A whole lot of nothing day

Today is quite a day for my head although nothing really happened today.

Found some old meds that I cut out from before…

One piece must have been over 170 something mg due to the imprecision of my pill cutting skill.
Last night, I thought to myself… to hell, nothing much to do tomorrow, might as well take this super sized one.

Only to find out today-- a day of dumb-dumbness as a blatant consequence of my own dumbness.

In the afternoon, around 1, I picked myself up wanting to go to the gym. After picking up my cup of coffee from the usual joint, on the street, I found myself sleepy and decided to come back home to get some more sleep.

When I got back, mama was still in the kitchen.

I told her what I did last night and I told her that I was going back to get more sleep. And, I went back to sleep.

Staring in the air or the TV set with nothing on.

Making no sound and wanting no sound either.

No speaking and not wanting to eat much.

Slept a whole lot and wanting nothing but to sleep a whole lot more.

Mama found me wired while knowing the cause.

“You looked “loosing soul” today.” She said.

While at the same time, no much to cause her worries, “You always adjust well.”

“Never mind of me today cuz all you see is the meds. Go back and do what you are doing and I will do a little bit of walking around myself.”

Mama got back to check on her stock market and resumed her ordinary self-talk.

I walked around and come back to the computer to finish typing these sentences out.

I will get back to sleep in an hour or two. So shall I end the day of losing soul for the lost soul in limbo. Lol :-x

The moral of the lesson... don't play with drugs or the drugs shall play ya.... lol :-x
  

craving and meaning

Meaning meaning and craving for more meanings.

Other than the unnecessarily excessive amount of air in my ratty brain that is supposed to have shrunken and shrunken more as years go by... as the neurochemical imbalance eventually turned into organic abnormality… :-O

This is the reason why it is of even greater importance for me to find meanings in my lives… first, second, up to n.

The other day, as I was standing there having my smoker’s first cigarette for the day, whatever it is came down like it always does and started whispering to me…

“Don’t think about the..”

Before hearing the whole sentence, automatically, my head tried to complete the sentence for whatever it is with the phrase, “bad things.”

Only to realize that the sentence it started to repeat was actually…

“Don’t think about good things. Don’t think about bad things.”

It didn’t really make sense and, for a moment, I felt a bit disappointed by the decreased mythical level of my delusions. lol

To make sense of the voices, I pondered, stopped thinking of it, and, back to my mind again these thoughts this evening.

Think about nothing essentially because you need to first find something to think about before you could put forth efforts to think about it.

The toughest job, in my opinion, is to find that something that will add into my life an integrated sense of meaning…. (and what does that mean? 8-O)

The Unbearable Meaninglessness of Life

It was not until the past week or two when the engine of my head finally started rolling again.
Through out the past 3+ months, I had been dealing with the adjustment of medications and its consequences.

The period of 3+ months constantly attempting to adjust to the chemically induced neurochemical imbalance was a long time wasted.

At the same time, one could also see it as an express process to go from the dosage of approaching 450 to 175 mg on Seroquel within a period of 3+ months.

Week by week, I waited for the state of homeostasis to come back.

Time and again, I had to live through the yearning, tearing, and fatigue attacks in the middle of the day.

For quite a while, the only way for me to walk on my two feet with my head up was to go to the gym to get a good shot of endorphins.

But the impact of the endorphins could only last so long and the days had to go on without it.
Other people might not notice it.

Yet, I knew it.

I lost my ability to attend, which led to the disability to comprehend and perform other higher level cognitive functions, followed by problems with my short-term memory.

The motivation level was off and far too off for me to make attempts to attenuate.

Yet, other people couldn’t have known it because I could still uni-task and things intact with my ability to retrieve information from my long term memory.

The awakening

The more cognitive functioning and motivation I regained; the more upset I felt about the time lost and wasted.

The prolonged state of being…
almost like trying to start a car while the engine just doesn’t want to start.
like knowing your car could go much faster while it only moves at a snail’s pace.
It was my awareness of the gap between who I could be and what state I was in that was driving me crazy—though already crazy by default

Then, one day, I really made up my mind.

The sharing through my blog only provides a case study with limited generalizability to the experiences of the others.

So, getting paid or not… I am gonna sign up to be a participant for the schizo kinda studies.

Social Loafing

Let me still be researchable.

Let me be that row in your dataset.

Let me be that dot in your analysis.

Let me hope that to be a useful dot in your sea of data. Outlier or not.

Let me give you the burden of understanding our collective being for I might have stopped kicking before we get to connect the dots.

Let you be my extended cognition to off set some of my meaning craving so that I could go back to my life working on deadlines to be made and tasks to be accomplished (including finding a good paying job and a rich husband who lets me use my money lol).

Plan B

Would it work?

Always could find some slacks to come up with plan Bs except for how could such efforts translate into meanings?

Time and again

Time and again, I wonder through life thinking much has been moving forwarded--- only to realize that back to the ground zero again…

After my last posting… up lifting and so forth…

The reduction of Zoloft had its effects kicked in.

I did not realized it until the full-blown episode of the depression manifested itself in the form of anger etc…

It was only until then did I realize that I had wasted away a whole week of my life unmotivated and allowed myself accomplishing nothing.

After the meeting with the psychiatrist, I came straight home and took the dosage that was missing in my system.

The effect kicked in immediately.

With exercises, I was able to get on with my everyday life and continue with lab-rat kind of inquisitive explorations.

The whole week of slacking did not help in the need of meeting deadline.

I was supposed to send in an assignment for this course I am taking.

In an email, I explained to the professor, “I have been sort of under the weather” and will have to hand things in a bit later.

Another week went by.

I gradually came to notice the growing sense of detachment from the world and, thereafter, the loss of ability for me to concentrate.

It occurred to me that… possibly, what the feeling of the world is not real might have something to do with my inability to concentrate….

I shouldn’t have waited another 3 days before the adjustment in the meds to take place.

However, I thought to myself… I should be able to hold it till my Monday meeting with the doctor and to show this other state of my routine life.

Ended up, it was a bad judgment call on my part because, by Monday, my short term memory had shrunken a few digits and my reading comprehension was gone.

Walking down the street from my day job to my night job, I looked around the detached surrounding, only to realize that, the last time I felt this way, in the coo-coo’s nest I was on the 8th floor.

On Tuesday, after the minor decrease of my dosage, I sensed an increase in the motivation level although, still, despite conscious efforts, my attention span only allowed me to read 5-6 words each “span,” which did not really help me in comprehending the texts I was attempting to read.

To compensate for my reading disability, I eventually came up with the coping mechanism of switching from concept grapping to key word scanning when making my attempts to read. After trying for God-Knows-How-Long to beat my shortened attention span, I found out that, although I have difficulties holding on to external inputs, I have no problem accessing my long term memory. In response, I started to force myself to divide sentences into chunks of 4-5 words, scan for key words and use the key words to for force out some relevant prior knowledge.

Assimilation and accommodation--- Never knew before how synchronously these two processes play out in my everyday life until then.

In retrospective, it just occurred to me that such must be what starting and/or struggling readers experience in their everyday life and I am blessed to not having to be stuck in that state of frustration--- I guess.

That day, I considered all options, reflected on my progression so far, and felt that I was still too much drugged out. Yet, my doctor’s worries don’t seem to be too aligned with my anal retentiveness about keeping my cognitive capacity (and that’s what I said to the doctor at the emergency room the very first time I got myself admitted into the hospital).

For the first time in my life, I turned myself into a patient, non-compliant.

I had the dosage lowered by another 25 mg that night, waking up still feeling all drugged out-- yet, with reading disability of lesser degree of severity.

Overnight, I found myself transformed from a chicken without a head to a headless chicken (with higher degree of energy or one might pathologize it as hyperactivity).

Today is Thursday.

On my way home, I found myself still stuck in a sense of disassociation from the external world.

I got home at 7:00 and felt I was gonna go directly to bed to take a good nap.

Yet, I knew that I have a choice that patients in the psychiatric ward do not have.

I could go to the gym and I know, on the exercise machine, my head could focus and I will be able to read.

And, I went to reclaim my cognitive capacity—temporarily—Yet, I got it.

On my way home, it snowed… or flurry, what you might call.

I looked into the light and watched the flurries coming down.

With the contribution of endorphins, I stood there—realizing that, it has been a while, since I felt, in this world, I am alive.

Earlier in the day, I went to a talk where the speaker referenced to a poem by W.H. Auden regarding the merciful mechanism in the human mind.

For me, I would rather deconstruct that mechanism of mercy in search a state of living.

I do not live to be shortened on my cognitive capacities—be it the result of psychiatric problems or the side effects of medications.

So, it was yesterday, on my way home. It occurred to me that—what a waste of my life… all these attempts and slacks put forth to cope and to survive. It was also yesterday when I had to send the same professor, again, another email, “It is going to sound like the dog ate my homework again…. But I have been sort of under the weather again this past week or so and will try to get the homework out asap.”

Why can’t I be like anyone else?

How could I be under the weather while I am healthy like a cow?

Then, the thought came up reminding me that, no matter what I do not have, I have my blog.

I don’t know what good my blog could do. I could only wish for some good for the collective.

And, I guess, that would be the only way for me to make sense of my life so far—the tearing from drug withdraw, the amotivation, the decapacitated cognitive ability, and the whole 9 yards.


This is, I guess, the only thing I could hold on to, when it snows in April—it is ground zero again and, based on the progression so far, the cycle will, very likely, never end (at least until I stop kicking)…

Depressed?

Well, not too depressed. Just a bit of sentimental in my reflection in action. lol

The selfish me, also, beg you to live your life, for, your life-- I shall hold it as mine (and that shall be taking vicarious learning, collective cognition, extended cognition, relational self, interdependent self, and the collective cultural values to the highest degree 8-O lol)

Also, the inability to identify the problems earlier on tells me to be humble-- before the mental God... lol

Another day in Paradise

I have to admit to myself that some sort of delusion has been formed.

I am still aware that it is a delusion since I have never gotten any confirmation about anyone I don’t know was talking about me. Ok. That’s called the grandiose delusion. What this means is that, reality is not yet too much away from earth. lol

To cut the story short, in my delusion, a huge percentage of the University has been informed in some way about my drama. This is either via word of mouth, email or some website that publicizes my case. This is not the first time when I incorporate the modern technologies in my scenarios. What this means is that the contents of delusions do catch up with the Zeitgeist.

Also, either the bartender got fired or he 86ed me so that I should never get back to the joint again. Some people are in my league while others think I am all bullshit (oops, pardon me for my French). Of course, when I walked down the street or sat on a bench, the usual suspects still picked on me… auditory hallucination, referential ideology, and the sense of distress.

I believe the medication is doing its work, just taking its time. Since my mother is arriving next Monday and I intend to get much more stabilized by then, I am starting to have the feeling that maybe I should talk with my psychiatrist about upping my dosage even more. However, this is just a though. Believe me I am no fan of medications.

I started my day at 9:00 all energetic and, by 2:00 o’clock, I started feeling sleepy. By the time I got off work, believe me, I could not stop yarning for the entire 10 blocks home. I observed some new side effects today. I went right into bed as I stepped into my door. However, even though I was really tired and sort of sleepy, I just could not fall asleep.

I eventually got up and decided to take a walk outside. As you might guess, I also aimed to test my condition again.

I walked down the street aimlessly until I finally stopped at the Statue of the Alma Mater. I sat on the bench for a while, reminiscing what happened before my last hospitalization. This was one of the last stop before the emergency room last time. At that time, I was worried about the life and death of all the people I knew. It is still painful revisiting the old delusions.

However, when rethinking my past and comparing it to the present, I realized, maybe not the first time, that the bottom line is that I long for recognition. I want people to recognize the quality of my research, my work as well as recognize my struggles. This is why I perceived that people were talking about me. Ya, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure this out. However, it is difficult to admit to it, the sense of grandiosity.

Well, for me, it is actually getting a bit boring reporting my symptoms. It was just like I actually got bored about complaining when I was sliding into the dire of depression. For the sake of documentation, today, I started perceiving some degree of memory loss. I forgot what I wanted to do and, within a conversation, I forgot what I wanted to say more frequently. My affect has also turned much flatten. Worst of all, I could not stop thinking about food and eating. Moreover, meat has been in my mind, especially beef… No wonder they provide 6 meals in the coo-coo’s nest and didn’t I mention in one of my previous posting that I would gain a few ponds? lol

As you could see, at this point, the triggering event is no longer anything significant to my current condition. One thing I learned all these years is that, if the system should crash, any event could be that triggering event.