall I feel sad. and not at all like I did the first 2 weeks. I wonder now if it was the absence of the other antidepressants that made me feel good the first two weeks and if after two weeks the Welbutrin really started kicking in. Or maybe I only felt pleasant side effects for the first two weeks. Who knows? I'm not a happy camper. Next week it will be 4 weeks that I am on them. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist then.

The woman from the domestic help was just here and wanted to know how I was and if the help was working out and if there were any problems. Since she asked me with such genuine concern, I told her and she is going to arrange for someone to come in twice a week and for it to be the same person. I think that's very nice and maybe now I will get clean windows, which is what I really want. I've been looking at these dirty ones long enough.

Tyke and I just shared a leftover piece of Camembert, he's hopefully wagging his tail, but it is all gone. It did taste nice, but now I'm burping. I probably had too much.

I'm going to lie down on the sofa for 5 minutes and just close my eyes for a little while. It's cold in here.

Ciao,
Nora

Also known as...

It's April 1st, be careful, I may fool you.

I just had to drink a cup of coffee real fast, because one of the drawbacks of taking the anti-psychotics during the day is that they make me feel sleepy. That's nice if I want to take naps nonstop, but I don't want to do that, because it will mean that I won't sleep at night. Other than that they do what they're supposed to and make me not feel angry when I take the Welbutrin.

This morning I wouldn't have known, because I went back to bed at 7:30 and slept until 12:30. I was awakened by my mobile phone, the one that I do hear ring when I'm asleep. It was my sister who wanted to know if I was ready to go grocery shopping. Well no, I needed at least an hour to sit and have a cup or two of coffee and come to my senses. At least one hour, if not longer. It turned into an hour and a half. My sister is very cheerful from the moment she gets up until she goes to bed. She doesn't need an adjustment period. My older sister is like I am and needs to sit in silence for a while. We both need to get our doses of nicotine and caffeine in first. Self medicate.

It was busy at the store and we hardly found a space to park. We first had to dump our empty containers of plastic and glass at the recycle bins and then braved the store. A lot of people were already shopping for the Easter weekend. On Sunday and Monday the stores will be closed. I first got the things I wasn't supposed to forget and then got the things I always get. I also bought myself a pint of "real farmer's vanilla pudding." I had seen it advertised on TV and wanted to know if it was the real thing like I ate when I was a kid.

When we were done shopping, I bought 3 lighters at the customer service desk and my sister bought me 2 bunches of orange tulips, which was very sweet of her. I have them standing in a dark yellow vase on the dining table and Tyke has shown the necessary interest in them. I'll keep him far away from them, because they look very nice and I hope they last a while. I do love tulips, like a real Dutch woman.

I tried the farmer's vanilla pudding and it tasted exactly like it was supposed to and I wonder why none of the other puddings do anymore. It seems so simple to keep making them like they were always made. Now you have to pay an arm and a leg for a pint of it. Of course, I can only eat a little bit at the time, so I'll make it last, but still... I remember eating yogurt when I was a kid that your spoon would stand up straight in, that's how thick it was. We're getting ripped off left and right nowadays with these light products that we pay so much for. All the goodness is taken out of them.

Boy, that cup of coffee sure cleared my head. That's a good trick I have to remember. I was so sleepy that I was ready to lie down on the sofa, but I'm totally over it now, until I have to take the next pill, that is. That's one thing about me, though, I have to learn the same trick over and over again. It seems I never completely learn from experience. I'm the donkey that repeatedly stubs it's toe on the same rock time after time. I have the same "eureka!" moment once or twice a year, every year. I reinvent the wheel all the time... I guess I've made myself clear. I wish somebody would remind me of that. That's why I need a very attentive and loyal husband. Do you know of one?

I just took Tyke for a quick walk around the field, but the weather is miserable. We've had rain and hail storms and thunder and lightning and cold wind. It's no pleasure to be out there and it's not going to get any better for a while. It won't be a sunshiny Easter. When we got home, I turned the heater up again, so I won't sit here with cold hands and I'm going to put my warm cardigan on in a while.

I haven't been fooled by anyone today. I'm glad, because I always take it very personally. I'm not very good as the butt of a joke. I was one too often when I was a child, accompanied by belittling laughter. Never make fun of your child and belittle it.

That's all I have to say for now. I took my medicines 45 minutes ago. Not much is happening, or I'm not noticing it. I'm going to eat some farmer's pudding.

Ciao,
Nora

Rain...

It's always like I try to erase one confessional post with another less confessional one, so I will look better in your eyes because I momentarily feel better. Because I feel conflicted about this, I start writing the other post, but take a very long time doing it, so it won't look like I'm too eager. I do have some sense of decorum. It's really silly that I bother going through all of this, but it's a compulsion in me that drives me to do it. It's probably a symptom of what's wrong with me, but it hasn't been described maybe in the DSM. Compulsively writing blog posts. Obsessive compulsive behavior. There you go. It has been after all, like the woman who sprinkled powdered sugar on her furniture. She couldn't stop herself either.

It's very hard to have something wrong with you. To know that you don't quite function as well as the average person does. That you come with an instruction booklet and that it needs to be read nearly every day and that if other people won't read it, you still have to read it yourself and I will tell you the truth, I don't think I will get off all of my medications. I think I need some of them. Not in huge quantities, but enough to help me function. I think I may go off the deep end if I were not to have them. I think getting off all my medications was a pipe dream and a lot of wishful thinking and very misguided. It's because some of us want to believe that I'm really a healthy person that we want me off the medication, but the truth is that I'm not and we better face up to that. If I'm going to be successful, it's going to have to be with medication. I'm a nut without it.

Well, there you go, we had another confessional. I don't stop, do I? That's because I do all my thinking on my blog. This is where I get everything straightened out. I talk circles around myself and finally find my way to where I'm supposed to be. Which is just a few steps ahead of where I started off. There is progress. I must remember to do things for myself, though, and not for other people, no matter how much I love them and want to make them happy. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot, but not everything. So much depends on me being able to deal with things and to have courage and self confidence. There's nothing worse than feeling out and out fear for the most ordinary events in life.

The computer is murmuring to itself again, no doubt looking for another update. The delivery boy from the pharmacy just came by to deliver some drugs, important ones that I can't do without. I was almost out of some of them and didn't realize it on time, so it was an emergency delivery. That sounds like I gave birth. I do in my dreams. Sometimes I have babies, as if by a miracle. It would be physically impossible for me, but in my dreams I can. I dream it quite often, but I think it symbolizes me giving birth to new aspects of myself. I'm hardly pregnant in my dreams and always surprised that I'm about to give birth. All the babies look like me, but one time I dreamed that I put my son back inside myself for safekeeping. I had a zipper in my torso because he was so big. Don't I wish I could have done that.

It started raining a while ago and at first it came down in buckets with a hard wind blowing too. It's only 7C outside and I have the heater turned up. It's still not springtime here, except for that one perfect day we had when I thought it was almost too warm. At least we don't have snow like some people still have. We are spared that and I did see some daffodils but they had been planted, so they didn't count. The jasmine bush is getting green buds and so is the prickly bush whose name I don't know by the clothes line. The rest looks bare. The Golden Rain is showing no action at all and should have been pruned this spring, but I'm not the woman to do it. I don't have the equipment. I think some man needs to haul his butt over here and do it. One with biceps, who also needs to fix the little gate that is falling apart in the fence. The one who uses it exclusively and keeps ignoring the problem. I will very tactfully point that out.

I've solved the problem with the anger issue with the Welbutrin. Instead of taking my antipsychotics all at once before I go to bed, I now take them spread during the day and I notice that it takes the edge off quite a bit. I took one in the afternoon and one when I took my medicines at 6 pm and I feel a lot better. Tomorrow I will take them at breakfast, lunch and dinner when I take my other medications. We'll see how much better I do.

And now for some Brie and Camembert.

Ciao,
Nora

An encore...

I took two 2 hour naps today, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I just woke up from the one in the afternoon, so I guess it was really one in the early evening. After the one in the morning, I wasn't sufficiently done sleeping to really start the day right. I had claimed here that I was so clear and levelheaded in the morning when I first got up, but after I walked Tyke, I realized how tired I still was and laid down on the sofa for a nap. I should have just gone back to bed for a proper sleep.I don't know why I thought that was improper for some reason, as if I was not supposed to lie in bed during the day.

My SPN called me after I had sent her the email about my grouchiness and the Welbutrin and told me not to make any changes in my medicines for 3 weeks so that I will stabilize and that they will be able to see then which medicine can be reduced or taken away completely. I begrudgingly made that promise, because 3 weeks is a long time to be grouchy, but I'm not it nonstop all day long so I guess I can live with that. You'll probably notice it in my posts when I am, though, and pay me no mind.

I walked to my sister's house in the afternoon with Tyke for some cappuccinos. My sister's dog is getting used to Tyke's enthusiasm, but doesn't quite want Tyke to have his toys yet. So he collects them under the table and guards them. They are doing better all the time and Tyke is learning to give Quinto his space and not to be too pushy. Quinto was used to Jesker and they got along well and now he has to get used to this little curious fellow who wants to be right there the whole time and be wherever he is. They'll work it out.

When I came back, I hung out on the computer for a while, but it was clear that I needed more sleep, so I laid down on the sofa again and was soon sound asleep once more. I'm just going to have to give into these urges to sleep during the day, because I am in a much better mood if I do and it doesn't seem to make that much difference with how much I sleep at night.

My template is back and I hope you can all read the font better on the white background. I have no way to enlarge it. You may all have to get reading glasses. Don't worry, I've got them too. There's no stigma attached to it. This is not the original watercolor template that I started out with, this is a new one in effort to get any template to show up at all. I can't find the unzip file with the watercolor template in it just now, but if I run into it, I will reinstall it, although I quite like this one too. I will go have a look for the other one in a minute. Maybe it is retrievable.

I need a tall glass of milk, so that's what I'm going to get. Have a good evening you all.

Ciao,
Nora

Adding up the hours.

I was up early this morning, because Tyke was barking and I had to stop him so he wouldn't wake up the neighbors. Once I had assured him that everything was fine, I was wide awake and ready to stay up, so I made myself some coffee and answered my emails, which is always a good exercise for my brain. I feel surprisingly clearheaded this morning and not at all hung over, so answering my emails was done with a well functioning mind, which I can't say is always true. I'll have to see how I do the rest of the day, but it's good to feel so levelheaded so early in the morning.

I still can't see my complete blog template, but I've heard that Blogger is having some problems, so maybe it is due to that. I will wait it out patiently and see if the problem clears itself up. I've also left a message at the template website, but I haven't heard anything from them yet. Will those of you who do see my complete template let me know? At least I'll know there is hope.

Well, I was speaking of feeling clearheaded, but I can't think of a bloody thing to write about, yet write I must. It's supposed to be a compulsion, after all, and when you are compulsed to do something, you can't help but. It's like people who talk, but don't have anything to say. This may turn into one of those exercises.

Tell you what. I think I'll take my medicines and see if that makes any difference. It will be an interesting experiment and I will wait half an hour before I start writing again.



Okay, I've hung out on Facebook and tried to figure out why some people are so incredibly popular. I just don't seem to fit in that category, you know? People don't flock around me. I make statements, but I don't get many responses. Maybe my statements aren't provocative enough and they should be more outrageous. Maybe I should insult people in high places or become incredibly political or put in more links to interesting stories. It's a puzzlement. I will have to think about it for a while. I must have a better plan in place. Look at me, the big strategist.

I've noticed that after I take the Welbutrin in the morning lately, my mood just goes downhill. I become angry and irritated and impatient. I don't know if this is a temporary condition, but I've just sent my SPN an email discussing this problem with her. I don't think this is the way an antidepressant is supposed to make you feel. It happens within an hour after I take it. It's impossible to do anything about it once it strikes, but to keep in mind what the cause is and that it's an artificial mood and that it has nothing to do with reality. It does help to talk about it. I feel I'm coming out of the closet with my perfect Welbutrin that made me feel so good for the first two weeks.

If it's a temporary side effect, then I can live with it, but if it's a permanent thing, then I'm going to get off them and not try anything else. I've had enough different kinds of antidepressants and none of them have really worked, except for my temporary believe in them. There is no happiness pill.

Well, I'm going to get dressed and take Tyke for a walk. It will do us both good.

Have a good day.

Ciao,
Nora

It's the coffee...

You see, it's the coffee that's keeping me going now. I had that decaf, but it didn't do me any good. I just mentally collapse and find that I'm on the verge of the throwing in the towel. I just want to give up and more than anything throw all my medication down the toilet for all the good it does me. I know I can't do that because of the withdrawal symptoms, but I wish I was a year along and off a lot of these things I'm taking now. I've never been as depressed and anxious and stressed and unstable as when I've been on the medication.

Anyway, I make myself a cup of coffee and drink it and I'm okay again. I'm not collapsing any more, but I can't stop and think about my situation too much, because if I do, I become very disheartened and disgusted and I want to run away from it and wish myself into another life. I am most unhappy and I don't care who knows it and everybody can have their opinion about it and their suggestions about how to make it better, but I tell you, I have to get off those drugs that are screwing up my mind.

I'm always having to artificially pep myself up to make it through the day because of all the sleep inducing medication I take, and I take a lot, even though I want to take a little. I had just reduced my anti-psychotics and my tranquilizers when my psychiatrist increased them again when I started on the Welbutrin and stopped taking my other antidepressants. I'm sure that this was well intended and done as a precaution against the problems I would have with withdrawals, but I think it wasn't necessary, really, and now I have to reduce those medications again. I can't do anything on my own without his express approval, so my hands are tied.

For as well as I was doing for the first 2 weeks on Welbutrin, I am doing badly now, but I will also blame it on withdrawal of one antidepressant that I completely went off immediately without any back up. It's gone completely out of my body now and no doubt it is having its effect. If I don't feel a marked improvement on the Welbutrin in a little over 2 weeks time, I'm going to stop taking it and not use another antidepressant, but just depend on my mood stabilizer. Then I can start reducing the anti-psychotics, which is a medication I really want to stop taking, having never been psychotic.

You realize, of course, that I'm using this blog to organize my thoughts. As I write these things down, they become more clear to me and my course of action becomes more obvious. I'm not really writing this down to get answers to questions from you, though input is always welcome. I guess I'm trying to make clear to you how I live in the artificial world of pharmaceutical products and how that influences my mind and my body and how really unhealthy that is. When my second psychiatrist had to hand me over to my third psychiatrist, he worried a great deal about how he was going to explain my list of medications to him. You know something was rotten in Denmark.

So, I'm having my second cup of coffee now. If that's what it takes to keep me going, then so be it. It's really an hour earlier than it says on the clock and I will pretend I live on the Mediterranean and have a nightlife. I started out this post with a feeling of despair, but it has settled down now to a feeling of control. I see what I need to do and the road that I need to take to get there. That does not mean that I will not sit here the next time without feelings of despair again. My moods are as unpredictable as the March weather here.

For those of you who think I like changes very much because I changed my blog template, I have to tell you that it s very double. I get very excited because it is something new and I look forward to how everything will look and which template I will end up with, but at the same time I also don't like changes very much and am most at ease with the familiar, so doing this is a daring step for me. It's a challenge and I have to get used to it myself and I feel very insecure about it. I would have liked to stay the toad forever, but now I'm a watercolor. I'm trying it on for size. Maybe it will be scary and I will flee back toward toadness.

I have a feeling that I'm not going to stay up that late, in spite of the coffee. It will be good to get a decent night's sleep or as long as I manage it. I have to pick up pieces of cardboard in the morning and go to the tobacconist.

Thank you for letting me bounce my thoughts off you. It's been very helpful.

I wish you all a good night.

Ciao,
Nora

A long nap.

I suddenly had to stop writing my last post, because I was overcome with sleep and had to go take a nap in my bed under the duvet. I slept for nearly 3 hours and felt better when I woke up. All day long, though, I have been trying to get rid of a sad feeling that is at the root of everything I do and say. There is a distinguished lack of happiness and courage to the point that I have to force myself to act like I felt two days ago, so that nobody will notice the difference and think that my medicine isn't working, while in fact that is probably just the case.

I think I'm not functioning well on just one tablet of the Welbutrin and that I miss the second tablet very much. I've always reacted immediately to the tablets from the first moment I took them and I think not taking the second one is draining me. I noticed it again tonight when I took my other medication at 6 o'clock. I sat here all worn out and unenthused and unhappy and I just could not get excited about what I was doing. At 7:30 I made a decision and took a second tablet and I'm now waiting for it to start working.

I'm turning things back to the original scenario and will have to inform my SPN tomorrow. I am going to see what I can do about influencing my moods myself by going to bed on time and getting enough sleep and not letting myself get pulled along by the drama of the events. I have to try and stay calm and in control at all costs and I know that I can do that. My psychiatrist and my SPN made their decisions based on my interpretation of the event and that influenced their reaction to it and it may have been totally overdone.

Anyway, here I am sitting writing another post again and eating Brie, which is very good, but I can only have a little bit of it. I bought some expensive decaf and I'm now going to taste it. Well, it's not bad as decafs go. I can live with it.

Outside the weather has changed. It's a lot cooler and it's raining. I just had to let Tyke out back, but I was cold standing there with my bare arms. I'm wearing a short sleeved top now and my green scarf wrapped around my neck, which provides a lot of warmth. It's the best invention since the wheel.

As is usual, I'm wasting a lot of time writing this and it will be bedtime when I'm done. That's okay, I'm ready to go to sleep, I think. I'm looking forward to crawling under the covers and sleeping. I'm a little bit worried about taking the antipsychotic, but I'm going to take it at the normal amount, so it should be okay. I'd like to take even less than what I take now, but that's something for the near future to be decided upon.

I'm boring and I'm going to quit writing,

Have a good night, everyone.

Ciao,
Nora

Too much for me...

I'm up again after having been asleep for 4 hours. I thought I would go to bed early tonight, because of the missed hours of sleep last night, but it didn't quite work out the way I had planned. Now I'm awake, somewhat stoned from the increase in antipsychotics, which I do not like at all, and I've made myself a cup of coffee to try and sober up a bit. I had no other recourse. I think I will not take the increase again, it is too much for me and it did not help me sleep and for a while I actually felt sick from it and broke out in a sweat.

I think the coffee is helping, though, and I'm slowly starting to feel better. I don't enjoy drugs to the point that they alter your mind in a negative way and that was the case here to the point of quiet deperation. In my mind's eye I was calling the SOS line asking them what to do if you had taken too much of something, though not an overdose. In the meantime, I think I've solved the problem myself. I was typing emails earlier and making a lot of mistakes in them and it took me twice as long to write them, but now this is going better.

So in the end, the only thing that will have changed, is that I will take one tablet of Welbutrin instead of two, and less is better, right? I have to have the same amount of faith in it that I had in the two tablets and I think I can if nothing negative happens. I'm assuming everything will be well and will see the glass half full. So, I didn't take my Welbutrin at 6 o'clock and you would have thought that I had expected the sky to come falling down on me. Of course, nothing happened and nothing will, because I haven't taken it long enough yet. My reaction was funny, though, like Chicken Little.

Don't you hate it when you hold the mouse and your middle finger keeps clicking on the right button when you don't want it to at all? It happens to me constantly and I really have to let go of that mouse when I don't need to hold it, but that habit dies hard. Even when you need to hold it, your middle finger reflexively keeps pushing down that right button, showing that whole little menu that you don't want and then you have to find a white space to left click on to make it disappear. It's just one of life's little irritations.

I just went on the scale, which is something I said I would not do regularly, but I thought, "What the heck, lets see the state of affairs," and I have lost 4.7 kg. That's more than 10 lbs. Not bad, eh? I celebrated that by eating a couple of teaspoons full of Nutella. Mmm... Those are Dutch teaspoons, not American teaspoons, which are much bigger and would be dessert spoons here, except that we eat pie and cake with little forks that are especially made for it, and we don't eat ice cream with them so we don't need a spoon for them. But if you are an American, and you come to my place for apple pie, I'll make sure you get vanilla ice cream with that. But if you're a non smoker, you don't want to come to my place, because if you spend any time here, your clothes and your hair will smell of smoke and you will find it very unpleasant. So, only smokers please.

I'm being a real slow poke in typing this. Hours have passed since I started this and I don't know what I do with my time either. Proof reading, because I don't have a spell check, although I just imported an American English dictionary, but I don't know what happened to it. I'll have to figure that out later. I don't know what else I do, except daydream a lot about what is important in my life and what is not and I think about all the different ingredients and people in it. I don't ponder and worry, these are very light hearted thoughts. I lightly touch on each subject and linger there for a while. Basically, everything and everybody is okay. Everyone is busy leading their own life and doing a good job of it. There's not much to worry about, except the little every day things, but even those aren't real worries. It's kind of nice, isn't it? A worry free life?

I'm keeping myself upright now with coffee. I've had two cups. I think I will sleep in the morning like I used to do. I may be getting back to my old schedule. It's not such a horrible thing, because at least I have the quiet nighttime hours to sit and write in. I've got the ringer on the phone turned down low, so when I'm asleep, I don't hear it and I can't be wakened up. I hardly hear it if I'm in another room. If they are people who really know me, they've got my mobile number. If not, it's tough on them.

For the post with the information about my hypomanic episode and my medication change go here if you're interested. If not, don't worry about it. In the end it doesn't really matter.

Have a good morning when you get up. I hope it's a bright day.

Ciao,
Nora

Let me tell you...

Toward the morning I went to bed and fell asleep within seconds after I laid down. Apparently I was very tired after all and I had just been putting off going to bed. Whatever stubborn streak that was in me I don't know, but it sure didn't come in handy, because I probably could have gone to bed much sooner if I hadn't subconsciously insisted on staying awake. I woke up 4 hours later, refreshed and ready to start the day, although once I was actually up, I did realize that I needed a cup of coffee, because I had some trouble making cigarettes for myself, something I should be able to do blindfolded. I managed to make 5 cigarettes before I gave up and made myself some coffee.

My computer gave me some trouble with starting up and it was making a lot of noise as if it was busy doing a lot of important things that were all a mystery to me. It would not start up the email program and when it finally did, it didn't react and it had to be shut down in a complicated way that took much time. Then it told me there were updates that needed to be installed. so maybe it had been looking for them. The updates are now installed, but I wasted a good hour doing all these things. Grumble! I don't like Windows Vista all that much. It's too cumbersome. It's still mumbling to itself and I don't know why. It should be nearly silent now. I may have gotten a white elephant, but with a lot of gigabytes, I do have to give you that.

I may have gone through a rapid cycle and have been hypomanic during the night, until I got a hold of myself and managed to get out of it. I'll have to tell my SPN about it when I see her this afternoon and make sure she realizes that it's over now and has been since early this morning. It certainly was an odd experience, especially the way I kept writing posts as if I could not stop myself. It was all a prelude to madness. Well, it's done now and I'm glad. I wasn't as comfortable and happy as I was claiming to be. There was a certain amount of messianic mania to it. It had me tottering in a high place. For those of you who were worried, you had good reason to be. It could easily have gotten out of hand.

I will finish writing this post when I've seen my SPN. That will prevent me from having to write two posts.

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Apparently the computer triggers my manic behavior, I become obsessed with it and I can feel the obsession grow already now as I write this. The later in the day it gets, the more my obsession grows, until there's hardly any stopping it and I must write almost constantly and get all my messages across, harmless as they start out to be. As I write more and more I seem to be somebody on a soapbox who is announcing evangelical messages. It seems to be that way to me, anyway. I'm afraid of what profound things I'm going to declare next.

A sane person would say, turn of the computer, but I'm not able to. It's impossible for me to do that. I would feel completely cut off from the most important thing in my life. It goes on first thing in the morning and it goes out last thing at night. I don't know how that is for you people, but for me it seems like an addiction, especially now that I have a new computer. I can't not turn it on.

I'm writing this post now and it has a certain mood to it, so there's not much I can do about it, except try to lighten it, but it seems impossible to do that. So to offset this post that is set in this mood, I will feel the need to very quickly write another post that is set in another mood. A happy go slappy mood. At least, that's what I would attempt. And one post would follow the other until I got it right and we were back to the messianic mania again.

It is important that this does not get out of hand tonight, because my medication will need to be adjusted. I don't want to take too much at the risk of being too hyper to go to sleep and sitting here obsessively writing posts. I don't want me to get out of hand.

Okay, I just had my SPN on the phone, and she had a consultation about my medication with my psychiatrist, and I'm to cut the Welbutrin by half and increase my antipsychotic medicine temporarily. So, I'm not imagining things and I am being taken seriously and I think they are doing the right things. I'm not happy about increasing the antipsychotic, but since it's only temporarily, I'll go along with it. I will now be taking the amount of Welbutrin that ordinary people also start with and not double the amount hat I had insisted on at the risk of becoming manic. It only gets increased if it doesn't work at the original dose.

Well, that's good, I'm being pro-active and that makes people help you figure things out. Everybody puts on their thinking caps and helps you work out the problem. People who know about medication and how it works.

Ciao,
Nora

Settling down for the evening.

I'm going to type this very slowly, because I need to take a big breather after my intensive afternoon. I want everything in me to slow down and get calm and quiet and serene. I'm finding my center of gravity now and concentrating on that .

I saw my therapist and my psychiatrist both this afternoon and the first thing my psychiatrist did was warn me of the risk I was taking by doing what I had done: suddenly stopping with two kinds of antidepressants and starting with a new one. He said something like that was normally only done at a clinic under strict supervision. Especially since I was taking such a very high dose of one of them. He was very serious about that and really wanted to get through to me that you don't do things like that on your own.

Then, since I had already done it, he wanted to do as much damage control as was possible so I would not run into trouble down the line. He agreed to write me the prescription for the Welbutrin and told me it is a completely different kind of antidepressant than what I had been taking, This one works on the dopamine in your brain. It's in a class of its own. The normal starting dose is one tablet, but he agreed to start me on two tablets since I told him that's what I needed in order to feel good 24 hours a day. He did warn me that I may get manic from it and that I need to pay close attention to any symptoms signaling that.

Now, because what I did was actually so very risky, he made me go back on a small dose of the original antidepressant, so I won't crash and burn in two weeks time. It's just a temporary measure. He also increased my tranquilizers back to two tablets 4 times a day and he increased my antipsychotics again. These are just measures to make sure I don't go off the deep end and can be reversed when we are sure that everything is going smoothly and there is no danger of me getting into trouble.He is actually for less medication, but is doing this for my own protection.

I am to call him the minute I think anything is not going right and I have an appointment with him in two weeks. I would say he is very thorough. He does not make these decisions lightly. He thinks about them long and hard and all three of us discussed them out loud. He did not dictate, we conversed and thought of the best things to do and I had to agree to them. It wasn't a one man show.

So all in all the conversation went well and different than I had expected. I learned a lot today and realized how much they know about me and how I function and about medication. I thought that I would have to put up a fight, but instead I had to learn that what I did was not so smart and that these things need to be planned differently. But I also gained the opportunity to try what I set out to do and that is to find an antidepressant that works and does not make me a zombie. I'm trying to regain my personality and I think I'm on the way of doing that.

When I came home, the dog was beside himself with joy to see me. He thought I had abandoned him forever. I thought he might have made a mess somewhere while I was gone, but everything looked good, so he hadn't. I have to take him for a walk in a while out in the cold. Brrr! Anything for love.

I'm yawning something awful, but it is too early to go to bed. I have to last a little while longer. I'm waiting for my second wind. I think I will have a cup of coffee, my last one for the evening. I have been drinking cold milk, because I was so thirsty after walking al that way to the offices of my psychiatrist and my therapist. Oh, I bought a bag of candy on the way home, Just a little one. Now, I never do a thing like that, but it looked appealing and I needed some sugar. I got it at the pharmacy. So, I'll have some of those.

Okay, that was my report about my important meeting. I'll be sure to keep you up to date as to my progress. I'll let you know if anything 'funny' happens. Let me know when I start not making sense anymore, okay?

Ciao,
Irene