A misconception...

I managed to sleep for more than 7 hours last night, although I did get up to go to the toilet once. I was smart enough to go back to bed, but I woke up when I couldn't catch my breath and was having breathing problems, which would be the sleep apnea acting up. I got up then and looked at the alarm clock and decided that I had slept enough and that it was okay to start the day and go have a cup of coffee. 

So far that's all I've had, one cup of coffee, and I'm undecided if I will have another one. There's enough for one more cup in the pot and I think I may as well have it, though the desire is not great like it usually is. I used to drink coffee as if it were the elixir of life and I don't have that anymore now. Not since I've stopped taking my sleeping pill and on top of that, I'm sleeping better too.

I was out walking Tyke last night and found it very cold. I'm just not used to it anymore and can't imagine it getting colder than this. My legs don't feel warm enough in the leggings and pretty soon I'll have to start wearing knitted tights underneath them.

There seems to be some idea that I can't write about my memories here from when I was a child. That somehow this is going to be damaging to me and that by doing so I will become a sorrowful heap of sadness who won't be able to get through the rest of the day. I have to tell you that this is not true and that writing down these memories can be very liberating. I am, after all, exposing the experience for the farce that it was and the culprit for the bully they were. All of it was a farce, of which I was unfortunately the victim, but that is how I look back on it now. I was a child, but very much aware that something was majorly wrong with the picture. That I was ruled by imbeciles and the main goal in  my life was to become an adult as quickly as possible and be free of them. Now, it is true that this backfired on me, but the intention was there. 

Enough said about that. 

Tyke was very bad during the night and pulled my clothes off the rattan chair and chewed on my bra and my boots. I got very angry with him, but I don't think he is impressed. Now I have to leave my clothes in the bathroom where he can't get to them, but he also pulled a book off the shelf and chewed on it. He's being especially destructive lately, even though I take him for more walks. I think he wants more attention from me and it is possible that he's not getting enough of that. I have been preoccupied and he must sense that my mind is not on the job. 

Today is the first Monday that I'm also getting a personal helper besides on Fridays and I'm looking forward to it. She will motivate me to get things done and be company for me. Getting things done is the most important thing, such as taking a shower and washing my hair and finding new clothes to wear, which are important things to start the week with. I have a hard time getting the show on the road on Mondays and I also realized just now that I have to stop taking my tranquilizers in the morning, because they make me feel too tired and they slow me down. So I do need to drink some more coffee and hope they wear off soon. I won't take any this afternoon. I think I have enough in my system and it will be a good time to start reducing them. 

Right, I have to get going. I have to pick up the pieces of the destroyed book and clean up the kitchen. It does have to look as though I care a little bit. 

Ciao,
Nora 



 

 

Forget-me-nots.

 I found it impossible to write a cheerful post here yesterday. I tried it a few times but it was to no avail. Each time I got maybe one paragraph done and that was it. Then I sat and pondered the screen for a while until my screen saver came on and I knew nothing would come of the post I had planned to write. I was just not cheerful enough. I was mostly sleepy and took naps on the sofa and in bed. Actually, taking naps is a good thing when your mood is not co-operating. It is the best way to see you through it.

It was cold out and I couldn't get warm enough inside either, although the thermometer said it was 20C degrees. At one point, I wore my bathrobe over my clothes to get warm. I think I can't quite trust my thermometer. I have all the windows closed now and sometimes turn on the heater, though I try to be frugal with it and only turn it on if it's absolutely necessary. I doesn't help to sit here and have cold drinks. They cool off your whole body. I must remember to buy stuff to make hot chocolate with. That would be wonderful. I think I've already promised myself that before and forgot about it. I must put it on the shopping list.

Today is Sunday and a wonderful day to contemplate my navel and to sit and do nothing special at all, although I do have to get dressed to walk Tyke. I slept for 7 hours this morning, after I had gotten up in the middle of the night, and I feel very refreshed. I must try to go to bed quicker and get more sleep in. I don't always have the luxury of staying in bed so late, people do come and go during the week. I will make it a point to only stay up for a little while during the night and go back to bed sooner.

I have so many good intentions and then a lot of them fall by the wayside or only get halfway accomplished. I make them work to some point, at any rate to a point that I can live with them and be somewhat comfortable, but never to the point that they are perfectly worked out. There are always loose ends and unattained goals. I suppose that's my modus operandus. I live with them until I reach the point where I can't and I should have had a better system in place that would have supported me better.

I just got dressed and took Tyke out. It is cold outside and you really need gloves. It's 6C degrees and overcast. Still, there are people out for a Sunday stroll with their kids. You do have to get some fresh air on a Sunday. That's what the day is for. I remember that clearly from when I was a kid. We always went out for an afternoon stroll on Sundays. Sometimes we had a goal and sometimes we didn't. Usually it was some café to get a drink at. Tea or hot chocolate when it was cold. A cold soda when it was warm. And a beer for my father. Always a beer. He was a repressed alcoholic. In the closet, where my mother kept him by sheer willpower.

I remember my mother hitting my head once when we came home from one of these walks. I was standing on the door mat and she hit my head for not wiping my feet. My head hit the head of my cousin who stood next to me very hard. It was so demeaning. My mother didn't like me very much. I'll never forget that incident. It was a perfect example of her taking out her frustrations on me, the black sheep.

I mustn't get too bogged down in those memories. They are interesting to hold to the light, but I mustn't get lost in them. There is the here and now, today.

It's time for me to get something to eat. I'm starting to yawn from hunger and I'm getting cold too. I do think I should turn up the heater a bit now. I think I'll have a glass of warm milk to heat my old bones and raid the refrigerator for some protein.

Have a good evening!

Ciao,
Nora

So what else is up?

I changed my profile picture because after I cut my my hair, it looks more like that now than it looked like the former. I also think I look younger in it, so my deed was not without second intentions. If I find any pictures in which I look younger still, I'll probably post one of them. I'll have you believe I'm a young middle aged woman yet instead of this aged one. I'll slowly creep back in time and undergo a metamorphosis.

I have hurricane proof hair and it's so hard and spiky that I can poke your eye out. That's just a temporary condition to get it to sit in place this morning. I used hairspray on it when it was still wet and now it's like it's cemented. I have to brush it to get the dangerous elements out and soften it up again. It will definitely stay in place now, there's no danger of even one hair going in the wrong direction or lying down too flat.

I was awakened to the irritating sound of the alarm clock at 8:30. That meant it had been going off for some time, because I had set it for 8 o'clock. I only had slept for two and a half hours, because I had been up the whole night. Somehow I managed to get out of bed and make myself some coffee and drink it quickly so I would come to my senses in the shortest amount of time. I had another cup as fast as I could and I recovered from my stupor in a hurry while I also smoked some cigarettes. All I had to do was get dressed and hop on my bike to go to the clinic to see my psychiatrist. I had one hour and ten minutes to pull myself together before I had to leave. That was enough time to ponder all the bigger questions in life and get dressed.

I had developed a theory about my not being able to sleep during the night and it had to do with a subject that I don't like to think about, let alone discuss on this blog. I always thought that I woke up around 2 am because my sleeping pill was done working and that I wanted to be up because it was the most peaceful time for me to be awake. The fact that I went to bed at 6 am and slept well for a couple of hours, I blamed on the fact that I was trying to postpone the day and all the pressures of it. Until I really tried to sleep through the night and found that such an awful experience and had those awful nightmares.

The theory has to do with the murder of my mother, which to this day is the most shocking and traumatic thing that has ever happened to me. My whole life long I had a fear that one day my father would kill my mother. I had this fear since I was a small child and thought I could prevent it from happening. I thought I had the necessary psychological skills and bravery to prevent it. This fear never left me and just before my father actually killed my mother, I felt the fear very strongly.

My father prowled around the house at night very quietly. Some people had said to my mother that she should put a lock on her bedroom door, but for some reason she never did this. I don't know why not. I don't know why she thought she was safe in her sleep when she was in fact at her most vulnerable. My father killed her in the early morning hours, very brutally, with a hammer and a knife. He then smoked a cigarette in the bathroom and after that very calmly called the police and told them what he had done.

I discussed this theory about why I'm not able to sleep during the night with my psychiatrist and he thinks it is very likely that this is the cause of my sleepless nights and that it is something that needs to be worked on very seriously, especially since my dreams take on such gruesome forms.Which goes to show you that some things get easier with time and some things get worse. It all depends on how you've dealt with them.

I made a new appointment and my psychiatrist said that he would inform my SPN whom I have an appointment with on Tuesday. He said that considering the circumstances and the fact that I had been rapid cycling, which was his diagnosis, he would not change anything in my medication, as that might bring about the onset of another bout of it.

Writing about this subject makes me very uncomfortable and I feel that I need to move on to something else as quickly as possible. It's like dragging old skeletons out of the closet without getting anyone's permission, but I'm afraid that it's stuck in my head now and I don't know what else to write about. It makes me infinitely sad and I can push that away as I usually do, but it will just put me back into the same position. I am planning on going to sleep at a normal time tonight and I will see what happens. Maybe a little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

I am tired in a really good exhausted way. I feel like I've done a lot of work and am at the end of it, while I'm really only at the beginning.

Have a good night, everyone. 

Ciao,
Nora