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Posted on July 31st, 2009 by Nanara.
Categories: Uncategorized.
So, yesterday I went to the doctor, and she was awesome. She seems to be everything I want in a doctor.. not only is she a qualified doctor, she’s a physiotherapist and an accupuncturist… and she gave me a script for melatonin. Unfortunately, I discovered that melatonin is not subsidised by the government like many other meds, and so it would be $60 to buy one month’s worth. So I really can’t realistically afford to buy it here in NZ, but with a script I’m able to legally import it from the states… so yay!
I had a day with mum today.. it was nice to see her, and we talked and shopped and ate.. and shopped some more, and she bought one month of the NZ melatonin for me. So I can sleep again, and along with a friend who’s sending me some in about a week, I’ll have enough time to save up and organise importing it properly from the US, once I get the budget working and stuff, I’ll be able to fully deal with it myself, which is quite a relief. So I can have guaranteed sleep again. <3 Yay!
Anyway, I’m going to close my internet windows and do some more writing. I have to wait until sundown before I can take the melatonin and finally get to sleep, my brain is too tired to deal with net things right now.
Posted on July 28th, 2009 by Nanara.
Categories: Uncategorized.
I’ve run out of melatonin. I’ve already tried to talk to a doctor about getting a proper prescription, perhaps I presented myself badly but they didn’t give it to me. It’s been two weeks. I’ve had two nights where I only woke up once in the night. The rest of the time I’ve been waking up every hour or so. This is due to my crap natural production of melatonin in my brain. If you do not produce enough melatonin you can not get to sleep easily and neither can you stay asleep.
Every hour. I wake up every hour.
Every morning I’m more and more tired. And this morning I woke up to discover the tired had eaten through my physical energy reserves and was starting in on my spiritual reserves. And now I feel like I’m fighting a war I have no hope of winning. I realise that it’s not as bad as it feels. But I’m still pissed off. I’m still grumpy. I’m still exhausted. And I just want to scream and break things because it’s just not fair. I’ve spent years and years trying to find a solution to my sleeping problems.. I’ve had it my entire adult life. Doctors would prefer to prescribe me sleeping pills and sedatives with numerous side effects and dependancy issues.. rather than melatonin which has no side effects (other than more vivid dreams). And it’s enfuriating.
I will try again. I’m praying for a better nights sleep tonight so I can have the emotional energy to do it. But, seriously, I hate doctors who are completely dogmatic about the medical system. I need a certified doctor who also has a holistic viewpoint. A doctor who sees that I have a mood disorder, chronic depression and a severe anxiety disorder, and thinks.. wait… this means that this person’s melatonin-seratonin cycle is fucked up, and that the sleeping disorder is textbook lacking in melatonin, and depression is a lack of seratonin, so instead of prescribing seditives, perhaps if I prescribe melatonin and medication that increases the seratonin levels in the brain as well… this person might be able to get off the floor. And perhaps they’ll even see that I have a severe sensitivity to gluten, so that means that not only do I have a sensitive tummy so ibuprofen-based painkillers would be bad, but also things that affect the immune system because gluten sensitivity is an immuno-response. And I’d actually get help managing my pain and my food allergies in a way that complements the two conditions instead of making them fraking worse.
Why is it that modern medicine is not holistic? You don’t have to be “airy fairy mind in the clouds” to be holistic, all it would involve is taking into consideration all of the other conditions I have all at once, and understanding that certain medicines interact with other conditions. Instead of taking every symptom seperately, you take the lot into consideration. Instead of normalising everyone, so that all systems are the same, you learn about the individual’s system of conditions and body reactivity and take that into account before prescribing bullshit.
But yes. I’m shitty, I’m grumpy and I feel like some fucker is pouring acid on my soul… so I’m not in the best of spaces right now.. but at least I have my mind.. usually when the body goes my sense of reasonable goes with it.. and it’s a triple bloody struggle to be “normal”.
I will make an appointment with the doctor tomorrow and try again to get melatonin. Perhaps bringing in my psych assessment and showing them my certified conditions which aggrevate my sleeplessness will get the outcome I want. I just get shitty when some fucker is telling me in dumb person terms how my body functions with that irritating condescending tone that doctors have. I know my own body. I’ve had to learn to listen very very carefully to my body so that I have a chance at frequent good days instead of having good days being the minority of my experience.
Anyway.. enough of grumpy bitching.
Posted on July 20th, 2009 by Nanara.
Categories: Uncategorized.
I finally got the mobility and strength to go back to aerobics today!
I spent the whole class with a big ass grin on my face… because I could do it. Two months off, and I could do it! It didn’t kill me… it didn’t hurt anything… and I did three songs in a row without stopping for the first time ever! :D Hopefully, I can stick with it… though… I guess, technically I have stuck with it.. but I shall continue.
For the first time in ages I actually feel like myself. Oxygen and endorphins really are good for the brain and the mental health… I wish I could somehow continue to remember that when I’m down. But… it’s nice to be in my own skin again… instead of this gray, kind of grainy vibe that I’ve had for such a long time. No caffiene.. low chocolate… small portion meals and aerobics twice a week… if this doesn’t get me back to being myself again… nothing will. :3
I’m going to go have a shower and start into my before sleep ritual so I can hopefully sleep at a “human” hour.
My blog is still broke. Must nag clody again…
EDIT: BLOG IS FIXED… at least on my end… it was a permalinks problem… as in the page looked for the wrong url to find the pages. I checked it.. and it was a “custom” one… so I put it back to what the others read as, and now they work. I shall poke people to leave a comment to see if it is in fact fixed.
Posted on July 12th, 2009 by Nanara.
Categories: Uncategorized.
I had another dr who dream last night. It was fun. But I think it was a sign that Errol and I played far too much UT2004 yesterday and evening. We were being invaded by folks who wanted to kill the Dr, and he figured out how to make me look like him. And I was ill.. so I just lay there, pretending to be the Dr and unconscious the bad guys would try to come and get me (thinking I was him)… and the Dr would pounce out from his hiding place and twack them. Then we’d drag the bodies out of sight and repeat cycle. Lots of other stuff happened as well… much shooting and defending out space from the bad guys… but I’ve lost the details now. It was fun, none the less. :3
I had an awesome 24 hours with my best friend. Yesterday, I bussed to the city, met mum there and we had an afternoon of shopping and food. Then at 5pm we rocked up to Errol’s place and picked him up after work. Mum drove us out of the city and took us back to my house then went home herself. Errol and I then started the eating/talking/not sleeping/UT2004-ing. I haven’t slept properly… I’ve eaten far too much junk… I’ve got a mouth ulser and a headache… and a messy house… but… it was all worth it… :3 I miss him so much… he’s good for my soul…
BUT! I have four weeks until his partner’s birthday party and I’m saving up all my spare moneys… and working up to scootering the 100km to the city on my baby 50cc scooter… so I shall have another weekend with him soon. :3
Now I just have to figure out what costume to make… Iain always has a costume party for his birthday… every year… which I normally love… but… with a sci fi theme… I don’t know what I can do as I have almost no futuristic costume thingies here and if I’m saving all my money for that weekend.. I won’t have much of a budget for costuming… but we’ll see… worst comes to worse I can buy some costume face putty and make up and go as a star trek alien or something… I do after all have a white official star trek collectors jersy.. I can be an alien star trek general… or something… XD Lol. I was thinking of being a jedi or something… it’s easy to find one of those toy light sabres that make light sabre noises when you swish them. It didn’t go down aswell as I had hoped last time when I went as a character in one of my books… so I can’t cheat and do that.. because that’d be easy…. I probably should behave this time and do something a bit more convensionally sci fi… :3 But I’ll figure something out.
Anyway.. I have a bunch of shit to do today… *waves*
Posted on July 5th, 2009 by Nanara.
Categories: Uncategorized.
* My blog is broke. Will poke Clody sometime today and see if he can fix it. For now, I can’t get to individual posts, nor can anyone comment.
* I’ve been having a bit of a hard time with my health, on many levels. So please excuse any snarkiness, or long absenses or lack of replying to emails/PMs. When my back isn’t out and causing pain, this weird cold/fluey thing I’ve been fighting bites me, and then in the breaks of those two things my emotional health has been wobbly as fuck. But I’m still alive, and still trying to be positive… this is what happens int he winter… another reason why I loathe the winter. One more month and then spring begins!
* I decided to shut down the writing blog for the moment. I loved it, it made me happy and it has made my writing quality increase a great deal, but everything else in my writing was getting thrust aside. It’s been a year since I first decided to put in a submission to Baen.. and I still haven’t finished the blasted synopsis, and it’s been over a year since I mostly finished book two and aside from a bunch of fun additions and stuff, I haven’t finished fixing up the grammar, and neither have I started book three. So, I’m going to concentrate on all the important things in writing first. Once the Baen submission is off, and maybe once I’ve also done a full print out and edit of book two, I will revisit starting it up again.
* Having a hard time of it just recently with my “mental health”. I discovered that the condition I thought I was managing really well on my own… and was in a sort of “remission” wasn’t. I have a condition with a big ass name, which basically means I have a chemical imbalance like bipolar, with bipolar-like symptoms, but to a much lesser degree. If I look after myself I am usually ok and the mood shifts aren’t outside of “normal” ranges. But… a combination of depression from perceived failures last year, stress, and getting addicted to caffiene again.. I’ve been flung back into it. It’s taken me over six months to realise that that is what was happening. And I’ve been going through a mourning process. I can’t fix this mood disorder, only learn to manage it. I can’t fix this post traumatic stress, only learn to manage it. And so I’ve been struggling to accept that. I’ve always had this idea that if I could find the right counsellor, or the right suppliment, or the right medication or *do* something I could *fix* my problems, and unfortunately that’s just not the case, and I’m still struggling to accept it. My instinct is that if there’s a problem there’s always a solution, perhaps my biggest lesson in this life is accepting that there are some problems that have no solution no matter how stubborn or pig headed you are.
So, plans for making Ara well again: 1. GET OFF CAFFIENE (it screws with my sleeping, my melatonin levels and can trigger a manic cycle, which triggers a depressive cycle.. etc). 2. Get my sleeping cycle back on track. Get more melatonin. Actually take it at the time I’m meant to… that sort of thing. 3. Exercise every day. Because of my back I haven’t been exercising as much as I know I should, so now I have wheels even on bad days I have no excuse, I can use the scooter to get down the hill do some walking on the flat, and then scooter home… no excuses, must do every day. 4. Gonna look after myself, I need to eat better, I need to stress less and do more of the things that I like to do. I need to nurture myself.
I’ve already started. I’ve gotten myself down from about 3 redbull cans a day to about two glasses of mountain dew, and once the mountain dew bottle is finished I’ll be going cold turkey. I’ve been exercising every day for the last four days. I had to start small because of the state of my back recently, but on Thursday I could walk on the flat slowly for 30 minutes, and today I left the scooter behind and walked for 40 minutes down to the flat and back up the hill. It was bad.. very painful, but I could do it. When I can walk from my house to Pac-n-save (our major cheap supermarket chain) and back without it killing me, I’ll be ready to go back to aerobics (which starts up again in two weeks). And I’ve been doing a lot of writing universe work when I can. I’ve had a bit of a bug for some weeks now.. just on the edge of being sick for ages, and yesterday it bit me the ass… so I’ve been resting as much as I can these last two days.. but in the breaks I’ve been doing a lot on my universe data. Formalising my language for use in the universe, adding stuff to the language (like number symbols and a script), and thinking through different things that need to be known and itemised if someone else is to learn the language. And I finally named all of my planets.. there’s so many of them.. 46 I think.. but now they all have names and about half of them have little outlined histories as well. I’ve been doing all that slowly over the last week, and it’s been fun. :3
Anyway. Time to go have a shower, finish breakfast and perhaps have a little nap before I get back to the universe data… gonna do some planning for book three today! :D
Posted on June 26th, 2009 by Nanara.
Categories: Uncategorized.
Gone this weekend… another Harakeke weaving workshop and I get to spend more time with mum.
Things are pretty good. They’re busy, but I’m happy.
Next week is the first bankfee-free week I’m going have had for over five years.. and all because mum paid off my overdraft. It sounds like such a small thing, but that’s $30 per month that I get to spend on other things. Earlier, when I was still on the “unemployment benefit”, when I had much less money to rub together, bank fee week was the week I had to eat on $30, it was the week I ate very little but ramen and eggs, it was always a difficult week and at points I remember going to visit my friends place not to visit my friend but because I had no food and they’d offered to feed me. So, that’s some of the context for why next week is so joyous. Five years of that stress, and I’m free of it.. finally :3
I haven’t got the moped scooter yet… but it should be soon. As mum is the one paying for it, and if I ask after it she’ll get uncomfortable I’m just waiting for her to bring it up.. but it should be soon. Once I get it, I’m going to get my driving confidence back, and then start learning the roads between my house and mums (about a 40 minute drive in the car over windy roads) , and between my house and the city (about 1.5 hours drive in the car…. but it’s all flat and low numbers of cars on the swamp road shortcut). And then… *sings like freddy mercury* “… don’t stop me now…” I shall be unstoppable! XD hehe probably not as awesome as that sounds, but my life will be considerably easier from there on in. Which is exciting.
Anyway… I thought I’d leave this here in case anyone wonders where I am.. and doesn’t have dA or… whatever… :3
*waves* have a nice weekend!
Posted on June 16th, 2009 by Nanara.
Categories: Uncategorized.
So, my week with mum was productive. She always manages to get me back to my old self… no matter how bad I am… and I was fairly depressed before I left. Now I’m feeling full up… like… she fills an empty soul or something. I feel stronger, calmer and… less like an insubstantial ghost.
I’m getting gung ho about stuff. Going to start a bunch of stuff I’ve/we’ve had planned for the community… my Sanctuary chatroom for one. And our secret project that’s been in the drawing board stages for over a year… I hope it works… but… even if it doesn’t we can try, and we’ll learn, not trying is worse that trying and failing. So, after the Sanctuary chat is working and I’ve got folks hanging about for chats… and our wonderful new Helpers are managing ok as well… I’ll bring out the old Project card and see how it shifts things and people around on the forum.
I want to do all this before my crap feeling comes back… it always comes back… though I am going to do what I can to keep it at bay for as long as possible. Hopefully sucessful projects and doing stuff with members so I don’t feel so damn fraking alone all the time will help with the keeping at bay of depression.
Anyway, quick update… seeing as I haven’t seen anyone haunting this blog for some time… don’t want to waste time no one will benefit from… night invisible watchers… sleep tight.. I know I will. :)
Posted on June 4th, 2009 by Nanara.
Categories: Uncategorized.
“But alas though they stood around they could neither be seen or heard
Their tears fell like drops of rain
I hear my voice in the depths of the forest
But no answering voice comes back to me
All is silent around me
My words must therefore be few
I can now say no more”
There’s a song. Called Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood by this amazing Native American Indian group/guy, Robbie Robertson. I have an album of his here and whenever I listen to the album it stirs something deep inside me that has no words.. I love it. But this song Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood is particularly poinant right now.
“I hear my voice in the forest in the depths of the forest, but no answering voice comes back to me, all is silent around me, my words must therefore be few, I can now say no more.” This describes how I’m feeling right now. Silence. The people I love are not around me. The people who really know me and who I really am are not around me. I call out into the darkness hoping for someone… one of my loved ones… one of the people who have a piece of my heart… and there’s no answer.
I know why. I know it’s not personal. I know people are busy with their own lives and their own dreams. I know that I am not the centre of their universe and so I have no right to want them to be here. But I call out to them in my heart… and I can feel them… but they’re not answering me. I feel alone. I feel as if, if I were to speak it wouldn’t matter because no one is here to hear my words. Or in the case of my internet loves read my words. As if… as if right now it doesn’t matter if I faded off the face of the planet… no one would know… no one would see… because I am alone in the silence of the forest.
I know it’s not personal. So can not be angry or really hurt. I know folks are busy with their lives. So I’m not angry, nor am I really hurt. I know my loved ones love me in return they’re just… too far away. But I’m left… with that line cycling through my mind… and this… this total sense of spiritual, emotional, physical and aural silence that I can’t get away from that I can’t resolve or improve. Like I’ve just… suddenly… gone deaf on some level. I can hear the music I’m playing… but I have to play the music or the silence will swallow me up.
This is so weird.
Being alone isn’t a bad thing… I do alone well… I don’t even know why I’m writing this out… perhaps in the vain hope that someone will read it and notice that I exist… perhaps they’ll interact with me… whatever… I don’t know… I just want the silence to go away. I want my loved ones to return to me so that I can hear their voices in my soul again.
Maybe I’m writing this out to hear my own voice in the silence. Or perhaps, while I’m away at my mother’s house they’ll all come back, and they’ll see this and know I’m ok… really lonely and missing everyone something aweful.. but OK.
I’m not even sure it’s worth having my writing blog any more… no else is reading it. It’s not good enough to get new readers or keep the old ones. I’m just speaking into the silence and getting only silence in return for all my hard work. I thought perhaps I actually had other readers, but I don’t. I have only Wraithy. No one else has the time or effort or interest. What’s the point in spamming the internet if no one is reading it? What’s the point of calling out in the forest… when there’s no one else to return the call.
*shrug* Emo day, no?
Posted on June 1st, 2009 by Nanara.
Categories: Uncategorized.
Mum just sold her house! And even if you knew my family and mum’s situation and why thats fraking awesome for her… that’s not why I’m crowing at the top of my lungs!! Some of the money that she gets in the sale… she’s going to use to get me out of debt! AND she’s going to buy me a little moped scooter!!! :D
:’D
I’m going to be debt free (not including my no-interest student loan)… I’m going to not have to pay the bank $30 a month in overdraft fees… I’m going to own the little laptop I have… I’ll have three bills instead of five… AND I’M GOING TO HAVE A MOPED SCOOTER!
It’s perhaps 5-6 thousand dollars… but it’s going to free me up so I can start living like a person! I’ll have the finances to maintain and register my new scooter… I won’t have to use that little mobility scooter and feel down about my “disability”… if I get a good scooter that isn’t a cheapy… I can maybe… given the finances and my bravery levels… go to the city on my own steam… I can visit mum… It won’t be easy… and going to mum’s will be a little scary as it’s a narrow hilly road with big ass trucks that go over it… but I can actually do it! Going to the city is flat from here… it’ll be a … what… 3 hour ride at 50km/hr (I think that’s about 30 miles an hour), so the travelling would be a day trip and I’d have to buy petrol about halfway, and more oil and it might hurt like a mo fo… but I could do it… I COULD DO IT!!!! X’D
If I can get to the city under my own steam… I can save that bus money for food and other treaty things so I can really enjoy my time with Errol and Iain…. I could save up and buy a blow up mattress to store at their house so I can visit and not spend all of my pain spoons for the next week… it can be a fun experience with much less costs. I CAN GO VISIT MY MOTHER! At least until she gets a new job and moves somewhere else.
It would free me up so much… FREEDOM! No $1500 over draft… no bankfee week when I have the dilemma of paying bills or feeding myself… owning my laptop! Having actual spending money that I can spend on stuff I want… I could save up and get myself an ipod like I’ve wanted for years and years and years… I could buy a real coat… real shoes… I could save up and pay for my own tattoos. I could buy a laser printer and have my novels in hard copy…. I could do manual snailmail slush pile submissions to publishers! I could…. I could afford to get my website… perhaps pay a few people to help me make it what I want… you know… I could… I am… I AM going to be able to get out of this hole! I can free myself!
I CAN FREE MYSELF! :’D
… I can free myself …
…world here I come!
Posted on May 28th, 2009 by Nanara.
Categories: Uncategorized.
So… today was my session with the counsellor. She’s awesome, proactive and boots me in the ass when it’s needed. And today it was needed.
So, for the last few days I’ve been asking the universe for a solution to my problems. And because of the state i’ve been in for the last few weeks… my psychic ear has been a little on the fritz.
The other night I was in my dark house with the candles lit to try and calm down my brain and body so I could have a hope in hell of sleeping (I do this every night), and I was bored. Usually what I do in this candle light down time before bed (usually about an hour) , is that I plan writing stuff or think about where I want characters to head… all that sort of thing. But the other night I was just too depressed and brain-tired and I was sitting in the dark thinking…what should I do instead of writing planning? And I heard a little dim voice of Raven say something to the effect of “you could try meditating”. And.. me being ick lately I went.. Nah, fuck off too tired to meditate. This morning I was really down and upset and bemoaning the universe at not supplying me a solution for my depression or creating me without all this bullshit. And I basically made an ultimatum to the universe that it had better supply a solution for me or I’m fraking well going on strike. And I got a sort of dim chuckle to this ultimatum. I thought… oh shit.. here we go… I’m in trouble now.
I went to my counsellor. I felt like shit. We talked for some time about solutions, and congratulating me for all the progress so far in my journey towards good mental/emotional health. Then… my mouth started talking and I wasn’t really doing it. Meditation was mentioned. And suddenly, my counsellor is suggesting I write up a plan to meditate every day because it’s so damn good for me. I sense that chuckle in the room, and I see a vivid image of Raven with one of my Tower guides and there’s a distinct feeling of “is this a good enough solution?”
XD I was wanting a solution where I didn’t have to do anything.. damn it. Apparently those solutions don’t happen nearly as much as one would think.. and Raven says that the purpose of this problem isn’t to torture me but for me to learn to get over it.. to overcome it.. so fixing it easy isn’t a realistic solution.
So, here I am… my counsellor getting all gung-ho about my starting up meditation every day and hacking out a plan to get me to do it to improve my situation… and I have Raven in my ear laughing his ass off.
>.<
Sometimes… I just want to pout and stamp my foot. But… he’s right… this is something that no one else should fix.. or can fix.. for me… something I must learn and do myself. And I’ve known that meditation could help for a long while… I’ve just been too lazy and tired to do anything about it. Now, I don’t have a choice because Glen will probably have me up for it if I don’t do it.
I’m so tired and sick feeling.. I just want to be lazy. But I’m not allowed to get away with it any longer… which is kind of sucky, but I have to just pull my socks up and be a responsible adult… and just get on with it. And I will. I’ll bitch and moan and get all shitty about it.. but I will. Now that Glen’s in on the situation… I won’t have a choice. Lol.
Tired. Going to do some writing before I convince myself to go to aerobics tonight.