Category: depression

Thinking of Stuff at 0300

I woke up from a weird dream I was having. It was something about two women going through diving training. Now I am up and I can’t seem to go back to sleep. I keep thinking about my cousins in Italy and France. It’s hard to communicate with them because they don’t know English and we don’t know Italian or French. The only way to communicate is through a translator or via Google, which is not ideal as sometimes the translation doesn’t say what we want it to say. I never picked up the language of Italian, even when I was taking it in college. And if you don’t use it, you lose it.

I was going to take a shower but I still haven’t. It’s so hard taking care of myself. I had a friend ask if I was going to go in the hospital. I don’t think I need to be but I will ask my psych when I talk to her in about 11 hours from now. I think I want to help my sisters clean out my father’s apartment. Then we will be able to relax a little bit and mourn him.

I’m still feeling relieved that my father has passed. I have been thinking about all the shit that he had pulled over the last few months of his life. Between the hospitalizations and waiting on him night and day, it was really difficult. I will never forget the gurgling sounds he made or the pain he was in. I am just glad that he died peacefully without gasping for air or something.

I don’t think I will be going back to sleep. I have tried and I seem to be waking up anyways. I give up. I am going to make some coffee and I am sure that will keep me up for a little while. I don’t know why sometimes it makes me sleepy but it makes me have a restful sleep. It’s weird. I also will shower after I have my coffee, I think.

Today’s Daily Prompt is “scars”. I will write a blog about that later today. I’m kind of nervous to page my psychiatrist. The last time she wanted me to page her in the afternoon I was going for around 1500 and she wanted it earlier. She sent me an email asking where I was. When I talked to her, I said our views of afternoon are different. I plan on calling her around 1400 or so, maybe 1330. I sent her the blog I wrote last night before I went to bed. The previous blog that I sent her that took me about three hours to write, she gave me some feedback on it. She said it was powerful and compelling. I really thought it was a piece of shit. I still do. Lately, I have been feeling that all my blogs are shit. It takes me a long time to write and I feel like it doesn’t flow very well because I am writing in spurts. Someone at the wake or funeral asked how my writing was going. I said it wasn’t going because I had to take care of my father. It’s been a long three months. I have just been writing blogs because there is nothing else for me to write. I can’t remember a “good” blog that I wrote in that span of time. I know my writing is getting better and after I write things I sort of edit what I write to try and make it sound better. But I just feel like my writing has suffered so much since my father got really sick. I don’t know if I can get back on track with my book. Maybe a hospital stay will give me ideas.

I don’t know what it is about being on a locked unit for a few days to two weeks. It helps calm down some part of me that is going all the time. It’s like I can finally relax because I am safe from myself and my environment. The only time when things weren’t going well in the hospital is when the unit was being inspected by the JCAHO commission. Every staff member was tense and it was a very unsettling feeling. You could cut the tension with a knife (if you had one) it was so bad. Soon as the inspection was over, there was relief on the unit. It was the most tense hospitalization that I ever had. Needless to say, but the second day, I wanted to go home but I think I stuck it out for a few more days. It was difficult to get in a groove. When I am in the hospital, I like to do my own thing. I rarely attend groups and I just keep to myself. I don’t really isolate but I do solitary things like write in my journal or listen to music. If it is on the unit that I like, there is a space I like to hang out in to do my writing. Otherwise, I am in my room. It helps to stabilize me. And if I need to, I hang out at the nurse’s station when my emotions are overwhelming. Being there lets the staff know I am not doing okay even though I am not talking about it. Sometimes, my contact person will check in with me more frequently when I am there.

I don’t know if I need a hospitalization right now because I am still numb from my father’s death. Occasionally, I will feel sadness but for the most part, I don’t feel anything. The shock of his death is over, though I keep replaying the events in my mind. I don’t know when that movie is going to end.