Month: April 2018

Spring Raven Photo, Poem and Delusion Rant

(today’s blog below)

 

The Birds are Calling My Name

 

 

As I walk I am filled with pain

The birds are calling my name

All around me people stare

How can they look and all be aware?

 

I know I was sick like this before

and it opened wide the door

For delusional dreaming and pain

But the problem still remains

 

The birds are calling my name

I am scared and filled with shame

How did I deserve this hell

I wish I could crawl into a shell

 

The birds they call my name

And there is no one really to blame

My life will end in pain

As all creation calls out my name

 

Leif Gregersen

April 30, 2018

 

Well, it has been something of an unhappy weekend. I wrote down all the things that are giving me stress right now and tried to deal with them. But in reality, problems with money, problems with relationships, not feeling motivated and experiencing depression seem to all come down to simply being lonely. One of my best friends is far away in Greenland and I don’t get a lot of visitors that can cheer me up, so I think that is a critical part of it. For the record, I do take anti-depressants but they don’t seem to be keeping me going 100%. Plus I have been isolated for a few days. When I get back from a May trip, I am going to try a new injectable medication that is supposed to work better on my psychosis, and also increase my moods a bit. I am a bit torn right now because I am wondering if medication or situation is more important when speaking of depression. I suppose they come in combination with each other. I was doing some research and read that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy alone has been proven to work better than medication alone. I do believe that it is important to try and get both, to face up to your psychological difficulties and also to use medication to maintain a proper balance of the chemicals in your body that can keep you depressed. Well, this is going to be a short blog entry today. I hope you enjoyed the content dear readers. I think I am going to do some creative searching and see if I can line up a counselling session. I went to drop-in counselling before and it was really helpful. I hope some of you out there who are suffering can do the same.

LG

 

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Coping With a Sleep Disorder and Bipolar

(scroll down for a look at today’s poem)

 

So, for those of you who don’t know, this is me some years ago. Since then I have gained a few pounds, my hair is not naturally blond anymore and I have quite a bit more money than I did then. This picture shows me wearing faded jeans with holes in them, a leather jacket my brother gave me and a sweater that used to be my Dad’s. Funny how when you look back, in some ways you had everything someone could wish for, but at the same time had nothing.

In this picture I was still a young man yearning to be a writer. Now, I am actually a person who is considered a professional writer. As I did then, I now live alone, but have a lot more supportive and encouraging friends in my life. I think back then I had a condition similar to the one I have now, that is a sense that I’m not really there, that the things going on around me aren’t real.

Anyhow, to get down to brass tacks, once again I have found myself needing to get to sleep for something important and completely unable to sleep. I have even taken some melatonin and a sleeping pill together and can’t even seem to lay still in bed. I often wonder if a day filled with high energy activating does this to me. Yesterday I took a long walk with my dad and then went for an invigorating swim. First thing this morning, I walked about six kilometres to an appointment and back, then walked later to a hospital to visit a sick friend.

I don’t really seem to understand what the solution is to this dependence I seem to be getting for sleep aids. I know that if I go on the ones my doctor will eventually prescribe that they will start to affect my memory. I also know that there are certain rules I am not following regarding my sleep. The first one, is that often I sleep in. The second is that I don’t avoid caffeine after a certain hour, and one of the worst ones is that I often take naps. If I could somehow stop doing these things I am sure I will be able to lick my problem with sleeping pills, but they can be very hard things to do, especially when a person doesn’t work full-time. I don’t know now if I am able to work full-time, though I do feel I am close. It almost scares me that in my life I have never really held down a full-time job for any amount of time. I just end up getting too stressed out, I become unable to sleep as always and walk around work like a zombie. Eventually I just sleep in, unplug the phone and let them fire me as I get the morning rest I feel I desperately need. This is a luxury I am sure is not available to millions of people who have a mental illness and don’t have a disability pension.

Well, that is about all I can type on that subject for now. I think I am going to try and write a poem today, any feedback would be appreciated.

 

Years, Months, and Days All Slip By In a Haze

 

life keeps lingering in the dark wee hours

the joys of youth slip away that once were ours

we long for days when resting simply meant putting down your head

now I begin to fear my next refreshing rest will come when I’m dead

 

To think of times of stuffy bears and being tucked in by dad

the only joy I needed in life was the love my family had

a brother, sister, mom, and dad and a little cat

riding bikes with friends far and wide with my Pittsburg Pirates hat

 

summer came so slowly and slipped away so fast

now it seems that summer only meant happiness far back in the past

I don’t want to reminisce too much and cut open a scar

Because I know when I think of my departed mom my thinking has gone too far

 

So let me dream of the future, accept but forget the past

let me think of conquests and adventures that soon will go by so fast

In honesty it feels so good to live alone and choose my own personal fate

I have everything I wanted now, including freedom for which I no longer have to wait

 

Yes it was hard to lose my mom and one day I will lose my father too

I can’t explain how I will feel on that day or what things I will have to do

I just know that being a grown-up means facing some pretty harsh realities

But it all can be so special because as a grown-up you are free.

 

 

Insomnia, Gambling, and the dangers of the Stock Market

 

Well, dear readers, I have to make an apology. It has been a long time since I added anything to the front page of this blog. A lot has been going on in my life, I have made a decision to write a third mental health book, something of a recovery manual for those who are family members, caregivers, or sufferers of mental illness, and it is becoming a task larger than I expected. I have felt a bit reluctant to post here because I don’t want to put out information that I will want to copyright on here because I want my blog to continue to be something people can read and share and pass on to each other without concern.

As far as mental health coping skills go, I feel I have been doing something I shouldn’t. All my life I have had bouts of insomnia and recently I have been given the option by my psychiatrist to use melatonin and other mild drugs to help get me to sleep. Then a week ago I felt I was coming down with a cold, and I medicated myself with these and also cough syrup for two days. Whether or not I really was sick was questionable, but the question of whether I was overusing medications to help me sleep wasn’t. It may seem odd, but I worry a lot about addictive behaviour. Those of us who have mental health issues often fall prey to quick solutions to minor problems and eventually end up having much more serious problems. So, for the past two nights I have forced myself to sleep without any type of sleep aid at all, and I may even return the pills my doctor gave me to the pharmacy if I feel strong enough after a few more days. The lighter side of that is that often when I sleep without any type of help I often get up in the middle of the  night and have time on my hands, so you may soon see me on this blog.

One thing I also wanted to mention is that I have found a new mental health group to be a part of, it is called 18percent.com and they have a message forum where I have been meeting some interesting and supportive people. There is a link at the right hand side bar (the orange frame around the head) which is a clickable link that will take you to the website should you choose to check it out yourself.

All in all though, things have been going fairly well. A few weeks ago I invested in a stock and have watched it each weekday going up and down and it is now down just about as far as I would ever want it to go. There is a good chance unless the American economy completely tanks that this stock will do well, but I really don’t think that this legal form of gambling is a good way to get ahead. I find myself feeling incredibly powerless as the stock moves and it seems to cause me a great deal of stress, even though I invested no more than I could afford to lose. So that is my advice for today. Try and not do what I keep seeming to do, which is get into trouble by thinking there are shortcuts in life. I have built my reputation up with a non-profit here in Edmonton to the point where they want me to teach classes both in wellness and recovery and creative writing, and I think the money they pay me if carefully used and saved up will be a lot more than I could earn gambling on penny stocks. There is of course also the greater fear that if I allow myself the vice of this type of gambling, I weaken my will against going and doing even more damaging types of gambling in casinos and at poker tables and such. I appreciate you reading all the way down to this point, I hope all of you have another day of wellness, and welcome any feedback or comments you may wish to make.