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Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
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11:28 pm - bye bye Caffeine
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As I'm suffering from quite severe anxiety most of the day after waking up, which I usually do with coffee, I've decided to give up as many caffeine products as I can for a week or two. I love Italian blend filter coffee so that's going to suck!
Not a lot I can do for now though about the visual hallucinations in my periphery vision, or the auditory hallucinations (always seems to be half of the complete sound of my mobile phones txt messaging chime!) I just have to see if they are associated with the increased anxiety levels.
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| Monday, April 27th, 2009
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9:53 pm - Balancing time
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After a visit to the docs I am now med-less due to the side effects of most of them being worse than the possible benefits they give me. But I have been referred to the balance people to look into why I am so motion sensitive and if they can possibly do anything about it. Although I was warned this might not be likely.
I did a bit of googling and have seen exercises that can be done to desensitise me, but whether they work or not I have no idea. They might be worth a shot in the meantime whilst waiting for an appointment. I've been able to function for the last seven months or so as the meds I was initially taking damped down the problem, allowing me to walk, etc. Now with no meds, I'm not sure if I will be able to walk or if I will have to get back on my bicycle to go anywhere (it's smoother than walking!)
On a positive side, the reason I am not working or having a normal life is the motion sensitivity and if that could be resolved, I could get more active again and see a clearer future ahead of me! As it is right now, during sex last night I almost passed out from med-less head bobbing although I didn't bother to regale that one to the doc today :)
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| Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
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8:36 pm - Not enough
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I've been on half rations of the meds that work for the last couple of weeks waiting for a session with the doc and a possible new prescription and this just isn't enough to remove the psychotic moments. I keep thinking people around me are going to explode into violence and very infrequently feel the need myself to do so. The suicidal feelings that go with it aren't much fun either. Luckily I seem to be able to come up with reasons to live before it overwhelms me.
I think there's some stress in my life right now that needs to just dissolve away to relieve me. My ex wife isn't bringing up my kids right at all. Long story. Not the usual sniping here, she really is borderline unfit for the job. Anyhow, the extras. My girlfriend of six months turns round and announces she is gay. An ex girlfriend I then met up with for a return to a previous life lasted one day and then said it was all a huge mistake. Then also we have the wrong girl after me, I have no interest in her. Oh, and my so called best friend just got my ex wife pregnant! That isn't going to go away anytime soon.
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| Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
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8:07 pm - Oh joy.....
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Fighting to diet and exercise is a struggle on its own without the submission to these horribly pills. My own sanity is at risk if I don't take them. But if I do, then I struggle to move and struggle to fight the urge to eat. At least I don't have to put up with embarrassing side effects this time round. But still, I am only waiting another week, the last of my holidays, till I can get to see a doc and get something different to play with.
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| Thursday, April 16th, 2009
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10:04 pm - Teenager again
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I've got a return of OCD like problems I suffered as a teenager. I think these are caused by the high levels of anxiety and stress I'm going through. Usual problems, my head and family, not worth explaining here.
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| Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
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11:23 am - Badness
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Well, that's one medication off the list! Risperidone gave me low blood pressure. I could hardly move around with that stuff! I went swimming and was struggling with each length of the admittedly long pool. At one point thought I was going to lose consciousness and just sink under the water.
Back to the pills that pep me up, remove the problems I was suffering, but admittedly give me panic attacks, doh! Must ring the docs now and make yet another appointment to gain yet another med to try.
I'm so anxious right now and with the panic attacks I've been feeling like retreating into a nice warm cosy space and giving up most of my activities. Which would of course be a bad idea. Time to wait again for new meds.
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| Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
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5:46 pm - Change again
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Apparently I shouldn't have been on the anti psychotics I was for so long! A series of annoying, cloying, embarrassing panic attacks finally came along and prompted me to go to the docs and request a change of medication.
I took it on the way home and very quickly it kicked in, changing my visual perspective and slowing down my limbs and sucking away what little stamina I thought I had. Hmm, annoying!
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| Monday, March 9th, 2009
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5:37 pm - Monkey Cymbal
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I had a week of feeling pretty fine. My perspective had changed visually, even in the way I held myself, bodily. But I had a stressful night ahead of me where I was giving a powerpoint presentation to a room. I took one of my little yellow pills, the anti psychotics, and a load of beta blockers with it, swallowed down with whisky. I got through the night fine but then the pain began!
After four days of mental pain and depression I couldn't take anymore and started back on the anti psychotics knowing I'd harmed myself by taking that one single pill. I'm promising myself I will give them all up again after a few weeks or a month. I can't believe I did this to myself really. I was doing so well and my dictionary was accessible again, side effects from the pills reduced and I was feeling human once more. But, no more.
So, I find myself rocking back and forth on my sofa, doing my work, a river of power flowing through me from stomach to chest. Enjoyable as it is I can't help think I am like that wind up monkey with his cymbal, cheesy grin, banging away at my little cymbal.
At least the pain is gone for now.
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| Monday, March 2nd, 2009
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9:03 pm - Flowing tears
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Last night I lay on my sofa with my light turned low and experienced hallucination after hallucination as something in the centre of my vision kept pushing through into my reality, spinning and shaking.
( the rest of it )
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| Sunday, March 1st, 2009
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7:25 pm - Here comes the flood
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Two and a half days without my medication and I'm still waiting for my world to come crashing down around me. I've been emotional and teary, but not yet experiencing the pains of before, many months ago when we finally figured how to stop it. I'm going to miss the kick I got from those little yellow pills that helped me with energy and drive, to be able to walk without problems from shaking my head.
But I'm more relaxed. I lay still and can feel my eyes as they fall back into my head and seemingly lower to the base of my skull comfortably. Plus the embarrassing symptoms are going away. Things are sedate right now, if somewhat teary.
At least I've not let my studies fall behind, so I'm doing alright there. I'm lucky in that fashion I suppose. A seemingly hectic week of a major trip, a meeting, classes, homework, seeing my kids, theatre, shopping. Nothing came apart at the seams really so I get to live on still.
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| Saturday, February 28th, 2009
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10:11 am - Gah, more side effects?
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I find myself with an irrational fear of heights and suffering panic attacks at all the wrong moments. I'm maybe going to put this down to my medication (flupentixol) and am going to come off it for a week and suffer the pain it was hiding to see if these new symptoms go away. I need a cessation of these embarrassing symptoms right now!
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| Tuesday, February 17th, 2009
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10:35 pm - A Page a minute
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That's my average novel reading time. Judged to read the words, take in the story. I can skim read and speed read, but sometimes you just have to say the words aloud inside your head, pacing a novel out and work to that page a minute tempo!
Told to read a 250 page novel for a class within a week, I know that is an approximate reading time of four hours and ten minutes. The tutor is waving the book around and quoting three hours! What planet is she on! We have a Norwegian and a Pakistani in the class, the rest English or American. I don't know if we have any dyslexics in the class this module yet, but still, three hours!
I've read nine novels, one novelette and two books of poetry for my modules already over sixteen days. I'm starting to get to the point where I need to lay there without tensing my eyes to focus on a page in front of me and I have one novel, three books of poetry plus two books of essays to read in the next six days. Then I might just take a well earned break, unless my eyes get their second wind.
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| Saturday, February 14th, 2009
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2:05 pm - Dream carried over into wakefulness
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Amazing sometimes how real we take our dreams to be. When on waking we shudder and sweat and wonder how much of our recent memories were dream and how much real events in life.
I experienced something further than this upon waking up with a loud crash in the night! A tupperware container fell off the top of a wall mounted cupboard and into my kitchen sink. My birds, their open cage leaving them avenue of escape, struggled, screaming into the open reaches of my room.
I came awake at the crash and the screeching. Opening my eyes, staring from where I lay at the wall in my bedroom. It was as if the small area of my bedroom window now covered by wooden shutters was letting in the light from an explosion. Yellow light bathed the wall and in the middle of this, the shadow of a figure of a woman, between me and the window. The noises from my living room were unrecognised, unregistered. I believed this woman had been shaking me awake. Then when I rolled over and the room was empty of ghostly apparitions I assumed we had possibly been shaken by another earthquake as I felt similar the last time round (without the room seemingly bathed in light!)
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| Thursday, February 12th, 2009
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11:07 pm - 3 little metaphors
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Days following day need not be like the last
with its artificial regimen of caffeine and pills,
merely watching the sun come up and then
going back down thru square skylights outside.
( the rest )
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| Thursday, January 1st, 2009
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10:48 pm - Got my number
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Today I finally sat down on my own sofa after a couple of days away for the celebrations and I felt a pain in my neck which turned out to be yanked hairs. It was acute and on rubbing the area (finally) I found a lump on the back of my neck that appeared to be cloth material, very small and thin, stuck to my neck and pulling on my neck hairs. I peeled it off to find a serial number on it. 534048/22/510. I already have a lifetime serial number so I threw it away and forgot about it. What else can you do when you mysteriously find a serial number attached to your neck?
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| Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
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6:55 pm - Forgetfulness
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I wish I could forget the things that hurt me, but I always seem to be overwhelmed by them. They are coming in so random and without the repetitiveness that would suggest something easily fixable (like PTSD was). But forgetfulness I do have is forgetting to turn the immersion heater off, forgetting to turn my cooker off and burning the pans to hell, forgetting to take my medication!
It appears to be that time of year again to make promises for the year ahead although I have learned not to make them anymore as life seems to drive without me at the helm. I am not missing anything, really. I seem to get enough life pressed on me, especially recently. Once I work on these essays I need to get out of the way for uni I will be able to relax somewhat. But life will still be going on.
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| Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
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11:13 pm - Plagued by Dreams and Memories
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No doubt medication induced, but disorientating and cringeworthy at the best of times. Dreams that are so heavy and real I wake drooling and in terror at things I think I have maybe done and the cost to me for doing it. Ageing I build up a heavy store of memories that can really hurt when they topple over in shaky times and pound me into the ground.
I released a lot of these memories whilst experimenting with drugs designed to increase blood flow that appear to be helping with the brain damage somewhat. I now have increased recall of events from various points in my life that were unreachable before.
Emotions are almost uncontrollable though. Add to them the dreams and memories that are weighing down on me nowadays and I experience too much mental fatigue as a result. I have work to do and feel too tired to even start the essays at hand even though I know that getting them out of the way I will be looking at half a year of far easier workload.
New Year again. Give up smoking, heavily diet, feel better, live longer. Bleugh!
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| Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
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11:01 pm - Casual mentions
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A friend I went to college with ended up at a different university. She writes now in her blog about the image of part time students. How they aren't up to being full time workers. Or at least that is how far too many people present this image to her as she considers how stressful studying full time and working practically full time is to her.
Well, I have to say that even studying part time is hard! She sees things as 50% attendance. Well, there is 33% or 66% and a few more inbetween that and being 66% myself I can say that it certainly doesn't feel like being part time at all!
For instance, one of my two modules this semester requires I read 12hrs a week, and since we have to post things from our reading at least 48hrs before our next lesson that really means 12hrs of reading in 5 days! Add to that secondary reading and thinking/working on our next assignment and one module feels like enough part time nonsense as it is without adding the second module on I am doing!
It also doesn't help the assignment for the second module looks like assignment number one I just handed in for it, with double the data examples and treble the word count. Undue stress for certain. I feel like curling in a ball in my bedroom and never coming out again. I couldn't imagine how my friend manages to work as well as study full time and still get the reading in that I know she is doing. I can't wait until this semester is over, the next one sounds like a breeze moving from terribly grammatical linguistics to modern and creative literature.
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| Saturday, November 8th, 2008
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11:11 pm - I'm tired
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....and fat and still hungry.
I know I've taken on too much this year. There's no doubting it. My roles at uni are a part of my life and enviable I guess. Reading week comes along and I am one of a group of students reading the new textbook from a group of our tutors to ensure it is understandable. I don't mind that. Sit down with feet up, drinking tea and smoking too many cigarettes.
But sometimes when I go out I feel like falling unconscious. The physical stress is too much for me. I only just last the distance. I almost slipped up with a new girlfriend when I said I was thinking of skipping meeting her one night. I suddenly realised I didn't want to explain my fatigue. I agreed to turn up. I whinged a little bit but covered up
I need to finish my last essay of this cycle tomorrow. I can do it. So close. Whether it will score well is another matter. I recall the other night shaking my tutors hand as he guesstimated I would hit a 67 point average, a 2:1 at the end of my degree. I will try my best. Years to go....
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| Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
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8:37 pm - Shaky
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Really wish I hadn't come off the meds temporarily now. Only just returning to normal and not as good as before. Not sure how I was surviving before I started them originally now. I have dreams of better times. This was a week where I also thought it might be a good time to give up smoking, and that lasted a day before I couldn't function and realised I would be better waiting for a more appropriate time, like the holidays!
If only life was so easy we could afford to cut away the bad or infected parts of ourselves and function well enough with the remainder. But this isn't true, we need those parts, however badly they are malfunctioning.
Time is running away with itself. I want a day when I can lay in bed and just allow my mind to think. Off the record, off the chart, out of reality. I better book myself one of these days soon.
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