[
mental
]
2001-06-30
Not feeling too good today:
probably due to the delayed prozac of yesterday. Oh well. I hope I feel better later...
Not much accomplished today. Okay, not *anything*, really, and I feel my attitude getting worse. The world seems like too much trouble, really. Instead of seeing the potential good in things, I see only what a big pain in the ass they might be. But this is not a *strong* feeling, mind you. I'm not in a really bad way, just a little off.
I'm hoping I'll readjust back to what passes for normal tomorrow or the next day.
I called a couple friends asking if they wanted to go see A.I. with me, but neither has responded, so I suppose I'll just go tomorrow by myself.
I made some pasta salad and some spam earlier, and strangely (or not so strangely) my mood seemed better while I was doing it.
I'm still so sleepy. I have really got to get cracking on readjusting my sleep cycle to something better. Last night I had absolutely bizarre dreams, many orders of magnitude more bizarre than usual. At one point, I realized I was dreaming and I started controlling the dream a little bit, but then I decided I'd "play" later, that I wanted the story to continue the way it was going for the moment.
I woke up when I realized that my eyes were open - dangit! So I didn't get to play with the lucid dreaming thing as I had hoped.
[
mental
]
2001-06-29
Oy, I'm tired:
I stayed up til two again (doh!), then got up at like eleven. I rushed out to go pick up more printouts from Chris, then went to Manpower to do data entry testing (I did pretty well, I guess, but I was annoyed at making three errors, since I only made one and zero errors in the two practice trials, respectively).
Then I went to Kinko's and made copies of resumes and applications, and got myself some Taco Bell. I went to the UT temp service and took the spelling test (I scored 100% on it! Woo woo!) and the typing test (86 words per minute with no errors). I was quite pleased with my results there.
Anyway, they only do interviews in the morning so I have to go back on Monday or Tuesday. I was already in town and even though I was tired, I realized if I drove back to Cedar Park I'd just have to immediately turn around and come right back again for my visit with Elena.
So I went to the downtown library and looked for something to read. I couldn't check out a book, so I just sat there on a Star-Trek-inspired couch in monkey-vomit green reading Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. I got about a hundred pages into it, over the course of a bit more than two hours. Pretty good I guess, but I still feel like a slowpoke compared to the *three* guys I know who are all lightning-fast readers. Thinking about that always makes me feel inferior, but it's rather silly to do that, I know.
Eventually I'll buy it or get the Texshare card from my library so that I *can* check it out from the Austin library. It's complicated. Blah.
So we took Elena to CC's coffee, and she played with an espresso machine, which was cute. She pretended to have a little tea party with these little bitty cups & saucers they had. It terrified me that she would drop something - I was a bit more anxious than usual, probably because I didn't manage to take my prozac before I left for the day's adventures. Doh! I gotta not let that happen.
Another thing I gotta quit letting happen is stuffing my face way the heck too full of food. It just tastes so *good*, and then I'm filled with this tremendous longing for that good feeling again, and I can't help myself. Of course, I don't quite *achieve* the good feeling I'm aiming for, since my taste buds are already saturated, but still...
My relationship with food is all weirded out now, and it's aggravating. It's all brain chemistry, though. It's not really about willpower or virtue or stuff like that - it's about ratios of neurotransmitters and whatnot. I know this because I've passed through about five different styles of relationships with food in the past three months.
Anyway, I'm tired, and I want to catch some tv before I go to bed. I want to watch Dennis Miller - occasionally he makes me laugh.
Roomie Chris is out of town this weekend so I gotta play lots of music to seem less lonely. Tomorrow I want to go see that A.I. movie at a matinee or something, and maybe exercise if I'm lucky.
[
rants
]
2001-06-29
Since when do those bastards:
stick advertisements in my fucking *checks*?!?!?!? Argh! I almost couldn't believe it when I saw it, but there it was, an advertisement from my credit union sitting smack in the middle of my checkbook. The nerve! Some bs about "Ask us about our low mortgage rates" or something. Grr. I tore it out of there with resentment, foam streaming from my mouth.
I want to take it and stuff it up the *nose* of the smug person who came up with this invasive scheme. Okay, I'm not violent, I just liked the image of that. :)
Watch out, the next time you order checks...
Unrelated rant:
When I put in a refill of my Mentadent toothpaste, it always, without fail, subsequently spews forth from only *one* side of the two-chambered vessel. I think it's always the white side, too. I have to push out several brushfuls of white-only toothpaste before I can achieve the perfect yin/yang balance of white and blue (or white and green) that I've come to expect from Mentadent.
What's up with that?
So, having gone through this experience repeatedly, I've come to dread it. This means I will draw out the last of the previous cartridge of toothpaste as long as humanly possible. Thus was born: Mentadentercise! I've found that even when I think there can't possibly be any more toothpaste left, I can get a good week or even *two* out of there by pushing as hard as I can on that plunger. It's truly amazing...
Anything to avoid big wads of unmatched white paste to get rid of!
[
mental
]
2001-06-29
And lo, much was accomplished:
but only at the last minute, of course! :)
I finally pried my behind out of bed and got my resume ready, but my printer wasn't cooperating (it was spewing forth strange characters pseudorandomly. Argh!). Luckily my trusty roommate Chris had told me that I could email it to him and he'd print it out for me if necessary. So I sent it off and grabbed my wrinkly linen skirt instead of ironing the other one I'd put out (not enough time - doh!).
I made it just in time for my appointment with my psych nurse, Camille, which went just fine. I feel I'm getting more stable and confident, and that the medications are working pretty well for me. I'm adjusting to this new way of life, hopeful for the future of my care, yet grounded enough to realize that it won't always be easy (and it's certainly not "easy" right now).
Then I picked up the fabulously printed resumes from Chris, and decided to stop at Rudy's bar-b-que for lunch. I had half a pound of turkey, yum! It was beyond words how good it tasted. I could never be a vegetarian, I'm sorry. [1]
After Rudy's, it was off to Manpower, in the building right next to where I gave birth to Elena. It's amazing how such things are seared into your memory with such force and import. The hospital and Manpower had this in common: when arriving, you are required to fill out tons of paperwork, so that I did. Then I took a test on Word and Excel, yippee.
Tomorrow I'll go in and take tests on data entry and typing and maybe do one of their training programs, and hopefully finally make it over to the UT temp service.
The lady told me about one job they had available for $10.50/hr doing data entry type stuff for a year-long contract, and I dunno but I think I can do a fair sight better than that, so I believe I'll pass on that one. We'll see. I won't even try to think about how much I was making per hour, what I gave up in manic delusional dreaming (*before* the drug-taking, even), and what proportion of that I'd like to try making *now*. Sigh.
Repeat to self: "No one got hurt (much)[2], and that is a great, great victory. You got diagnosed, finally, and that is a tremendous victory as well. You can name and face your demon, and you will achieve happiness. Elena is well cared for and safe, and things are settling gently now."
At some point, though, I will have to tabulate, to do a Lifetime Grand Accounting of all ... the things I threw away, disregarded, or failed to appreciate because of the distortion of bipolar illness. Of course it can't be totally accurate, but I have some *real* good hunches about certain Major Events, certain seasonal patterns and so on.
Then comes the true challenge: how to make sure that this doesn't continue to steal goodness from my life going forward, the endless thrall of ups and downs. Oy.
I'm terrified, but at least I finally know what I'm up against. I don't know how well I'll do, but at least I'll try. I may have lost my head there for a bit, but at least it's screwed on straight *now*[3].
[1] On a recent NPR story I heard about a village in Russia, they talked with an older woman who lived on her tiny pension, and hadn't been able to afford meat for the previous *two years*. This utterly boggled my mind (and still does) and makes me thankful for the fact that I get to be a typically overfed American.
[2] The only person I hurt physically was myself, but my psychosis and delusions could so easily have gone in different directions. Emotionally, I hurt myself quite a bit, Spencer very much, and those who love me and care about me a great deal as well. For this I am incredibly sorry. :(
[3] One would hope. Please.
[
mental
random thoughts
]
2001-06-28
Today was one of those days:
you know, stay up til like one or two, wake up at six, roll over and go back to sleep til the alarm goes off at seven, listen to NPR on the radio (snoozing for breaks), turn off the radio when the stories start to repeat and go back to sleep until ten-something when your cell phone rings and you decide not to answer it, then listen for three hours to the periodic beeps that the cell phone gives you to tell you you have voice mail. Get out of bed at one, try to kick self repeatedly mentally and realize that it doesn't work because the part of yourself you're kicking is numbed from the prozac you're on. Somehow manage to get in the tub, shave, and finish a shower by two-thirty. Victory!
Then I futzed around on the net a bit, squandering some more time. Finally I took action - I looked for some job openings.
There's a site rather heavily advertised on the radio here called
austinhelpwanted.com, and I decided to check it out. There are, uh, 25 job postings. Total. For all of Austin and the surrounding area. Not gonna work, folks, sorry.
I decided to look at employment agencies in the yellow pages. Whoof - too many to choose from, and no valid basis for choosing among them! So I went to the
Austin Chronicle online to see if any agencies were currently advertising in the classifieds, because I figured at least the ones who were advertising would be likely to have jobs. I then made an appointment with Manpower for an interview tomorrow.
This means I have to have an updated copy of my resume ready, so I *have* to get out of bed at a reasonable hour, iron some nice clothes, finish and print out the resume. It's the indirect pressure method of getting myself to do something, I suppose. Hey, whatever works!
I'm noticing the prozac numbness thing a lot lately. For instance, I am picking at myself more. This is not *too* too problematic, since I still keep my fancy dimmer switch in the bathroom turned down pretty low (I won't pick at perceived blemishes that I can't see).
But then there's the itch problem... weeeelll, I don't really think it's *normal* to spend probably an hour a day just scratching myself. Mostly it's the hands, arms, and legs. Ohhhh, the legs! I have actually given myself bruises from all the scratching. I hadn't realized this was possible, but I've gone and done it, I'm afraid. Don't worry, it's not serious, and the bruises are up high on my thighs where they don't show so much.
So it goes - I've got to wait three months until my dermatologist appointment so they can tell me what the heck is wrong with me. It's okay, I've mostly made peace with the itch. After all, it feels *so* good to scratch, that's for sure. I've gotten to the point where I won't do it *too* maddeningly in public (at least I hope so).
But with the prozac, I've noticed I'll scratch and scratch and scratch and think "you know, I should stop", and half an hour later, I'm still scratching, moving from one area of my body to another. The prozac makes me not mind so much. Shrug. Oh well. It decreases suffering, but in its place it leaves a "blah" where once there was a meaningful signal that the brain had used to tune itself.
Radical topic change:
I'm a little worried about taking the typing tests and such at the temporary agency - it's been awhile since I've done big amounts of typing, and I worry that the parts of my brain responsible for typing are sluggish or slow or more error-prone than usual due to all my brain oddness. Maybe I'm worried about nothing. I hope so. We'll see.
Strange medication effect #347 in a series: sudden memories of specific places I've been appear in my head, with no connection to what I'm thinking at the time. It happens a couple times a week at least, and it's subtle so I hardly notice it. I just start thinking of a place, and from there I reminisce about what it meant to me. Odd, eh? One example: the off-ramp from I-25 to 6th Avenue in Denver, part of the journey from home (in Aurora) to school (in Golden, at the Colorado School of Mines).
More random mental stuff:
During my most recent relatively slight hypomanic state, I kept getting this feeling like there was a knot in my throat, a clenching in my esophagus. It came and went, and was kind of annoying. Probably associated with some muscle or other tightening. Anyway, it went away once I increased my risperdal (and decreased my prozac).
I feel as though I've absorbed a lot of wisdom recently. I see multiple sides to complex situations and mostly accept without judgment, without having to point to one side as right and another as wrong. I believe this is a good thing. Don't get me wrong - I don't completely fail to make distinctions or anything like that.
After recently sending myself on an internal whirlwind tour of many worldviews that all made sense to me in a whole, comprehensible fashion, I found myself longing for and glad to return to the usual chaos. Really. Maybe it's just what I'm used to, whatever. But it was truly starting to feel cloying and oppressive that everything had meaning or was all about entropy or whatnot. It's refreshing to have things just be their meaningless selves, held in chaotic equilibrium by the other bits swirling turbulently around each other. It certainly gives us all a lot worth complaining about, doesn't it? :)
I realized too that the idea that "if only we knew X we'd have it all figured out" (for varying definitions of "it"), will *never* get us to a state of perfection - like a slippery snake, it will forever elude us. So, is life about the constant yearning and trying for something better, or about the realization that we'll never reach perfection so we might as well enjoy what we've got here today, or is it about the search for things for life to be about, or something else entirely?
It's all these things, and none of them, simultaneously. Plus whatever anyone else thinks... When it comes down to it, there is only what happens. Humans are the only animals for whom the idea of something can seem as real as the thing itself (or even more so).
I've totally wandered, it's past midnight, I'm sure I've lost everyone with my ramblings. Ahh well, g'night.
[
good
humor
]
2001-06-26
Amazingly cool:
How to dance by a guy named Ze Frank. Hilarious, and
the rest of his site has all kinds of cool Flash animations and whimsical stuff - too much to describe all here. I like the kaleidoscopes.
It's fun to see really mind-blowingly creative people. This guy's going to go far, methinks. Well, he already has, one could argue, by showing millions how to dance. :)
[
mammalog
]
2001-06-26
A most excellent visit:
was had yesterday evening with Elena. We all went down to Famous Footwear to get her some new sneakers - she grew out of her Nikes awhile ago. Now she's got a new pair of Vans, nice and wide for her little feet. They looked a bit big and clunky on her, but she didn't seem to have any trouble running around the store in them.
She's learned the magic word "need" now, so instead of "I want a towel", it's "I *need* a towel". Clever, clever girl. After the second towel (actually a wet-wipe thing) in the car, I declared that she didn't really meet the need threshold for a third, and there was much wailing as a result.
She's really developing like crazy linguistically, and it's fun to watch each new leap. Some of the individual leaps are hard to pin down, but she just sounds more *conversant* and makes more sense. Yesterday she used an indirect object, when telling us how she was bringing Spencer his sandals.
The average length of her sentences has increased, and she simply talks more. And louder. With much repetition.
I need to film some more video of her, to catch her cute pronunciations before she loses them. Right now, the letter "r" gives her some trouble, so instead of saying "hurt" it sounds more like "hoot". One of my favorite words of hers is "shwemming", which is how she pronounces "swimming".
Speaking of which, Spencer said he took her to the pool on Saturday and she did great swimming while holding on to a pool noodle. We're going to all go tomorrow, so it should be fun! I can hardly wait to see her do it.
It was a great visit, and we finished up by reading Curious George after her bath. I was in admiration of her all evening, as a deeper level of love sunk in. I realized more of the joy of having a little kid, how incredibly amazing it is to watch this little person emerge, like a flower that opens in bloom ever more widely.
It's one of those things that I simply didn't understand until I had one of my own, of course - I just wasn't open to the experience.
I guess it's the perspective over time - less than three years ago, she was, to me, a pink line on a little stick. A "1" where I had expected only a blank space. A bit, if you will. And now, she laughs and dances and spontaneously hugs while saying "I love you", exhorts us to buckle our seatbelts in the car, asks me if I'm okay, shares food and drink with me, and starts trying to read the yellow pages by herself (pointing out pictures of cars correctly and proclaiming that little earth images are soccer balls).
I'm one of those people who could never believe something until she saw it for herself, and now... now I see it, now she's within the realm of extrapolation to ages that I remember going through myself. I see a bit more of the chain of being, the great circle. I guess it just hit home for me a bit more yesterday.
It was a good day.
[
books
mental
]
2001-06-26
Mania is an odd state:
and having been through it now several (many?) times, and only realizing what was happening quite recently, I ... understand things that formerly I couldn't quite comprehend.
To wit:
this entry in Caterina's log about a book that's an interview with author Philip K. Dick talking about how he wrote his books in fits of activity of 8-12 days, without eating or sleeping.
I kinda know what that feeling is like - when I wrote my silly little manifesto, 40,000 words in three days.
But I also more recently have had strange ideas similar to what the book he planned to write (but didn't because he died suddenly) was about. Of course, once I adjusted my medication, these thoughts went away. :) And lo, I was relieved. It gets oppressive when *everything* is so damned *symbolic*. Ugh. That's just not normal and comfortable for me.
But of course, everyone's calibrated differently, and we all have our own preferential internal mental landscapes.
The trick, I'm finding, is to realize who I am through all these changing mind-states. How can I correct for the fact that I may sometimes tend a little too much towards the manic side? How do I develop the judgment to adjust my meds *before* I start doing things like staying up too late, spending too much money, biting off more than I can chew on projects, etc? It's going to be a struggle, I know it.
At least now, I suppose, I know what's going on. I'm learning the skill of fine-tuning things. Last night I should have taken a *little* more of one of my meds - my thoughts are a bit disheveled today, but within the range of what I can deal with without spending the whole day wondering about alternate universes, heaven & hell, cosmic planes, and whether we're trapped here, we chose to be here, or what.
These can be interesting questions I suppose, but not when they circle endlessly around your head for hours and hours, days on end.
Today my goals are to take a walk, and to get some things done on the job front - update my resume, and get ready to go to the UT temp service tomorrow for typing tests & stuff. I feel pretty good, positive attitude and so forth, and even, dare I say, just a teeny bit creative. What a lovely thing to have return, I must say. :)
[
beauty
]
2001-06-26
This project looks cool:
Twenty things: twenty people make twenty things in twenty days and swap them. Sounds like what they used to call an "apa" back when I used to read Factsheet Five and dreams of zines filled my head.
I like the very thought of it - art, person-to-person. Looking at some of the sample ones, like
Jessamyn's contribution, I'm rather amazed. (learned about this from
Caterina's blog)
[
beauty
books
]
2001-06-25
Underwater gorgeousness:
is what Daniel tells me
this book is all about. It's got a hella long title, though: "Water Light Time : Beneath the Surface, Sea of Light, Cool Waters, Rhythm & Dance, Dark Blue, Water Gardens, Desert Ocean, South Light, Island Kingdom".
On a whim, I just did a search for the word "obidos", which appears in just about every Amazon book-specific url (like the one above). Imagine my surprise when Google showed
a mere 78 hits. Hmm. Odd. I wonder what it means? Anyone who has a theory, put it in the box o doom there at the left, and let me know.
[
my site
]
2001-06-25
Horrors:
Daniel added reverse-sorting capability to the
all entries version of my weblog (for those who are into chronologically sorted exhausting detail).
[
mammalog
]
2001-06-25
Highlight of Thursday's visit with Elena:
has got to be during the moving of the carpet and couch into the middle bedroom (where the tv has been for at least a month or so).
It was fun to watch Elena diligently unroll the carpet, then assist her dad at shoving the couch towards me. (my right big toenail was a sorry casualty in this effort, I'm afraid, but it's doing better)
The funniest part was how Elena imitated the various grunting noises we made, as she insisted on helping Spencer carry the couch cushions into the room.
She got so excited about the whole furniture-moving operation, and it reminded me of how such events used to fire me up as a kid, too. Ahh, I'm getting old and wistful, I suppose.
When she saw how my toenail had been partially peeled back (ow) and was bleeding, Elena tried to help, suggesting "get a ban-aid" and "ice on it", her two favorite remedies (only to be applied after the requisite "kiss it better").
I survived the injury, and it actually didn't hurt too much, especially right away - those endorphins that kick in immediately post-injury are *cool*.
Highlights of Friday night's visit include going to the UT athletic fields with Elena and watching her run around with Spencer. He'd kick the soccer ball and chase it, and she'd run after him.
She gleefully climbed on the bleachers and on the sled-thing that the football players use. There were also a couple of big piles of sand and dirt that she had to get on top of, of course. Maybe she'll be a mountain climber when she's older - I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest.
It's sweet that when she got to the top, she reached her arms out to me, and since these were little hills (4-5 feet tall), I could just grab her and carefully set her on the ground. I won't always be able to rescue her so easily like that, nor will she always want to seek my help.
Later on, when we tried to get her to leave, she ran back to the piles of dirt, away from Spencer's entreaties. Naughty, naughty girl! Ah well, she'll learn eventually.
Enough - time for me to watch this TLC show about surveillance.
[
weblogs
]
2001-06-21
Well okay, more like journals:
but you get the idea:
Randomly Ever After and
tight science.
[
food
]
2001-06-21
Went to trivia night last night:
because my car still isn't ready yet. Argh. :(. I haven't seen Elena since last Friday.
So my roomie Chris took me with him to this restaurant called Damon's in Round Rock where we played trivia with Cindy and Daun and Michael.
I didn't do all that well, except for one round where I actually won, woo woo! It was about Singapore, actually. The food wasn't really very good at the restaurant, I'm afraid.
I would think about going regularly, as it would be good for me to be social on a repeating basis, but Wednesday is one of my nights to see Elena (when my car works, that is).
I kinda felt like a fifth wheel, but it wasn't too bad. I'm getting used to feeling like an oddball, somewhat.
[
random thoughts
]
2001-06-21
Bunch of stuff:
Much of it scarfed from
Follow Me Here:
[
weblogs
]
2001-06-20
A few new (to me) weblogs:
[
mental
]
2001-06-20
Who am I to judge?
Well, we all judge. I'll just say, of
these people, "I thought *I* was nuts..."
I mean, really. Sigh. It's mania, people. It does weird things to people's minds.
I don't want to seem rude, but a lot of this believing in strange/unprovable things can be tempered with some good antipsychotic medications. At least I've found this to be the case, for me.
I get the feeling there are lots of folks wandering around out there that experience various forms of mental imbalance and never get treatment. So what else is new?
[
mental
]
2001-06-20
Creepy, yet interesting:
The folks at
Dark Passage like to go exploring in abandoned buildings and underground tunnels. I read their stuff about abandoned mental hospitals with, as you might guess, great interest.
I wonder if I'll ever end up that desperately out of touch with reality again, or face a seriously debilitating mental state on an ongoing basis. I really, really hope not. Sigh. But even if it happened, it would just be another turn in the story, another day would go by...
(via
Bovine Inversus, usually something I am unable to comprehend adequately)
[
random thoughts
]
2001-06-20
Cavalcade o doom:
It's been awhile since I've shared input from the box o doom, so here are some recent submissions, in no particular order:
- What is your email address????? I get errors from both beth@bethroberts.com and
beth@3e.org.
Ah. The 3e.org address had been forwarding to my old Lotus address (but I don't work there anymore). The bethroberts.com address should work, though - um, try again? Certainly all sorts of folks are able to email me there, including spammers (sigh).
- When she returned he was still asleep, snoring lightly in the canopy bed. She smiled. Stepping softly into the kitchen, she selected an oxblood lacquer tray and
arranged the lemon-poppy bread artfully on it, along with two small glasses of
orange juice and a slender black vase that held a single daffodil. Satisfied, she removed her clothes in the kitchen so as not to wake him, and carried the tray
into the bedroom, setting it down on her side of the bed, beside him."My love," she whispered, her breath close to his peaceful face and he stirred, his blue eyes opening slightly. "Mia."
Hmm, what a nice image. Tales of this mysterious Mia lady appear occasionally through the input boxes of various blogs (particularly Plurp and David Chess's).
- gusCouldn't have said it better myself.
- Sane but odd is good. *8)
I agree wholeheartedly. And I'm definitely feeling more sane today than yesterday, which is always a pleasant thing, I might add.
- Hurray! Continue being well.Thank you kindly for your well wishes. I'm hoping that positive trends continue - sometimes it's a mixed bag. :/
- Making your log entries too long is definitely *not* one of the things you ought
to be worrying about! *8)Ah, okay then. I shall cross it off my list of Things Worth Fretting Over.
- fooTo which I can only reply: bar.
[
movies
]
2001-06-18
I saw Atlantis:
and it was just okay - not great, but not horrible. I shouldn't have paid full price for it, really.
I also finally got around to seeing Eyes Wide Shut the other day, because it was on HBO, and it was *very* good. I think I understood it pretty well. I can see how a lot of people wouldn't have been able to grasp it (or that it was just not presented in a way they could easily get ahold of). It's certainly not a conventional movie.
But then again, with my brain the way it is these days... I dunno. I see symbols and analogies in *everything* to one degree or another (actually that has calmed down a bit since I increased one of my medications).
Just reminds me that when you see a movie, your own point of view necessarily colors the whole experience quite a bit - you can't really separate what's going on in your own head that day from what's going on on the screen. This may be why films can be so different on a second viewing (plus you also remember at least some of what's coming). Hmm.
[
good
]
2001-06-18
I went to church:
for the first time in a long time, yesterday. There's a small
Unitarian Universalist church in the neighborhood, so I was able to ride my bike down there. It was nice, the people were nice, etc. I had been meaning to go last week, but I stayed in bed too long.
I'm looking forward to going again - it looks interesting, I think. Their website is pretty good, too - they even have
some of the minister's sermons, including
this one about a UU eucharist that I thought was rather fascinating.
If you don't know what the UU church (as a whole) is about, then, uh, this won't mean anything to you. Sorry.
[
mental
rants
]
2001-06-18
My mind is a very strange place to be:
and I'm not even sure quite how to describe it. It's still a struggle to balance my medications and stuff. Thoughts race around as though in a superconductor. Analogies flow all over the place, to the point of annoyance. It's almost as though everything I see and do and hear and think adds up to a great noise, a ringing in my ears, which never stops. These are all just weak metaphors that don't really touch what it's like. Oh well.
I'm very philosophical, to a fault I suppose. It's hard to keep myself grounded in the real world. I feel kind of weary. I'm doing okay, though - I don't actively dread each day, I am just hoping that it gets easier soon, that's all.
My car broke down on Friday, when white smoke began appearing from under the hood. Apparently there was an oil leak that spilled oil all over the engine. I managed to get it to the shop the next day, and they say they'll be able to take a look at it today.
Very frustrating to say the least, but hey, these things happen. :( I just hope it can be fixed soon and for a small amount of money.
I was looking forward to going to my group therapy today, but I can't because of the lack of a car. I was proud of myself for getting a dentist appointment set up for Wednesday, but I might have to cancel that if they won't have my car ready in time (they probably won't). Damn. Argh. As soon as I get things a little settled, they get messed up again.
I haven't been exercising, but I might make it out for a walk today. We'll see.
I got this book called "The Elegant Universe" that has all kinds of really neat stuff about physics and superstring theory and so on, so I am going to do some reading in that today. Plus there might be some tv worth watching, I don't know.
I finally made a dermatologist appointment for the rash I've had for two and a half months - they won't be able to see me for another three months. Sigh. I'd be all fired up and pissed off if I had the energy. Instead, I just see too much of the big picture, that it's not anyone's fault, so I'm impassive. I'll deal with it somehow. Maybe I'll try an elimination diet to see if that affects it at all.
Heh, who am I kidding? I don't think I could stick with an elimination diet. Eliminating what, anyway? Wheat? O yikes, I have no idea what I'd survive on.
Argh, it's hard to think of being able to drive anywhere until my car is fixed. It's as though the brokenness of my car extends forever into the future in my mind. I really, really hope that isn't the case.
The texture of my thoughts is so *weird*. I feel sane, but... odd. I feel as though I'm walking a tightrope or something, straddling two worlds - that of the fundamentally okay and that of the lost. My personal philosophy of the world, theories of life, the universe, and everything, have undergone *huge* changes lately. And they keep changing... kind of. It's as though they've reached a stable oscillation point, I guess. Stable for now, anyway.
It's as though I can see the pattern of the universe, and it's not quite as interesting as I thought. When it comes down to it, it's just entropy, and waves, and stuff moves through us but we have this illusion that we are intelligent beings with free will and such. In reality, we're like characters in a play that writes itself as it goes along. Or something like that.
This is probably incomprehensible. The incomprehensibility is probably a good thing. I don't think that I'd willingly bestow this type of mindset on someone - it certainly hasn't made my life happier, but perhaps I'm just stuck in a low mood cycle. It's all so complicated. Argh.
Have I gotten to the stage of "raving lunatic" yet? I don't think so. My faculties for detecting such are still well in hand.
Speaking of my hands, there's an annoying side effect of the medications that I'm on - my hands shake. Sort of similar to Parkinson's, I guess, but it's less severe (don't worry *too* much about me). It's aggravating, but I'm learning how to deal with it. Basically I have to be either using the muscles or letting them relax - holding them in position just causes them to jiggle a bit.
Of course, in trying to figure everything out, I consider this a wave function thing. For some reason, waves (especially probability waves) and wave functions are big in my mind lately. Sigh. I sound like a lunatic. Oh well. Sometimes I feel like one.
I cried a bit on the phone with my mother yesterday... still grieving the idea of myself as Fundamentally Mostly Kinda Normal. I used to have such high aspirations, I used to be so good at things. In reality, there was a huge imbalance in my head that I was struggling with, without even knowing it. Now I just hope that I can find a decent job, making enough money to scrape by, live independently, have Elena for standard non-custodial parent visits (and dreams of pseudo-joint-custody someday), and express myself through writing, art, whatever. My priorities have totally changed.
It's hard. I have to get used to myself as being totally different from the person I thought I was. I have to get used to myself as being a person whose internal balance changes constantly, and that the rules will keep changing on me. It's very sad, in a way. Okay, in lots of ways. I still haven't reached a thorough state of acceptance. Somehow I'll muddle through. There will be happy times, and I'll do my best to enjoy them...
Success will be difficult, and will be measured with a much smaller yardstick than I had previously been using. I face constant distortion, like wearing a different pair of glasses every day.
I'm sick of writing about this right now. Enough.
[
beauty
food
]
2001-06-18
Wild grapes are yummy: even if they aren't quite ripe. I took
a picture of the ones at the park the last time I went there on a walk.
It's amazing to see how the grape vines totally cover the whole tree, intertwining with its branches (and with other grape vines).
I don't know if eventually the grape vines will harm or kill the tree, or if they end up in some kind of reasonable equilibrium, or not. Hmm.
[
mental
]
2001-06-15
Still doing well:
and still busy. And now it's time for me to head down to go see Elena. Perhaps I'll write more this weekend.
My mind proceeds apace, running at nearly the speed of light. :) Ha ha. No, really, it's a bit odd having all this cosmology and stuff floating around my head so much lately. Knowing that it's all psychochemistry makes it a little annoying to deal with sometimes, but mostly I just feel incredibly insightful and maybe even brilliant. :) Well okay, any brilliance I have is just that which comes from the light shined into me from outside of me.
Okay, enough metaphors, I'm weirding myself out a bit. Gotta stay grounded - I've got a little girl I'm about to go visit.
[
random thoughts
]
2001-06-13
I'm fine.
Just busy now, and doing well. Doing lots and lots of thinking. Tired after going to see the movie Evolution (really crappy, but I chuckled a couple times) with friends and then out to dinner.
I managed to get a walk in today, then worked on job applications most of the rest of the day, making good progress.
I keep thinking of lots of great stuff to write about, but I don't actually spend much time at the computer. Ah well, I'll save it up for later and integrate it all together whenever it suits me - there's certainly no hurry.
I had immensely entertaining dreams last night, the last one of which featured my brother and me at a school that I had thought was abandoned...
Time to take my meds and get to bed.
[
mental
]
2001-06-10
Saturday was good!
And I went to go see O Brother, Where Art Thou, which I enjoyed. Then I even had the wherewithal to go for a walk, which took about an hour. I hadn't taken even a short walk in quite a while, so it really tired me out. This caused me to ask the question: is it possible to straggle when out walking by yourself? If so, I certainly did...
At the big pool in the park up here, there were *tons* of kids & people having fun. It was nice walking by, seeing everybody enjoying themselves. Someday I'd like to bring Elena to that pool, I think she'd like it.
At the edge of the park, I saw some wild grapes growing on a tree, so I picked one and ate it. It was *so* lusciously good! There's nothing quite like a wild-picked morsel...
The inner part was sweet and the outer part was sour, and the two together, combined with my thirst and tiredness, really made a wonderful sensation :).
Today I feel pretty good, and I managed to get out of bed and go read for awhile outside. Now I'm heading out to hang out with my friend Deborah, who I haven't seen in quite awhile.
Things are looking up. I feel capable of handling my life & stuff. It's amazing the difference I feel when my brain chemicals are more properly in alignment. Yes, of course I'm worried about feeling worse later in the week, but not *bogged down* in worry and dread. I gotta take it as it comes.
Anyway, time to go and have fun...
[
mental
]
2001-06-08
For what it's worth...
I'm feeling a bit better. I think.
Yesterday was icky, but today feels better overall. Except I ate too much, but oh well. We'll see how tomorrow goes.
Another gorgeous sunset on the way back home, with this indescribable cool part to it that I've never seen before (nor am I ever likely to see it again). It was just wonderful and I saw it and appreciated its beauty (while not becoming too distracted from driving of course) and it made me feel just a bit good.
I think I shall relax a bit for now. My roomie Chris and I may go do laundry tonight, even though I'd rather sit around and do nothing. Then again, I may get lucky and he might be willing to procrastinate until tomorrow night...
[
beauty
]
2001-06-07
For the record:
the sunset last night was tremendously beautiful. I lack the words to adequately describe it, but it burned impossibly long with this purplish-orange fire all during my way back home after visiting Elena.
And then, after the sun had finally gone down, I went to go water my plumeria plant on the back porch and I saw the gorgeous afterglow in redder tones reflecting off the clouds.
At least the sunsets aren't broken, even if my mental outlook is.
[
mental
]
2001-06-07
There comes a point:
of egolessness, when I don't care what happens to *me*, when it ceases to be personal anymore.
I hit this point today, just a little while ago...
It doesn't bother me if I don't get to have certain Good Things In Life that formerly were so important to me, as long as *someone* gets them. That's enough for me. Someone worthy is having fun, so it's okay, I can let go, and recognize it's not my place to do so. It's a form of detachment, I guess.
I guess this should feel liberating, but instead it feels as though it leads me somewhere, towards that big dead end that people have a tendency not to talk about (especially not in polite company).
But I'm nothing if not tactless :). So I'll address it: I think it's highly unlikely that I'd ever kill myself, for the simple fact that I don't think I could knowingly cause such great harm to the people I care about, most importantly, Elena. I wouldn't have to live with the guilt, of course, but I'd *know* that I'd doom everyone who loved me to huge horrifying amounts of pain, especially for Elena to grow up without me. That alone is a very strong barrier standing between me and self-imposed early mortality.
That said, some days it sounds like it'd just make everything *easier*. I could finally just *rest*. Drop all the unsolved problems, just let it all go.
Instead I'll keep trying to find a way to cope that seems to be the best bargain - the manner of living that saps me the least. I'm not sure what that is right now. Some kind of quiet little job that's not too difficult, that has good benefits, where I can accept that it's not going to be *fulfilling*... some little place to live, near Elena... I could handle that. I guess it's my medium-term goal.
My goal for the short term is to stop this downward slide, to be on some kind of upswing instead of a downswing, but I'm not sure how to do that. Damn. Guess I'll just reply to some email then.
[
my site
]
2001-06-07
I updated some stuff:
specifically,
my home page and
my about page, since they were so egregiously out of date. I actually did the home page awhile back, and then re-did it today.
Sad, really, how I just let things slip (all my projects & stuff). Oh well. Someday I'll get back to them. Or not. It doesn't really matter.
[
mammalog
]
2001-06-07
I'm more or less used to the changes:
on the maternal & mammary front, I must say, though at times I get wistful.
I sometimes check to see if there's any milk there, and there is, just a few droplets. Enough to remind me that the milk-creating machinery still works, even though it's not called to do anything anymore.
I'm also more used to the "new" (really, old, if you go back far enough) smaller size of my breasts - it feels normal instead of odd, now. Once I got through the whole ordeal of getting bras that fit, it was easier to take.
And the visits with Elena now are much more relaxed than they were at first - we have settled into a rhythm, we seem to work well as a team, and (with the help of depakote) I'm not as anxious as I used to be about everything.
Still, sometimes it's the little things that make a person wistful. I changed her diaper yesterday, and I realized how much I missed the smell of Huggies wipes.
Afterward, I sniffed my hands, enjoying the sweet baby-clean scent. I suppose it was a bit odd of me, but I couldn't deny that it brought back good memories and made me smile.
It's odd that right now I both am and am not able to take care of Elena as much as I did before - on one hand, I'm depressed and still struggling for stability. On the other hand, once the veil of anxiety has been lifted (as it has been lately, thanks to the meds) I can *relax* and be a much more responsive and happy mother. What a relief it has been!
[
good
weblogs
]
2001-06-07
I've been catching up:
on one of my favorite weblogs,
Follow Me Here, and I've found lots of good stuff (as usual), some of which I shall note here:
[
mental
]
2001-06-06
Mixed day:
I went to see my doctor-oid person (I think she's technically a physician's assistant - I don't care as long as she can fix what's wrong with me) about my ongoing rash again. Now she says it's *not* a reaction to the Zyprexa, because if it had been, it should have resolved by now. Ooookay. So now I'm getting a referral to a dermatologist.
I hope they can figure out what's causing this (and fix it) before I scratch all my skin off. :)
They also took blood to check liver & kidney function, etc, plus check my depakote level.
I went to my group therapy thing, and I was tired & down. I had stayed up late last night and had to get up early for my other appointment.
Things are odd - with the latest increase in my depakote, there is a noticeable change in my anxiety level - it's greatly reduced. It's so *odd* to intellectually worry about stuff, but not *viscerally*. It's actually quite liberating. I wonder if this is how so-called "normal" people live.
It makes me wonder if what I previously thought was normal for me was actually some kind of anxiety disorder thing, layered on top of all the other weirdness in my mind.
I went back and had a nap and felt awful when I woke up. As in, bursting out in tears and collapsing in a heap on the floor awful. Really. It passed... sort of, but it sure wasn't fun.
Damn, I keep meaning to start a journal-oid section here so I don't have to worry about making my log entries too long. Oh well, screw it. I don't have the wherewithal right now...
Anyway, today I was mostly feeling as though I've squandered my potential, that I haven't lived up to my gifts. I don't feel brilliant anymore - instead I feel like someone who *could have been* brilliant if only she'd tried harder, believed in herself more, etc.
I am so unmotivated, it's hard to even bathe. I did manage to tonight, though. I had a nice bath and shower while listening yet again to the Bob Schneider album, Lonelyland, which is, as ever, excellent. Of course, I stopped it right before the happy boppy song that makes me want to dance - I just didn't have it in me. Sorry.
I feel like a shadow of my former self. I have mixed hopes for my recovery. I'm not sure how high I should aim. That is... I'm not sure how *low* I should aim. Is getting a job at UT as some clerical functionary so I can get good benefits something I should do? Just how capable of coping will I be in three, six, or eighteen months? Will I ever feel happy again?
As I write this, I'm struck at how incredibly *boring* this must be to read. I mean, really. Few things are less interesting than a depressive person going on about their depression. Among them is a depressive person getting all self-referential about how boring they are being, and then self-referential about the self-referentiality, ad infinitum.
Okay, that was totally cheesy. Sorry.
I have this great relationship with my bed these days. I really, really, really like being in it. I wouldn't say I'm genuinely happy there, unless I'm about to get to fall asleep for hours, which only happens before a big nap or bedtime. But I like the feel of my clean, smooth sheets, my blankets, getting all cuddled up and just relaxing, falling back, letting go.
And then I wake up and try to stay in bed longer, and my thoughts race, and I feel like crap for not being able to get out of bed, and so on... Argh.
Oh well, at least I'm clean at the moment. There's a victory, eh.
After so many defeats: haven't been able to control my eating (stuffing my face like crazy), haven't been exercising (not even a walk around the block), haven't been social (not even emailing much anymore, much less on the phone or in person (ha!)), haven't been doing any projects (online or elsewise), haven't even been writing here much.
I feel like I'm on a big downward slide, though there are some signs of hope with each medication change. Kind of. An increased ability to cope, lessened anxiety, slightly reduced incidence of "I'd like to check out now, please" feelings.
But this also begs the question - what kind of mental state will I be in, down the line? Will the medication keep working? How strong can I count on being? How ... creative? How able to handle a boring job? How able to handle a demanding job? Argh! All these unanswerables plague me.
All in all, I have seen so much fall away from me, due to my problematic mental states... and so it has gone for much of my adult life. And recently, I've lost so much more, all in short succession (and much of it willingly done, for both foolish and non-foolish reasons)... my mental health, my day-to-day family life with Spencer and Elena, my job... and other things, too.
Sometimes, loss takes a shortcut - you just realize that something you thought you had was never really yours to begin with.
I can't tell if this is easier or harder than regular, typical loss. Maybe neither or both. Whatever. The point is, you still grieve it, of course. Plus you feel sort of like a doofus on top of your grief, for thinking you had something, which, in hindsight, was quite obviously not within your grasp.
I'm tired. It's late. I should get to bed, maybe read a little.
[
movies
]
2001-06-05
Unbreakable sucked:
and that's putting it kindly. I saw this one in the hotel room in San Antonio with my mother, and it's one of those wish-I-had-those-two-hours-of-my-life-back movies. Absolutely ghastly. Implausible, needlessly dark and dour, goofy, and the very end was just... unsatisfying.
I will add that my mom thought it was funny that I realized who the bad guy would be at the end because he "had the lapels for it".
Watched Fight Club on Cinemax tonight, found it more comprehensible the second time around...
[
humor
]
2001-06-05
The only kuro5hin article you ever need to read:
brought to us courtesy of
Plurp,
this kuro5hin thread made me laugh out loud - it's a generic form of what a typical thread involves there.
It probably wouldn't be as funny to the average person, but as someone who long ago quit reading due to mind-numbingly repetitive arguments and sheer volume, it made me giggle.
[
good
mammalog
mental
]
2001-06-04
Lo, and there was much visiting:
While my mom was in town, I was invited to to spend lots of time at Spencer's with Elena, which was very spiffy. I even managed to succeed at getting her to take a nap (twice) and go to bed (twice). I won't go into detail about the negotiations required for this (or their length)... Elena is very skilled at drawing these things out ("I want juice", "I want daddy", etc.)
I had a great time with my mom, as well. It's always nice to get to spend time with her :). Somehow, when you're feeling blue, it helps to have one's mom around. I took her to the airport at oh-dark-thirty this morning for her flight back to Denver.
Today, I went to the group therapy session thingie and met all of the other nice people there, and yakked about myself a bit (but hopefully not too much). I'm learning What It Means To Be Bipolar. Yeeha. Let's just say I think I'd rather be normal, but oh well. The meds give me some semblance of that state, though.
Anyway, I go back again on Wednesday, by which time I should have taken some material steps towards getting a job. I hope. Time to read some webloggage and maybe even add more entries here that *aren't* about my mental state.
[
beauty
mental
]
2001-06-01
Ahh, the view
from Mars's balcony in Seattle was quite lovely, and I happened to capture it with my digicam (though I didn't get many other pix while there).
And here's a lovely one of me enjoying some leftovers:
Note the three prescriptions prominently featured on the countertop next to me. I'm turning into a real pharmacopia (poeia?) lately. I thought only *old* people had to be on this many medications, har har. Okay, it's not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is to *me*, and my job is to spew forth my own viewpoint I guess. I'm being too navel-gazatory right now about this whole thing, egads.
The point being that today I walked away from my psych appointment with yet more free samples of drugs. Since my nasty awful rash (*serious* all-over-body itching) has been attributed to zyprexa, we're switching to risperdal as the antipsychotic member of our pharmacological team. So I got samples of those as well as (of course) more prozac.
And we're upping my dosage of depakote. Yesterday I got two prescriptions, too - one to help reduce the itching, and an antibacterial cream to treat the areas of my skin that have gotten infected from too much itching. Am I putting you to sleep yet?
Lately, I'm having crappy mornings and halfway okay afternoons. Tonight was pretty good, and I feel good now. It makes me want to stay up late to feel as though I've gotten a decent day in...
I actually got to see my roommate Chris today for more than the usual five minutes - he got home early (eight something) and cajoled me into walking to Dairy Queen with him, where he bought me a Peanut Buster Parfait. Hey, how can a girl refuse such a lovely offer?
Still, I'm worried about gaining huge amounts of weight back. I was thrilled to get down as far as I did (somewhere nebulous between 165 and 170), and I'm not eager to regain it. I have been feeling really seriously huge cravings lately, mostly for salty crunchy carb-filled food, so I've really gotta watch it.
It sucks having my mental balance thrown off repeatedly. That pretty much sums up most of my whining in the "mental" category here.
Lately I have sunk really low in the first part of the day, not even being able to get out of bed much. But it helps if I have an appointment or something that forces me to get out of the house and be around people. Tomorrow, I'm using the occasion of going to see my mother as an excuse to get my butt up and out of bed.
She's in San Antonio for a conference or something, and I'm going to head down there and meet her for lunch and spend the night down there, then we'll come back together on Saturday and she'll get to see Elena.
(aside to self: how on earth can people possibly be interested in reading all the mundane details of my life? uh oh, I'm starting to notice my audience. alert! alert! oh crap, better forget about it and just spew mindlessly again)
I had a good visit with Elena the other night. We dipped granola bars in milk together, and I gave her a bath. She only got *one* bucketful of water dumped out on the floor! Woo hoo, cheers for Beth!
Oh no, the risperdal is starting to take effect. These antipsychotics, they don't fuck around - they go right to your eyelids and start rolling them down without your consent. Ever had a big dose of benadryl and felt that sweet lulling antihistamine sleepiness? This is *stronger* (and not nearly so sweet and lilting).
I want to read some weblogs before I crash, so I'd better hurry. Dagnabbit. I took a bath tonight, it felt good. I noticed that the edges of my fingernails are all shiny from all the scratching I've been doing - the scratching is starting to hurt instead of just feel... well, itch-reducing.
Okay, enough spew for one night. One o these days I'll split off the journal-oid stuff separately from the webloggy stuff. Really. Maybe.
