Friday at the best time of the day...

I'm saying that, but I don't know at all if it's true. I'm just saying it as a wishful way of thinking, to make it come true, because I'll be darned if I'm not going to feel well now.

I'm sitting here with a big glass of juice and a cigarette and the dog at my feet. Outside it's -3C, which is an improvement, because this morning it was -7C and that was just a little bit colder. My sister and I were at the grocery store before 8 am and we had to wait just a few minutes in the cold before the manager opened the doors. It makes you think of homeless people immediately and how they manage to get through the night.

We got our groceries done fast enough and were home by 8:30 am. I unloaded everything very quickly and had something to eat, but because I only had 6 hours of sleep, I realized I needed to go back to bed and sleep some more, which I did. Every once in a while I woke up, but I knew it wasn't time to get up yet, until it was noontime and I felt that I was awake properly and could face the day. I let the whole thing depend on my mood. If I feel at all down and out, I don't get up, but wait until that feeling is completely gone. If I get up too soon, I will be very miserable and suffer unnecessarily and think the world is coming to an end. I can't stand any suffering. I don't do it gracefully at all.

I think I'm very sensitive to emotional pain, or maybe everybody is and I just feel more of it quicker. I feel quickly overwhelmed by my emotions and feel like they roll over me like a big strong storm that I have little control over. I get upset and distraught very easily and scared that I will fall apart. I'm very much afraid that I will lose control over the scenario and that I will lose touch with reality. Sometimes I feel myself fall apart and fly into dozens of little pieces and I become very scared and I think I will not be able to gather myself back together again.

I'm happiest when I try not to feel anything. When I'm free of emotions, although I really don't know if I actually am at that point, or if I'm just happy then about nothing at all. Just about being alive, maybe. It's when I've managed to push every obnoxious thought away and my head feels empty of them and there's only room for pleasant thoughts for a while, however small and insignificant they are. It's the absence of pain. It's in the void of that that I'm alive.

Well, so much for serious words. I have to keep in mind that I'm decreasing my medication and that I'm going to feel some emotions now that I haven't felt for some time. They have been numbed by the medicines. I've just had to take an antipsychotic tablet and not wait until tonight, because I felt my mind going through the withdrawal from that. I would normally already have had two tablets of it plus the one I didn't have last night. That's a lot all at once. It melts on your tongue, so it enters your system quickly. All I have to do now is wait for it to work.

In the meantime, while I'm preoccupied with the workings of my mind, and how can I ignore them at this point, I still haven't gotten the stamps that I need for all the Christmas cards that I wrote last night. The little post office wasn't open yet this morning, so I couldn't get them. That means I either have to go there this afternoon, or get them on Monday when I send the packages with the books. Christmas is sneaking up on me this year. I didn't realize it was next week. In my mind it was still two weeks away. I hope I'm not the only one with this problem. Tell me I'm not! Even though it's freezing outside and we've had some snow, I just wasn't ready for it to be Christmas yet. It seems to come sooner every year, but maybe that's okay, because that means winter will be over quickly and it will be springtime soon. Spoken like a real optimist, right?

I know there are people in Canada who are a heck of a lot colder than I am, that's for sure. Our little cold climate is nothing compared to theirs. They really feel what winter is all about. They live in arctic conditions. So I won't complain about the cold too much. It's not that bad after all. I'll complain when it gets to be -15C. I think I'll have every good right to then. I don't think I have clothes warm enough for that kind of weather, although I do have a really good winter coat in a Russian kind of way. It's not very stylish, but it's warm.

It's taking me forever to write this, but in the meantime my medication is working and I'm feeling a lot better, so I know what to do now. Take one tablet in the middle of the day. I just can't last so long without one. It makes my mind do funny things. It makes me feel slightly desperate.

It's very dark in here. I only have the desk lamp on and the rest of the living room is shrouded in darkness. That's because it's so cloudy outside and it wouldn't surprise me if it started to snow again. I don't like for the living room to be so dark and it certainly isn't good for my plants. Those poor things have a hard enough time as it is under my 'green' thumb. I have to change the light bulb in one of the overhead lamps. It isn't very bright and it takes a long time to get up to strength. It's an energy saving bulb that comes to life slowly and then never really makes it's promise come true. I think I will do better if I change it for another one. I don't know why this one in particular behaves this way.

Do you think that 600 grams of wet food is too much food for a medium sized dog to eat? That is 21 ounces. It seems to be what the dog needs to be satisfied. I was giving him 400 grams (14 ounces), but that was leaving him hungry and scrounging the cat food. It's the best quality dog food there is made with lean meat and vegetables.

Well, that's all for me for today. It's taken me the better part of the afternoon to write this, just about. You've gone through a whole mood change with me. I don't know if you're aware of that.

Ciao,
Nora

Another Depression?

I'd been putting off calling my psychiatrist, but finally went ahead and did it anyway, because I felt myself falling in the clutches of another depression. I was apathetically sitting on the sofa, smoking cigarettes, looking at a cup of cold coffee, and thinking about all the things I needed to get done, knowing I wasn't able to do them. Whatever energy and interest I needed to get them done, wasn't there and I knew I wasn't going to find them. I felt like a brain dead sack of potatoes and not the least bit of a glimmer of excitement shone through anywhere. My thoughts were morbid and dark and everything cost me enormous amounts of effort. Making a new cup of coffee was too much work.

I called my psychiatrist to confer with him about what to do next, which was the smartest move I made today, besides going back to bed early this morning and sleeping a few more hours. I explained my situation to him and I said that I realized that it was normal to be tired after a mania, but that now I was slipping into a depression. He listened to me explain my symptoms and agreed. Then he asked me what I thought was the wisest thing to do and I answered that we should lower my antipsychotic medication and my Oxazepam and he said that he agreed with that completely. The antipsychotic medication prevents you from becoming manic, but once that's over, it has a tendency to depress your mood and make you morose and the same thing counts for the Oxazepam. He said to lower the antipsychotic medication first and see how I felt then and to then start lowering the Oxazepam a little bit at the time. It means I will start taking the antipsychotic medication at night again when it will help me sleep, instead of three times during the day.

This gives me some amount of hope, although I don't know how I will do on a lower dose of medication. If it will make me not depressed, I will be very happy about that, because the kind of shape I'm in now is not okay. The Exfactor was here this afternoon and I was not able to have a normal conversation with him, it was too much work and it was rather awkward, because it looked like I was not happy to see him and that was not at all the impression I wanted to give. My brain was not functioning to the point that it could carry on an animated conversation and I sat there like a deaf and dumb person who had nothing to say that was of any interest. I will call him in a while and explain what the problem was.

In the meantime, to get some life back into myself, I am listening to this singer and I hope her happy music will penetrate my dull skull and bring some animation in it. I've also found the strength to make myself a cup of coffee, so thank goodness for small favors.

I need my energy today, because I've got to write some Christmas cards and I have to wrap up books that I will have to send out tomorrow or Monday, depending on when I have my money. I've got to do groceries and have been trying to get a hold of my sister to find out when she is going shopping with her car so I can go with her. I've also got to give her her birthday present which finally arrived in the mail. I have to buy three books of stamps. One for inside the country, one for inside Europe and one for overseas. Is this boggling your mind? You can't just stick any old stamp on an envelope. Or a combination of.

I've got to walk the dog. The snow is almost all gone, but right now it's freezing again. The dog may not want to go out, it's nice and warm in here. We have to go brave the elements, though. We're just like the mailman, neither rain nor snow...

I think maybe I'm going to be okay in the end. I hope lowering the medication works and that it doesn't work too well. As in, "Hi, here I am manic again!" I will be the last to know. I'll blame it on my vitamins again.

Ciao,
Nora

In the middle of the night.

I went to bed at 10 pm and found myself awake again at 2:30 am. There was nothing to do but to get up and make myself a cup of coffee and turn on the computer and enjoy the extremely wee hours of the early morning. There is still snow outside, but it doesn't look as if more fell since last night, leaving us with a thin powdery layer that right now is getting frozen at -4C. I do so like being up at this hour of the night and try to think of all sorts of things I could do now that I'm up and feeling well, besides writing this post and reading the blogs that I'm behind on. There are still the floors to mop...

It's too bad that I can't change the living room around anymore. I've done all I can do there. There's not a piece of furniture that needs moving, nor a picture that needs rehanging. From this point forward it is only cleaning that I have left to do and that, of course, is much less fun. I'm waiting for a burst of energy to come along and make me grab a bucket of suds and get to scrubbing. I've just made myself a second cup of coffee, so with a little bit of luck my burst of energy will come soon. Caffeine induced energy. I'll take it anyway it comes. A little bit of it will be of my own.

I'm almost done with 'Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God' and it's turned out to be a surprisingly good novel and quite adventurous even at the end. I have a few pages left to read, but fell asleep last night with it. Then comes the big choice of what to read next, because I have so many books to pick from. I got two in the mail yesterday and they look good too. There are some novels I'm unable to get and it's frustrating me to no end. People who only send inside their own country have them and that's a lost cause. You can't even approach them. Bookmooch is very strict about that. There's no way to finagle your way into their hearts.

Well, it's slowly turning into morning, because I'm sitting here poking around as usual. Paying attention to everything around me as I try to write this. I'm also listening to music, which is slightly distracting me, as I've never heard this singer before. Or band, I suppose it is. I like weird music, but it can be a little too weird sometimes and then I just sit spellbound listening to it. I always imagine being young and being the lead singer in a band myself and what kind of music I would like it to be and I'm sure I would not like it to be middle of the road music. It would have to be slightly odd and unique.

I wonder how sleep inducing it is to write a blog post and how sleep inducing it is to read one or many of them. They are such very passive activities, aren't they? You use such few muscles and your brain doesn't get overly involved either, unless you're writing a masterpiece. We all know I'm not writing one of those today. I'm just chit chatting. Making noise on the screen. I have to go off and find a passionate activity to do, such as mopping the floors...

I'm just a little bit cold sitting here and I may turn up the heater just a notch. On the other hand, if I'm going to be physically active, I won't need to. I'm awfully hungry too and may eat breakfast early. I just hope it won't make me groggy.

Alright, I'm off to find my bucket. I saw it last in the bathroom, so that's where I'm headed.

I hope you all have a wonderful morning when you wake up and that you will be full of good cheer.

Ciao,
Nora

How to do it?

I have to figure out a way to dispense my energy evenly without being at either side of the spectrum in my moods. If I'm manic I am capable of doing many things, but when I'm done being manic, I turn into this sleepy headed woman again who needs to take naps and who doesn't at all spend her time wisely. It may be that I take too many tranquilizers and I'm going to try and cut down on them, although I don't know how easy that is going to be, because in the past I've always needed more of them for various reasons. Today I was exceptionally sleepy, but I think that was in reaction to the past mania too and I can't count it as ordinary behavior. It is just now that I'm starting to feel like a normal person again and I have stopped yawning, which I've done all day long. Well, I write that down and yawn, of course.

I took a long nap today after I had slept late this morning. I felt fuzzy headed while I walked the dog and not at all wide awake and I knew I needed more sleep. But I think that's not normal and I want to stop being in that position. I want to have an ordinary amount of energy and not have to wait for a mania to get a lot of things accomplished. I think it's very reasonable of me to expect to have enough energy to do the ordinary things in life that other people do without feeling wiped out. I am cutting down on the tranquilizers now and I'll see how it goes. I don't constantly have to be drugged, after all. I'm not a dangerous animal.

It's snowing! A nice layer of powdery snow is covering everything outside and the dog and I already walked in it. I did say that I didn't want it to snow, didn't I? Well, this snow, so far, is nice. It is very clean and pretty and there isn't a lot of it, so it's not too bad. I do have a good pair of boots to wear for it now, after all. I'm not going to get wet socks. It was nice to be outside and have the snow fall on us and it reminded me of the fact that my father and I would always go out for a walk in the first snow of the season and this would usually be at night. We wanted to make the first footsteps in the snow. That was a nice tradition that we had. I'm sorry he isn't here to do that with me anymore now. But the dog and I can do it. I think the dog likes snow. He likes to sniff in it very much, the same way he sniffs in fallen leaves.

Speaking of dogs. He looked at me with such melancholy eyes tonight after his dinner, that I gave him an extra 150 grams of food and he ate it with good appetite. That's such a little amount of food that it's not going to make much difference in his diet and it made him happy. I sure don't have a heart of steel and I can't deny him food if he's still hungry. What I gave him was lean meat, so it should be okay. You see, there's a certain logic in my reasoning.

I'm listening to some very obscure music that I got off the Jamendo website where you can download music for free. It's very innocuous music and not very exciting. Good to have in the background while I write this. There's nothing startling about it. Some blues, some jazz, some chansons, some new age. Oh, gag me with a spoon! When something is totally free, you don't have much choice. You make the best of it. That's why I just switched to Deezer for some better music. The Wild Yaks! That will wake you up! Of course, it completely prevents me from concentrating on what I'm writing here. I'll have to switch it off so I can hear myself think. I don't know how kids do it with their iPods stuck in their ears all day.

I have liked having all these days off. I thought I was going to mind not having therapy hardly, and soon none at all, but I like sleeping late in the mornings and getting my days started slowly. Well, except for those few days there. I quite accidentally, and I don't know how, have shut off the alarm clock in the mornings and now it doesn't go off at 7 am, which means I sleep until 9:30 am or there abouts. It's quite nice, even when I go to bed on time. I'm going to try and stay up a little bit late tonight and see if I can't mop the floors. Yeah, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but I'm really considering it. I must do it one of these days, it may as well be now. And I have to change the sheets on my bed. Toby has been lying beside my pillow and it is kind of grubby there. I know, I should put a towel down there, but I always forget. Besides, clean sheets are nice to have on the bed.

I'm saying to you that I may do all those things, but I may just as easily skip them, because I'm yawning again. I certainly dislike all this tiredness. I thought it would disappear with the vitamins, but maybe I haven't taken them long enough yet. I've only had five capsules. I suppose it's going to take a little longer than that.

Well, that's it for me for now. If I suddenly get a burst of energy, you will be the first to know. I doubt it very much, though, but I can hope for it.

Have a good evening.

Ciao,
Nora

It's too early to go to bed.

I was planning on going to bed, but it's really too early to go and it would be slightly ridiculous if I went now. So, instead of that I will write another post and tell you about the amazing paint job I did over the mildewy patches of the living room walls. There, I just told you. No really, I had a nice little can of white paint and a brand new brush and I didn't dribble any paint and very neatly covered up the mildewed patches (of which I don't know the origins) and, as the paint has been drying, the mildewed patches have not reappeared, except for one particularly stubborn spot. I'll slap more paint on there later.

I also keep trying to improve the living room and I found in the junk room a rod iron candle holder for three candles that you hang on the wall. That was just what I needed for one bare spot, but I knew that wall needed screws and I had no drill. But I also remembered that before the last paint job, there had been a hole somewhere in that spot that we had puttied, so I had to try and find it. After a while I did. It was just a little bump and I hammered a nail into it and hung up the candle holder. Then I looked in the junk drawer (every good household has one) and found three matching blue candles and stuck them in and voilà, it was a done deed and it looked nice. I even lit the candles for a while, but then blew them out and decided to save them for a really romantic evening. I am going to have one of those, you know!

Then I got really bold and took a lamp out of the bedroom and added it to a spot beside a chair in the living room, but it was a wrong move and it didn't even grow on me, and I have to take it back to the bedroom when I go there next. Sometimes you want things too much and then you overdo it. It is that way in real life too. Curses!

It's been freezing here and in some places there's an inch of ice on the water. That's not thick enough to skate on, but some daredevils do it anyway. It's going to keep freezing, so by this weekend we should all be able to skate outdoors. Not I, of course, I have no skates. I haven't skated in 30 years and doubt I could do it anymore. That's not at all spoken like a true Dutch woman, because no Dutch woman would say that. Everybody here knows how to skate, it's the law. It's as normal as bike riding. Even the queen knows how to skate. Heck, she even knows how to ski and you don't see the queen of England doing that. Yes, our queen rides horses too. I really shouldn't make a big deal out of that, should I? I mean, why should the queen not know how to skate or ski? She's a normal person of flesh and blood, isn't she? In the end, she's no different than you or me. She's about as royal as my left foot.

The dog's on a diet and is only getting half the food that he was getting. I am buying him some very good dog food, but giving him a little in two portions. He thinks it's fine and loves it and when his bowl is empty he thinks he's had enough. Except for tonight when he went over and in one big vacuuming motion ate all the cat kibbles out of their bowl. I hope he doesn't keep doing that, or I'll have to feed them on the kitchen counter. I do have a small bowl of dried dog food for him, but he is completely ignoring it. He must think eating dried dog food is beneath his dignity. He has to lose 12 lbs at least, but I have to buy him food that he likes to eat, otherwise he'll start begging for his Bonzo bones and those are only for special. He's such a goof ball.

I was sitting here with the blinds wide open letting the whole world see that I'm a woman living all by myself. I guess I always feel safe in this neighborhood, or it is because I have a dog. Little do they know that he is deaf and doesn't even hear the doorbell. It's very convenient that he's deaf when all the fireworks go of at New year's. It's like WWIII broke out, but he doesn't hear it and is not in the least scared. The cats are and go into hiding, the poor things.

Well, my dog thinks it's time to go to bed. He keeps going to the bedroom and coming back here and sighing deeply. I think it has great meaning. I must heed his call.

I hope you will all have a good night and sleep tight.

Ciao,
Nora

As I was saying...

I was so rudely interrupted by myself and my sudden need for sleep that I didn't even get to write a decent post. I never write such little bitty things as that! Jeez, it's almost something to be embarrassed about. I went to bed and slept another 5 hours and when I woke up, I felt a lot better. I felt well rested and like a whole new woman. I was ready to tackle the world again, which is no wonder if you've slept so little in the past two days and you're finally caught up again.

I can admit to myself now, and see it clearly, that I was manic, and here I thought for sure that it was because of the vitamin pills that I felt so well. I was convinced of that. I think I've gotten over it now, but I still have that happy feeling and if I don't, I'll just go to sleep until I have it back again. I'm playing my music as I type this and as long as I want to listen to music, all is well with the world. I'm listening to dEUS. The best Belgian Rock Group. Yes, they do have those in Belgium, besides having very good beer of which Palm is one of the best. You heard it here first.

My SPN called me to remind me of our appointment and I said I couldn't come because I was manic and that I was asleep finally.That took her aback, because the last time she talked to me I was deeply depressed. She asked me how much antipsychotic medication I took and when I told her she said that we couldn't increase it, which I already knew. I didn't care, all I wanted to do was sleep. I told her that I was seeing my psychiatrist next week, which is good, because she is going on holidays herself now until after New Year's. I hope I'm not going to be like a bouncy ball, up and down. That would be horrible. I hope this was just a big low followed by a big high and that is it. I hope I'm evened out now. I still feel like undertaking things, but in a much slower pace.

My friend Lucienne called me a while ago and sounded very down. I wanted to give her some of my energy, but I am unable to. I can't get her motivated to undertake things and get herself up out of the blues. She has no hobbies except shopping. Which I don't do, of course. I wish!

I have to buy myself a new diary for 2010. I'm already making appointments for that year, but I have no new calender yet. I don't know if I want a calender or a diary. Both have their good points. When I go to buy those new glasses, I will see what they have in that store and make up my mind there. I think I will go for a diary. It's easier to leaf through the weeks and months ahead. I very much liked the one I had last year, but it was sent to me by mistake and was meant for someone who used to live here. I thought that was a fortunate circumstance. Apparently they are not making that mistake this year. Darn!

I have to go and paint now. And then hang up the laundry and clean up my bedroom. These are all incredibly fun jobs which I.m looking forward to very much. Right, and my sister is the Queen of the Netherlands. Maybe I ought to take another nap instead. I'm yawning, so by rights I could.

Have a great day. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. That leaves you with a lot of choices.

Ciao,
Nora