Writing to heal

I’m going to try this again. It’s been kind of off and on this year, mostly off to be honest. Partly it’s been my fault, partly it’s been the doctors making me stay so long in hospital. Not just once, but twice. I have been writing, just not on a computer and definitely not online. Even if you have access to Internet and a charger it isn’t funny to write a thousand words on a cell phone. Add to that you have to count the words yourself. Internet access isn’t in a way guaranteed. There is a patient’s net, but that’s not in range in all parts of the hospital and naturally I was in one of those places where it was very difficult. If you didn’t have your own connection that is and since my phone had been disconnected for a year it cost me a lot to get it reopened. Open now, I have no idea how I could be without it for so long.

I have still been doing the thousand words a day challenge, in a way. The first thing I did when I had been shown around the first place I stayed at was get my hands on that pad I’d seen in one of the activity rooms, and a pencil from another room. Then I started writing and I never stop. I got so used to it I still usen pad and pencil to write.

Finding myself in that environment, where I couldn’t keep watching TV-shows all day and night I had to find something to ease my anxiety, my panic attacks. The only new medication I got was the most awful tasting liquid that works wonders if you want to sleep. It’s like a toothpaste on steroids, it’s not minty fresh, it’s minty death. But, like I said, it works. I’m almost living, and sleeping, in the right time zone. However, the anxiety, the panic attacks could still creep up on me both night and day. I found that writing about whatever was bothering me helped. My thoughts could be racing around my mind like formula one cars on a racetrack. I couldn’t catch them, stop them or do anything constructive with them. Except writing. When I wrote about whatever it was, often a lot of various things, the way I was thinking changed. Instead of just standing there with my head spinning as the cars were racing in my mind I could take control. It just happened without me doing anything but writing. I could sort out what was unimportant. Those thoughts would disappear as soon as I wrote them down. If someone had said something that disturbed me I could write about what they had said or done, how I felt and why they were wrong. I don’t know about you, but I often find the right thing to say long after the conversation is over. It helps me to write that down. Most times I don’t even need to tell that other person about it. Other times it’s like a rehearsal for a necessary conversation I’ll need to have later.

The first place I was in we were two people sharing a room that really was supposed to be a single room. We didn’t have a lot of space as you might imagine. The other girl was having a very hard time and cried a lot in the dark. I didn’t want to disturb her so I often wrote in the dark. There was just enough light to see where I had written before. It was impossible to see what I wrote. Apparently the function of the writing isn’t to sort the race cars, hmm racing thoughts, out on a piece of paper. It’s the activity itself. The writing in itself makes the difference. Instead of helplessly watching the cars/thoughts fly by I gain control. And the thinking, the thoughts themselves become different. I guess I’m so used to writing for an audience, used to trying to make sense for others that the change becomes automatic.

Standing there, not being able to control your own thoughts, having them passing by so fast you almost don’t even know what it was… it’s scary. It kind of hurts in a way. I do realize that my hospital visits, unplanned as they were, have brought up a lot of things, have forced me to think about a lot of things that I normally wouldn’t think about. It made for a lot more material for my mind to play with. Let the overthinking begin!!! Or, I’d prefer not.

Since I came home from hospital this last time I’ve drifted more and more into the TV-shows again and I’ve almost been afraid of taking the blog up again. Last time. Oh, I do hope it’s the last time. I am so done with the hospital. Funny thing though, I’ve actually missed the hospital, almost wanted to go back. It was easy there. They wake you up in the morning with the medicine, you get dressed and go have breakfast. Them you make your bed, comb your hair and brush your teeth. The you rest until lunch. Then you rest until afternoon “fika”, that is tea or coffee and cookies and cinnamon rolls. Great for a diabetic, fortunately one of the other patients took 75% of it. Then you rest until dinner. The meals were microwaved, we could choose from a few courses. Well, not me. I’m allergic to onion, paprika and cabbage or whatever you call that vegetable family. Only sad part is that the kitchen interpreted no onion and that as no salt and no seasoning at all. Either way, after dinner you rest until evening “fika” and then you get your night medication and go to bed. At 8 pm?!?!

I know that this blog has helped me before. I want to get back to doing this blog again. I guess my fear might be of failing again. I’ve tried to get back, but it hasn’t worked. I don’t want to come back just to stop again. Anyway I’ve more than one thousand words now.

Thank you for your visit. I wish you a wonderful June, warm, sunny and with lots of ice cream to keep it cool.