Tag: reading

Reading Randomness

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

I’ve had a long day and it’s been pretty exhausting, though I didn’t really do much. I had called my cousin to tell him I wouldn’t be visiting him because of my pain and he was not sympathetic at all. I knew he wouldn’t be. I was to say hi to him in the morning but he never called me so I went about my day. It was muggy so I pretty much just stayed in my room.

I finally finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I spent most of the afternoon reading. I am glad I am done with it because I have finished the series. Now I can move on to my other books. If I am up to it, I will start “The Cuckoo’s Calling”, which is another book by JK Rowling written under her Pen Name Robert Galbraith. If I like the series, I will read the other two books. It’s amazing what you learn from Twitter about authors.

My voices are quiet but the songs in my head are still going. They aren’t as loud as they have been. I forgot to take my dose earlier this afternoon. Yesterday, I took 12 mg of trilafon to quiet things down. Now it seems to be wearing off. I meant to call my psychiatrist but I haven’t done so. I will try tomorrow. I don’t feel like talking to anyone tonight.

The Sox are still off. They don’t play again till tomorrow night. I miss hearing about baseball. The sox are still trying to get a high school left handed pitcher. He went for a physical today, but there has been no deal yet. I wish they would sign him already.

My mood is pretty much the same: bleak and sometimes gloomy. I just can’t get out of this funk I am in and I don’t know how much the psychosis is playing a part. Most of the time I feel flat, like I don’t have any emotions at all. When I am not feeling that way, I feel sad and depressed. I don’t feel joy or any positive feelings. Nothing makes me “happy”.

I have been fighting sleep since I woke up. I just feel really tired. I have no energy to do anything. It took all my spoons just to take a shower this morning. But I know if I lie down, I will just wake up in ten minutes or my ankle will explode in pain. That seems to be happening a lot more frequently. I lie down and my ankle hurts big time. It doesn’t really bother me while I am in a seated position but soon as I lie down, forget about it. Pisses me off.

I had texted my therapist this morning to see if there were any openings to let me know. So far there hasn’t been and as the night goes on, I don’t think there are going to be any. The only thing I have planned for tomorrow is to go to Walgreens to do an errand for my mother. She needs some stuff for the house. I might go to Starbucks in the morning and then go on my way home. I really should get cracking on the psychology 101 book that I bought. I am almost done with chapter 1. There are long chapters in this book. I can only read so much before my brain gets fried or I lose interest in what I am reading. I am glad I am not in school or I would have flunked by now.

It’s going to be a long, sad week

by Midnight Demon, posted in baseball, Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychosis, sports

It’s going to be a long sad week

The All Star Game is this week, which means there won’t be regular baseball games, at all. My team won’t be playing again till Friday. I hate this week because I love baseball so much. I don’t know what I am going to do in the evenings. Tomorrow is the game. I will probably watch some of it. There are five Sox players on the team. Originally, there was supposed to be six but a player got hurt. He will be out for the next six weeks or so.

I have been sleeping most of the morning, despite my damn phone going off. I had like 4-5 people call me, which is kind of unheard of as my phone never rings. I didn’t recognize the numbers so I just let them go to voicemail. No one left me a message so it must not have been an important phone call.

I got up around 1400 to make coffee. I am not really hungry, though I had some watermelon and half a cookie. After I finish my coffee, I might make something to eat. I am thinking scrambled eggs with cheese. I haven’t had that in a long time. I usually just make boiled eggs but I am not feeling like making that today.

It’s warm today and muggy. I have the AC going to cool down my room. I don’t think I will be going out today. I have to go out tomorrow as I have an appointment with my NP for my pain management. I was supposed to see her Friday but she will be leaving Boston so I see her tomorrow. I hope it’s not permanently. I really like her.

I am feeling kind of anxious. I don’t know why. It could be the coffee. I haven’t taken my dose of trilafon yet. I’m waiting for the coffee to wake me up a little bit. I don’t know why I have been so drowsy the last few days. It is unusual for me to sleep all morning. I guess I am wicked tired. Last night, I was struggling to stay awake. Then when I went to lie down, I woke up. Pissed me off. When I got up, I read some more Harry Potter. I have about 10 chapters left. I figure if I read 2-3 chapters a day, I might finish this week. I know it sounds easier written than done but it’s what I am hoping. This book has been on my list since February. Once I finish it, I plan on moving on to “A Cuckcoo’s Calling”. It’s another book written by JK Rowling but under her Pen Name. She has three books in this series, if I like the book, I will buy the other two.

Once I finish Harry, I plan on digging out Alexander Hamilton’s book. That is a book I started a few years ago. I kind of got busy as I dropped it and never picked it back up. It is a very dense book and kind of hard to read. You really need to pay attention to what you are reading as it’s very easy to lose your place. It is interesting. I think I left off with Alexander’s early adulthood in St. Croix. I could be wrong as it’s been a long while since I looked at the book. The author doesn’t leave much to stop in the chapters. It just rattles on and on. I hate books like that.

Seeing as my evenings will be free for most of the week, I guess I can fill it with reading time. I still have the psychology book that I started. That book is reserved for Starbucks reading though. I feel like a student when I read that book at the coffee shop. It’s also a big book so it will take me the summer to read it. I am hoping to read more of it while my therapist is on vacation next month. It will be a good distraction.

Allergies and Other Boring Things

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression, mood disorders

Allergies and other boring things

Since I woke up this morning, I have been sneezing my head off. No matter where I go in the house, I sneeze. My eyes have been watering like a hose has been turned on. I just put antihistamine eye drops in and they feel a little bit better. I also have been taking diphenhydramine all day. It’s been helping a little bit. Least the runny nose has stopped. I feel okay despite all this so I don’t think I am coming down with a cold.

The house is hotter than hell. I don’t know how my mother can stand it. I am worried about her because the last time it was this hot her sugar dropped. I am keeping an ear out but it’s kind of difficult with the AC running.

I haven’t heard back from my psychiatrist so I guess what I wrote was acceptable. I was nervous I was going to get a phone call after I sent it but I didn’t. I hope she liked the blog I sent her. I haven’t responded to my friend about the email she sent. I really don’t know what to say to her. Sometimes I don’t respond because there isn’t anything that needs responding to. I do give her encouragement when it is needed. I just wish I could write my book like she is writing hers. So far my book is about my psychotic episodes and how I deal with it with my medication. My first story is about darkness. I need to edit it some more because there isn’t some things that I like in it. But it’s hard to delete stuff when you are looking for a high word count.

Some of the stuff in my book, I posted on my blog. I was hoping to try it out on my readers to see if they liked it or not. Unfortunately, I don’t have many readers every day so I don’t get responses like I used to. This is mostly wordpress readers not internet. I think I get more internet traffic than WP, which is okay. As long as my blog gets read, I really don’t care who is reading it. I had a reader from Guam but haven’t seen him/her in a while.

My first book hasn’t sold too well. It went for around 100 copies, not including the books I sent out to potential reviewers that still hasn’t returned one review. I am upset about that. I think they were just interested in a free signed book.

So while I am trying to think of stories to write, I have been reading like crazy, well as crazy as the depression and psychosis will take me. For a while, I didn’t do any reading because my depression was so bad and my father was so ill. I remember reading a blog the other night that detailed how angry I was that he wasn’t taking care of himself. I gave him a year to live, less than that if he didn’t do what his doctors were telling him. He died a few months later. I still can’t believe how quickly he deteriorated. Less than twenty days in the nursing home. We did bring him home because that was his last request before he became non communicative. He just became a shell of a man. It was heartbreaking to see, even though I had a lot of resentment towards him. Anger as well. Actually, a whole lot of negative feelings toward him, even in his last hour. I had taken a picture of him while he was lying in the casket. He looked like he had a smirk on his face. That is how I wish to remember him rather than how he looked on his death bed. He died peacefully, in his bed, not at the nursing home. It took some doing because otherwise we would be paying a huge ambulance bill. I am grateful the nursing home doctor wrote that it was medically necessary for transport. I won’t forget that.

I hope I don’t have to see my mother die that way, frail and thin, almost skin and bone. She has gained weight over the years, which hasn’t helped her health much. But as long as she is eating and drinking, I know she is okay. My biggest fear is that she will get cancer of some sort because she was a heavy smoker. Thankfully, her chest CT was clear during her last admission.

Because I took Benedryl tonight, I skipped my Ativan dose. I also took some magnesium supplements for the spasms that I had in my back today. Every time I stood for longer than 5 minutes, I became hunched over and my seized up. It was awful. I helped my mother empty the dishwasher and it took me longer because I had to keep sitting down to ease the spasms. I haven’t done anything in two days so I have no idea why my back hurts. I hope it’s not because of the humidity because summer just started and I don’t want to be house bound. I have to go out tomorrow for my appointment or I will be charged a $75 no show fee.

My Sox are winning tonight. I checked the score on my phone and when I went back to the internet, it said my phone had a virus on it. So weird because I didn’t have the thing open while I was using it. I just closed the browser and opened a new one. Pissed me off though because I just had a system update that was supposed to fix the “security” of the phone. Yeah, right. And my last name is sucker.

Sunday Blog 14

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Sunday Blog 14

I didn’t do a hell of a lot today but I made breakfast. I made oatmeal pancakes with buttermilk. It was good but the pancakes fell apart easily. It was messy. I then cleaned up after myself because my mother was still in the hospital. I called her and she didn’t think she would be coming home today but she did. While I was waiting for her to come home, I watched the baseball game. It was pissing me off because every time they had a runner on first base, they kept trying to pick them off. I hate when they do this because I want to see the batter pitched to not the throw to first! It made it a long game.

When my mother came home, the Sox finally scored some runs. Seven in one inning. I was happy because they were toast yesterday afternoon. It was ridiculous. They lost 21-7. I stopped watching when the game was 13-1. Today they won 10-5. I am glad they took the series and played better ball than yesterday.

I made supper for my mother and myself. My mother is all black and blue from the fall she took the other night and from all the poking from the needles and stuff. There were only two pans left for my mother to wash. My ankle started acting up because I was standing most of the time I was cooking.

I finally read a couple chapters in Harry Potter this morning. I am making slow progress. I will read some more before bed. I really need to take a shower but I need my ankle to settle down some first. I just took a pain pill, my second of the day. Even though I have been home alone most of the day, I have been going up and down the stairs a bit. I had to take the trash and recycling out. Then my niece needed some clothing so I had to go to the first floor to get it for her. My mother needed more ice so we took some from my sister’s freezer as she has an ice maker. Then I went up to my room a few times to play on my laptop before my mother wanted cooking done. It has worn me out.

I did make coffee this morning. I made it a little bit stronger than I usually make it because I didn’t put enough water in the French press like I usually do. It was still good. I was hoping to go poop but that hasn’t happened yet and it’s been a couple of days. I am going to be hurting when I do go. I am not looking forward to it. I had some baked beans tonight with dinner so I am hoping that moves things along.

My cousin called me this morning. She wants me to come visit her to have a pool party. I forgot she has a pool. I really don’t feel like talking to her today so I will call tomorrow. I am just wiped out from doing “normal” activities. Being on my feet didn’t help. But it’s not like you can cook sitting down.

Last night I was reading some old blogs. Seems my depression started sometime in September and just got worse in January through April. I also talked about the voices so they have been active for quite some time, even while on the abilify. I am glad I have this blog to monitor my symptoms because I don’t always remember what I write or when the beginning of something is. I had a few flashbacks this weekend of my father’s death and of his downfall. I was reading some of my posts back in March of this year. I mostly talked about him being mean to me, which he always was. He thought he was being funny. I guess the recurrence of the cancer and him not responding to the radiation treatments caused him to deteriorate. I just can’t believe it happened so quickly.

I think I am able to write the story now without it being traumatic for me. Most of the PTSD symptoms have calmed down. I know I was just triggered by going to the floor that my father was in and walking by the room. He spent almost 10 days on that floor where my mother was.

If I really want to make a dent in the books that I bought the last few months, I really need to get reading. My pile keeps getting higher and higher instead of smaller. I keep looking at the pile and it’s starting to overwhelm me. I had started an Excel sheet of the books that I read and how long it took me to read it. It’s mostly a spreadsheet of when I started a book and when I finished it. Since my father’s death, I have only finished two books. I have a challenge going on in GoodReads.com and my goal is to read 40 books in a year. I am not even at the 10 book mark and it’s July. I have the time to read; it’s just that sometimes I just don’t have the concentration because of my illness. I don’t carry a book to Starbucks anymore because I never read there. I just write in my journal. I don’t even write in general anymore while I am there. If I have a plan, which is rare, I usually carry it out. But lately, I just want my iced coffee, write in my journal for an hour, and then go home. I haven’t brought the psychology book that I bought a few months ago to Starbucks in weeks. Maybe I will try that this week.