It's about time...

I'm sitting here with a much needed cup of coffee pretending that the day is much more entertaining than it really is. I've done my chores and walked the dog and there's nothing left for me to do. I have to try and fill the remaining hours of the afternoon and they seem to stretch endlessly ahead me.

I try very much to live in the moment and to not project myself forward in time too much. I'm trying to stay in the here and now and not worry about what I'm going to do an hour from now. If I stay in the moment, chances are that each moment will bring its own solution and that I will enjoy it as it happens. 

If I learned anything from Mindfulness, it is that. It's not something that comes to me automatically. I do have to make the effort and repeatedly tell myself to not start thinking ahead of time. But if I do make the effort, the peacefulness is very rewarding. 

The problem is that I can't only stay in the moment and write a blog post. That would get awfully boring. I would not have anything to write about but telling you that I was contemplating my navel. My navel does not have that much depth. There are other things to discuss that are more interesting.

The means to hang on to your sanity differ with the circumstances of your life. If the circumstances were different, my coping mechanisms would be different too. Fate has me living this kind of life for now, but it could just as easily be completely the opposite. I would magically make other coping skills appear out of thin air if I had to. I have to prepare myself for my window of opportunity.

Sometimes you have to live your life as if there's a safety net in place and assume that you're going to land safely. That means that you have to be willing to take chances. I've been living my life too carefully and am going to put a stop to that now. I'm going to do more things that I'm uncomfortable with doing. I will tell myself there's a saftey net. 

And now I will go and move to the next moment. 

Ciao,

Nora

Trying to get happy...

I'm drinking a cup of coffee and trying to get happy because I'm not right now. I just woke up from a nap and I'm really down in the dumps. I hope the caffeine will get me out of them soon. I really see the glass very empty and thoughts of doom are haunting me. I so dislike feeling this way, but I don't know how to feel differently. I don't know how to get there. 

I know what the cause of my bad feelings is. I can't do much about changing it. It lies outside myself and all I can do is change the way I react to it. Change the way I deal with it. I haven't found a method yet and I do worry.

When confronted so directly with other people's problems, I don't always know exactly what to do. My instincts tell me to run away as fast as possible, but I don't and stay and try to help. I think I should listen to my instincts more. 

I could solve this problem by just talking about it here indirectly. 

Sometimes you get pulled into other people's lives more intensely than you would like. More than is comfortable for you. Before you know it, you are in over your head. That's when you need to think about yourself and your own sanity. Actually, you should have done that a couple of steps back. It's because you cared that you didn't.

Still, you need to extract yourself in the most graceful way without making it look like you don't care at all. You've got to stop playing the rescuing angel, the good Samaritan, and start taking on a more normal role. Or at least one that fits you more comfortably. Forget about normal because who's to say what normal is? 

Right, I've made up my mind then and I know what to do now. That's a load off my mind. I will make a phone call shortly and make myself clear. Tactfully. 

Have a good evening. 

Ciao,

Nora

Drinking cups of coffee...

I've taken a nap and watched the news, but neither of these things have done anything to restore my sanity. I realized that I was in need of caffeine and saw myself forced to make a pot of coffee. 

I'm drinking my second cup and I know I will have a third one because I'm slowly coming to my senses. I no longer feel the need to commit suicide. That's a relief anyway. In a little while I may even be able to put on a happy face. 

Caffeine does normally have that effect. It works as good as any medicine. Why bother with a 'happy pill' if you can have a cup of coffee? 

I'm not doing well and see the shadow of the 'black dog' who's wandering around again. I'm showing all the signs of an upcoming depression and have already sent my psychiatrist an email to that effect. I've been fighting this feeling for a while and it's better to acknowledge it and ring the warning bell. 

It's not so smart to ignore help when help is available. It's no good trying to muddle through on your own and to fight a losing battle. You can act like you're tough when you're really being foolhardy.

Except for the news, there's not a thing of interest on TV tonight to distract me. Tomorrow night there will be a thriller on, but tonight there is just the usual fare for the masses. I suppose I will act like one and try to be amused anyway.

I still have to eat dinner, but I can't get excited about it. I will blame that on the 'black dog.' 

I have to go in search of a better mood. Maybe I left it lying around somewhere. 

Have a good evening.

Ciao,

Nora

Writing during the night...

It's a good thing that I wait with writing my posts until it is the middle of the night. If I were to write one during the day, it would be a very depressive one, because during the day I am in a depressed state of mind and not much good would come out of me. I would just bore you with doom and gloom stories, telling you how miserable I am and how I don't know how I'm going to make it through the day. 

I'm in much better shape at night and can actually see the forest for the trees. Some load lifts off my shoulders and I can breathe easily until it is morning again.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time in bed, just laying there or dozing. It was pure escapism and I didn't answer the phone because I didn't feel like talking to anybody. This did not prevent a friend of mine to try to call me 8 times. Now, I know there was no emergency. This is just what she does when she can't get a hold of me. It makes me feel like a hunted animal. She will do it again today until I answer the phone, by which time I will be very irritated.

Anyway, during the day I'm in a terrible funk and it doesn't clear up until I've put my pajamas on and I go to bed at night. I lay there for a long while listening to the radio before I fall asleep, and have my glass of milk and a snack. Crackers and I share them with the dog. I know I will sleep a while before I get up again in a better mood, although what passes as a better mood is not nearly as good as what I'd like a good mood to be. I'm not jumping up and down with joy.

I think I'll choose the side of caution this week and accept that I'm in a depressed state of mind and act accordingly. That way I'll not make the expectations I have of myself too high and not have any big goals. I'll just aim for little achievements. Getting dressed and walking the dog will be one of them. Getting through the day safely and sanely will be important. However I decide to do that. I'll have to find the best possible way. Sometimes you have to accept the fact that you're temporarily going to underachieve.

I suppose I'll get ready to go back to bed now. I'm not sure if there is any other kind of trouble that I can get into. 

Have a good night.

Ciao,

Nora

A caffeinated post...

Without giving you the impression that I'm hypo-manic, I do have to say that I'm sitting here quite contentedly and that must be because I've already had four hours of sleep and one delicious cup of coffee. As happens once in a while, I got the amount of ground coffee just right and turned out a delicious pot of it that's not too bitter or too strong. It does not make my mouth pucker with the awful taste of it. It was a gentle and nicely brewed cup of coffee that I drank and I'm getting ready for my second one. 

I feel good, but I'm not on a high. My eyeballs aren't popping out of my head from excitement, nor am I thinking that I'm omnipotent and all knowing and have the answer to every question. I'm reasonable and sane, but doesn't every lunatic think that he is? The proof will be in the pudding and the pudding will be this post. You'll be able to judge me on the contents and the reasonableness of it. I hope to make complete sense while still being amusing.

Yesterday afternoon I took the dog for a long walk and I saw my first buttercups. I saw them under two trees on a stretch of grass beside the sidewalk. I thought that was very fortunate because I had just mentioned them on my other blog. It's the only place I saw them. I also saw my first dandelions, but I was not as thrilled about them. I'm waiting to see buttercups in the fields now, besides the many daisies that are there, and I suppose the clover will be next, both purple and white. I'm going to keep careful track of which wildflowers pop up where and when. 

Hopefully I'll know their names. It will be a good reason to take the dog on longer walks. I know of one place that's good for many kinds of wildflowers and if there are going to be any, that's the place to look for them. It's a ways out of town on the edge of it, but maybe I can walk there this afternoon after the domestic help has been here. It's supposed to be nice weather today with sunshine and pleasant temperatures, so it would be a good time to go. The exercise would do us both good and I'd have a goal. 

Speaking of goals, I was watching the highlights of some rugby games yesterday and that's a rough sport. Those guys get thrown around and pounced upon like nothing else. I'm sure their poor bodies are scraped and bruised like no others when they're done with their game. Footballers are ninnies compared to them. And I wonder who washes their clothes because they were covered in grass and dirt stains. I'm sure the wives don't have to do the washing at home. I think this was the Six Nation League Championship and I think England won. It was very exciting to watch.  

I also always watch the highlights of the football games and I'm glad they are the highlights only because I could not sit through a whole game unless they were the championships for something. At least with the highlights you get to see the most exciting bits. They show them from all the games that have been played during the week, so there's a lot. I'm not for any team in specific yet, although I think I'm starting to root for FC Twenthe. They're in second place now. It would be nice to see them at the top again. They were the champions last year. 

The sports news was regularly interrupted with news about the situation in Libya. The latest I heard was that Qaddafi wanted a cease fire and I hope he is serious this time because he's wanted one several times before and didn't keep his word. I hope for the people in Misrata that this time it's true, but I think we must not take him at his word. One thing Qaddafi must not be and that is trusted. He's too irrational for it. 

I'm amazingly calm. I don't have that haunted and over excited feeling that I have been having at all. It's a good thing that I've started using my old sleeping pills again. I sure do appreciate them after trying the other ones unsuccessfully. I guess you don't appreciate what you have until you have to do without it. I know that shortly I will go back to bed and sleep well for another long time and that I will be well rested when I get up. My personal helper is going to be here this morning, so I do have to get up at a somewhat reasonable hour. I want to get ready and dressed before she gets here. 

The only problem is that I'm not in the least tired and I haven't yawned once. I'm actually wide awake. I will have to stay up a while longer and wait for sleep to come and overtake me. It is too early to start the day, although I feel like doing it. I will have to see what I'm going to do with that bit of reality. How do I apply that? There's no need to panic, of course. There's no golden rule about when the day starts and when I'm supposed to sleep. I'll just wait and see where the road takes me. 

Have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

 

The sense of it and lucidity...

Sometimes your own mind can fool you into thinking that you are having a great lucid moment and that you are making perfect sense. It is the same effect you get when you use recreational drugs and you suddenly think that you have total understanding of how life and the universe work. 

I had such a moment when I woke up from a long nap a while ago. I thought I understood everything and had great insight into my own life and into the sense of it. I had my own 'Eureka' experience. I've had such moments before, but each time it happens it feels like the first time and I'm fooled by it all over again. It goes that way with drugs too or even with alcohol.

Shortly after I have such an experience, I feel an inevitable let down and the terrible disappointment of realizing that it's a completely false idea and that it's not true at all. I don't suddenly know and understand everything and what I thought was ultimate wisdom is nothing but self delusion. 

It must be an effect of the chemicals that are released during my sleep while I take a nap. I have no other explanation for it. I think I'm temporarily mad. Sanity does return to me and I can look at the whole experience from a safe distance and be glad that I didn't take any action during it. I would come to regret it very much if I did.

Speaking of sanity, I had become hypo-manic last week without me realizing it. That is often the case, of course. You are usually the last one to know. It didn't dawn on me until I became dysphoric subsequently. That was such a change of mood that I couldn't help notice it and look back in time and realize what had happened. 

Because I felt bad and showed symptoms of instability, I increased my anti-psychotics a bit and that helped. I contacted my psychiatrist today and let him know. I'm not back to normal yet, but I'm doing better and only get off kilter a couple of times a day. 

The days are getting longer and there is a sense of springtime in the air. I am full of anticipation. Inside of me the restlessness is waking up. I feel the first stirrings of it and it's making me feel uneasy inside my own skin. I feel like going to a pub and drinking several tall beers or icy cold cocktails with paper umbrellas. Yes, I think I would prefer those.

Instead, I'll drink some lemonade because the milk is all gone. Luckily the Exfactor is going to be here tomorrow to do the groceries. I'll be so glad to have milk again. Lemonade is okay too if you're really thirsty like I am right now, but there's nothing like a glass of cold milk.

Have a good night, all of you.

Ciao,

Nora