To be Candid...

[Blueberry]

You're back! Good to see you. 

So glad the sessions turned out good after all. 

[sanmagic7]

yay, you!  so glad you decided to finish.  i don't think it can hurt for your future endeavors.  fingers crossed and prayers flying that there's a job out there waiting for you.  bless you, dearie!  big hug!

[Candid]

If I must become a bit of an arse to accomplish all of this, then so be it!!

Second shaft of light for the day. I'm being an arse, have been since I arrived in MIL's home nearly a year ago. It's nice to know why I'm doing it.

I find myself Home Alone right now. MIL is shopping. H has gone somewhere he wanted me to go with him, but at 10.40am I'm not dressed yet.

I live with two people who shout a lot. MIL shouts as a matter of habit because H is hard of hearing, but she also bawls at me and the cat when he's not around. The fourth member of the household dissociates. Freezes. I do very little in terms of housework or anything else, don't speak unless I'm spoken to. When I realised it had gone quiet, I got a glass of wine and went outside with my cigarettes. What an arse. Most of the time I wish I was somewhere else but I can't think of where. Otherwise I'd be gone, you bet.

I believe the word is anomie. I'm so cut off I think I might be going mad, because no one seems to have noticed. The UK Government helps with my feelings of non-existence by denying me a penny of financial help because I haven't been in the country long enough. I'm persona non grata, for sure.

There's no one on earth I feel connected to, including myself. That post Three Roses linked to http://www.new-synapse.com/aps/wordpress/?p=1911 has blasted me apart. I don't know what to do with this.

Our purely individual side seeks satisfaction of all wants and desires. It knows no boundaries. ~ http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/Theorists/Essays/Durkheim1.htm

What I'm going to do right now is shower  , get dressed, and clean the bathroom. If I finish that before anyone gets home, I'll look around for the next worst area and start on that.

[sanmagic7]

i read that article from 3 roses, and there is a lot there.  feeling disconnected from self is a biggie, but i do believe we are the only ones who can find a reconnection.

i also believe we can make choices and decisions on what we want our 'self' to be like.  one question i started asking my 'self' (when i finally found a sense of her) when i had a decision to make was 'is this beneficial to my life?'  it was a question that helped me stop to think about what i was doing, what i wanted to do, and along the way it kept strengthening and determining who and what kind of person my 'self' truly was.

being stuck the way you are, candid, certainly doesn't help your 'self' to know herself.  being disregarded by social services and members of your household, i'm sure, contributes to that feeling of disconnection and isolation.  if i may suggest, you've already got some sense of your 'self'.  you know what cigs you like, what type of wine you like, that you want clean surroundings, that you're a hard worker, that you're intelligent, kind, caring, and willing to put in the hard work that's needed for your recovery.  you're willing to take risks (your trainings) and follow thru.  these are all part of what makes up the essence of candid.

it's a beginning, and i do believe that as you become more mindful of who you are and who you want to be, you'll begin to know and feel candid in a stronger manner.  i have faith in you,   big hug, my dear.

[clarity]

Hi lovely Candid

It must be so so tough in your situation... in fact that's a silly word to use.    Thing is, to heal we seek solitude instictively...and if the only cave we have is polluted by others then we cannot relax and let the healing happen... then we disconnect to numb it all out...a catch 22. I really feel for you. 

Im so glad youre being an arse. But becoming a renegade arse is essential..  not a self critical arse. 

Your right to exist in this world is IRRESPECTIVE of the opinions and actions of anyone else......

Fly your flag!!!!! Rooting for you being yourself, the queen of planet Candid!!

xx 

[Candid]

I spent the whole of yesterday in the attic (aka my bedroom), totally burned out.  I managed to write out my recent history re. sleeping pills, plus a list of people H should inform in the event of me going mad or dying of insomnia, then finally dropped off just after dark.  Okay this morning, so I'm off to the doc's to get it on record before my personal battery runs out. 

The nuthouse (Jan-Feb 2016) used to include in my nightly cocktail an antihistamine (Pill A) to make me sleep.  I continued intermittent use afterwards. The psychiatrist I saw a couple of months ago said Pill A was bad for my brain ; he prescribed Pill B.

The doctor I spoke to last week was alarmed to hear I was taking double doses of Pill A or Pill B and still not sleeping.  He said the surgery couldn't be responsible for what a double dose of Pill B might do, and prescribed Pill C, of which he was sure one dose would do the job.  I've never met this doctor and hope not to.  He prescribed over the phone.

I always do the research.  It would take a truckload of Pill B to carry me off.  Pill C is another matter. I was heading for my bestie's place to stay over Friday night, having just picked up the latest knockout.  One Pill C on Friday, adverse side-effect.  It didn't knock me out, either, so  Saturday was a trial for me and for bestie. 

I've since found toxicity info in a medical journal, and the minimum lethal dose of Pill C is a wee 50mg.  That means the lowest dose anyone has been known to die from is 7 x 7.5mg tablets. I still have 27 of the little darlings, plus a goodly quota of As and Bs. Sometimes you just gotta laugh.  Had he looked at my patient notes at all?  Seen that I made haste to the Pill B purveyor due to SI?

Anyhoo...

I've taken nothing for four nights now. I'm riding the dragon.  Began mild hallucination Sunday afternoon, by which time I'd been awake at least 40 hours; crashed Sunday night.  Top form (that's my top) Monday and able to get things done.  Monday night awake.  Yesterday had to take it slow, which is where we came in.

H believes I can function one-day-okay one-day-offmyhead until one fine morning I wake up normal.   Of course, this doesn't take into account why I got on the knockout merry-go-round in the first place.

Now it's less than a week to trauma therapy assessment.  I got this ball rolling towards the end of last year...

[Three Roses]

 
I do not know what I would do without sleep. I'm so, so sorry you're having a rough go and wish there was something I could do tangibly to help you. Big hugs, my friend.

[Kizzie]

Okay this morning, so I'm off to the doc's to get it on record before my personal battery runs out. 

Good choice going to the doctor with this Candid, I hope s/he was able to help you figure out what to do and how to help you with your insomnia. I used to drink (really) heavily to knock myself out, but then I would wake up and have to go through that all over again, and of course I became addicted to the alcohol.  I quit cold turkey and it was a bad idea, dangerous in fact so again, I'm so glad you're choosing to take this to a physician.      and

[sanmagic7]

dear candid, how awful for you.  i've been thru the insomnia madness in the past.  it's absolutely the worst.  i still don't sleep right, but without major responsibilities during the day, i use naps to make up what i miss at night. 

i'm also glad you've seen a doc, and you're a smart lady to do that research.  the docs don't tell us much, that's for sure.  good luck with the upcoming psych review.  i hope it goes well and you start getting some relief.  with all my heart i hope so.  love and hugs flying your way, sweetie.

[Hope66]

  to you Candid, I really hope you get through the week with some sleep and some relief from your insomnia. 
Hope 

[Candid]

Thank you all.    Today was a good day, got out and about and lots of things done, but that didn't include going to the doctor.  What were they going to do but give me more pills I don't want?  Plus not take me seriously, because I've gone there on a good day?

Riding the dragon, for me, has become a cycle of: one sleepless night -- DAY ONE knackered but awake, irritable, unable to do anything; drop from exhaustion for an early night -- DAY TWO good, able to get things done, do all the sleep hygiene things but don't sleep...  I mean, it literally is alternate days now. So I know where I am in the cycle: wide awake at nearly midnight.

It was H who told me to take nothing for a while, and that sounded good to me.  All three of my knockouts are addictive, and all of them fiddle with the brain in ways no one needs their brain fiddled with.  The list of side-effects for Pill B and Pill C is hilarious -- definitely a case of the cure being worse than the complaint.

My vow, knowing what shape I'm going to be in tomorrow, is to get to the doctors' surgery when it opens.  They need to see this.

[sanmagic7]

good for you, my dear.  right beside you.  good luck.  at least you have this alternating thing figured out.  i'd say that's a win in itself. 

getting off those sleep meds can cause insomnia, too, if you've been taking them long enough and you don't wean off them.  just be careful.  eventually it will even itself out, but it sounds like your brain has been thru a lot.   i hope you'll be gentle with yourself, loving and nurturing.  i'll be interested to hear what the doc says.   loving hug to you.

[Candid]

6.30am here.  I won't say not a wink, because clearly there were several winks sometime after the clock struck 2am.  Progress!

getting off those sleep meds can cause insomnia, too, if you've been taking them long enough and you don't wean off them.  just be careful. 

Thanks for that.  Weaning would mean taking a single dose of A or B, which won't knock me out.  My theory is that getting off long-term sleep meds doesn't cause insomnia; it's just a cessation of masking the problem.  When usage has been long-term, the stooge doesn't realise s/he's 'simply' back to where s/he was before.

Notice I always say "knock me out".  When some smiling professional tells me "this will help you sleep", I groan inwardly.  It's really not a case of being relaxed.  I don't need something to help me sleep, more like a house brick to the forehead.  At the end of a Day One I go off -- possibly closer to coma than to natural, refreshing sleep.

it sounds like your brain has been thru a lot.

Indeed.  Yours too, right?  The psychologist who diagnosed CPTSD told me the infant response to an unloving mother causes actual lesions on the developing brain. 

NTS:  Leave my brain to any scientist studying CPTSD.  Right now I'm hanging on to what's left of it, if that's okay.

I'm highly averse (in theory) to psych meds and sleep meds.  I believe that at some more enlightened time far in the future, people will shake their heads or laugh out loud at the barbaric, brutal, cavalier way in which legal brain-chemistry-altering substances used to be handed out.  "Oh yes, this movie was made in the 2020s. Incredible to think that's what they did in those days, isn't it?" It's the brain, for crying out loud!  That's all I've got to think with.  How can I let someone tinker with that?  I think I'd fare better, or at least as well, with a leech attached to each temple.

So, at this stage I'm still planning to be right after the queue that amasses outside my GP surgery just before 9am every weekday.  I'm taking the six printed pages that come with every pack of Pill C, having underlined all the ghastly side-effects I've had for months, ie. long before I took my one and only dose last Friday night.  I'm also taking this year's edition of the diary I keep religiously every day no matter what state I'm in.  It shows I've been riding the dragon since January 1 (as well as long before), just that on Day Ones I tanked up on coffee to drag myself through.  No more of that.

There's a whopping big road between me and the surgery, the one that links us to London.  Yesterday I did my usual threading across, easily able to judge speed and distance of oncoming cars, halt in the middle, watch the other direction, go again.  Today I'm more likely to be in fugue state at the pedestrian crossing, not able to tell whether that car's stopping or not, possibly not noticing the flashing green man. 

It has to be done.  Mornings are for 'emergency' patients, first come first seen, so I'll be in the waiting room a long time.  Better take a book, too. I'll do my best to be coherent, but the doctor (whichever one it is ) will certainly see and hear a Candid who hasn't presented in this state before.  And what can s/he do?  Nothing.  I know that.  I just want this on the record.

Well, this post has taken me more than an hour.  I'm all over the place.

[Three Roses]

Thinking of you today, dear Candid. I hope they see.

[sanmagic7]

we're with you in spirit, right by your side, helping you get across that road without incident.  i hope it goes well.

you're right that the original problem is left behind, and it needs to be resolved.  i was thinking of my own case, where i have restless legs syndrome which can be caused by a misfiring of one of the sections of the brain so that the nerves in my legs twitch, make my legs jump, and interfere with my being able to sleep soundly.  it wasn't till i got on meds that i knew what i felt like - i hadn't slept well for 20 yrs. before i was diagnosed.

so, i'm thinking my brain had already been damaged (as you mentioned, lesions or something else) and the physical damage doesn't allow profound sleep.  besides this, i've also had my share of sleepless nights due to other issues, but as they slowly get resolved, my sleep has more nights of what my body and brain need.  i know you're still looking for a t to help with those other issues, too. 

in the meantime, i hope will all my heart that you get some help with this.  it's agonizing, to say the least.  standing with you all the way, my dear.  big hug to you.