Schedules, Training, Madness, and Aspirin

So I am still alive. Still working out. Still trying to achieve a good balance. Scheduling has always been a bit of a nightmare for me really. I strive to get everything done by 3 pm and depending on whether I can accomplish that and if I have energy (mental and physical) to spare I might make dinner. I rarely make dinner to tell you the truth at least not the healthy from scratch dinners of my dreams. Why do I have to get everything done by 3pm? Brain death. My brain is encased in ever present fog. In the morning I am able to focus better. I have energy. My mood is generally more positive. By the end of the day the fog can be incredibly dense. My energy levels plummet. After dinner (around 5:30 pm) I am pretty much exhausted. Sometimes I have seizures at the end of the day. The Depression that I had been running from during the day catches up and whacks me over the head. Everyday is a race. Everyday I try to pack in whatever I can before my brain goes all mushy and wonky and unpleasant. Once Sam comes home around dinnertime what I need is a good long snuggle. I need comedy. I need to unwind otherwise I can’t, despite being utterly exhausted, sleep and if I can’t sleep I go fucking nuts. Like really certifiably nuts. I am sure there must be a better more normal way of coping but I have not figured out how to do it. Having such a tiny window of time to fit my life activities into is challenging and completely mad but so is life.

Once again I have decided to revamp my training schedule. Here is what I have come up with this time!

Though I have not included it I do 30 minutes of yoga every morning before breakfast. If I didn’t do this session I would be overwhelmed by body pain/stiffness (because I have PTSD and Dissociative Disorder I hold a lot of tension in my muscles, have a lot of nightmares, and position my body awkwardly and painfully when I sleep). It also helps with the Depression and honestly keeps the suicidal thoughts at bay. For me yoga is medicine.

I would like to do more Hiit because it’s fun but it just doesn’t work at the moment. Thursday I have 4 hours of intense physical activity at work so there is just no way. The other days of the week I work at the factory. Some days I am carrying boxes around. Some days I have to stand the entire time. Some jobs are more physically strenuous than others. I find I am usually quite tired when I get home. I also walk more since I have started working. Now that it is getting warmer I am also going to have to find some motivation for gardening! So in the end I am just not as sedentary as I used to be so the longer, more frequent Hiit workouts don’t make sense. Saturday’s Hiit I can manage a longer session but Tuesdays will have to be shorter preferably 30-40 minutes.

I am investigating the possibility of taking a yin yoga course on Sundays. The course is 75 minutes. If I am able to do it that would be 75 minutes plus my 30 minute morning yoga plus 30 minutes to 1 hour of lower body training. The yoga class is also squarely at dinner time. Which is sort of an issue because while I am very hungry around 5pm I tend to have no appetite after 6 pm (my body switches into that weird hibernation cycle I spoke about earlier). Still Sunday would be the only day that I could feasibly do it and I do love yoga. Also yin yoga is more relaxing than say Ashtanga Yoga. Maybe I could eat half my dinner before and half of it after? I have to see how much it costs. I also have to see if the hubster would drive me into town!

Monday- Back/Posture/Pilates/Ballet (I have Kyphosis and I figured I need to spend some extra time on strengthening my back and improving my posture.)

Tuesday- Hiit/Cardio

Wednesday- Upper Body

Thursday- Yoga (my cleaning job is just too exhausting to allow for any other type of workout)

Friday- Abs

Saturday- Hiit/Cardio

Sunday- Lowerbody

I have 6 weeks of my new routine scheduled into my journal. I am excited to see how it goes! On another unpleasant, read with caution note I am having major digestive issues. I have found that I can’t take aspirin at all, it just ruins my stomach. I was sick with the flu a while ago and so I took some aspirin for the body pain and fever and it severely irritated my stomach lining (which caused excruciating pain) and gave me a nightmare case of diarrhea. 2 years ago when I took aspirin this happened as well. I am not even taking a particularly strong aspirin but it causes really intense stomach pain. The stomach issues can last for weeks after. Yesterday my stomach was so enlarged I looked to be 6 months pregnant. I don’t think it is at the level of internal bleeding but I think it would get to that level if I had taken more pills. So if anyone knows any natural fever reducers and pain killers for the next time I get the flu please let me know!

Overdue

I went in for my interview today (not actually but I started this post days ago). I was very nervous as you can well imagine given my social anxiety. I am surprised at how many people don’t understand social anxiety. People often think that if they are nice my anxiety will magically disappear and while I obviously prefer the company of nice people, my anxiety never goes away. I keep thinking if I get to know someone well enough it will but it doesn’t. Because the anxiety never subsides people start to feel that I don’t trust them or that I have a bad opinion of them/don’t want to spend together. I am really only capable of being comfortable with one or two people at a time. Growing up I was comfortable with my grandmother and my best friend. Now I am comfortable with my husband and daughter. My anxiety is demanding and exhausting.

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Anyways going to these interviews is pure terror but I did it. I don’t really know how to explain this job. I’ll be working with widgets, basically. Putting little bits with other little bits. I am nervous about working with numbers. We need 55 of widget A and 230 of widget B and the bookcases are all organized by numerical codes. I have Dyscalculia. I have trouble even with simple math. I have trouble reading numbers and saying them out loud. I turn numbers around when I write them down so I can’t even copy numbers from one paper to the next. I have a little book with my exercise schedules and the dates are always wrong, always and I don’t understand it because I am looking at the bloody calendar while I am writing it down. I have enormous trouble with time. I don’t understand the way people say the time it is ½ past blah. I have to say the time exactly and even then I am never really sure I have said it properly. I can’t really read a clock either. I do not think I need to tell you how embarrassing this problem is for a 35 year old! People always ask me why don’t you train? Well I have done. I have had so many tutors over the years! I have taken so many courses! I once had a math teacher experienced with Dyscalculia and I did improve a little which gave me hope but then I had seizures. After the seizures my issue got much worse. I now have to carry my phone number on a paper (that has been written by my husband) and hand it to people when they ask me what my phone number is. I hate when people speak their phone number to me because I don’t understand it and I have to explain that I can’t understand it. During the interview my caseworker asked me the hours I work at my cleaning job. I could not say them. She wanted me to pick times to begin on the spot and she had the bus schedule but I honestly can’t read the bus schedule so I told her I must wait and arrange it with child care. She wanted me to write the date on my contract but I never know the date and I can never remember how to write the date anyhow. I am going to have to start carrying my work schedule on a piece of paper. While it is embarrassing pulling out my little papers at least the info is correct (if someone else has written it).

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I am upset with my caseworker. While trying to sort my schedule she asked me to move my therapy sessions. I asked her when exactly since I am set to work all week. I asked her if I should move them to the weekend for her convenience (I was that sarcastic). She looked a bit flabbergasted. She would cancel my therapy herself if she could do it. Therapy isn’t something I am doing for shits and giggles. She doesn’t like that I won’t work on therapy days. Again my therapy sessions aren’t about day to day annoyances. I don’t walk out feeling refreshed and validated. I am talking about some heavy shit in there and I am in a very vulnerable state afterwards. I am barely functional afterwards. Just getting myself home after is difficult, ask hubby who has had to rush out of work to pick up a very emotional confused wife. I am tired of having to fight and explain myself for going to therapy.

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I got the internship btw. I just have to settle on some hours. It will be M T W and every other F for 4 hours a day. I am trying not to stress but I am. I am not sure if this will turn into a job because I am worried about the numbers issue. I am also worried because the lovely ladies I met there said it can be quite stressful. I am worried because I hate change and this changes everything. I am worried because if they offer the job I am supposed to accept it (The Unemployment Agency does not care if the job is awful). Maybe the job is just what I need and maybe I will enjoy it. Maybe the monotony of it, makes it safe. I am feeling negative at the moment though, about everything.

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I also have some family issues. My mom is in a very bad mental state right now, I am extremely worried. I am also facing some very challenging parenting issues that I won’t go into here. Oh yes and my daughter had her birthday so I have had to arrange and participate in 2 parties.

Ab Day

Today was Ab Day! Sam is sick with a bad cold and a fever. I am feeling a little under the weather myself probably trying to fight off his germs. I got to test out my Equalizer in a new move which appears at around 49 minutes. That was tricky and I think I am dipping too much, not sure if it is my proportions or if it is a strength issue. I have short arms and a long body and I found it awkward. Also ankles and feet are bony and I don’t wear shoes so it was a bit uncomfortable propping my feet up. Ab pikes confuse me as you will see there in the beginning. Some exercises on the other hand I was pleased with my performance.

 

Advice to Self

I have a lot to say but I am not really sure if I will cover everything in this post.

First of all a video. Sam shared this with me a few days ago. It is an inspiring, no excuses, kick in the ass sort of video so if you are feeling defeated and sensitive at the moment it will either knock you out of your rut or pummel you into the floor.

I am not 100% sure how I feel about this video (I do like it). I do agree that if you use your free time to productively work toward your goals that you will make major, possibly life-changing gains. I also agree that getting good at anything takes a long time and a lot of hard work. I wasn’t born with a pencil in my hand, writing sonnets by age six. I had an interest in poetry. I read it first (voraciously let me add) and eventually I started writing my own. I didn’t make any real progress until I started to set aside time to work on it daily (a practice I have neglected of late). My concerns are that I have an obsessive and addictive personality. I am not ambitious so much as destructive. I take everything a step (or 3) too far. I have literally worked myself into the hospital. So at the moment I do not know how to be obsessed with something in a healthy way.

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I was abused and I don’t need to get over it. It happened and there is no getting over something like that. I keep trying to return to the me I might have been if I hadn’t been abused but that person doesn’t exist! The only person I have to be, is who I am right now and this person still has issues, issues the me I might have or should have been can’t fucking fathom, much less handle. While I have moved forward, broken the cycle, created a beautiful and safe environment in which I can thrive I am still going to feel things that scare me, that shame me, that frustrate and exhaust me. I am occasionally going to remember something sad or something terrible.  I am not living that life anymore thankfully but I can’t erase it either.  I can’t erase the me that was betrayed and mistreated but I am in a place now where I can do better for her.

My Unmentionables

Those reading my poetry blog may have noticed a decline in the quality of my work.

As you may or may not know I have started class again but I have changed schools. I liked my classmates in my previous school. The classmates in my new school seem nice and a few of them have attempted to reach out to me. I would like to say I have reached back and am well on my way to making friends but unfortunately that’s not the case. I am overwhelmed by all the newness and by issues in my personal life. I have been feeling very disconnected lately and can hardly carry on a conversation.

So what has me so distracted these days? Well I have recently told my mom about being molested. She believed me. She also confronted my dad, just as I knew she would. He was in bad condition, living in filth, and drunk. He denied it outright but added sharply that if he did anything he was probably drunk. He approached her then (I am not sure in what manner she would not say) but she ran out of the house. He hasn’t changed. He is still a monster. He is still my father (by blood only). I am bothered that my dad is far from the only monster in my family tree. I am bothered that when looking at arrests in my hometown 400 of them are family members. It’s not even a big city. I am bothered that I grew up in a carnival of malevolence.

Part 2. When my mom was pregnant (aside from working the whole time because my dad was an unemployed alcoholic) my grandma tried to kill her/us. I feel some sense of betrayal because I loved my grandma so much. Granted she hadn’t met me when she attempted to purge the demon’s spawn but still it makes me think all sorts of stupid things. Like maybe she only used me to get at my mom, to turn me against her in retaliation (she was vindictive and held grudges for life). I would like to think she genuinely loved me, that she regretted the whole attempted murder thing when she met me. I like to think she came to realize that I wasn’t a demon spawn but a person. I realize that even if I was just part of a revenge scheme that I loved her and she did give me comfort and sometimes weirdly stability (despite being very unstable). I perceived her as loving me as well despite some serious control issues and mood swings. Is a person who would kill their pregnant daughter capable of love? I don’t know. It may not matter because I loved her enough for two people but it breaks my heart a little.

Ridiculous Musings about Ego!

When I don’t think about being damaged. I move through life, productive for a time, perhaps even confident. I forget myself. My fears are like flies that can be dusted off without any genuine interruption or consideration. I don’t even realize that I am repressing my feelings, it’s involuntary. It keeps me functional in that vaguely inhuman way that human being’s exist. Then I start to wear out, to feel uneasy, to get angry. In the beginning I don’t even realize that I am angry. I think what’s going on with everyone today? Why are they being so unreasonable? Then I start to collapse under the weight of all those pent up emotions. I think why I am still traumatized? I have a different life now. I am free. I don’t have to live in fear but I continue to live life as if the war were still raging (I have taken the war with me, I have become the war).

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In a recent talk I viewed with Alan Watts he said “Now is the creative point of life” Like Merlin we actually live in reverse, our experience of now creates the past. We can’t blame the past for anything that happens today because we are the ones creating the values of the past. I thought about this and thought about this, for perhaps 10 good minutes and while I slept I am sure lol I think he is on to something but I can only parrot what he’s said at the moment.

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I agree that healing comes through connection. I think that making your world safer makes you more paranoid. I think people who are traumatized that talk about it and bond recover in a way people who deny/exclude never do.

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Then I started to think about the ego. The concept of the ego has always alluded me. I understand the concept of illusions and denial. I know very well that the world I perceive bares little resemblance to life at a quantum level and that the world I perceive is different than the world perceived by my ancestors and even by my neighbors (ask 10 people to describe a poem you’ve written you’ll get 10 answers). I do not think I know everything or that my view is absolute/correct/all inclusive. I do not think reality is a concrete thing that can be defined and cataloged in any particularly useful way. There is a limit to what our senses can communicate and a limit to what are brains can cope with at any give moment. As a child I could not cope with being abused so I created an alternate space for myself, a pocket, so that I could survive alongside the horrors. The ego is a useful albeit glitchy construct and as long as we inhabit mortal bodies I do not see how we could realistically dispose of it. I do not see how we could convince ourselves that we do not exist or how that would be useful.

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This is where it gets tricky. I believe our beliefs shapes reality (I’d go so far as to say we are creators). As I said before whenever I repress or deny any aspect of myself it creates disease. In order to accept oneself can you really deny the existence of that self? I am not suggesting that we are separate, that our actions have no consequence, that we live in a bubble. You are me. I am you. I am sure anyone who has hurt themselves has seen the devastating impact that can have on family and friends. Yes other people take our pain personally. When I claim to hate myself, the people who love me are invariably insulted/wounded. How dare I hate someone so precious? And what does my hating myself say about them? About their judgment? Their value as human beings? The point is we simply cannot escape our connection to each other, so I deduce that we are each other. No one is alone, it is simply not possible to be alone. We are the universe, the universe is not alone. I also think if you look at beings we think of as non sentient long enough you will either imagine them sentient or realize that they are in fact sentient, but it is irrelevant the manner in which they gain sentience. Look at ants. They seem so uniform, so militant but there is always an ant that goes off does a little jig, stares at a rock for 20 minutes and then mysteriously and without fanfare returns to the regime. For a few minutes each day that ant was not a machine, he/she was something else, he/she had a private life, he/she had whims, he/she was chaos.

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However, I still do not understand the point of getting rid of ego. Yes yes ego is suffering I have heard that before. The ego says this is unpleasant. I do not like this experience. Sometimes that has value, sometimes the experience is legitimately dangerous. Sometimes we are avoiding something necessary even essential to our growth and development. But if the ego is what conceives suffering. Then suffering is not suffering but experience and if the point is to learn, to grow then why are we are seeking to alleviate discomfort and disappear? Isn’t that just the ego talking? Yes there has to be some way to deduce the legitimate danger from the fear but I think we can do that better by opening up to all that we are, rather than pruning bits away. Failure is necessary so is there really any point or any merit to perfection, to establishing absolutes? What do we learn from that? So what I am saying is uncertainty is perhaps the only certainty. That sometimes we will push away an opportunity and sometimes we will step on a landmine and that is exactly what we are supposed to be doing, fumbling around. Which is better for learning the landmine or the opportunity? Who can say? Ask ego (j/k). Seriously though if belief creates reality then we created ego. We created the limitations it imposes. We convinced ourselves that the only way to know anything/anyone is to label it/them, rather to coexist with it/them.

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Anyhow this is what I like about Shinto (I like many things about Buddhism too btw). Shinto does not even have perfect gods, the gods themselves are flawed as it should be. There is nothing wrong with being human. We are essentially good. Nothing negative that happens to us makes us bad even if it clouds our perceptions for a time. In Shinto it gives us permission to suffer and rejoice and that is life. If we are here now in these human bodies shouldn’t we humble ourselves to that experience and all that it entails even if we do not fully comprehend it?

We are always thinking what’s next? Tell me teacher what is the point? What is my reward for completing this lesson? I don’t know about you but I have never finished a lesson in my life. I have never said “Great now I know everything there will ever be to know about math!” or “Woot now I know every word in the English language!” Never happened. I remain a student, even when I teach I am a student first. I think that is why Shinto is concerned with life more than death.

When I was around 10 it occurred to me that I would die. I wasn’t sure what I believed would happen in the after life, if there was an after life, but the realization was frightening. I didn’t want to stop “being”. I cried and agonized over this realization for a long time and then…I had an epiphany.

If nothing happens after death: We can only be aware of ourselves when we are alive and while we might perceive the moment of dying, we can’t perceive being dead.

If reincarnation then we have not died simply exchanged one life for another.

If heaven/hell exists we have simply moved to another plane of existence

If we rejoin the universe then I expect we are neither alive nor dead but something like the Tao and thus any fear of not being is completely and utterly irrelevant. Which to me is similar to the ego, it is irrelevant. Sometimes we do see beyond into something else and sometimes we see only as far as the end of our nose and that is so.

Well I have more ridiculous musings but I will leave it there for now and with this video

Extreme Naps

Sam found a trauma specialist, she is a private practitioner and I’ve been there twice. I admit I have agonized over the cost because I do not have an income aside from my book sales. I haven’t sold many books. All I want to do is write, writing is not profitable at least not the way I am going about it. I have entertained the possibility of teaching a creative writing class but I have no idea what kind of credentials I would need since I don’t have anything to recommend me. I also love inspiring people. Speaking of writing I have selected all 100 poems for the new book. I have to read through them before I send them off for editing. I am proud of what I have written, not because it is exceptional, but because I have written what I wanted most to write.

The room is different. The new therapist has a room full of instruments and art supplies. She even has a xylophone and I am a natural xylophonist according to a middle school music teacher. Oddly the only instrument I can play is one I have only played once and I assure you that was a fluke.

She seems nice. I always say that because everyone is nice when I do not know them well enough to have an opinion. She seems kooky, I like kooky. I have not told her much about my trauma yet. We are working on building trust. She gave me some questionnaires about PTSD and Dissociation. No surprise that I suffer from both. I rank very high on the dissociation scale. That’s not surprising but it is scary. One of my biggest fears is developing DID. The type of trauma I have is more or less a recipe for its construction. I have always bottled up my emotions. Pushed them down by either bulldozing through (staying busy) or by simply disappearing. When no one is around I let them out but there never seems to be an end. I really do think I could cry forever. I am afraid that when I can’t “hide” I may “fracture”. I don’t like the idea of someone else using my body, fucking up my shit, messing with my loved ones. Right now I don’t seem to be anyone when I am dissociated at least not generally. Generally I am just offline, like a mannequin that walks ferociously if highly agitated. The walking thing is kind of concerning because I do get lost and a body without a brain can get into trouble.

The last two days I have been extremely depressed. Working on the book keeps me going and Sam’s love and support keep me “alive” but I am in a very dark place at the moment (Sam is sweet he came home early with flowers and sweets when I told him I was sad and he picked me up from therapy for a cuddle). I am just really sad, weepy, guilty, irritable. I imagine that is the therapy at work, there is no way to escape that part, it is part of the healing process. I am not good with emotional disclosure. My body is vicious at the moment, a lot of pain, pain is how I cope with stress apparently. Not how I want to cope with it but when I get stressed my muscles get so tight that they pull my joints out of place and tear themselves.

Speaking of pain. My appointment was early this morning and I could not get Isadora to cooperate and get ready for school. I had to take a shower and it is a 30 minute walk to the therapist. It was also raining a bit. Well I had to run part way but the graceful creature that I am, I tripped over my own pants. My pants are always too long and my boot got caught in the cuff anyways I went down face first and I went down hard. Somehow in the fall I pivoted my hips to avoid my knees and turned my head to save my nose. I took the impact on my left calf and left wrist I landed in some weird pushup and kept my weight up so my breasts didn’t get smashed (I think reacted as I do to my HIIT training). I have a bruise on my calf but it was my left wrist that took most of my body weight. Nothing is broken I have bones like rubber bands. If I don’t break anything jumping out of a car at 25 miles an hour, falling off roofs, or rolling down countless flights of stairs I am probably not going to break myself falling on the sidewalk. Oddly no one noticed they all seemed to be looking somewhere else when I decided to plow the pavement. I think I sprained my pinky though it bends of course but it is sore. I might have also slept on it wrong because it didn’t hurt at all until I got up from my nap (which was several hours after my accident). I often injure myself in sleep. It would be funny if I took a fall that hard and then hurt myself during a nap.

I Don’t Know How To Therapy

I had a session with my therapist the other day. So far I feel the sessions are lacking. I am already skilled in the art of monologue (I am not unlike Spiderman in that way). But seriously I need something more intensive than psychoanalysis. I hate sitting there talking at someone and receiving no feedback whatsoever. Where are the thought-provoking questions? Where are the hands on activities? Where is the objective perspective? There is just me in a room doing what I always do except I am doing it with a bystander who is practically catatonic. Well to be fair I did make her laugh out loud which is probably not right either. I really don’t know how to therapy.

I received an appointment in the mail for November 6^th. I thought, finally, she’s arranged for a psychological evaluation so we can see what’s going on but no it seems that’s not the case at all. I have been scheduled to see the doctor to discuss medication yet again. I have already told her that I will not take medication until we have a better understanding of my condition, it’s like going to the doctor and receiving radiation therapy before the appointment in hopes that it’ll fix whatever ails you. The prescribing of bogus drugs at random discredits the psychiatrist in my opinion.

I am moving, as many of you know, and my therapist said I would be in a new district and thought I might want to change therapists. I responded that I will be coming into town for Swedish lessons and so there is no need. She said we’d talk about it later. Later in the same session she revealed that the township I will be moving to doesn’t have any therapists (none of the surrounding areas either) and therefore if I wanted to continue therapy I would have to commute into the city. If that’s the case why would I switch therapists? I questioned her but she said we’d talk about it later. I believe she has already decided to make the switch because a substantial portion of the conversation would have been irrelevant otherwise. Unless she is saying that people living in the country are not eligible for therapy but that hardly seems legal/logical. Maybe she is considering retirement? If that’s the case why not say so? I wouldn’t have taken that personally unless of course she told me I was the cause. I believe she is in her 70s so retirement would not seem unreasonable and I would understand that completely and with no hard feelings. What I do not understand is a round about way of talking. I also considered the possibility that she thought I might wish to discontinue because of the distance (Swedes don’t like long car rides I really can’t exaggerate that point enough) but then asking me if I wanted to switch doesn’t make sense because apparently I don’t have any local options. I am probably over-thinking this but I couldn’t really make any sense of it.

Part of the reason I am in therapy is because I don’t understand social cues. How on earth am I supposed to understand someone who employs both a social and professional veneer? It would be so much easier if she just spoke plainly. Do you plan to discontinue therapy when you move or are you willing to commute? If you are willing to commute how often would you like to meet up? Something along those lines. If I then asked about therapy options in my area she might have informed me that unfortunately there are no therapists in my immediate vicinity. This may well be what she meant to say but there was a lot of fillers and extraneous bits attached. This is why I need days between all my conversations so I can decipher what the person was trying to say lol If only I could pause and process as needed! I know there is a technique called summarizing where by I repeat what I believe the person has said to make sure that I have understood them but unfortunately I kind of suck at it. I am also defensive not around everyone but with authority figures I have trust issues and so in the moment my emotions sometimes distort meanings/intentions.

If you told your life story everyday for a year to a complete stranger and then those strangers got together to discuss you, they’d all have a different version to present. When I am in therapy I always feel like a liar even if I am presenting the truth to the best of my current awareness. I am unfortunately influenced by my moods.  I think it comes in part from the disparity between stories growing up my mom insisted my dad was a good man and that my childhood was good. I kept on giving my dad chances looking for that good side. I kept on thinking I was at fault because I seemed to be drawing out the bad side in my parents. Sometimes I even thought I was imaging or exaggerating the abuse since neither of my parents were willing to acknowledge or accept responsibility. I keep trying to be more and more honest but I still feel like a liar, like a hysteric. Doctors/therapists are a particularly suspicious lot (I mean their job is to look for inconsistencies) so around them I act especially guilty.

The other thing that disturbs me is that I can’t find a therapist equipped to deal with trauma. When I started therapy I figured that my story was one they would have heard before and then some. Yet every time I open up about my childhood I am met with a very traumatized therapist (which makes me hold back). I think I need someone who specializes specifically in trauma. Sam has a coworker and his wife works with traumatized children he’s going to ask if she knows anyone who works with adults.

An update from your friendly neighborhood Zombie

Today I saw a psychiatrist and it was for medication evaluation apparently. He read my history and suspects I might have PTSD on top of the Depression, ADD, Epilepsy and all the known stuff. My history alone seemed to be reason enough to have developed it. I don’t know if I have it or not but I can’t discredit the possibility. I do have the occasional nightmare and indeed any dream in which my father is present is a nightmare but as far as nightmares go my frequency is actually average. I do have trouble falling asleep which could have to do with years of lying awake vigilant to avoid being molested. I don’t feel panicked while I am lying awake I mostly just have thoughts mulling about, all types of thoughts, but not specifically bad thoughts. I do cry hysterically/hyperventilate whenever anyone attempts to massage me, that is clearly a trigger. The result warped posture and a lot of back and neck pain. Hell I probably DO have it or at least I have unresolved issues. I don’t want to think my past is still hanging me up though. I want to get over it and move on.

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Anyways the fact that I have Epilepsy (which does have psychiatric components) is making it very hard for my therapy team to separate my issues. This doctor understood significantly more about absence seizures, which is a nice change of pace. Generally I have to describe Epilepsy before I can move forward with any kind of discussion. Next up I get to see a Psychologist  so I can be evaluated for PTSD or whatever else. Good luck to them! It’s not easy even I can’t work it out. The more I learn about auras the more I see how they can mimic all sorts of conditions, they can totally alter your perception. Epilepsy can cause you to hear voices and even hallucinate. It is associated with the Schizophreniform disorders because there is so much cross-over. As I have seizures and auras everyday it is very hard to know what I would look like if I could remove Epilepsy from the equation. How healthy am I underneath? I have no idea actually. I try to think of myself when I was younger and had less seizures but then I was being abused so.

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As for the Disability obviously I am not eligible since I have never had a job in Sweden. However, I can go to the Social Commune (?) tell them about my financial situation and my disabilities and they may assist me but unlike Disability there is more of the assumption of permanent impairment and thus no effort toward rehabilitation. As medication does not work and I am not presently eligible for surgery (too much of my brain is involved) I may be permanently impaired I have no idea. I will work with therapy to try and rehabilitate and if I achieve a state that would allow me to gain employment I will do so, if not I will work my ass off to be a writer. I really want to see a memory specialist and a sleep specialist. I want to hit everything because I want to function to the best of my ability. I want to get the most I can out of life. Right now I am essentially a Zombie hyped up on amphetamines.