Bad blue light

Is there anyone else besides me that have problems sleeping? Problems with falling asleep, or not sleeping long enough? Do you use your phone or tablet before going to sleep? One final check on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram? Read an e-book? Play a lot of video games on your computer at night? Watch TV shows or movies on your computer before going to sleep? All the things that I do. Well. Research says that the blue light from these screens has a negative effect on the sleeping center. Normally we’re supposed to wake up when it gets light outside and get tired and fall asleep when it gets dark. I think I heard or read somewhere that normal electric light disturbs that routine, but the blue light from phones, tablets and computer screens does apparently have a measurable impact. Makes it more difficult to fall asleep and can also cause sleep to last for a shorter time than it otherwise would. A couple of hours away from these screens before going to bed can be the solution to, at least, some sleep problems. I am a big consumer of blue light screens and I have serious sleep problems. Coincidence? I had sleep problems before my smart phone and tablet too. They didn’t say anything about TV, but I believe that has a similar blue light. That’s what it looks like if you stand outside and look into a room where the TV is on, anyway.Maybe I should try, but what would I do instead of my NCIS LA until I fall asleep. I am not on Twitter as much as before and I try to be moderate with Instagram. I don’t play the video game on my phone either. Right now I am knitting a warm scarf, so my hands are kept busy for tonight anyway.

Last night I did fall asleep at a reasonable hour and I woke up early this morning. I have not slept anything during the day and I’m beginning to feel a little bit tired. I have been rather tired though so the cooking part has been nonfunctional. There’s always something not working, isn't there?

I didn’t go and get a new headset either. A friend suggested I should, so I can make Minecraft videos, but it’s not as if I ever did any talking in them before so there’s not really anything that suggests I’d do that now either. And for Skyping I guess I could download the app to my phone. That way it could be used as something that at least has some phone similarities and not just as a camera. Not having a mic would also be the perfect excuse for not going on Teamspeak if I ever should go back online on a server with other people.

To be honest, I have been feeling really sick about that all day. Should I go and buy a new headset or not. Today was the last day they were on sale. For now. But the ones I want are still very expensive and I don’t have that much money. In a way I think I still might want them. At least when it’s summer again, windows open, people outside, too much noise to sleep. My old headset was very good at blocking out surrounding sounds. People I’d Skype with would hear people talking outside my house and I wouldn’t.

I’ve been having panic attacks, even though I’ve taken a lot of pills. Nothing would make me feel better. My stomach hurts and I feel sick, as if I’m going to throw up. I feel weak, as if my legs wouldn’t carry me if I tried to walk. Head hurting, tired, sleepy. It’s amazing how many physical symptoms I can have when there’s something scary I have to do. Or, I didn’t have to, maybe I just wanted to. But at the same time. It was a lot of money I don’t have. Well. I do have them right now, but I do also have bills I need to pay. Technically I guess I could buy a cheaper set, but that can be expensive too. Sometimes you get more if you pay more. Sometimes cheap isn’t good enough. The perfectionist talking. And that’s so weird considering I have practically only used the headphones part of the set. Microphone and me is not that close friends. It’s just that… I was kind of thinking that I should try anyway. The fact that the set broke is a perfect excuse to get away from doing that challenge, to actually have a video where I talk. It’s really stupid how I just can’t do it. Maybe in the future, if I can save some money I can afford to get a new headset and try to make that video with my crummy voice and my crappy accent. Never good enough.

It’s a little bit funny though, how I can be so completely unable to talk and not have the same problem at all when it comes to writing. I mean, it’s not as if I believe myself to be an expert at writing in English either. There are many writing rules that differ between Swedish and English and I do not know all of them or any. Spelling is one thing because of spell check, but there’s so many other things that define a language. What words you chose, how you formulate a sentence, sayings, idioms, word order, expressions. Still it doesn’t bother me as much. There has been times, with my old blog there was a time when I gave up, when I couldn’t write because everything seemed to come out wrong. That only lasted a short while though and now I try my best, but I know I fail and I don’t really care that much. Still I am the perfectionist who’s never good enough so when I say I try, I do really try. Google is my friend as well as www.bab.la. Maybe one day I can move past the irrational fear of talking as well. Maybe. Today Could be that day, but I have no mic…

Take care, have fun, but beware the blue light at night!!! See you tomorrow, maybe.

Not making any sense

It happened again, sleeping all day, all evening. I just woke up in time to take the pills again last night. I suppose it was a little bit much going from no medication to taking two at once, maybe I should have just taken one to begin with. Twice now I have overslept my writing challenge. I was very tired today as well. Sleeping all day. I still take the pills in the evening though because I really want to sleep at night. I tried to wake up by watching NCIS LA, but I was too tired to really know what I was doing which resulted in the final breaking of my headphones. And I have no speakers connected to my computer. I need headphones or I’ll have no sound. They do still work if I have the cable in the exact right spot, but then I can’t move at all. In the end it got too annoying. I have  set of earplugs that provides a really super sound, but therefore are very expensive. I use them only for listening to music. So afraid they will break so I don’t want to use them for sleeping. I had totally forgotten the earplugs I got with my tablet. I should really have found them before, so much better for sleeping in. And I wouldn’t have broken my headset, which also was kind of expensive. Not that I really used it that much, but now that I don’t have a microphone I find that slightly annoying anyway. They have headsets on sale on one of the stores in town, similar to the ones that got broken, but I don’t know. It’s still a lot of money and I don’t really have that much to spend. Especially considering the fact that I don’t really use the mic that much. Now I don’t know what to do. Get a new headset or just have sound? The sale is one more day.

My sleep problems seems to be a never ending story though. Either I don’t sleep at all or I never wake up. Sleeping too much can be a problem just as much as not sleeping at all. Even if it’s been a while since I had enough sleep it’s not as if you can take it back later. Sleeping too much is still bad. It’s not like a debt you can pay afterwards, with interest. Doesn’t quite work that way. I am still too tired, even when I’m awake. I’ve run out of freezer food and I’m just too tired to make more even though I have the necessary ingredients. I’m back to eating hamburgers again. Without bread, salad or anything on them. Having that cooked food has spoiled me a little though. I really don’t like the hamburgers anymore. I want the food I made. Hope I’m feeling better tomorrow. Maybe I should go into town as well, to check on a new headset.

As you might already have figured out, I don’t really know what to say today. I’m just rambling random things. Nothing that makes much sense. It’s one of those days when nothing goes right and everything is just boring or sad. One of those days when everything goes wrong, you don’t know what to do and don’t really want to do anything. Bored Beyond Belief. Sad because things break. Annoyed because you know it’s your own fault it broke. You did something wrong, you weren't thinking. And fixing it is going to cost a lot of money that you don’t really have. That’s when I go to sleep to never wake up. I don’t want to wake up. I want to sleep, dream, forever. Is that why I sleep past my deadline or is it just the pills? There’s probably something I’m trying to avoid, something I should do that I don’t want to do. I do that sometimes. Hide my head in the sand so I don’t have to see the things I want to avoid, hide so I can pretend it doesn’t exist. Hiding in sleep, online, in videos, in books, in games, in whatever it takes so I don’t have to see and do the things I don’t want to do for some reason. Forgetting that I have bills to pay because paying them gives me a panic attack, that’s just one example. But there are other things too. Just going to the store, or going out can be enough of a problem. Scary stuff. Better hide behind feeling tired, go back to bed and keep on sleeping as if the problem would go away, not get worse. It doesn’t go away, though, it does actually just get worse.

I’m sure I’m sounding completely nuts right now. I feel nuts. I took my sleeping pills quite some time ago, they may be beginning to work. My neck hurts too. It does that when I sleep too much, lie down too much. It’s very sensitive. I have special pillows, but since I don’t lie still they get moved and my neck doesn’t get the necessary support. I did get more power pain pills that I could take. Another type of pills that would make me sleep. I have overslept many appointments and even work, because of those pills. Until my doctor said that I should not drive after taking those pills. Makes sense, doesn’t it. Thing is though, I’ve taken other pills, kinda similar, also classified as narcotic medicine, but they wouldn’t make me sleepy. I have pretty high tolerance when it comes to pain killers. The pills that is, not the game. The games scares me like crazy. It’s a steam game if you don’t know what it is.

Anyway, I have almost reached the magic number, almost one thousand words. The words today were not good, they made no sense and I am still just rambling. This may be the absolute low point of my blogging experience. I am so sorry for having put you through it, but it’s this or nothing. Maybe it would have been better to go with nothing. I’ll be back, trying to do better tomorrow.

Thank you and take care!!!

To not fall asleep, or to not wake up

I’m so sorry I didn’t manage to write anything yesterday. I overslept. Big time. As usual, lately, I fell asleep in the middle of the day, but I didn’t wake up after a couple of hours. I slept until two am. Technically it was still yesterday in some parts of the world, but I was too tired to write. The only reason I didn’t fall asleep again was that I was very hungry. Sleeping past dinner time can do that. I haven’t slept anything since then and it’s about eight in the evening now, so hopefully I will be able to sleep tonight.

One good thing that came out of my whole day of sleep is that I wasn’t terribly tired today when the stores opened. The sad thing is that when I was getting ready to go I got my first really big panic attack in a long time. I had to take medication and postpone going out. Almost three hours later I managed to go though. I went to one of my favorite places and got some nice photos. Then I did some shopping, lost some of my shopping somewhere between the check out and my car. Typical. I didn’t notice until I got home. Unfortunately I didn’t go straight home so there was no point going back. Went to another favorite place, by the ocean, where the ferry to Vaasa, Finland was waiting in port. It was very windy, very cold, but I got some nice photos there too. Then I did some more shopping, more food, stocking up for a long time again.

I did also visit the pharmacy. Unfortunately I had no prescription for sleeping pills on my list. I got painkillers and pills for my stomach. So many of the pills I take are bad for the stomach, but I have to take them. The diabetes pills are the worst. Before i payed the pharmacy guy asked if there was anything else I needed or if I had any questions. I said that since the thing I really needed, the reason I was there, wasn’t on my list so no there was nothing else. He asked what it was and offered to sell me a bottle anyway if I talked to my doctor to get a new prescription. I said that would be great since I can’t sleep without them. He’s like that, always helping a little bit extra. Maybe because I have been a customer there for so long I have practically lived in the pharmacy at times. He could see that I had had the pills before but the old prescription had just past the last date. It’s only valid for a year. And that was yesterday. When I was at home sleeping. Luckily they can revive it a few days after the expiration day. Which means, I have sleeping pills again. There’s some hope that I will be able to sleep again. That would be amazing. Sleep at night. Food in the freezer. Taking pictures in the terribly cold hours of the day. The days are getting longer. It’s daylight at two in the afternoon again. I can take pictures again.

After the pharmacy the sun was beginning to set. I drove out to the ocean again, but a different place that’s further out. It’s the end of the road, there’s nothing but water, or no it’s obviously ice as far as you can see. I have photographed there only twice before. Once in the spring, once in October or November. It was so beautiful. The sun was bright orange and just a bit over the horizon. The picture was really awesome. That is the one I chose to upload to Instagram.

It’s been a rather good day, but I am having real problems with my writing. I don’t know what to write.

I was a little bit surprised that I had a panic attack, but I guess I’ve been postponing this trip for so long my brain figured that it must be something dangerous. Add to that the fact that didn’t really want to go today either. I mean, if I am completely honest, if I really wanted to go I wouldn’t care how tired I was. Being tired is just an excuse not to go. Even if I was really, really tired. It wouldn’t be the first time I was driving tired. Besides, when it’s cold out that tends to make you wake up. But basically it’s all just about priorities and just didn’t prioritize going to the pharmacy or the store, or even to take pictures. I prioritized staying at home, watching NCIS LA. I’ve almost caught up on that show too, but I heard that The Walking Dead are back tonight, so there’s always something to watch. Need to re-watch the new Bond movie as well as Star Wars VII. And I haven’t seen the new Hunger Games yet. Star wars is a great series of movies to sleep to so that’s a bonus. Kind of joking, but I watched all of the old episodes a while back and I always fell asleep. I had to start over with each film two or three times. And I love Star Wars, so it’s not that either. I am weird. That’s probably it.

I still have some ways left to go before I am done for today. Even though I have learnt roughly how much I have to write before it’s one thousand words I still use the word counter. Which means that I can’t write my posts on my blog platform. I use Google docs to write, copy and paste. Most of the time I have music in the background. Lately I have started all my writing sessions with Alphaville’s Red Rose, an extended version. We’re kind of an 80s household. My roommate, whenever he stays with me, he is also very into 80s music. 80s bands. Classic rock, though that’s not exactly Alphaville though. But Red Rose is kind of upbeat, happy, makes me want to dance, wakes me up.

Anyway, even if I had to drag the words out of my mind today, I have passed the magic number.

Thank you! Take care!!

Losing the battle

So tired. Do not feel like writing tonight. No inspiration, but then again, to write without inspiration is the goal of this challenge, isn’t it? I am so tired. When I said I give up on sleeping, in yesterday’s post I had no idea how true, and awful, that would be. Having slept only a few hours a day for a while made me really tired. I was too tired to do anything, to focus on anything, but I just couldn’t get my head to stop. I just couldn’t fall asleep. So tired, my eyes hurt. The time when I actually do fall asleep is pushed later every day. Soon I will have gone full circle, which would be a good thing if it happens soon, but the way it’s going now I’ll probably lose my mind before that happens. It has already begun to affect my memory, my ability to thing, which is kind of funny since it’s the thinking that keeps me from sleeping. The thinking won’t stop.

It wasn’t nail art this time, I did manage to stay away from those videos. But there’s hair and makeup, and eventually I found food. After my cooking session yesterday my mind decided that it would be a good idea to plan more things I could do with what I have at home, which basically is nothing. I do have ready made, frozen meals in my freezer though. And it’s so good, but what wouldn’t be when all you’ve been eating for two months is hamburgers without bread, salad, dressing or anything. That’s not food, it’s my version of bread and water. Obviously with meat instead of bread since we now know that we shouldn’t eat too much carbs.

Woke up after six pm today, or rather this evening. Head hurts, neck hurts. The body has in its desperation for rest overdone the sleeping part in an attempt to catch up. It will not work though. Of that I am fairly certain. It’s as if my sleeping problems that I’ve been writing about for months and that I’ve suffered from for a lot longer than that is getting worse every day now. I know the chemicals have probably messed up my system a lot and I really should get back on the sleeping pills, it’s just that I am too tired to go anywhere. I did sleep about five hours which normally would be okay, but right now it feels as if I am really struggling to stay awake, though I am well aware that should I lie down and try I wouldn’t be able to. In a way it seems as if I am closing in on the final battle with insomnia and I am trying, probably on some subconscious, self sabotaging way, make it on my own without the aid of medication. The prognosis doesn’t look too good, but there’s not much I can do. Unless I manage to get myself to the pharmacy. It’s in time like this I could really use someone to go get my medication for me, but with my roommate gone I am, in every way, on my own. It’s win or lose, sleep or lose my mind to be specific.

It’s weird how a brain so interested in thinking that it just can’t shut down to let me sleep and still I am having problems finding the words I need to be able to write anything. It reminds me of a test I once took after too many late nights of studying. I’d read the question, I knew the answer, but every time I bent forward to write the answer, every time my pen would touch the paper the answer was gone. Nowhere to be found. As if I never knew the answer and the previous notion had just been a figment of my imagination. That’s how it feels right now. The thinking I need and want to do is not working. Obviously because the thinking I don’t want to do is working overtime. My brain has decided to take over the show and is clearly demonstrating that it’s now in control of everything. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have a clue about how it should be done if the entire organism is to survive. Hey, brain! We Need sleep!

Even if overthinking the cooking makes me lose sleep it’s not a bad thing in itself. I do get some really good ideas, it’s just that when things are like they are right now the ideas will stay ideas. There’s no way I can make any of them reality and that makes them just another thing I haven’t done. Another thing I need to do. Another thing I need to do but haven’t done and therefore something I will worry about. Negative stress. That’s how it builds up, that’s how it works, bets worse, takes over, hijacks the brain, mutiny. But no Johnny Depp lookalike Captain Sparrow person in sight.

I went online to see what items are on reduced prize in my store this week. It’s so many items that I could really use to stock up on food of many various kinds. The hamburgers don’t exactly contain all necessary building blocks. Adding vegetables was a great move, but we need variation to get everything we need and I don’t think I’m getting enough of some essential blocks. No dairy is just one of the problems. No milk, cheese, yoghurt or anything of that nature. They have a great prize on cheese this week. But, if I don’t get up while anything is open, before I know it the week will have gone by and I’ve missed the opportunity. And, of course that’s another thing that will keep me overthinking and worrying and awake. It’s like when you count the hours all night. Fall asleep now and I can sleep for so many hours. And you never fall asleep, but it’s as if you can’t stop checking the time and count the hours every five minutes. So stressful.

And. Even though I am so late there’s no time to edit anything I did get a glimpse of all my sentences that begin with “and”. Way too many to be okay, but as I may have mentioned. my brain isn’t working right at the moment. With a bit of luck it may be back in a slightly better working order tomorrow.

Good night. Sleep well. Sweet dreams.

I wish!!!

I give up

I give up on ever sleeping like a normal person. I give up on the pharmacy, or at least on me ever getting there. That means I have to give up on the sleeping pills as well. It’s just not happening. Sleep, that is. I said yesterday that I’d go get those pills even if I had been up all night. That did obviously not happen, as you might have guessed. Today it was past one in the afternoon before I finally fell asleep, almost two. Then I woke up about four, thirty. Not a lot of sleep. Just like yesterday. I was so tired too. Tired all night, but sleeping was impossible. My mind was working serious overtime. Oddly enough it thought out a lot of nail art ideas that I could do with the limited skills and resources I have. Not exactly a thing you expect will keep you up all night, right? But I guess that’s what I get from watching nail art videos to help me fall asleep. Counter productive as most things I seem to do, nowadays. Watching nail art videos and, of course, NCIS LA all night, all morning. Nightmares from the TV show the few hours I sleep. I think it might be the many rear windows they shoot out that could be the problem. They always do that, every episode. The exploding cars is just every second or third episode. One episode they just see a car sitting on the curb and they chase after it on foot, attempting to shoot at it. I was surprised it got away with the window intact, but the car was bombed later so order was restored. Thing was though, as they ran after it, aiming at it, they didn’t know who the driver was, if it was a bad guy or not. It could have been anyone. Anyone who makes that get-away-car style of take-offs. I thought maybe the nightmares is a warning that I should stop doing that. Just kidding, I don’t. I am professional driver of a different kind.

Funny thing happened yesterday after I published my post. I wrote about the Universe’s influence over our life, or, at least I mentioned the possibility thereof since the video I was watching stopped working, forcing me to finally write my thousand words and post them, somewhat on time. I also said that I’d be very spooked if it would suddenly start working again after I finished my obligatory, daily writing session. And guess what! I didn’t get spooked, it didn’t miraculously start to work. Probably because the Universe wouldn’t want to spook me. Just kidding. It would just have been a much too big coincidence if it had. The order of doubt is still intact. We have no definite proof of a higher power controlling things. It’s still up to faith to decide what we want to believe in.

Since I didn’t manage to get up and go to the pharmacy I didn’t manage to get to a store either. It’s time to get more cat food, and probably some more frozen hamburgers and french fries. But I didn’t. Already last night I began to “steal” from the ingredients intended for my frozen food production and this afternoon I could either continue that idea and run out, before I got started with the planned cooking idea. So, I made a wise choice. I did actually manage to get it done today. I have four days of rice, sausage in sweet chili sauce and vegetables in the freezer. That is if this is the only food I eat all day. If I want a more varied menu, which means going back to my old version of hamburger for dinner and breakfast, then I’m good for a long time. Now, that’s something to be proud over. Right?

Maybe I’ll sleep better tonight after having done something right today. And the nail art problem is also solved, I have four different version on four nails and a fifth nail that demonstrate what happens when you fail completely and the color you used is very dark. None of the nails look good exactly, but it’s a start, and I don’t have to keep the idea in my head any longer, which means I ought to be able to sleep. I am also very tired, right now. I’ll probably try to sleep after I finished with this writing business of mine. And filled my bottle with water. And maybe had a snack to eat. Hmmm, it just never ends, does it?

Tonight I’ll try to stay away from from nail art, try to stay away from all variations of social media I’m addicted to. Maybe I should substitute NCIS LA with songs of David Bowie because of the sad news this morning. Heroes was my favorite song for a very long time. Until I found Comfortably numb with Pink Floyd. Bowie has done a lot of great music, in my opinion, and on social media most people seem to agree. Or maybe it’s just the people I follow. And I really like the movie Labyrinth. I do actually have a copy on DVD, as well as the movie that is sort of about him and Iggy Pop, Velvet Goldmine. Even if Bowie wasn’t too pleased with it, for obvious reasons, that reason also being one of the reasons why it’s a great film. I guess he really shocked a lot of people back then.

Even if you won’t really notice, I froze there for a while. I started thinking about the movies, the music and how he chose to live his life. It’s an amazing story, but I don’t know what more to say- So I went back to my old ways… checking social  media, replying to people, liking posts, follow back. So much work. No one has messaged me today though. Maybe they knew I was sleeping in and later that I was busy cooking and freezing. Talking about freezing though, it’s not as cold anymore. It’s a more reasonable -9 C/15 F. After that super cold day this weekend, this is no problem anymore. Everything is relative, you know. When it first becomes cold, this temperature is very cold, but now… not so much after that super low of -28 C/-18 F. Hope it doesn’t get that cold again. It was around -20 C/-4 F for a very long time. Somehow you get used to it.

Hope you’re not freezing, that all’s well. Bye for now and take care!!!

Today - too bad

I guess it’s time to write today's blog post now. Again I am really late. I’m just starting and it’s almost the time I have as a guideline for posting. I was just going to finish watching an episode of NCIS Los Angeles when the Universe apparently thought it was time to do something different. The video was freezing, the sound was fine, but the image froze. One would think that would be okay considering the fact that I was watching nail art videos on Instagram, but that’s not how it works. I still have some part of my eyes on the show since I notice the picture’s not changing anymore. And for some reason there doesn’t seem to be any way to fix it. If it suddenöy works perfectly after I’ve written my thousand words for today, and published my blog post for the day then I am really spooked.

I do, kind of believe in some kind of higher power. Call it Universe, God or what you want, I have had too many coincidences to stop believing in coincidence. The first time way way back and I was really super tired, wanting to go straight home after Uni, eat and die in front of the TV. But there were also something I really wanted to check out in a store in the center of town. It’s really difficult to find parking space there unless you go to one of the parking garages, but I didn’t want to do that. Didn’t want to spend the time driving that extra block to search one of them for a vacant spot and then walk back to the stores. Driving straight to the parking lot closest to the store I wanted to visit I thought to myself: If there’s a free space than I’m supposed to get this thing, if not then I’m supposed to go home. And… there it was, a car just left one of the parking spaces and I was first in line. I went to the store, got whatever it was and felt super happy I got it. It’s happened many other times after that, for example Twitter has had great timing giving me the perfect quote for me just when I really needed it. Instagram does the same. You can definitely argue coincidence or that it’s not that strange considering most issues I share with many other people and I follow who I follow for a reason. Except I basically just follow back which means I don’t really choose. Anyway, we always have a choice in what we do and what we believe in, so if you don’t agree that’s fine. I’m not always sure that I do agree myself.

Been a bad girl today though and honestly… This blog is turning into a diary. Or maybe I should say it’s a journal since one of the agents in NCIS Los Angeles explained in one episode that diaries are for seven year old girls. But still. It wasn’t exactly where I intended to go with it. Whatever you would call it. I decided a while back that I shouldn’t be too hard on myself, even though the days are getting longer and sunnier, I’m still not over the darkness problems. It’ll be a while longer. End of January if it’s very sunny or in February is when I normally begin to feel the dark lifting in my person. If I’ve been very low it can take a lot longer though. Last year it wasn’t until late March I was beginning to feel better. Last winter was awful though, so much rain. Still, maybe we just have to accept the journal shape of things a little while longer. Not really sure how it’s supposed to look though. I'm still trying to figure that out. Between the NCIS episodes and nail videos.

How have I been bad then? Well, no sleep is always a good guess. I was up all night and all morning, which technically means I was up all night even in EST standards. It was well past noon before I finally passed out. Sun was shining and it was actually not cold in my room anymore. Think I managed to close the window a little bit better though still not completely. Funny thing though and maybe something to think about when using NCIS Los Angeles as the show to fall asleep to: there’s a lot of explosions. The few hours of very unrestful sleep I got was filled with car bombs exploding all over the place. I don’t know about the deaths from that because I kept waking up. Which is kind of funny since I don’t wake up from the actual explosions in the show, but if you watch it for twelve hours without any break than you kind of know what it’s about. Maybe the inability to fall asleep is my brain trying to tell me it’s not a good idea because it’s so filled with exploding cars that that’s all it has to process should I actually fall asleep. This non sleeping mode I am settled in is getting ridiculous though and I decided before I fell asleep earlier this afternoon that whether I sleep tonight or not I will still go to the pharmacy tomorrow and get more sleeping pills. Even if I have been up all night. Maybe I’ll sleep though since today’s sleep was very unsatisfactory.

The no sleep tradition, though, has also resulted in the sad fact that I didn’t cook any food today after all. Not as planned anyway. I had leftovers from yesterday so I am not starving at all this weekend. Trying to be positive I guess that’s a good thing. I should be proud of myself for eating, if not exactly good, at least better than before. Trying to get better is what I should be proud of, not the weird punishing of myself I’ve been doing for so long.

Hope you’ve had a great weekend, hope the week will be wonderful. Eat, sleep and be proud!!! And maybe I’ll see you again tomorrow...

Temporarily manic

Today I’ve been a good girl. Probably because of the Miso soup I had this morning before going to sleep. Yeah. going to sleep in the morning was still happening, but anyway. I was lucky to find a whole box of Miso soup unopened in my cupboard as I was going through the remains in hope of finding something edible. Soup and some old, dried tortilla bread I had missed before. Not the greatest combination, but the soup was warm. Noodles for dinner and Miso soup for breakfast… Who would have known that the black haired Minecraft girl with the Japanese sounding name would actually eat Japanese food? But I do, in fact one of my closest friends is an expert at making Sushi. For a self trained Swedish girl anyway.

I said I had been a good girl. Definitely regarding my sleeping hours, but I did manage to drag myself to the store. And my car did start. After one week of this terrible cold it’s not a guarantee. Even if my car sits in a garage it’s no heating in there, it’s not isolated and the snow does creep in through the crack under the door. It’s warmer than outside, but in this cold and when the car isn’t used every day it can still be a problem. The first sound wasn’t too hopeful, but it started before I even had time to start worry. I took a drive out to the ferry port just to get it warmed up. So dark out there, could only see the red lights on top of the wind power tower things. I have no idea what they are called and I don’t feel like Googling. I am late enough as it is.

I do have one of those motor heating things that I don’t know what they’re called either, maybe you don’t even have them. Everybody or every car up here where I live do. It’s a must. It’s an electric thing that preheats the engine. That makes it start easier in the cold and it’s also better for the environment. A warm engine leaves less pollution. Or so they say. So, it’s a good thing, but I have no idea where my cable has gone. I totally blame my mother. Last winter was never this cold so I never needed it and before then it was all under my mother's reign. Before, when I had my car outside all the time I used it every day. One reason being that you can connect another heater inside the car so it’s warm and nice when you get in it, and the windows are clear from all frost and ice. It doesn't have to be that cold before you need to worry about that. Not in a garage though, lucky me.

Why was I good? Like I’ve been trying to explain for a while now, I got up and out and to the store. It felt okay, no faintedness or anything like that. I know that’s not a word any of you have heard before, probably because I just made it up. Or maybe it is a word. It is now, in that sentence anyway. What I meant to say is that I felt okay. I didn’t only manage to get the usual things I normally pick up as fast as I can and move on. I did actually buy the ingredients necessary to finally cook some food for the freezer. I have a lot of plastic containers I have washed for this purpose. It’s old containers I bought ready made salad in, we have this beetroot salad that is so great with meatballs. I use to buy this when I had to live on recycled bottles. The money I got was just enough for a package of meatballs, the salad and a coke. I could have bought cheaper stuff, but I don’t like the ready made, frozen hamburgers they have in that store, or their french fries. The store where I recycle that is. I could just get the money and got to the other store, but it felt like unnecessary trouble. Anyway, maybe I will be able to cook some food myself tomorrow. That would be great.

So, I mentioned that I didn’t sleep well last night. Again. I mentioned this already yesterday, that I was feeling sad for some unknown reason. It kept me from sleeping even though I did get very tired. Kept watching NCIS Los Angeles all night, playing Rubix Cube on my phone. I managed to break one record, but it’s difficult, ny now I’ve done it a thousand times or so. No big challenge, in fact no challenge at all. Just something to occupy my hands and mind when I get to that point where I can’t follow what’s happening in the show anymore and my mind goes back to the old track, need to check social media… It’s even easier to follow what happens in the show if I play at the same time. For a while I have been knitting or crocheting instead, but that keeps me up longer and it’s necessary to keep the hands above the cover when I do that, and it’s cold out there. And yes, I know how to do those things, knitting and crocheting. That’s one of the few good things about my mother, she taught me a lot of those kinds of things. Even sewing and embroidery and such. I Am a good girl!

Since I seem to be on some kind of high today as opposed to yesterday's low. Makes me almost feel bipolar though I know I am not and I know it’s a terrible disease. An old relative of mine suffered from it and it was no fun for her husband to keep it all together sometimes. When she was manic we’d all get a lot of mail with all kinds of newspaper clippings she thought we’d find interesting. She was a really wonderful old lady though and I miss her a lot. But as I said, I feel high today. And that’s why I am going to try something different. As I’ve mentioned above I can cook, sew, knit and do all sorts of things, yesterday I said I care about other people and I have a lot of empathy. I try my best to be a kind person, I forgive almost anything and I give people many, many chances if they should make a mistake. No one is perfect. I’m not either, but from what I just said I do have some good qualities. How come no one has found that out yet? How come everyone leaves me?

And now I’m low and sad again. Order restored. Just kidding,

Take care out there!!!

I don't deserve better

This is not a good day. I am sad, feel like crying. I don’t really know why, I woke up this way and it doesn’t seem to matter what I do, I still feel like crying. I did sleep a good number of hours partly in the night and all morning. I found some Ramen Noodles, nice and warm in this never ending cold. Trying to type is not a good idea, my hands are ice cold as soon as I put them out from under the semi warm blankets. Should try to focus on something else. I am watching NCIS Los Angeles now. That’s very different from the original, but it’s good. A little bit more like a regular police show than the other two. I bet it’s warm in Los Angeles still. Nice and warm…

Was talking to a friend on Instagram about the cold and he suggested I’d take my roommate’s electric heater and hide in the smallest room. That’s when I realized that my complaining is a little bit exaggerated. Or maybe not exaggerated as much as not entirely truthful. It’ is true it’s terribly cold outside still and they say it’s supposed to last for awhile, it’s also true my window isn’t completely closed and I don’t have any heating in my room except the computer. In the rest of my house, though, I do have electric radiators, maybe not all of them are on at the moment, but they do exist and they do work. It’s not like I’m going to freeze to death even if it maybe sounds like it. I live in a cold climate, my house is isolated, I have two glass windows and there’s naturally also radiators in every room. Not in mine because I broke it when I repainted the walls some years ago, and I never bothered to replace it. I have survived the cold before, I will again.

The thing I may not survive though is myself. There’s a reason why I’m in this cold room instead of anywhere warmer, a reason I maybe have the radiators turned off or down low, a reason i don’t bother to get food or why I still haven’t gotten more sleeping pills. On some subconscious level I am punishing myself. I’ve almost been, at least secretly, proud of myself for my poor living conditions, my lack of resources to get food to eat, not getting the tires changed sooner, not having a working phone. I could fix all of these things, I have told my rehabilitation coordinator I would do it many times, but I never did. Being hard to reach makes it easier to escape from the people who try to help me make things better. And when I feel like I want that myself I find a way to sabotage it. Why do I do that? Easy. I don’t deserve better.

I deserve to be starving, to be freezing cold, to live in a mess that’s not my home. To be alone. Feeling sad today I was thinking about back then, before I lost it all, when I wasn’t alone. Well, technically I was, but if I’d send a message I’d get an instant reply making me feel better. I can still get that message, someone would probably answer sooner or later, but… I felt as if I can’t do this on my own and then I realized that this is why. I don’t deserve it. It’s not just now that I’m sad and crying that I feel like that, on some level I always do. It’s like this guy I knew, he had a great apartment, a good job and he was studying in the evenings when suddenly he sold the apartment and all of his stuff, moved into a basement place that was horrible, stopped studying, quit his job. Next thing we know he’s in the hospital after trying to kill himself. He didn’t feel he deserved that nice home he had, or to live. He’s better now, got a new job, a new place. But I know how he must have felt. Not that I feel like dying right now, but in the long run… not eating, not sleeping, not taking care of my health or anything. It’s like slowly dying by doing nothing, least of all caring.

I’ve been blaming the dark for feeling low, blaming everything that happened last year, but I think the real problem is that I’m just not good enough, even for myself and I am tired of trying to change. Maybe I can’t do this on my own, but I can’t put my trust in anyone else either. If I don’t care, why would anyone else. The last resort for anyone is always that at least your mother loves you. In my case though, she doesn’t. Not in any kind of healthy helping way anyway, maybe in some sick twisted way that mostly revolves around her. Never ask what my mother can do for me, it’s all about her. So, if not even my mother, or me, cares, then why should I bother anyone else? Did I say this was a bad day? That I’m not in a good place? I’m really feeling sorry for myself in the most pathetic way and that’s for being in a situation that’s my own fault and that I could fix if I only wanted to. If I didn’t feel this stupid pride in the suffering. But how do you even begin to care when you probably never really did? I don’t even know how. I care about other people, have a lot of empathy, but never for myself. I’m either fighting the demons that try to hurt me or I’m my own demon. The demon that always wins the battle. How do you escape from yourself?

All these things I’m doing, writing, photography, all the other things I do, they distract me for a while, but they don’t really make any difference deep down. I don’t deserve better than this.

Sorry to leave on that negative note, but it’s really getting to cold… Crawling back under the blankets until tomorrow.

Stay warm!!!

No sleep, no eat, and it's freezing

One more night when I couldn’t sleep at all again last night. I think I fell asleep around nine am. Slept until two pm and then I was still really tired. I just couldn’t find the energy or motivation to get up and do the things I should have done. I should have gotten more sleeping pills and more food. The only, one pizza I got yesterday is long gone by now. It’s past eight pm, by the way. I have lost my motivation again. Maybe it’s all in my sleep. Eating doesn’t seem to make much difference, only that it makes me faint when I do go out. Sleeping, not always feeling so tired, maybe that’s the solution. I only know that I was feeling better, more motivated before I came back online again. It isn’t online stuff that keeps me up. At least I don’t think so. Anyway, sleeping pills. I need to get some.

It doesn’t help beating myself up over all my failures either. I don’t get any better from that. Someone told me that in order to like myself I have to forgive myself. I think that’s one of the most difficult things to do and right now I am really struggling with myself and what I have done. This past year has been one disaster after another, all because I have trusted the wrong people. Okay, it hasn’t all been bad. Nothing ever is all bad, but I have been through a lot more than I ever expected. To be honest, though some people believe me to be as fragile as glass, and maybe I am, but often did I think I couldn’t take any more. I thought that this is it, I give up. There's no point even trying, but I didn’t. At least I didn’t take the final way out. I had to give in to whatever was happening around me and to me though. There was, too often, nothing I could do to change anything. All I could do was wait until the tide would turn, until things would get better. As they say: Nothing lasts forever, not even the bad times. And eventually things would start to improve little by little. I am still not on solid ground, but it’s not as shaky as it was during the summer and fall of last year.

I guess I have to do the same again. Wait until it turns. Stop fighting. It’s still too dark out. Day ends around 2 pm. It’s a little bit better with the snow, but still too dark. I should really be up and outside during the few hours of daylight, but when I don’t sleep I don’t function. I was thinking early this morning that maybe I should just stay up so I could go to the pharmacy, but that doesn’t open until ten and I was way too tired to go driving on the winter roads even before that. And as I said before, I just can’t make myself get up and go. I have a picture of a cat with the words My get up and go got up and went without me. That’s how I feel. One of the symptoms of depression, but also a very significant part of my SAD. Procrastination beyond expert level without even making an effort. Involuntary meditation that takes over and shuts me down. I can actually just stare into nothing, not really thinking or doing anything. Not looking at anything. A slightly lower level of this phenomenon is watching nail art videos on Instagram as a distraction, but not really caring much. Just watching the moving images of someone painting on a nail. At least some of it is beautiful, but it’s still of no use whatsoever. I do paint my nails now and then, but anything more fancy isn’t possible since my mom has put all my stuff away somewhere and I have no idea where, in storage somewhere I guess. Probably all messed up by now. She never did care about how things are supposed to be stored to still be functional. Or what counts as empty or still useful either for that matter. She has thrown away many things that were definitely not empty. Very expensive stuff I can’t afford to buy back now. Not that I need it to just stay at home anyway. Should forgive her too, with that i mean I should stop letting everything she’s already done annoy me so much. It’s not as if anything can be undone anyway. I just get in a bad mood and I definitely don’t need more of that.

I am not constantly in a bad mood though. I can laugh, I can smile, I have moments when I feel really good about things. I don’t cry as much as I did just a week ago. Getting back on Instagram has been good for me even if I still haven’t gone out to chase photos. The cold is a little bit of a deterrent actually. I know, you can dress against the cold, but the motivation gets lessened relative to the number of degrees below freezing point we’re at. I just don’t want to get out when it’s past -7 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s too cold. -21 C. The only good about it is that there’s definitely no mosquitoes about, or spiders wanting to move in either for that matter. They have all hidden or died by now. It’s actually a very common response to people when they complain about the cold, that there’s no mosquitoes. We have a lot of them in summer and no one likes them. Mosquitoes can really ruin the nice, warm summer nights. Or try go for a run in the woods. You have to run fast to get away from them. And they somehow seem to get stuck in the hair just by the ear all the time with their annoying buzzing. Bites don’t bother me so much, but knowing that they are there does.

One more day of avoiding the burning topic. I am a professional at postponing the inevitable.

Take care wherever you are, whether you have cold or mosquitoes. Stay safe!!!

Shouldn't not eat

Finally got my right tires on, finally got to go to the store. Almost fainted again, but I managed to get some frozen pizza. Even a frozen pizza tastes really good when you haven’t had one in months. Tomorrow I hope I’ll be in better condition so I can stock up for real. Having the right tires also means that I can go out and take more pretty pictures of the snowy nature. Though it’s very cold out. -20 degrees C or -4 F depending on which scale you use. It’s very cold either way. The snow makes a cracking noise under the shoes when you walk. If that wasn’t a word it is now, it’s the sound really cold snow make when you walk on it. Definitely a word. Or maybe not.

Any way I did sleep some last night, woke up at a more reasonable hour and I don’t have a headache anymore. Pretty good day at least according to the standard as my days normally have, especially when we’re still in the dark times of the year. I’m working on getting things back on track and since today was the last of our Swedish mid winter holidays the pharmacy will be open again tomorrow. I’ll be able to get my prescription refilled, more sleeping pills. Maybe some more of the power pain pills since I used them all yesterday. It’s good to have some at home even though I don’t use them that often, they are classified as narcotics. I am not addicted though, I only take them when I am in serious pain that isn’t my back pain. Sometimes my whiplash acts up and get really painful. I don’t normally take them for migraines either, but I had no other painkillers at home and the pharmacy was closed, so…

With my car in order, kind of, at least it’s a little bit safer on our winter roads, I will hopefully not run out of food again. Not that I was completely out, but I haven’t been eating enough. That’s why I almost faint in the store. Walking around getting my supplies, even when I don’t stop to look for specific things is all I can take, when I have to wait in line to pay it get’s too much. It’s not exactly as if the world is spinning, it’s more like it sometimes disappears, it goes dark,and it takes every ounce of stubborn focus to be able to walk out of there. Sometimes I’ve had to leave my groceries and go sit down or I would fall down. It’s not especially pleasant. The cashiers have been kind enough to pack it for me, asking if they should call someone, but just a little bit of rest and I could make it out to my car and then it’s just about taking it slow. I don’t drive when I feel I’m about to faint, I don’t want to cause any accidents, maybe hurting someone else. But I feel a bit better sitting down, it doesn’t take as much energy I guess. And then I sit in my garage waiting for a long time before I feel like I can go inside. I have a plan that I will begin working on tomorrow, I hope. It involves cooking a large portion of food and put it in my freezer so that it’s easy to just heat and eat. When I feel too faint I am not really in a mood for any elaborate cooking. That’s why I have lived on hamburger meat only for a long time, sometimes I’d make french fries, if I had the patience. Three pieces of frozen hamburger in the frying pan, one for dinner, one for breakfast and one for the cat. Cheap, fast and easy. Sometimes I’d microwave some frozen vegetables just to get some variation and a little bit of green stuff. But if I really want to come back, start my training again, get back to life again I need to eat a little bit better and more regularly. It’s been really difficult with my diabetes medication when I barely eat anything. My blood sugar levels get too low anyway. It takes time to turn a ship around though and Rome wasn’t built in one day. I’ll get there, it is getting brighter every day. The darkness will be lifting this year too, there will be spring and even a summer when it never gets completely dark. Someone said what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger except tigers. Tigers will kill you. So technically the saying still holds since the tigers fall under the first category, right. Same with crocodiles.

I have been watching NCIS New Orleans the last couple of nights. I have watched the original twice from start to finish so I wanted to try something new. And, they have crocodiles in New Orleans apparently. Whoopsidaisies. An agent running through some shrubs to get a computer a bad guy tossed away and there it was. I guess the croc was as surprised as the agent though because it didn’t attack. Maybe it was just sunbathing on the river banks and didn’t want to be disturbed. After watching almost all of season one I feel as if it is an okay version of NCIS. In the beginning I was very doubtful, it didn’t seem as good as the original at all and it lacked all the things I need from the original, the familiar characters, the familiar voices. Obviously the new people will be new. I still gave it a chance because I like the accents. I still think the original is best though. It’s kind of like when CSI started to have shows from other cities too. I only like the New York version with Gary Sinise. I don’t like that guy in Miami for some reason. CSI Miami that is.

Not been talking about the thing I’ve been avoiding since I came back. I think I am deliberately delaying my writing so that I’ll be in a hurry to get it done, because the one thing I really need to write about is difficult. Someday I’ll get there though, I think.

Thank you for staying with me and don’t forget to eat and sleep. Take care!!!

Sick note

I am still here, still alive, just dead tired with a killer migraine. Been nibbling on my power pills today which made me sleep all day. I just woke up, had my first piece of food for the day and after finishing this little message I'll go back to sleep. I'll return with a real blog post tomorrow.

Take care!!!

Still got no grip

It doesn’t come as a complete surprise that it’s difficult to get any sleep in the night following the day I slept until seven in the evening. I think I did get about a quarter or a half hour of sleep. And it’s not exactly surprising that I eventually did fall asleep around noon today. So, I guess this will continue until I finally manage to stay awake long enough to find the pharmacy open so I can get more sleeping pills. Maybe I shouldn’t blame my thirty hour with no sleep only on my comeback, maybe some of the blame falls on the fact that I ran out of sleeping pills and that quitting just like that probably would result in sleep problems. My pills needs to be phased out, especially after I’ve been taking them regularly for more than a month. It’s just that with all the holidays the pharmacy hasn’t been open that much, it’s always closed on weekends anyway. Another reason I hesitate to go out is the season. We have had snow and ice and even if the conditions on the roads has not been that bad it’s illegal to have summer tires past December 1 and despite my asking for help to change they still haven’t done it. Last time I asked I was promised that it would be done before new year, but nope. Today it’s been snowing all day so it’s real winter here right now. It’s rather cold too which is kind of good since it’s usually not as slippery when it’s cold. Still, I would really want the winter tires that are studded to work better on snow and ice. And, yes, I still use studded tires even though they are not the best thing possible for the environment, but the other kind is not as safe in this climate. Maybe in the south where they don’t have the same kind of winters as we do. I have tried the more environment friendly alternative before when the taxi company I worked for used them, but that was brand new tires on a car with front wheel drive that behaves completely different from my car in slippery situations. I have an old fashioned Volvo that has rear wheel drive and it’s more interested in waving it’s tail than the newer Volvo taxis. Did I ever mention that I miss my job? Driving cars all day and every other week all night. I love driving. If I have the proper gear on.

The problem with sleeping all day and not really wanting to drive right now is that I am running out of food. Sometimes I prefer to go later in the evening when there are less customers and also less traffic, but now I have to write this post and I am already late doing that. I am afraid that the stores will be closed by the time I am finished. The closest store is closing right now, the other one, across the bridge from where I live is open another hour, but I’ve only just started writing and I just don’t think I’ll make it. The gas station, also on the other side of the river, is open two more hours, but everything is so much more expensive there. I guess I could at least go out and check if maybe they have changed my tires by now. It was a few days since last I was out so maybe they have. I wouldn’t know because I left the spare key, I’m not at all in any kind of condition to have anything to do with the changing of tires. I just wish people wouldn’t promise to help when they obviously aren’t going to do it. It would be better to say no, then I’d know.

I need my car. Without it I can’t go to the store even though it technically is walking distance, it’s still way too far for me. I can’t get out and take any nice pictures either, there’s only so many times I can photograph my backyard or the view from my balcony or kitchen window. All my favourite spots are too far and there’s not enough interesting views within my walking distance, which is roughly about a stone throw. Not very far at all. I still haven’t found my winter shoes so I am using my hiking shoes which look like winter shoes, but they aren’t. I bought them in Australia and they have no winter down there. They are amazing to walk in when the ground is bare, but they are very slippery right now. My back problem does also have a very negative impact on my balance, probably made worse by the fact that I’m terrified I’ll fall since I’m not exactly sure I’d be able to get up again if I did. I don’t like to describe myself as handicapped, but to be honest, I am. It’s nothing that shown which sometimes is very unfortunate because people just don’t understand how bad it is. Pain is something you only notice yourself, most people haven’t even experienced the kind of pain I suffer from. A lot of people have had back pain, but there are degrees of pain even in the back. The most common type is muscle pain and I have that too now and then, but the pain that leaves me handicapped is nerve pain and that’s a pain on a completely different level. It’s difficult to explain to people, just as it’s difficult to explain why I haven’t been able to just “snap out of” my depression. There are degrees of depression as well, from being depressed because you failed a test, something that will pass fairly easily, to losing all interest in life completely. It’s much more difficult to get over the second one. Sleep problems also belong in this category. It’s one thing to have a random sleepless night and not being able to sleep at all for weeks, months or even years. It seems as if all my health issues are that type of problems, very debilitating yet completely invisible. Noticeable only to me. At least I’m lucky enough to have a doctor that believes in me even when there’s no way of making the diagnosis except for listening to me. Not all doctors do.

Either way, I think I shall try my luck on the outdoors now. Maybe I’ll find food, maybe it’s just a short walk to my garage and back.

Until next time - be careful if you’re living under real winter conditions like me. If you don’t, you should still take care!

Bad habits are returning

It’s amazing how quickly one can reverse into old habits. Even after several weeks of no social media, after sleeping at night, waking up in the morning, it only took one day of writing, one day of posting pictures and I am back where I was. I’ve already complained about my sleep issues return since last post was written after almost thirty hours of no sleep. I said I’d go to sleep after writing it, but that didn’t happen. I was up for another couple of hours. It was still kind of okay since it’s the weekend and not a big deal if I was tired. It’s not as if I needed to get up for work or anything. Wish I was, I really miss my job. When I finally fell asleep I kept on sleeping. Today I have slept all day. Truthfully, literally, all day. It was seven in the evening when I woke up. And I did actually have plans for today. Not that I had to get up early or anything, but sleeping until evening was not exactly the best thing I could do. Granted I did need to sleep, but there’s a limit to how much sleep is good for you. This wasn’t good and then there was that tiny detail of having something to do. Something necessary, something I don’t like doing, something that still kind of gives me panic attacks just to think about doing. I haven’t payed my bills yet.

Another thing I notice about myself that I had all but stopped doing is that constant check on the social media. Did anyone message me? Did something happen that I need to know? Before I left in the middle of November I was constantly online, constantly checking, waiting, getting disappointed because nothing happened and there were no new messages. To be honest, that is the kind of behaviour that really can make someone feel lonely, alone and abandoned. It was better when I didn’t. I didn’t even charge my tablet when it ran out of power, which happens very quickly. It really uses a lot of energy even with the energy save settings. For a long time I never needed it. After I moved on from watching nail art videos to watching old episodes of NCIS I had no more use for it. Photo memory is filled and it wasn’t as if I was taking much pictures anyway. Not going out for drives or walks, no more chasing the perfect shot, though it did happen now and then the few times I did go out to refill my cat food supply. I still had my phone, but as I’ve said before, I have one minigame on it and I played it on repeat trying to break my own record times or sometimes just to make pretty patterns. It’s a puzzle game like a two dimensional Rubik’s cube thing. Not that demanding in the thought department, but there are some pretty colors and it gave me something to do as the old episodes of NCIS filled the computer screen. Avoiding all other areas of the Internet reduced the feeling of loneliness. Social media is not the best remedy especially not during the season when everybody is busy with family stuff and spend less time online than usual. Or maybe it still was just me, turning my back on everybody else. I definitely did when I left without a word of warning or explanation.

I needed that break and maybe I did come back too soon, maybe I wasn’t ready yet. It certainly doesn’t feel like it considering the facts that my old habits come back just as I take up my old routines again. Routines that really are supposed to be good for me. Some say that the secret to happiness lies in doing what you love to do and I love to write, I love photography, sharing beautiful pictures. Not only my own (are my pictures beautiful? Careful! Am I saying I did something that was good enough even in my own opinion?), but also all the pictures I retweet though for some reason I seem to get less and less beautiful views in my timeline. Or maybe I just don’t see them anymore when I don’t spend all my time on Twitter anymore. I used to scan through my timeline constantly, retweeting constantly, especially at night when the people from across the pond are more active. It’s a timezone dependent activity and as my tweeps maps show, most of my followers are American. My followers that also are the people I follow since I have the policy of always and only follow back. A weird idea, but it’s a little bit satisfying knowing that the 5 000 + followers actually found me and followed me first. It was an experiment, a game, if you like and then it became a thing.

Now that I am trying to take back the parts of Internet and social media it’s obviously easy to fall back to the old behaviour, the old habits. It’s, however, very important that I only return to the parts that I know have been good for me, not the addicted behaviour of the past. While being away, using Internet as an alternative to television, I was moving along the path back to “normal” offline life, real life. I started doing things that has nothing to do with computers, phones, tablets or Internet. I started to care more about my house, my home. For a long time I haven’t done anything more than keeping it functioning on an extremely basic level. I haven’t cared about the aesthetic side at all. Or, cared might be wrong, actively cared maybe. I have hated the way it’s been, but I haven’t done anything to make it look better. Finally I have begun trying to restore it to the way I want it, having some kind of feeling about my home. It’s not just a place where I pass time until I die. It’s a place where I live and it should be a place where I feel good, where I feel at home. It hasn’t been ever since my mother moved in, not even after she’s moved out.

Even though I did miss parts of Internet it’s still important that I live outside it as well, that I keep caring about my house, that I keep only the parts that are good for me. My blog, Instagram, the friends I’ve made online. But I still have to sleep at night, wake up in the morning and do things during the day, taking my walks with my camera taking pictures of the beautiful nature where I live. If I keep doing the things I love I can, if not feel happy, maybe at least feel good about my life.

To everyone who made it this far: Thank you! Wish you all the happiness in the world!!!

Was it a mistake to come back?

I spent one and a half month in isolation with only the absolute minimum of contact with any other people. It wasn’t only the online social media I left, but every other contact as well, besides a couple of visits to the store. Watching videos all day and most of the nights while playing the same mini game over and over again, I still had time to think, I still had time to try to figure things out and I was gradually, though very slowly, beginning to feel better. I was beginning to deal with the mess my mother made of my house during her reign of My home. I think she managed to move everything around in a way that makes it impossible to find anything. Cleaning and sorting everything to get it all back to where it belongs is a hard work for me in the state I’m in now. My back makes it practically impossible to do anything, but as it’s “only” pain I have worked harder than I’ve done in a very long time. By “only” pain I mean that even if it hurts very much just to stand up there’s no danger of making things worse. The injuries I have can’t get worse. Physical pain will pass or at least become more tolerable after some time’s rest.  

Before I was too depressed, had no motivation to do anything.The fact that anything I do hurts would always weigh more than any wish to do even the simplest things. I didn’t care. The first thing to motivate me was this writing challenge and this blog and for a long time I did write a thousand words every day. For a long time I published a post every day, when I could. Losing Internet doesn’t count. Later I started to take walks, to take pictures that I would post every day. These things became important to me, made me feel better and it felt a lot more useful than playing Minecraft all day and night. Or retweeting other people instead of my own stuff. Not that I have anything against video games, or Twitter, but for me it eventually became more like a waste of time than anything meaningful. To begin with it gave me friends and a social interaction I could take part in even though I couldn’t leave my home, or, as has been the case many times, my bed. I played Minecraft lying in my bed, it works okay as long as you don’t have to talk to anyone in chat, though I tried that too. Sitting is not always the best thing for an aching back. Not if you’re online for hours at a time.

Anyway, I was beginning to do more of the things I used to before. Getting my home back to the order I want, feeling good about “taking my house back”, making it mine again. While my mother still lived here I got used to hiding in my room leaving the rest to her to do what she wanted with, and she did. Not that I could have stopped her even if I’d tried. My mother does not understand the word “respect” and she can’t understand that I want thing my way in my own home, not her way. But I was beginning to get it back, feeling good about myself. I got bored with the minigame and the videos, cleaning was more fun. Imagine that, I must be really sick, right? Now and then the over thinking would get to me, especially if I tried to sleep without NCIS playing in the background. I started to miss the writing, realizing that by putting my thoughts and worries in writing I didn’t have to keep them in my mind anymore. Not that there was any need to keep any of them anyway, but the art of overthinking has a tendency to consist of loops running through my mind like a playlist on repeat. Writing the thoughts down can help breaking that repeat pattern. Can doesn’t mean that it always works though. Still it made me miss my writing and my blog.

Another thing I didn’t find as fun or helpful without the social media was the photography. It’s not at all as fun when you don’t post the pictures online, on Instagram, in my case. Even though I hadn’t really been working my Instagram account for very long I had made friends and I started to miss them, to share pictures with them. I wanted to go back online, to my social media, to my friends, maybe even Minecraft. The thought of returning was with me for a long time before I actually made my comeback yesterday. I had thought about it before, but I didn’t feel ready. The new year felt like a good time to start over. Coming back online again I was met by many people welcoming me back, but also wondering what happened. I felt I had to explain, maybe as a last and final time to deal with what had happened. But, all that talk about it made it all come back. In the end of last night I felt as if I was back there again, feeling the way I did when it happened. I was shaking, crying, feeling terrible. And, I didn’t sleep last night. Right now I have been awake for almost thirty hours straight. I am back where I was again as if I didn’t take a long break to think, as if no time at all has passed, as if I haven’t gotten any better, not healed a bit. And I can’t help thinking that I made a mistake in coming back or at least that it was too soon.Or maybe I shouldn’t have come back at all, maybe I should concentrate on getting back on track with my offline life instead. Getting my health back, finding a job, maybe going back to uni eventually. Get in touch with my old friends again, people who live here, in my timezone, people I can have dinner with, go to a movie or a club. People I can hug for real instead of only through words on a screen… *hugs you*

Thirty hours, over a thousand words and now I do actually feel a little bit tired for the first time this year. Good night people, see you tomorrow. Virtual hugs to all of you!!!