I'm sorry

Unfortunately events beyond my control forces me to end this project a little sooner than I had expected and hoped. I am terribly sorry. You should really try this if you're interested in writing.

Take care!!!

Sleeping bad make mood bad

What came first, the worrying or the sleep deprivation? It’s common knowledge that worrying can ruin your sleep, but did you know that lack of sleep can make you worry more? I read somewhere, probably in a tweet and everything you read on Twitter is true!? Just kidding, I’m a Twitter addict, I confess. Anyway I read that after a certain amount of time without sleep chances are you can even become psychotic. Hm? I don’t think I’m quite there yet. But seriously, I can believe how it could happen, maybe in torture situations where people keep you awake. Under reasonably normal circumstances, I think we eventually just pass out before we reach that state.

I do believe though, that lack of sleep makes it more difficult to deal with problems and troubles. Things that normally wouldn’t bother you can become the worst thing ever. I’m not talking about missing an hour here or there because you sometimes stay up late or even the odd sleepless night. I mean when it’s something that happens more as a rule than an exception. A lot of people who are depressed don’t sleep the way they should, but is that because of the depression? Or are they depressed because they’ve been losing sleep? Can you make yourself depressed by giving up your sleep?

Enter blogging advice mode: I’ve written two hundred words, let’s see where we are going with this. Is this where I wanted to go or do we redo? I don’t know, let’s try two hundred more and see what happens. Sorry for the interruption, moving on...

As I have mentioned before, in multiple previous posts, I do have a serious problem with my sleeping. Sleep is not happening at all, way too often. I haven’t exactly been keeping track, but I am pretty sure I am up for more than twenty four hours straight at least once a week on average. I hardly ever sleep at night, that has happened maybe once or twice per month for some time now. Because of the season with warm days and people on vacation being outside and noisy it’s often impossible to sleep during the day, that’s why I end up staying awake for very long periods of time way too often. Using music or movies to help block disturbing sound out can work for awhile, but in the long run it’s not an option. Try sleeping with headphones on and you’ll understand. It’s not comfortable at all.

I’m tired. Most of the time. Not that well rested ever was a thing for me before either, but I didn’t feel like this. It does affect my mood, my temper and my ability to do the things I should do. It’s easier to just do nothing which kind of is synonymous to Twitter in my case. #procrastination is a big part of my life at the moment. Obviously this causes a lot of problems, making me worry and we all know that worrying can kill sleep just as efficiently as video games or the Internet.

Enter blog advice mode part II: second check of where we are going with today’s post. Not at all pleased with my ability to write today, but it’s the best I can do under the circumstances. Sorry for interrupting again…

My writing today isn’t going well today. I am very tired, I have a headache and I am feeling very sad. To be honest I would prefer to go to bed, hide under my blanket and cry right now. trying to write something that makes any sense to anyone else is so far from my current state of mind as you possibly could get. But I am writing and blogging to heal so I must keep going. Giving up and crying is not an option right now. This is what happens when I am losing too much sleep for whatever reason. I feel sad, I want to cry. There’s no problem finding a reason to cry, there’s always some little pebble in the shoe of calm and collected that can grow to a huge, sharp rock that tears it all up. Extremely tired does not always go too well with calm and collected. Anything and everything you normally shrug at becomes super annoying and must be dealt with accordingly. Aggressively even. It wouldn’t take much to start a fight with me right now. Or maybe I would start it. Passive aggression is still aggression and I do it so well. That’s “Bitchcraft - the art of pissing people off while smiling sweetly.” Found that on Twitter.

Problem easily solved you say? Just sleep. I know, I would feel so much better tomorrow if I just went to bed tonight, turn off Twitter, the computer, the lights, and go to sleep. Friends can wait until tomorrow, Twitter can survive without me, the computer does want to restart anyway for some updates. So sleep. It’s just that my pebble has become big and sharp. I’m not in a  good mood. Having forced myself to stay up and finish this has increased the adrenalin levels in my mind I can’t sleep now. Brain is working in overdrive over thinking everything the tiny cells can grab on to. Calm and collected and their close friend relaxed are not coming to visit me anytime soon. I also find it strangely difficult to sleep when I have a really bad headache. It’s not a migraine tonight, but it’s still very painful.

I just wish someone would hug me right now. Maybe hold me while I cry for a while. That’s not going to happen though. Like some crazy old cat lady I am going to have to make do with my cat, wherever she’s hiding right now…

At this moment I am not quite sure how what I have written today can help me heal. It seems like I have just been complaining about not sleeping, when that problem would have best been solved by sleeping. Still I am writing instead. Maybe I just wanted to let you know that my bad temper, bad mood, my sadness and passive aggression isn’t always something I can control. Maybe I just wanted you to know that I can’t always stay up and talk to you no matter how much I want to. Maybe I just wanted you to understand that I have to live in my time zone if I want to feel better and heal. I guess now you know.

I’ve passed my magic number and now I’m going to pass out.

Thank you, have a wonderful day and I hope you will sleep well when your time is right!!!

Being there or being selfish

Some bloggers have a long term plan for what they are going to write. They think about the various things they want to say, make schedules, lists. Think things over and make plans. Do research of that’s necessary. Have every note necessary on hand before they begin to write. I’m not that organized. I did have an idea about what I was going to say today though. I had even begun writing, but then I was forced to rethink the day.

When you’re writing to heal you must be prepared to change your subject if something happens. If something comes up that needs to be dealt with urgently. That’s okay. That’s why we’re writing to begin with. No matter how many deeply rooted, old problems you need to heal if they’ve been troubling you for a while they can wait a little bit longer. It’s better to deal with problems as quickly as possible or they could start growing into bigger problems. Think of the healing as rebuilding your house. If there was a fire it would be better to put it out as soon as possible before it destroys everything. When the fire is out you can go back to the rebuilding. When the immediate issues are dealt with the old problems will still be there.

When you’re blogging to heal these emergencies could mean that you’ll have to scrap everything you’ve written for a post and replace it with something else. And you can’t use what is already done another day because the thousand words a day challenge requires you to write one thousand new words every day. No recycling allowed. Well, I guess you can use it as notes for another day. However, the healing has to be done. Ot there must at least be an attempt at trying.

Earlier today I was getting my writing done so I could edit later, this evening. Trying to keep a writing/editing schedule like that is kind of in keeping with the making of plans. And with working strategically towards the goal of publishing something that isn’t too terrible. I had a thousand words already written, but then something happened that made me abandon my previous ideas and start over.

Since I’m still not an expert at sleeping and because so many of my friends still live in that other time zone I tend to stay up very late. Staying up late does, for some weird reason, make me very tired so after I finished a quick draft this morning, I went back to sleep. When I woke up from my nap I had received a message from a very close friend of mine who was very upset for many different reasons. This made me think about what really is important and what isn't. When it comes to people you care about you have to be there, you can't be selfish. My "I'm doing this for me" attitude might be helpful when I'm dealing with my insecurities about this blog, but it's got no place in my real life.

Even though some selfishness can be beneficial for us, it’s not always a good thing. It can be a good thing for those situations where caring too much about other people and their opinions makes you question yourself and what you do. We can never please everyone and by trying we only set ourselves up for failure. Taking in every negative opinion, trying to make the changes so everyone is happy only leads to one truth. Nothing is ever good enough. Too much of this and you’ll start questioning yourself and your capabilities. Maybe you begin to question what you’re doing and why you’re doing it at all. Maybe you give up just when thing were about to change. In these situations a little bit of selfishness can help. I know it has worked for me the few times I’ve actually said I don’t care what people think about me, I am doing this for me.

Some creative selfishness can necessary to be able to achieve anything at all. That doesn’t mean that we can completely ignore other people or that being selfish always can be justified. The sad truth is that even though a lot of people have the problem that they care too much about what other people think too many people don’t seem to care at all. It is easier to judge other people than to ask how they’re doing or if they need help. I have mentioned in passing before that I have a lot of pain that leaves me very handicapped. There’s way too many things I just can’t do. My handicap isn’t visible, but the things I’m unable to do can be very visible, for example cutting the grass or shoveling snow depending on season. Even though all my neighbors should know about my pain they look accusingly at me when I can’t keep up with their standards. Judging is easier than helping.

That’s not the worst kind of selfishness though. When strangers, neighbors, people that you come across by chance are being selfish. But what if these people who judge you and only see your faults are people close to you? What if the people who don’t ask how you are doing is someone you care about? Someone you thought cared about you. What if that person who wonät ask if you need help is someone you love? Someone you thought loved you.

There are times when we need to stop being selfish. When we simply have to be there for someone who is having a hard time. Sometimes we have to forget about ourselves and our own problems for awhile. Whatever issues we’re dealing with they will still be there to worry about another day, but the people you care about and love might not. Some Twitter wisdom said that every time you aren’t there for your loved ones, every time they learn a little bit more to manage without you. Eventually you won’t be needed anymore.

With that my random unsorted thoughts for today have brought me past my number

I still care what you think and I wish you a wonderful day!!!

Validating my blog

For fifteen days I have been writing a thousand words every day. For fifteen days I’ve been publishing my thousand words in this blog. I haven’t always felt entirely motivated. There have been times when i just didn’t want to write. Times when I really regretted the blog idea because I felt extra pressure to deliver. Maybe I wouldn’t have given up exactly, but there have been days, when I could have used a break. In the end though, it does feel good afterwards. When I finally have managed to put the words on the paper. By then I am glad I didn’t take that break, that I kept going. I owe that thanks to the blog and anybody who might be reading the posts.

If sometimes this, the writing and blogging, feels overwhelming, too difficult, I now realize it’s because I’m not at full health. That helps me from getting upset and feel frustrated, and I know that by trying I’m doing something that helps me getting better. Understanding the reasons why a task seems impossible helps making it possible. Realizing that it’s not your fault makes a huge difference. Even if it should prove to be your fault… Well, then you can go on to figure out why you “sabotage” for yourself. You might find that this isn't what you want at all, whatever “this” may be. And if it isn’t what you want then you should quit. That’s not the same as giving up. That’s just realizing it’s just not you thing. Now you can move on and find what it is you’re supposed to do instead of forcing yourself to do something that isn’t right for you. And by you I mean me. And by something I mean Vine.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post I have the weird idea I want to make Vines even though it scares me just to think about it. I can be afraid of the weirdest things. Most of the time all of it has to do with no confidence. I always doubt that the things I do are good enough. If I do something I want it to be perfect or I won’t do it. Obviously nothing is perfect the first time. I can accept that, but when something gets posted, first time or not, if it’s bad it’s bad. Right? Other people will notice and that’s enough to make my stomach turn. If this is how I feel why don’t I say that’s not for me and move on to something i feel more comfortable doing? Vines is obviously not my thing. It’s just that I still feel like I have to try. I’m not ready to “give up” on it yet. It’s kind of like what my mother used to say about new food when I was younger: “You don’t know if you like it or not until you’ve tried it”. I have to try, at least once. Not now though. Later. Now I want to focus on blogging.

There has been times when I've felt as if I don’t know what I am doing with this blog. Why did I make the decision to post my texts in this blog? Just writing could have been enough. Trying to make a blog work is a lot of extra work… Yesterday I got the answer. I knew since before that the writing helped me solve problems and made me feel better. Helps me heal. Making it public in a blog helps me focus as I try to make what I write accessible for others to read. And maybe one day it could help someone else. At least you’ll know you’re not alone and not the weirdest person on the globe.

Some people who write, professionals, have a lot of good ideas about how we should go about the task. For example it’s suggested to take two minutes before beginning to wrote to sort through what it is we want to say. As you might have guessed I don’t do that. I never know what I want to write. But trying to improve as a writer means I have to try. Trying something once doesn’t really say much about a technique more than in my case this morning, it didn’t work. I still have no idea, no plan, but I can see that it might be a good idea to try anyway. I’ll probably keep trying and we’ll see what happens.

Another writing idea I’ve read about is to write two hundred words and then see if the text is going where we want it to go. That could probably work if we have a plan or at least some kind of idea about where we want it to go. Still, I did do that. Or rather I wrote all thousand words, then I went back to the two hundred line and rewrote everything after. I felt that the direction of the remaining eight hundred wasn’t heading in the right direction. There is more than one direction. As I am redoing a lot of work instead of just editing I have decided that a check every two hundred could be a good idea even if I don’t have an absolute plan to follow. This means I am going to have to read what I write while writing. Scary thought. Is it going to be good enough? Will I be able to make it better or will I find it too difficult and want to give up instead? We’ll have to wait and see….

All I can say right now is that I am feeling a lot better about my decision to do this. I am doing this for me and the numbers are of less importance. I will work at making the blog better for my readers in every possible way and I think that will be a lot easier now that I have understood what I am doing and why. Now I don’t have to question the very existence of the blog anymore. There’s a reason it’s here and it’s here to stay. Now all that energy can be redirected into making it better. The decision has been made, I am validating this blog. (Enter doubts: can you really say it like that?)

On that note I have passed my magic number. I will leave you for today….

Thank you and have a wonderful day!!!

Trying to find myself

I think I might have finally got it. Today is day fourteen of my public thousand words a day challenge and my blog and I have finally found out what it is I am doing here. I’m writing, I’m blogging my way back to life. Not just any life, my life the way it was supposed to be. Not only just the way it was before everything became a dark nightmare, but the way it should have been, the way it could have been had I been given parents with a different set of qualities than mine had. However, I’m not  child anymore, I’m a grown-up and I can be whomever I chose to be.  It’s not going to be easy, but it will be worth it. I will make it happen.

Being the Twitter junkie I am I find my wisdom in tweets. Some of the tweets I get do actually have at least a tiny little bit of wisdom in them and then, one day, there’s the one that makes everything clear. I think I might have found mine. It was yesterday. The tweet said that telling our story helps us heal ourselves and that it could, at the same time, potentially help the healing of others. I don’t expect that my writing could have any deeper impact on anyone else’s situation, though. That would be a bonus if, I could save someone from the darkness, but this is me being the narcissistic writer. I am doing this for me!

I’ve been told a few times lately that I care too much about what other people think. About me, about what I do, what I say, how I say it. Not only do I care, but I have taken it upon myself to decide what it is other people think about me. And it’s not nice. A therapist I met for an evaluation a month ago told me I was rude. Because I didn’t let people make up their own minds and if they still did and liked me or anything that had to do with me, then I’d tell them they were wrong. That’s rude. They are entitled to their own opinion, but I can’t take a compliment, I can’t believe them, so I am rude. Me being rude has now been added to my list of not being good enough, the one I have been working on during my years on this planet. It's a long list of truths about me that, funnily enough, originate in other peoples' opinions of me.

Believe me, I really don’t mean to be rude, I don’t want to be rude and I do still care what other people think, but I have to do this for myself. When I say that I am doing this for me it probably sounds as if I don’t care or want to care about my readers either, but the thing is I can’t stop caring about what you think of me. The thing is, I have to figure out how I can do the things I want to do and be myself, while caring what you think. To still be able to be me and not give up. Does that make any kind of sense? Let me try to explain…

My problem, and maybe this is the problem of everyone who care too much about other people’s opinions, I let it get in the way of what I want to do. I am afraid that other people will judge me, that they will realize that I don’t know what I am doing. That I’m a fake, a fraud, that I am just pretending. That I’m not good enough. I don't know why I think they care so much about me or what I do. Maybe it's because people always seem to notice when I fail, for some reason. Because of these fears I get a panic attack. One example is Vine. The thought of posting a Vine, an original Vine that I made makes my stomach turn and I give up on the idea.

Posting a Vine or not isn’t the end of the world. I know that. If it’s such a big deal then don’t. Right? But that’s not the point. Vine in itself isn’t the point. I mean sure Vines are funny to watch and all that, but we managed to survive a long, long time without them, didn’t we? I'd be just fine without making or posting any of my own, so why bother? What’s important isn’t the Vine itself or the sharing of the Vine it’s something that goes deeper than that. It’s about me, who I am and whether it’s acceptable for me to do something like that. Vine is for the cool kids doing fun stuff and showing it to the awed public. I’m not a cool kid, never have been, never thought I was, never going to be a cool grown-up either. So what am I doing thinking I could be a part of their world. Of course I realize that no one would care, because no one would even notice me, but it still scares me that some of them might and that they would be ever so willing to share their negative opinion of me and my abilities. I “know” I’m not good enough, but it still hurts when other people are too willing to agree.

Like I said, Vine isn’t the end of the world. If I am that scared of the people on there I could just stay away. I could watch the cool kids Vines without participating myself. The opposite Nike, just don’t do it! For some reason I just can’t let it go though. It feels like something i have to do. If only to prove to myself that I can. Just like I had to get on Instagram, another hang out spot for the cool kids sharing their party pictures and endless selfies…

It does sound as if I don’t like the cool kids, doesn’t it? If I don’t like the people on Vine and Instagram, why don’t I just stay away? I’m not looking for their approval, so what is it? A lot of the time I don't even like their stuff. I think the reason I come off as negative towards them is that I envy their self confidence. It’s not like everything they do is good and far from everyone is doing a good job. But they still do it and they are proud of it, of what they do. They want people to see them, to notice them, to see and notice what they have done, what they do. While I hide, they step out there on the ledge where people judge you and they say hey here I am, this is what I’ve done. Have a look, like it, reVine it. I could never do that. It must feel wonderful.

With thoughts of feeling wonderful I have reached my magic number though, time’s up. I’ll continue tomorrow.

I do care what other people think… feel free to leave a comment if you feel like it. If not that’s fine too…

Thank you for your time, I hope you will have a wonderful day!!!

I write to heal myself

It’s day thirteen of my challenges and I don’t want to write today. It’s warm and sunny outside. Temperature according to the thermometer is 20/68 degrees. Maybe not a lot compared to the temperature many of have to suffer. Sun shining straight at me through the window on one side and hot computer on the other makes it somewhat warmer in my room though. And there’s no such thing as air conditioner or fans. All I have is an open window and, if I’m lucky, a cooling breeze.

I’m beginning to bore myself and I’d much rather play Minecraft than do this right now. One might think going outside would be the preferred activity, but I am way too tired to go out. It’s way to hot for sleeping though.

I have been avoiding one question for days now. It’s time I do some thinking about what I am doing, start planning what I write about instead of hoping for some kind of interesting subject to magically appear when I need it. We’re almost at the two week mark and I’m still not completely sure what I’m doing or it it’s a smart thing to do at all. The latter I have seriously doubted for some time now. If I bore myself then I am sure I bore everybody else so much more and I am so sorry. Still I can’t give up, can I?

Focus, concentration and depression aren’t exactly best of friends that hang out a lot. Maybe the first two do, but not around here. The question is if I have taken on too much, is it too much to write a thousand words every day. Or is it because I feel I must try to be interesting, make sense and try to figure out how to adapt my version of the writing challenge to my version of a blog? Ot am I just becoming bored of always repeating myself. I’ve heard this now, I need to move on…

Maybe I’m just tired.

If I am tired because I have taken on too much then the added work of planning and thinking is going to be the final straw. One the other hand if I am bored, then I need new ideas. Maybe I am tired because I hardly ever do anything, and I’m bored because I actually repeat the same day over and over. Nothing much changes. Maybe I just need to sleep a couple of nights to recharge myself.  But since it’s warm also at night, not much air, it’s difficult to get a good nights sleep.

My halfhearted planning for my writing today was completely ruined by the fact that instead of writing, I began to play Minecraft, became hungry and made me some food. Then I got so tired I just fell asleep. Now it’s almost midnight and I am not even half done with my writing. I think it’s a fair assumption I am not going to be doing much editing on this piece. I’ll try to keep the spelling right though. Still, in my opinion, the writing is the most important part. The rest is still secondary.

I mentioned focus and concentration. For some reason I never quite realized it before, but this is also working as a direct therapy for my brain. That would be the first and most obvious reason, but I never quite understood that until just then. The writing I can do on some form of autopilot so that did just slip by me that I’m actually doing something that will be directly beneficial for my recovery, for my possibilities to go back to the University even. I had to take a break when concentrating became too much of a problem. If it is possible to work my way back by practising the skills of focus and concentration doin this, then I have gained a lot more than I thought to begin with. See, I told you writing helped me solve my problems. Maybe I just never realized to what degree. That’s an explanation to why it sometimes feels so difficult and it’s a reason to keep trying. I want my life back.

Understanding an obstacle, what it really consists of, why it’s there, makes it a lot easier to deal with. When I can see that part of my problems with writing is caused by my real life health issues it’s easier to accept and deal with then when I believe it’s just me being a quitter. It’s not my fault my mind is messing with me, it’s not my fault I’m depressed, it’s not my fault I’m having a hard time focusing on these challenges at times. The reason is inside of me, but it’s not me. I want to do this, but at the moment I am not well enough to do better than this. Kind of how it is with my back problem. No matter how much I would like to take a long walk in the woods, I can’t. No matter how much I want to write, sometimes I just can’t. All I can do is keep trying and it will slowly get better. I hope.

As I have admitted more than once before, I am a Twitter addict. I spend a lot of time on there and sometimes it pays up. Sometimes Twitter has the amazing power to find the right quote to send to my timeline just when I need it. Or a beautiful picture, or a #supercute animal, or maybe something funny. I am mostly fascinated by how the right quotes find me though. Obviously because I follow the right tweeter, but never mind. And how would they know what tweets I need anyway?

Today someone wrote that telling my story was my way of healing and by telling my story I can also help someone else heal. Maybe that is the reason I am telling you all these little things that I don’t talk to my real life family or friends about. Maybe I can, by my narcissistic ways of sharing my unimportant story, help someone else. Not to get carried away here Ishi Boo-Bishi, I should probably be satisfied if it at least helped me heal.

Thanks for staying with me, you are my hero…

Have a wonderful day!!!

How writing help me clean...

...or how one thing leads to another…

Have you ever been depressed? Most people have in one way or another, I suppose. Depression comes in many different shapes, all of them in some way leaving the victim devastated for various periods of time. Some forms of depression will leave you practically incapable of doing anything and it might last for years. Science say a lack of serotonin leaves you in a state where you stop caring. There’s medication you can take, but they do all have side effects and what if you don't care enough to take it?

Some time ago my doctor grounded me. He didn’t want me working anymore, said I didn’t realize how seriously bad my health was and that I needed to focus on getting better. But even though my back hurt so much I could barely move and I had such frequent migraines my boss demanded I’d see a doctor I didn’t want to stay home. I’d be so bored, I needed to get out and see people, to work. I loved my work. My doctor told me to find something fun to at home. I did, I found a couple of Minecraft servers, watched a lot of YouTube videos and started exploring social media. Hi, I’m a Twitter addict…

Games, YouTube videos and social media as fun as it might be, it wasn’t enough. Still having a lot of pain making anything I wanted to do terribly difficult and with no work to go to I stayed at home all day, everyday. I got more and more depressed and I couldn't find a way out of it. Eventually I stopped trying. I did have help, though. People at the medic center gave me everything they had, every resource possible, but between the pain and depression I was a lost cause.

The first light, the first turn towards the positive came when one of my oldest and closest online friends did his first livestream and I finally realized how much he actually cared about me. He had been hinting for a long time that maybe he wanted to be more than friends, but I would just brush it off as something he’d say when between girlfriends. But the things he said, about me, on a livestream… even when he thought I had stopped listening, when he thought I was sleeping…

There isn’t much that beats that feeling when your crush becomes your boyfriend. When it’s so obvious other people are shipping you before you’ve even fully understood what was happening yourself.  My depression took a huge hit right then. I had been asked by my therapist if I wanted to change my life from that dark existence I was in. I knew it wasn’t living, I was just breathing and barely that. Now, suddenly I knew the answer was without question yes. And though it carried me a long way when it came to deciding to live the depression was still too strong. Most thing were still out of my care zone.

Falling in love made me want to live, it made me chose change instead of keeping to the darkness I had grown accustomed to. My therapist told me to start with something easy. I began to write. Not as a conscious decision to begin with, more like an urge to express myself. I tried to write some stories, they are still on Wattpad. And then I remembered the thousand words a day challenge and how writing had helped me figure things out in the past. I started writing and I have explained in this blog many times before how that has affected my life with the writing, with this blog, with overcoming obstacles and to not give up. I have shared with you how difficult it has been some days to write at all, but I still managed somehow. The result may not have been that good, but then again, I’m never ever sure that it is any good anyway. I am very critical when it comes to me and what I do.

What does writing everyday mean to me? How does writing, how does this every day challenge affect me? First of all it’s a routine, something I do every day, maybe not at the same time every day, but it gets done all the same. Right now it’s the only routine I have. Secondly it challenges my concentration. Maybe not so much the writing as the editing I do after. I have had real problems in concentrating for a while now. I can’t read. I used to go through several books per week, now I can’t finish one. The writing is good training, but often leaves me drained at the end of it all.

When I have finished my writing for the day, when I have published my post, I feel very relieved. I feel like I have done something. Maybe it seems strange to you because this isn’t really that much to feel good about, it’s just words, but to me it might be all I do today that has at least some kind of purpose or meaning. Nothing else does. Most of my days I spend listening to music on YouTube or watching TV series online, retweeting other people's pictures or quotes. I spend all of my days procrastinating. That’s what my depression does to me now that I am awake enough to see it for myself.

The feeling of having accomplished something, that I in a smallest possible way can feel a little bit good about myself has opened my eyes to the rest of my life. I can see how the environment I am existing in isn’t good for me. I can finally use my restless boredom to improve what I can in my environment. I can find a sliver of motivation to spite my pain and rearrange my house the way I want it again. I can find the strength to cook real food, to clean up after me and to feel good while I am doing it. It’s not a terrible burden I must go through, it’s something I enjoy doing if just a little bit, because I am doing it for me, I am reclaiming my space, I am not just existing anymore, I am coming back to the land of the living. The land where people actually live active lives instead of just existing in a numb darkness.

And with that I am done for today. Thank you for reading….

Have a wonderful day!

Sleep problems

I thought I had passed the days when writing was going to be a big problem, but it seems I keep finding new obstacles in my way. I’ve been too tired because I haven’t slept enough, I have been too tired because I hadn’t slept at all, I have been procrastinating, the world “has ended” and today I can add a new one, sleeping. I have been sleeping all day, on and off. It’s been a great day for it though it was a little bit too warm during the actual day, there was no sun. In the evening it’s been raining. I just love falling asleep to the sound of rain on the roof.

Everybody seems to have problems with their sleep. The people I talk to, the tweets I read. It seems as if no one sleeps the way they should. Staying up late or all night. Problems falling asleep or finding time to sleep. Either way, it seems as if too many people are having problems keeping up with a decent sleep schedule these days.

Staying up late always seem more appealing than getting up early, at least to me. Maybe it’s the bright summer evenings and nights that made my senses lose track of night time sleeping ideas. Every parent, where I live, have had the same discussion with their kids at some point. “It’s time to go to bed!” The child violently objecting “the sun is still up.” Parent desperately trying to make the child understand. “The sun never sets in the summer, it is night, it’s 9pm, you need to sleep.” It’s difficult to sleep on those never ending warm summer nights. No school, no work, vacation. You can do whatever you want and that is staying up late. As if getting the only way to get more out of a day is to stay up. No one gets up earlier. On vacation we want to hang out with family and friends, we travel to see those who live far away and we want to spend as much time as possible being social. And social time is evening, night. Not the early morning. Unless of course, you didn’t go to bed yet.

Most people I know, most people I know on twitter, are probably staying up late online. Playing video games, talking to online friends, who might live very far away, but you still get to talk to them every day, online. Time passes so quickly when you’re online. It’s too easy to lose track and all of a sudden you can hear the morning papers being delivered and you know it’s 4 am and you haven’t even tried to get some sleep yet. There’s something about staring at a bright screen that sometimes even prevents you from feeling tired. Exciting games, conversations, videos or maybe just the fact that it’s a bright light telling your sleep center it’s not bedtime yet. I believe that the original program was to get tired and sleep when it’s dark and to wake up when it get bright again. Personally I have experienced at least the latter part, I wake up when the daylight reaches a certain point in the morning. I notice this in the spring when I find myself waking up earlier and earlier. I feel well rested so it’s great, it’s just I get tired again way too soon.

A lot of people do, however, also have a problem falling asleep, not because they don’t try but because their mind won’t let them. There’s too many thought running around keeping them awake. Keeping me awake, I have this problem too. To be honest I might have every problem there is when it comes to sleeping. When I actually do sleep I stop breathing so much that I am supposed to have a machine help me make sure I get enough air. I rarely use it though, it makes the air I breathe so warm I can’t sleep.

About the thoughts that mess with sleep, I have met two types. One kind of thoughts come from having too much to do and the fear of forgetting something, forgetting some important detail. In that case I find that writing it all down helps. The brain isn’t panicking to remember it all, it can rely on the nore to remember. The other kind of thoughts are more difficult. They are like demons making you question yourself. This seems to be so common and it’s really sad it has to be this way. I know that feeling very well, it’s not just my writing on blogging skills that aren’t good enough. And to be honest that’s not keeping me awake at night. That much.

It’s sad to see how many people there are that struggle with negative thoughts. I wish there was a way to make everyone understand that they are amazing human beings. It doesn’t matter what they can or cannot do, they will always be amazing just the way they are. But there is no easy way to solve this problem.

When my thoughts are too negative and there’s no way I can sleep like a normal person, I turn on distractions. I might very well lead to staying up too late, but with the bad thoughts there’s no sleep anyway. If I start feeling a bit tired as if sleep might be just around the corner I find a movie or a TV show or a YouTube video. I watch for a while, just let the eyes follow what’s happening, just barely paying attention to what’s going on. If my eyes start closing I let them, I get more comfortable still listening to the sounds and the talking as I drift off. After a while I might wake up again and be sleepy enough to turn it all off and just sleep. If not I start over again. After all sleeping an hour at a time is better than not sleeping at all.

And then, some days, like today… I sleep all day and I don’t want to wake up.

Thank you and good night. I am going back to sleep.

Have a wonderful day!!!

Pretending to blog

Day ten, double digits. These past days I have been focusing on being able to write at all, on overcoming obstacles. Hoping that the writing problems lie behind me it’s  time I focus a little bit on the blog. For a while I have been editing my writing, allowing me to at least pretend that I’m a real blogger. Editing is good, it helps make the text easier to read for the viewers, irons out the most obvious speed bumps of grammatical error or poorly written sentences as well as weird paragraphs. Besides all that, there is no spell check that can find every typo you make. Sometimes the typo is a word, a wrong word, but spell check is no mind reader. It will still let it pass. To make sure the text flows naturally it’s recommended to read it out loud. That’s the best way to find any strange passages where the words get stuck somehow.

Having a smoothly flowing text makes it easier to keep readers interested in coming back. The number of people who wants a reading challenge isn’t that high. Most of us don’t want to struggle when we read, especially not a blog. Having a thousand words is more than enough struggle. I’m not suggesting my flow is great, that simply wouldn’t be me, but I’m hoping my editing will fix the worst parts. It’s all a learning process as well as a matter of practicing. I’ll keep trying.

Making the best of the text to make the reader interested in returning is all well and good, but you can’t keep any readers if you don’t get them interested in reading in the first place. If no one visits the post or reads it, then no one will know that you’re a genius at writing easy flowing texts with remarkable content. (Still not me.) You need something to make people curious enough to stop and read. You need a good title for your post. This is something I have noticed in my previous blogs. A great title draws people in. If they stay and read, if they come back, those are different questions. But none of that will happen if they don’t come to begin with.

A good title for your post is important. When I started this blog I mentioned the thousand word challenge in every title, it seemed like a good idea considering that the writing challenge also is the foundation of the blog. Not only is the posts made up of the challenge texts, it’s also what I have been writing about, blogging about. However, it’s also the name of the blog itself and doesn’t have to be in every title. But only using the number of the day isn’t very interesting either.

The title is the first a potential viewer will see. That’s where they make the choice to look at your blog or to keep scrolling. This is your chance, take it, make the title catchy. Make it reflect what you’re writing about. I have decided that from now on I will pay more attention to how I title my posts, which means I will also have to start thinking of what I write about. Writing a thousand word is the chaööenge, but it gets boring if it’s always the same thing. I’m at a point where I feel like all I’m doing is constantly repeating myself. Writing the same things over and over again. It’s time to start paying more attention to the topics.

Deciding what to write about can be somewhat of a problem for me though. Whatever i choose, someone else is already writing about it, and doing it better than I ever could, so why should I? The blog-teachers will tell you why, it’s because you are the only one who can put your perspective into the topic whatever it is. One example is my attempts at blogging about trying to blog. I read the how-to- books and blogs and blogged about what I read. I often thought that why don’t they just read that? What’s the point of me writing about this? I could just post the link. But the reason why I still wrote about it is because I would add my thoughts to the mix. How I interpreted what i was reading. How I was dealing with the advice given and what problems I found with them. I was reiterating what the “professionals” were teaching me while trying to follow the advice they gave. I was trying to make it work and sharing my struggles. The same way I now share my struggle with my writing and blogging challenges. Not to mention the language struggles. Let’s not mention the language struggles.

Back to the question about topic. Everyone stresses how important it is for potential readers to know what you write about, to have a niche. I am sure this isn’t a huge problem for most people. You have a hobby, something you’re interested in, is good at, that’s what you will blog about. Maybe that is the reason you actually do blog to begin with. That’s not me though. In my case it’s as if the blogging in itself is what’s my hobby and interest, not that I’m particularly good at it though. Maybe one day… a girl can dream, right? Though the truth ,might actually be that when it comes to managing my blog, I’m doing it all wrong.

I have many hobbies though. I’m interested in many things and I know a little about a  lot. For a blog it’s better to know a lot about one thing. Being all over the place might be my way of life and working perfectly great for me. It’s not helping my blogging though. Not if I want to have an audience. And to be honest, what kind of challenge would this blog be if I didn’t at least try to grow my audience, the numbers. If I don’t care at all, then there’s no point of having a blog at all. It’s just writing. For a drawer.

For ten days I’ve been proving to myself that I can type one thousand words every day no matter what happens. But the blogging? I have not been paying much attention to the blogging. To make sure this day more about the blog than the writing I am typing this as one super long paragraph. Hopefully it won’t be like that by the time you read it. It*s going to take a lot of editing.

Shannon Hale said writing is filling the box with sand, editing is building the castle. The question today is if I am capable of building castles. 

And by the way. I have reached that magical number again. 

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!