Chronic everything.

Things in general have gone from bad to worse in recent days and I have in fact been having one of the roughest times I’ve ever had. Many many symptoms of my depression, including the most severe ones, have suddenly drastically worsened. I have an idea of what’s caused this, I have no desire to go into it on here but as usual I have my strategy for dealing with things. I know exactly what course to follow and I will stick it.

I wish I could write something more upbeat but I can’t, hopefully in a few days things will have eased somewhat.

Chronic insomnia.

I’ve mentioned insomnia quite a lot, most recently just the other day - well, it’s gone from bad to worse in recent days and it’s really affecting my mood adversely. I’ve tried many things, the most recent being the torch I mentioned last time so after becoming somewhat desperate the other day I went to a pharmacy to ask about sleep remedies; the assistant was fortunately very helpful and told me that over-the-counter things were unlikely to work if sleeping pills had failed (he may not have thought this was very helpful but honesty in these situations is worth more than anything really.) And the sleeping pills have failed, I have had the two major types of sleeping pills and they just don’t ‘knock me out’ - in fact I have yet to find anything that will. So I’ve taken even more steps to try and alleviate things - I’ve already drastically reduced my caffeine intake in various stages, the latest just a few weeks ago; now I’ve done it again to such an extent that I hardly have any now - just one cup of ‘normal’ coffee in the morning and one tea in the afternoon. Also last night I started watching an episode of the old series of Doctor Who when I went to bed in the hope that this might make me tired as I have got to the stage recently where nearly every night I have to get back up again and watch TV for ages before I can get to sleep. I just thought that given this, starting to watch something I enjoy just before I go to bed might help. And last night, whether it’s related to this or not, I did have a better night for the first time in days. And finally, I bought some camomile tea today to have starting from tonight rather than what I usually have to drink when I go to bed - this is supposed to be relaxing so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Meltdown over Who?

I was very interested to see a report on The Doctor Who News Page titled ‘Media round-up - UK in Doctor Who meltdown’. I really didn’t know it was becoming quite as feverish as that, although I probably shouldn’t be surprised since I can say that (being quite a fan of the old series) this is possibly the first time since its return that I’ve actually been excited about a forthcoming episode. To put it another way, for me this is the first time since the Daleks’ comeback in 1988’s Remembrance of the Daleks! The recent episodes have been very good and I’m really looking forward to Saturday’s episode. In fact I found ‘The Stolen Earth’ so exciting I nearly choked on my decaffeinated coffee…

That’s just my sense of humour of course, I really did like it, it was brilliant…
And I’m not all that easy to impress, after all I’ve been watching Doctor Who over 30 years!

I dare say I’m contributing to the frenzy with this blog - partly deliberately! Oh, the power!

Another little update.

I said I was having a rough time, well at the moment it’s the insomnia which is causing me the most trouble, I’ve been having a lot of difficulty in this way just recently. I think I’m making some progress though, I’ve been persisting with the use of my soothing sounds mood torch, in fact last week I bought a very large pack of batteries just so I could leave this thing on all night. I’ve switched to trying it just with the light and not the sound for a while as I sometimes seem to find the sounds intrusive, despite the fact that they’re only things such as running water or sea. Actually, as it turns out, it lasts quite well - I know I’ve mostly been using just the light but I have had it on all night for several nights now and haven’t yet used any more batteries. I think it’s getting a bit dim now so I may try some more tonight…wish me luck, I haven’t had much luck with sleeping on Fridays for ages for some reason (I know this because I keep seeing one episode after another of Star Trek: The Next Generation which is on after I’ve gone to bed.)

An announcement.

Well, not really, but it probably grabs people’s attention. I’m just generally pointing out that I’ve endured so much messing about from people that nowadays people won’t get a chance to do so. Whether it’s online or in real life, if I conclude that I’m even beginning to get into the kind of situation I’ve talked about before then people will basically be shown the door. I’m better than that and I simply won’t begin to waste my time with people that don’t want to know.

I’m aware that much of this stems from what can only be termed discrimination regarding depression, there’s no other word for it. And it’s something that tends to be done ’subtly’ (although it’s hardly worthy of such a word) which of course has the added effect that they can claim they weren’t actually doing anything - things like ‘I’ve been busy’ or other such sickeningly unconvincing utterances. Overall, I always try and put myself out for people and if I don’t feel I’m getting the same back, well they won’t get anything at all from me…

Having said all this, I simply won’t be put off from doing anything I want to do either in real life or online - that’s the way the idiots win…and the people such as myself are kept down.

Just as a footnote, it’s interesting that discrimination against people with mental health problems seems to be something you never hear very much about and there’s certainly never even a hint of any kind of steps towards any anti-discrimination measures.

Difficulties.

This is another of those posts I write on here for my own purposes to ‘pull myself round’ at times when I feel I need to - as this is currently nearly the only external outlet I have to vent when I need to (not that I’m complaining, it’s entirely down to my wishes that I organise my own attempts at recovery nowdays as I said last year.) I’m having a bloody rough time, yesterday was terrible to be quite honest but I will succeed, despite the way I feel at this present minute I can see that things are generally slightly on the up. It isn’t easy at all, in fact it is often such a struggle I can feel such pressure it feels as though my head’s going to explode. I’m just as determined to make things work online as in real life but I don’t find it any easier because it’s online, for example chatting on things such as MSN is such a difficult thing for me that it can often actually make me physically shake. I can’t really explain how or why it’s as bad as that but it is - in fact when I first started posting on forums in 2004, I was as bad as that while making posts on there, I can remember it clearly.

Right, I’ll be back soon, provided my head hasn’t exploded.

Greetings.

I read something a while ago on an internet article (an actual well-known site, not a personal blog or something but I can’t remember which) that referred to the ’social howler’ (or some such phrase) of replying honestly to the common question ‘how are you?’ I was rather annoyed and taken aback to see this as I have always seen things the other way, that if people don’t want to hear, they shouldn’t bloody-well ask.

I always wondered why people went a bit quiet when I answered ‘Well, every fibre of my being aches with an all-consuming darkness but apart from that I’m OK.’

Unintentional innuendoes…

…are generally the best! Just before, I said ‘Once you get it up, it’s probably a lot easier after that…’

I was turning a mattress…sometimes I think I’ve just got a dirty mind.

Coasting along…

I’ve just been cleaning most of our coasters, they’ve come up really nice again actually, even the ones that were a bit in need of attention. Well, except I couldn’t seem to get some stubborn bits of dirt off one of them…then after rubbing for some time I realised these were actually birds on the picture. Oh dear oh dear…

Hair today…

That was probably one of the most ridiculous things that’s ever happened…the hairdresser was here and as I was having my hair cut the cat started trying to eat the hair falling on the floor (this always happens, in fact he seems to try and eat anything that moves.) Only this time he then decided he wanted to attack the gown I was wearing and he got more and more excited trying to do this and it ended up with me and the hairdresser attempting to get him off the gown as I got further and further towards the floor with the gown round my neck as he got more tangled up in it. Oh hell, you couldn’t make it up!

EDIT: This is an attempt to show you my hand after all this, complete with plasters. I say attempt because it could have come out better and I’m contending with the cat attacking the USB lead, my watch strap and now my pen near the keyboard!