#IWSG: Inspiration to Start Writing

Posted on by Astrid

It’s not the first Wednesday of the month, but the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG) day got set for today anyway because last Wednesday was New Year’s. I should really start to schedule these posts in advance, as right now I’m sick with the flu and not in the mood to blog. I mean, yesterday I ran a fever. Probably the days before too, but I didn’t have it checked then. Today I’m fine temperature-wise, but I still feel generally awful. I spent the entire day in bed.

This month’s optional question is what inspired you to start on your writing journey. The short answer is I don’t know. I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. My parents did encourage me, even though looking back I was a pretty awful fiction writer. Either they didn’t notice, which I doubt as my Mom read a lot, or they didn’t want to discourage me.

I first started writing actual stories and even what could’ve turned into books had I finished them when I was around thirteen. I don’t know what inspired me to draft those first manuscripts.

In the summer that I turned fourteen, I discovered my favorite Dutch YA author, Caja Cazemier. She was definitely an inspiration for me. A few of my stories actually contained a lot of plagiarism from her.

And then I discovered the Internet and I started writing for an audience. Well, at first I didn’t really care about an audience. My original online diary had about five readers including my parents and the site I hosted it on, didn’t have a comment function. I actually moved it to WordPress inspired by some criticism I’d gotten from my parents about it.

I’m not sure what else to say right now. I am currently very much inspired to continue writing by the people I meet online. I can’t even imagine writing without an audience in mind anymore.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 4, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

Even though I don’t join in nearly every week, I really missed the #WeekendCoffeeShare crowd over the holidays. I’m so glad the linky is back, so I’m joining in today. Grab a cup of your favorite hot or even cold beverage and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d say that I prefer water or green tea today, as I’m sick with a nasty cold or mild case of the flu. I can still drink coffee, but it doesn’t taste as good as does water or green tea.

My father-in-law was sick with the flu over the Christmas break. He ended up needing to go into hospital on the 27th for dehydration. Thankfully, he’s back home and slowly recovering. Then over New Year’s, my husband got sick. I seem to have caught it from either of them, but my mother-in-law says it’s a “men’s flu”, in that women don’t get it nearly as bad as men do. I’m hoping she’s right, although of course I hope my husband and father-in-law make a speedy recovery too.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that despite the flu going round my family, we had a good New Year’s. My husband and I went to his parents. One of my sisters-in-law joined us after dinner. I spent the evening mostly reading, while still sitting in the same room as everyone else, so that occasionally I could socialize.

If we were having coffee, I’d say that my 2020 is off to a pretty good start. I came back to the care facility early Wednesday afternoon, because my husband needed to drive me back. I relaxed some over Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, although on Thursday and Friday I did have day activities.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m feeling productive in regards to finding a solution for getting to my husband by public transportation. I had a bit of a crying fit last night because I thought we wouldn’t find a solution and I would struggle to see my husband regularly. My support coordinator E-mailed the behavior specialist though to help us think out a solution.

If we were having coffee, I’d want to share all about the books I’m looking forward to reading. I didn’t read at all today, but over the holiday break, have truly been enjoying reading. Of course, my virtual shelves are still stacked much fuller than my slow reading pace can follow, but so what? I’m a collector at heart, after all.

How have you been this past week and over the holidays?

Five Books About Life as a Doctor #Connect5Books

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I love reading books in which people share about their real life, including memoirs and diaries. I am also very interested in medicine. Today, I am joining in with Connect Five Books and sharing five books about life as a doctor.

1. For the Love of Babies by Sue Hall. This collection of stories from an American neonatologist is truly wonderful. I read it when it first came out in 2014 and it was one of my quickest reads at the time. As regular readers of my blog know, I was born prematurely and spent three months in the neonatal unit myself. However, in this book, Hall also shares about babies born with genetic syndromes or those born addicted to drugs their mothers used.

2. Cook County ICU by Cory Franklin. This book covers nearly fifty years of medical practice, from the author and his father, in an intensive care unit in Chicago. Franklin shares his experience becoming a doctor in the ICU very candidly, including how a supervisor tried to ruin his career because Franklin dared talk back to him. You’ll also read about some fascinating patients, such as some of the early cases of AIDS, before it was known to be AIDS.

3. Doctor’s Notes by Rosemary Leonard. This is a collection of stories by a south east London GP. I took a lot longer to read it than I did the above two books, but once I got into it, it was truly enjoyable.

4. Do No Harm by Henry Marsh. This is a book by a neurosurgeon. I have read a few chapters, but can’t seem to move along in it.

5. Tales From the Couch by Bob Wendorf. Okay, I’m cheating here, as Wendorf isn’t a medical doctor. He’s a clinical psychologist. However, psychologists in the United States are often referred to as doctors too. Each chapter in this book focuses on a particular psychiatric condition. I haven’t read much of this book either yet, but would like to.

Do you enjoy reading about people’s real life or about medicine?

My Hopes for 2020

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and a happy new year to you all! I’m wishing all my readers the best for 2020. May this year be filled with health and happiness.

Like last year, I don’t really do new year’s resolutions. That is, I’m calling them “hopes” as to have them give me less pressure. This may be a stupid mind trick, so that if I fail at all of them at the end of the year I can just say I wasn’t really meaning to stick to them. Well, anyway, here goes.

1. I hope to find a way to keep my marriage as strong as it’s now whilst I’m living in the care facility. This mainly means I need to find a way to keep seeing my husband despite the fact that I won’t have the ParaTransit to travel one way even once every other week. I really need to find a way to learn to travel by public transportation. The thought of which overwhelms me. Then again, the consequences of not making this work, are far, far worse. I have very conflicting feelings about this whole situation, which I won’t be sharing here.

2. I hope to settle in at the care facility, both the home and the day center, and find a routine that keeps me happy.

3. I hope to keep going for a healthier lifestyle. I first hope to be more mindful of my food choices. I mean, I did okay’ish over the holidays, eating far less than I would have had I not had it in mind that I ultimately need to lose all the pounds I put on. However, I still ate more than I should have.

I hope to stick to my habit of drinking two liters of fluid each day. I have occasionally lost track when at my husband’s, but did welll over the past month otherwise.

I really want to get into an exercise routine. I have a gym in mind that I may want to join in February (because everyone else joins the gym in January).

4. I hope to stick to a regular writing and blogging schedule. I won’t push myself to blog everyday or the like. I mean, I could be joining in with #JusJoJan again and I know the rules aren’t strict so this post counts too, but I think I’d rather jump in when a prompt speaks to me. I aim for a minimum of two posts a week, unless illness or technical problems get in the way.

Dreaming bigger, I hope to write another essay that could be published in an anthology in 2020. I mean, I’m still excited about the one piece I had published in 2015, but there must be more in store for me.

5. I hope to read more. The year is off to a good start, as I finished a book (okay, one I’d started reading in 2019) today. I really want toventure out into the book blogosphere, even though I have zero intention of becoming a real book blogger.

6. I hope I can get into a better self-care routine. This is really an excuse for me to explore more of mindfulness, essential oils, relaxation, etc. I often think that I need to be productive all day. Then recently I listened to a Podcast in which the presenters explained the importance of daydreaming. They linked a lack of it to dementia, which has me scared like crap, because whenever I’m not doing anything in particular, I tend to fall asleep. They didn’t say whether you can train yourself to daydream or whether this helps, but it can’t be bad.

What do you hope to achieve in 2020?

Reading Wrap-Up (December 30, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

It’s Monday again. Last week, I didn’t have much to share in the reading department, so I skipped my reading wrap-up. Then again, I’d never promised this would be a weekly feature. Today, I’m once again joining in with #IMWAYR, Stacking the Shelves and the Sunday Post.

This week was rather hectic. Of course it was, since it was Christmas time. I fully intended on spending a lot of my free time reading, but ended up sleeping some of it away instead. I also of course spent some time celebrating with family.

What I’ve Been Reading

First, I have to confess that I still, yes, still didn’t finish Left Neglected. I’m not even close, as my book app says I’ve read only 37%. I didn’t even read any further in Pictures of Me by Marilee Haynes. It probably proves how much of a mood reader I am, since this middle grade novel has been on my to-be-read list forever.

I did, after all, actually read an entire book. I finished A Baby’s Cry by Cathy Glass yesterday. It was a fascinating read! I have to say the more I read from Cathy’s fostering memoirs, the more I love them. This was an older book, having been published in 2014, so I’m not sure my readers would be interested in a review. I may post one anyway.

I’m really on the fence as to what should be my next read. Of course, I should be finishing Left Neglected, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood for adult fiction much right now. I could be starting one of the young adult books I added to my shelves recently, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood for fiction at all.

Stacking the Shelves

Like I said two weeks ago, I discovered Apple Books recently. The app has been behaving more or less as it should. Since I’m used to Kindle, I may still prefer that, but I am glad I have a choice now. Besides, Apple Books accepts payment through my Apple account, which makes it easier for me to buy books if I want to. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, will remain to be seen.

I added a bunch of free journaling books to my collection in Apple Books. Some of them cost money on Kindle, albeit only like €0,99, so I’m wondering what the catch is.

Then I added some books to my Bookshare collection. These include:


  • Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. I got the twentieth-anniversary edition that was published this year. It’s somewhat humbling to see young adult books were published in English twenty years ago, when I was thirteen. Of course they were, but I was an avid reader of Dutch YA at the time and read English only when I had to.

  • Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. The Dutch translation was on my to-be-read list before I’d gotten on Bookshare or had even discovered accessible eBooks, but I’m really looking forward to reading the original English.

  • Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott. I saw this book among the Goodreads Choice Awards nominees in the YA section and thought I’d like it.

What have you been reading?

2019: The Year in Review

Posted on by Astrid

Wow, can you believe 2019 is almost over yet? It was truly an eventful year. I want to do a review of the year. I originally intended on waiting till the 31st to do it, but I’m not sure I’ll have time for it then, as I’m celebrating New Year’s at my in-laws.

I had a theory when I was a teen that said life ran in cycles, by which every three years I’d find myself struggling significantly, then the next year would be one of hope, and the third year would be one of disillusionment, by the end of which I’d spiral into despair again. 2001, 2004 and 2007 were all years of despair, whereas 2002, 2005 and 2008 where years of hope. I didn’t continue to be superstitious about this past that point and honestly looking back each year was really a mixed bag. By this logic though, 2019 would have to be a year of despair. It was to begin with, but it ended on a really positive note, whereas by my teenage logic, the fall of the year of despair would be the hardest.

Well, let me say this year was extremely eventful indeed. At the end of 2018, we had just mailed out the application for long-term care funding. I started the year really hopeful by looking at a living facility and having my long-term care assessment in January. Then in February, I grew cynical. I decided everything wouldn’t be okay till 2021, as that would be the year people with lifelong psychiatric conditions would be allowed access to long-term care. I was right. My funding application got denied.

March, April and May were all largely months of waiting, as we sent out the appeal letter and my appeal was looked at. In late May, my support coordinator told me I would most likely not be granted long-term care funding this time either, but the lawyer in charge of my appeal was going to see if she could find a way to approve me anyway. She did somehow. I feel the long-term care regulations put people with multiple disabilities at a significant disadvantage. I remember writing blog posts explaining the legalities of long-term care back in like 2009 on my very first WordPress blog and I already felt the rigid care packages based on primary disability, were stupid. I don’t know how they managed to grant my appeal and even if I knew, I wouldn’t share it here.

By the time my long-term care funding was approved, my support coordinator had been informed that the care facility in Raalte with her agency had several available rooms. I started the intake process. By late August, just as I was losing hope again, I was told I would be accepted. I moved on September 23.

The past three months have been good. I feel a sense of calm, even though I still experience meltdowns. I had one tonight. Like a fellow patient on the locked unit said once, I can move around all I want, but I still need to look to myself for improving my own mental health.

When I looked at my review of 2018, I saw that my husband had been warming me up to us buying a house in his work city. I thought then that this may not happen if I go into long-term care, and indeed the house we bought isn’t in his work city. However, it’s still a house he likes. It is legally my house too, of course, which is good, in that I can move there if I ever get kicked out of long-term care. I also try to stay involved with renovation plans, but I struggle with this.

I took a look at my hopes for 2019 as I was preparing to write this review. I can be pretty satisfied with how I did on them. The only goal I didn’t meet, was to have a healthier lifestyle and lose weight. I’m doing okay on the healthier eating part, as I haven’t had binges much since coming to the care facility and make sure I don’t indulge into my every food whim. However, I don’t exercise nearly as often as I want to, though I get about as many active minutes as I did when living with my husband.

I did buy a new computer. Two, in fact, as I wasn’t happy with the Mac I bought and sold it to my mother-in-law. I am very happy with my current Windows PC though. Having a working computer again enables me to do so much more with my blog than I could when only using my phone. This helps me keep a regular blogging schedule too. Finally having found a feed reader that works in my browser, also helps. That was my only initial frustration with my current PC, as my Mac had a good feed reader and I struggled to find one for PC.

My last hope for 2019 was to stay mentally stable. I’m pretty sure I have reached this goal, as I’ve not been in serious crises at all. I’m also more than happy with how my staff handle my meltdowns or short crises as they do happen.

What a Year! #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

SoCS Badge 2019-2020

What a year it’s been! It had a lot of ups and some really deep downs too. I will post a year in review sometime in the next few days, as I can’t do them in stream of consciousness form. However, today I already want to say that this year was huge. Really, I’m still struggling to grasp that my twelve-year-old wish to find a suitable care facility finally came true.

I’m not sure what else I can say about this year. I mean, the whole year has been filled with first applying for long-term care funding. Then it was denied and I had to keep quiet on my blog and social media about it, in case someone from the funding agency would find out and use my writing against me. I still wonder whether the funding people might’ve read that one blog post I wrote on June 3. It was essentially a suicide letter in disguise. I mean, yes, it was positively worded, as a letter from myself in 2021, when everything would be okay and I would be in supported housing. However, it was clear to anyone reading between the lines that I was in a very dark place. The next day, my appeal was granted and funding approved.

Then I had to wait for another two months to find out I was accepted into the place I wanted to go into. It was the second care facility we’d been checking out. The other one was closer to my old home (and is also closer to our current home), but the vacant bed had been filled up by the time my funding was approved. I had my doubts about that place already, as I heard at my day center that staffing was cut at the day center people from there went to. It would’ve been nice if I could live in that facility, at least in that it’s closer to our home, but it works out now too.

I had lost hope again by the day the care consultant for my current care facility called my support coordinator to inform her that I’d been accepted. No depressing blog posts this time though. This was August 20. On September 23, I moved in. Wow, that’s already been three months!

I feel calm now. Calmer than I’ve felt in a long time. Not just today, but in general. Of course, I still get frustrated when my computer doesn’t do what I want, when I don’t understand a social situation or when I need to clean up a mess I created and don’t know where to start. I still have very poor distress tolerance and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. I still find that everyday life takes a lot of energy. However, emotionally speaking, I feel better. I don’t experience nearly the level of irritability I used to. More importantly though, my post-traumatic symptoms seem to have lessened. Yes, I’m still dissociative, but I don’t experience nearly the amount of flashbacks I’d experienced before.

For 2020, I really hope to be able to be more alert. That probably requires me decreasing my antipsychotic dose, which is a goal I have anyway. I want to experience the full range of emotions more. After all, now that I’m not overcome with emotional flashbacks that often anymore, I want to open up my mind to what life has to offer.

I’m linking up with #SoCS.

Something Between Me and God

Posted on by Astrid

So Christmas is over. My own family doesn’t care about it much. We didn’t visit my parents this year. My sister, brother-in-law and three-month-old niece saw our parents for a few days before Christmas. My husband had to work, so we didn’t have time to come over then. We could have come over today, but I personally don’t like visiting my parents if my sister and brother-in-law aren’t there too. All of us live in different corners of the country and my sister and husband both work irregular hours, so ideally we find a day when we can all be together. That doesn’t have to be at Christmas. It helps that my family aren’t religious. My parents are both atheists.

I am not an atheist, but I prefer not to subscribe to organized religion. Yes, I derive meaning from reading Christian devotionals and listening to Christian music. I also sometimes pray. I no longer attend church and never attended regularly. I take the Bible with a large bucket of salt. Yet I feel very touched by the nativity story.

Recently, when going through my Facebook profile and privacy settings, I chose to delete my religion off my profile altogether. It listed “progressive Christian” up to that point, but really I think it’s none of my 500+ friends’ business. My husband says religion is something between him and whatever higher power he believes in or not. It is not that I don’t want to share – I am doing that now -, but I don’t want to label my belief system. Maybe in some respects I’m still a seeker.

And yet, sometimes I wish I subscribed to an organized belief system. I mean, I love to connect to spiritual and religious bloggers, but it’s hard to find this connection without sharing their doctrine. Am I truly being honest when I tell a Christian blogger that I agree with their spiritual message even though on fundamental matters of doctrine, we most likely strongly disagree. I mean, my husband at one point read me the Nicene creed, on which all Christianity is based and I didn’t agree with some points.

Then again, it’s not up to the humans who wrote that creed to judge me at the end of times. They may kick me out of their blogging communities, but they won’t ultimately decide whether there’s an afterlife and if so, how I get to spend eternity in it.

I love to derive meaning from all sorts of spiritual sources. Most are either Christian or New Age-based. I don’t think believing in God and Jesus contradicts belief in one’s inner spiritual power. I don’t think I need to take the Bible literally or even semi-literally to consider myself religious. Like I said, my spirituality is something between me and God.

I’m joining in with RagTag Daily Prompt, for which the word today is Spiritual.

Monday’s Music Moves Me (December 23, 2019): My Favorite Christmas Songs

Posted on by Astrid

It’s already past 10PM Monday here and I really need to be in bed, but I really want to have a blog post up today too. Don’t ask me why, as I’ve gone days without blogging before and it’s never been a problem. I originally intended on doing another Reading Wrap-Up, but then spent so much time actually reading that I don’t think I’ve got time for one now. Instead, I’m for the first time in forever joining in with Monday’s Music Moves Me.

The theme all December is Christmas. I wonder whether next Monday people aren’t seriously tired of all the Christmas songs, as it’s nearly New Year’s then. Anyway, I’m not yet tired of them, though I must admit I rarely consciously listen to Christmas music. I remember when I had my radio preprogrammed on Sky Radio close to Christmas one year when I was around fourteen. Sky Radio is broadcasted as “the Christmas station” here around that time and it practically airs just Christmas music then. My father-in-law, who usually has Sky Radio on in his dentistry practice, changes to another station as soon as he hears the first Christmas song, usually sometime in the third week of November.

Anyway, I know quite a few Christmas songs through Sky Radio, but this station doesn’t air any of the newer ones. Or maybe it does now. I honestly haven’t been consciously listening in years. So I guess all my favorite Christmas songs are rather outdated.

My favorite one is It’s Gonna Be a Cold Cold Christmas by Dana. I somehow love her voice.

Next I guess would be Last Christmas by Wham as it’s practically the first Christmas song you’ll hear each year here. It’s a pretty bad earworm, but oh well.

Then of course I need to include a not-so-serious one and I’m obviously going with Tom Lehrer’s A Christmas Carol.

What are your favorite Christmas songs?

The Third Day of Christmas

Posted on by Astrid

I’ve seen a lot of people share their favorite holiday-themed memories. I’ve wanted to share mine, but also felt rather unmotivated to actually sit down and type. Today it’s Sunday and I came home to the care facility from spending the week-end with my husband earlier than usual. I guess it’s about time I share some Christmassy cheer.

My memory isn’t really about Christmas though. Or even boxing day. I know there isn’t such a thing as boxing day in the United States. Well, here in the Netherlands, what British folk call boxing day is called the second day of Christmas.

From there on, many people count the day after that, December 27, as the third day of Christmas. Some go on to count the fourth and fifth day of Christmas. I’ve never heard someone refer to December 30 as the sixth day of Christmas though, and the fourth and fifth days are rare too. But the third day of Christmas is pretty much a thing here.

I first met my now husband six weeks before landing in the mental hospital. I was hospitalized in early November and still didn’t have independent off-ward privileges by Christmas, let alone that I could visit family.

My now spouse had family obligations over Christmas and boxing day, of course, but he was free on the third day of Christmas. That’s how came he visited me in the hospital that day, December 27, 2007. Please realize we weren’t officially in a relationship then. He probably knew that he wanted to be by this time, as he told me he loved me on January 7, but I definitely wasn’t yet sure and just saw him as a friend.

Now that I write, I realize I hardly even know what we did that third day of Christmas. He probably accompanied me to the nearby hospital cafeteria, where we had a cup of Earl Grey tea. Or maybe I had coffee. I’m pretty sure he had some kind of tea.

A year later, in 2008, we were officially in a relationship and he asked to meet me again on the third day of Christmas. Same ward still, as I spent an incredibly long time (sixteen months) on the acute ward. I had off-ward and even town privileges by this time, but I think we met again at the cafeteria. He said the third day of Christmas was our traditional day to meet from then on. I’m not sure whether we stuck to it much, but this year, inbetween the two days of Christmas and the week-end that follows, I’m also spending the third day of Christmas in our home.