Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The contribution of medications

The day started alright.

I stayed in bed for a little bit more because I sort of got a cold, my gum did not feel too well and I, to be honest, did not really want to wake up.

Got out of the bus, I found myself not yet able to think.

I figured that it is either I was still in a state of sleep walking or the effect of the morning pill, Zoloft, had not kicked in.

Arriving at my office, I found myself not quite sure how to get the engine started.

After the consumption of a full cup of coffee, a chocolate scorn, and a smoke later, I found the inner meow awaken, ready to tackle the tasks at hand with no reservation.

With the help of my second coffee of the day, I found my brain firing away and my mood elevated.

Later in the afternoon, I finally made it to the class. The body getting tired though the brain was still working.

Getting back to work, I was back to feeling the ordinary sense of hyperactivity.

The only difference observed was… I could not stop crave for food. I searched through the refrigeration looking for food.

Food was the only thing in my mind… I want food.

When I finally got settled down and when people in the office were gone for the day, I sat down to do my time for the night shift.

Gradually, I found myself getting more and more tired.

I wanted to go home. I was ready to crash.

Despite of the sense of amotivation, I strived to hold on the last thing I have called “discipline.”

Interventions applied to human beings need to be grounded on theories.

Research questions, hypotheses and evaluation measures have to be derived from sound theoretical framework.

I could see the skeleton and now is the time to beef it up with meat.

“Attachment” is the key word submitted. Using attachment as a key word returned thousands and thousands of publications.

It was a long long time ago when I last touched the attachment topic, in theory and in practice.

The last time I tried to search for literature about attachment, I had not crossed the boundary of sanity and insanity.

It was the same feeling I had the other day when I put on that bright orange t-shirt of mine with words writing across--- “Fugitive (You never saw me). The same feeling I got, the day before, when I found the picture of mine as the bride’s maid at my best friend’s wedding.

The last time I walked down the street with this shirt was in 2001. The text written on the shirt was my statement for all those people who were watching (both in reality and in imagination).

In the picture taken at my friend’s wedding, I was the replacement bride’s maid who happened to fit into the dress my friend’s parents brought from Taiwan while the other friend could not fit into it.

The last time I touched the attachment theory was long before I walked down the street with that orange shirt and before my friend’s cousin, after the wedding ceremony, described me as a geisha because of the heavy makeup applied to the face above that overseas dress.

Both the shirt and the wedding picture were acquired at a precious time of ignorance.

It was a time when I did not know that I could be psychotic. It was also a time when I was in the dire of the onset of my psychotic episode. It was a time when I thought I knew something about psychopathology.

At the same time, it is amazing to see my mind generating nonsensical questions such as, “Is God trying to tell me something.” It is even more interesting to see how a mind could group a bunch of insignificant events together to come up with some indicator of some sort of significance.

Let me get back to my ordinary chore of the day so that tangential thoughts could not lead me off the track of reality…

After I reshelf my babies (I mean laptops and their accessories), I hurriedly packed up my stuff so as to head back to my rat nest for I felt that I was about to crash.

Carrying my heavy backpack plus a bug full of 5 pairs of shoes doesn’t really make it easy to walk (courtesy of my beloved boss and her ever growing daughter lol).

I found myself dragging my two feet and all the weights above them worse than usual.

It almost feels like I was the hunchback in Notre Dame, sluggishly moving down Broadway, when the weight of the backpack could no longer help to adjust the posture.

Dragging myself down the road, I moved passed these two lady carrying a conversation on the sidewalk.

I overheard one said, “… and a short career.”

I thought to myself… “Are they talking about my short career at my new position?”

I, immediately, corrected myself, “Delusional.”

I was able to immediately let go of that incidence because I found myself starting to be crushed by the invisible weight placed… overall.

1-2 more blocks later… An image came into my mind and revealed to me the key to the puzzle.

Why have I been feeling this way?

I saw the remaining part of the Zoloft before I placed it into the pill cutter this morning.

I could see the 50% line on the remaining portion of Zoloft when I was putting it down.

I must have thought to myself then… “Today is a lower dosage day.”

It also occurred to me that I had skipped my dosage on Sunday because I woke up late and did not rush to go anywhere. That day, I did feel pretty depressed and did get caught by the benchmark though of depression… “Am I but wasting the resources on this planet?”

More over, it has been a week or two since the dosage of Zoloft is cut back down.

That explains why I have been feeling so very tired so easily and so frequently recently.

In my mind, I heard myself saying, “I’d rather be a happy psychotic than a depressed neurotic.”

That had almost turned to be one of my motto.

The only minor problem now is… Unfortunately, I might have to go through sometime being a depressed psychotic.

The system, again, is trying to reach a state of equilibrium. Just I don’t know when… and I will not allow myself to talk like this again for there is food, exercise, coffee, cigarette and etc that would eventually help me to reinvent… (got the feeling that I gotta give my positive self a chance to throw in its two cents.. lol)

Never promised you a rose garden, eh….


  

Friday, November 4, 2005

Million Dollar Baby

It is a strange feeling.

When I was waiting for the bus to go to work, I had a sudden realization…

It is Thursday again and soon it will be the weekend.

Time just flies and I am not even quite sure what I have accomplished the entire week…

I went about my daily chore and soon it was about the evening.

Knowing that four of the movies I borrowed from the library were actually due yesterday, I, unfortunately, had to shuffle the studious students out earlier so that I could bring the videos back to the library before closing.

In a rush, I got back home, got back out and arrived at the library on time.

The fastest way to deal with the adrenaline rush was the cancer stick.

Getting home early for a change is actually fairly relaxing.

I fixed myself some veggies with noodles and put on the movie “Million Dollar Baby.”

I had thought the movie to be one with a good ending… In my expectation, the million dollar baby will finally, after all the obstacles, win that championship and get that money. I thought, after the movie “π” I saw yesterday, tonight, the movie will bring the mood up for a change.

But, alas, another sad movie…

Legally blonde might have been a safer bet to ensure the stability of the swinging mood.

In a season when the exposure to sunlight is cut short, this would not really be on my recommendation list for people with the propensity for seasonal mood disorder. lol

At some point, in the movie, the million dollar baby went back home to visit her family.

Her mother said to her, “They know what you do. They all laugh at you.”

I thought about myself and my blog.

“Will they feel the same about my blog?”

Non-sensical a question again since “they” is a third person pronoun and it is we who really constitutes my reality.

Lucky enough, my daddy would even pull money out of his own pocket if I were to publish a book about my psychotic existence for this is not a book for me.

Rather, it is a book for people I know who could not have lived a life with my degree of functionality.

I know, if my uncles who lived their life as schizophrenics could know or comprehend, they would be more than happy for me, if not, proud of me, simply because I live.

Yes, at times, this though would sneak up my mind…

My blogging has nothing to do with letting people know that mentals could also be functional.

Rather, it is a way for me to persuade myself by making the implicit thoughts explicit, and, to reinforce their impacts via feedback through the heptic (typing), auditory (my thoughts are presented in auditory format in case yours are different lol), and visual (text are visual inputs) channels.

Which is the real cause is again a non-sensical question to be addressed.

So, what else have I done recently?

I see myself to start finding meanings again in attachment theory.

Since information stored in my long term memory might not be as accurate and complete as could be, after I got home, I browsed through the book shelves looking for the old texts addressing the issue of attachment theory and its implications.

Unfortunately, can’t find any.

It is not because I have never had texts of this sort… Rather, it’s a result of the exit strategy…

When my parents went back home this time, they brought back with them most of the materials relating to the psychology discipline.

Well, shall I not find a full time job, this, at least, would cut down much cost on shipping and handling… lol

Unfortunately, that smart move is now sort of back firing at me for no reference is available in need.

I won’t be bothered though in the face of the inconvenience for the pendulum of outcomes swings… sometimes in the favorable direction while other times in the less well received direction.

Could only leave it to time to balance out the spreadsheet…

By the way, I think in another 2 weeks or so I could start considering cutting down on the dosage again based on the following two observations:

  1. First, the degree of obsession about other people seems to have become mitigated 
  2. Second, I am becoming more bitchy, which is an indicator of the breaking down of the belief system about being monitored moment-to-moment. (Yes. The only time when I am totally understanding and all angelic is when I am psychotic. In a “normal” state of mind, I am actually reasonably bitchy. meow meow meow lol)


Thursday, November 3, 2005

The Patterns: Re-thought

Yet, I see the patterns and I can't yet let go look for The Pattern.

Easier to say than to do...eh... lol 

Pattern

Pattern

After I got home, I decided to take a break and watch a film.

The film I chose to was “Π” (Pi).

What a smart choice.. lol

In case you don’t know, this is a movie about some genius mathematician who was well endowed with psychotic symptoms.

The scary thing was… I could connect with the experiences of the lead actor through out the film.

The delusions. The hallucinations. The lost in the twilight zone between reality and imagination.

The obsession about the patterns and the pattern.

I watched the film and I felt sorry for him.

The medications did not seem to work too well and the side effects were too strong.

He needed modern antipsychotic medication and hospitalization.

His brain worked and he would not let go.

I thought to myself…

This is the reason why I promise myself to be dumb down to the lowest common denominator for I am and will not be him.

I will take a bath and smell the roses.

He finally realized that it was his brain that he had to let go…

Yes. When the time comes, one needs to let go.

Genius or not.

Entering the gate towards psychosis, genius or non-genius, all equal.

All that one could hold on to is to be—functional.

All else is vain and non-sensical...

Well, except for being human and do the humanly deeds such as caring for those who care for you....