Fight for the Light #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

SoCS Badge 2019-2020

Sigh
I fight
For the light
That’s out of sight

Those were the words that popped up into my mind when I read this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. I have absolutely no idea why these words popped up. I guess it’s something to do with the lingering effects of my crisis two weeks ago. I’m still kind of depressed.

However, there’s also some hope shining through in my words. Just because the light is out of sight, doesn’t mean I don’t fight to find it. I am blind, so anything is basically out of sight. Well, not literal light, since I have light perception, albeit only a little bit. Anything else, really, is out of sight for me.

I’ve been pondering object permanence recently. This is the ability to know that, if an object (or person) is out of sight, it is still in existence. This ability is usually acquired at around age eighteen months, so my niece should have it. I rationally do too. Emotionally though, not so much. Though I don’t literally feel that a person who has left my proximity, no longer exists, I usually half-joke that they might just as well be on the North Pole. I wonder whether this struggle with some level of object permanence, could be due to my blindness. I guess not though.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 2, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone! Can you believe the first half of 2021 is over already? I certainly can’t. Today, I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. I just had my afternoon soft drink. If you want one too, I bet there’s still some left in the fridge. I can also make you a Senseo coffee if you want it. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk a little about the weather. It’s okay. Most of the past week, it’s been raining, but I still got time to go outside inbetween rainfalls. It was a bit chilly for summer early in the week. Today and over the weekend, temperatures are supposed to rise to above 20°C.

If we were having coffee, I’d also tell you that most of the pandemic restrictions were lifted last week. They however had only been lifted a few days when news got out about the delta variant of the coronavirus soon becoming dominant. Thankfully, the Netherlands has quite a high vaccination rate, so I have my hopes up we won’t enter a full lockdown come September. After all, my husband and I celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary on September 19 and we really want to finally be able to do something fun.

If we were having coffee, I would share that this week was a truly mixed bag mental health-wise. I did enjoy some activities, like jewelry-making. Last week was my 35th birthday and I got a bunch of supplies as a present. When being engaged in creative activities, I do genuinely feel some level of contentment, if not happiness.

However, there have also been times when I felt incredibly left out and hopeless. Like I said two weeks ago, the manager indicated that I cannot get more support than I’m getting now. Sometimes, I’m okay with this, but at other times, it really frustrates me.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I’ll finally start my topiramate this coming Sunday. The longer it takes, the less hopeful I am that it will actually help. We’ll see though.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that, on Wednesday, some type of staff support person came to observe and help the staff with some situations with other clients and with me. She offered some ideas for easing transitions for me. When I’m doing okay or sort of okay, they help, but when I’m very distressed, they don’t. I’m still unsure as to how I can ease the many transitions I face during the day.

If we were having coffee, I’d update you all about my situation with the possible UTI I talked about two weeks ago. Well, it isn’t a UTI. What it is, no-one seems to know or care about. I was told to take naproxen and paracetamol and, when this week I reported that they helped some, was just told to continue taking them for another month. A month! I mean, seriously?! I feel quite frustrated about this.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d tell you that my sister and her family are visiting me and my husband in Lobith tomorrow. My husband gave me the choice between taking a ParaTransit taxi and him picking me up at 10AM. Since my sister won’t visit till 3PM, I decided to take the taxi. I still have my entire kilometer allowance, since I haven’t felt comfortable yet using the taxi due to COVID-19. My taxi should arrive here in Raalte by 12:30PM. It’s normally a little under a ninety-minute drive to Lobith, but the taxi service might be late and/or combine my ride with someone else’s. However, if I schedule my ride earlier, I won’t be able to have lunch. Fingers crossed the taxi won’t be late.

How have you been?

A Bottle of Hope

Posted on by Astrid

Today, I feel stuck in the twilight zone between good and bad. I’m not feeling as hopeless as I was two weeks ago, but I can’t quite say I’m feeling happy either. I really feel numb. This seems to be the story of my life anyhow. I’ve rarely felt truly happy. Sometimes, I feel dysregulated, desperate, out of control. Some other times, I feel a glimmer of joy. That rarely lasts long. This afternoon, I experienced such a glimmer of joy when making a necklace. Then this evening, I was in a small crisis again.

Still, I have this instinct to survive, to go on. I still keep this bottle of hope that I know at some level will always be available to me. Even at times when I’m most dysregulated, I haven’t intentionally taken steps that would really end my life. I still, deep down, have this will to continue.

Now if only I could put the energy I’m putting into merely keeping hope alive, into actually practising contentment. If only I could pick up that bottle of hope from the shelf, instead of letting it sit there until I (someday, probably never) find the perfect life circumstances. Keeping hope alive is one thing, but living a life of joy and contentment, is quite a bit further up there.

This post was written for Eugi’s Weekly Prompt and Michelle’s July 1 writing prompt

My Declaration for My 36th Year of Life

Posted on by Astrid

Like I mentioned before, I turned 35 on Sunday. A few months back, I had downloaded a birthday journaling tool from the International Association for Journal Writing website. I didn’t really get to journal about any of the prompts in it, but one that stuck out to me is to write your declaration or decision for the upcoming year. It sounds a bit like an affirmation, but I’ll not just repeat it to myself. Rather, in this post, I’ll describe steps I can take to make my declration work.

First, my declaration is: “I will thrive, not just survive.” I will focus the 36th year of my life on improving the quality of my life in some major areas.

I have been debating whether in the long run, I want to stay in my current care home. I’m not yet completely sure, but my aim is to focus on getting as close to my ideal as I can get. However, it may take several more years to find me a more suitable care home, if we can find one at all. This means that I’ll need to focus on improving my quality of life with the resources I have available now.

To make this happen, I’m trying to focus on moving from anxiety and obsessiveness into some level of enjoyment, possibly even happiness. I took the first steps by writing down some things I may want to improve on during my day activities time. For example, I’d like to learn to do some more activities other than blogging and reading by myself, so that when staff leave, I am not completely left out. Today, I tried to work on a bracelet on my own and it worked.

This evening, some kind of staff supporter came round my care home to observe the staff as they care for several clients, including me. She recommended that, when staff leave me, they give me a soft toy to indicate I’m not alone. This also might ease my obsessign over the time they’re going to leave.

I also will be looking into starting some “bigger” project, like a course, again. I don’t think I’ll want to do Open University again, but maybe some hobby-related course.

I’m also thinking of acquiring a small fridge and simple microwave for in my room. That way, I will be able to make soap and body care products in my own room rather than in the overstimulating kitchen, so I should hopefully be able to do more by myself. Then, I’ll hopefully be more satisfied in my activities.

To sum it up, I will try to focus my attention away from ruminating about the past or future and onto enjoying the present. This is probably the hardest part. I am reminded of a Center for Consultation and Expertise case video about a young woman with lots of challenging behavior, for which the staff kept countless checklists of her behaviors etc. They were aiming to manage her behavior, but once they moved away from this and onto looking at how she can have a good day, the behavior also decreased. This might be the case for me too.

Creating Lately: A Bracelet, Body Butter and Lip Scrub

Posted on by Astrid

After a difficult week two weeks ago and lots of frustration at not finding meaning in my activities lately, last week I finally found my creative mojo again. I’ve been pretty busy crafting and DIY’ing over the week.

First, I want to show you all this bracelet I created last Friday. It is simple and I didn’t even do all the work by myself. I mean, I struggled a lot putting the purple beads onto the wire, because my left hand kept spasming and I needed my right hand to keep the wire straight. I tried reversing my hands and letting my staff hold the wire, but it wouldn’t work. Still, I managed to thread some of the purple beads and all of the roses anyway.

I also have been doing a lot of body care creating lately. Last Monday, I made a basic body butter. I used coconut oil, sweet almond oil and cocoa butter. I added in a few drops of coconut fragrance oil for the scent.

I am considering getting a talking kitchen scale, so that I can weigh out my ingredients myself. Not that we used a scale this time – we just guessed how much we’d need.

Lastly, on Thursday, I made a lip scrub. I used coconut oil and cocoa butter for the base and added plain white sugar, honey and vanilla extract. This time, I did most of the measuring myself, even though I still mostly had to guess how much we’d need.

I had made a lip scrub once before, but that one didn’t turn out as thick as we’d wanted. This one is still thinner than most lip balms I’m used to making, but then again it’s a lip scrub, not a lip balm.

I am really loving looking at bath and body product recipes. I am not as good with them yet as I’d like to be, but I like to think I’m improving.

With respect to jewelry, I don’t look up tutorials, as they’re usually far too difficult for me to follow. I just create what I think I can.

What have you been crafting lately?

Birthday #WotW

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this beautiful Sunday! It’s already 8:30PM as I start typing my post. It’s my 35th birthday today and I spent most of the week stressing about it and the weekend celebrating it. For this reason, I’m choosing “Birthday” as my word of the week, even though the week is practically over already.

Early in the week, I talked over my birthday with my husband. I had already invited my parents to come over to Lobith today. They hadn’t seen the house since we’d bought it, or the inside of it at all for that matter. My parents need to drive over two hours from their home to Lobith and I’d asked them to drop me off at the care facility in Raalte on their way back. For this reason, I pretty much felt obligated to invite them over for dinner in Lobith. However, this also stressed me out, as it would mean I wouldn’t be in Raalte till like 8PM, by which time my one-on-one would’ve left.

My husband told me I could text them with a time proposal for them to arrive, like early afternoon. That way, they still had some hours to be with us and could still be dropping me off in Raalte and arrive home at a reasonable time. My father doesn’t text and my mother doesn’t drive, so I texted my mother to ask her if this was okay with both of them. It was.

Yesterday, my mother-in-law picked me up in Raalte and we drove to my in-laws’ house. It was good to be there. I in fact had only been there once since the pandemic started. Before then, and especially before I went into long-term care, I’d be at my in-laws’ at least once a week on average. I always loved walking their dog, a black lab called Bloke. My mother-in-law and I walked him again yesterday.

For dinner, we indeed had lasagne and indeed without celery. It was great! I also had a Magnum Billionaire ice cream for dessert.

I also got lovely presents. One of my sisters-in-law had been sent shopping for the largest Rituals gift box she could find. I think it’s amazing!

Today, like I said, my parents visited. I don’t have the greatest relationship with my parents. Like usual, my father kept infodumping on his interests, which he was able to relate to our house in Lobith, since he practically renovated my parents’ house on his own. I could hardly get a word in, but my husband seemed interested. I made some smalltalk with my mother.

The presents I got from my parents, were great though. I had asked them for a surprise box from my favorite beading shop, which happens to be local to them. Aside from that package, I also got another box of jewelry-making supplies they’d found at a thrift store, a turtoise soft toy and fresh cherries and strawberries.

When I returned to the care facility at about 6:15PM, I had dinner: noodles another client and staff had cooked this morning. It was good.

Overall, the day was good. So was the rest of the week for the most part. I seem to slowly be crawling out of the dark pit of emotional dysregulation I was in last week. I’m relatively calm considering the fact that my birthday is a trigger for my C-PTSD.

How was your week?

Word of the Week linky

Nurse Practitioner’s Appt This Afternoon

Posted on by Astrid

I had a brief meeting with my nurse practitioner this afternoon. Even though it was only half an hour, we discussed a lot of things. First we made concrete plans for me to start the topiramate. Like I said before, I would need to be on the injectible birth control for two weeks before I could start it. That would be next Thursday, but I proposed I won’t start with the topiramate until the Sunday after that, July 4. That way, I won’t be just starting out when I go to Lobith on July 3. This was okay with my nurse practitioner and he’d make sure the pharmacy would get it ready on time.

Next, we discussed my bloodwork results. In the part that measures metabolic health, nothing worrisome was found. I asked about my kidney function and first my nurse practitioner said that unless your estimated GFR is below 60, it’s no reason to worry yet. Mine was 81. He checked my previous lab results. My estimated GFR was 71 in 2019 and 82 in 2020, so there’s not a clear decrease either.

He also complimented me on my cholesterol level, which was completely normal. Of course, there is only so much you can do about high cholesterol, but apparently I’m doing what I need to. It probably helps that I don’t drink and try to eat a relatively healthy diet.

Then the other page showed my blood level for my antipsychotic aripiprazole and its active metabolite. These were quite high. This means that side effects may outweigh the effectivness of the medication. While I don’t experience any major side effects, we will try to lower my aripiprazole dose in the not-too-distant future. That’s been a long-time wish for me anyway.

Then we got to discuss my crisis last week and my conversations with my husband. My husband had suggested I might have dependent personality disorder and I eventually thought he was right. Of course, in my mind, this led to all kinds of additional conclusions that my husband hadn’t mentioned, like my not having trauma-related issues and my not even being autistic and my being one giant manipulator.

My nurse practitioner said that DPD rarely if ever goes alone and that he wonders whether it even is a valid diagnosis. It is according to DSM-5, of course. He added that this is one of the most negative diagnoses to give someone. My nurse practitioner obviously didn’t mean my husband, as he didn’t really try to diagnose me at all, just wanted to give me food for thought. We will further discuss my issues with dependency in the future.

Overall, it was a good appt. As my nurse practitioner hadn’t read the E-mails we (meaning my inner people) had sent him over the weekend, we didn’t go into those specifically. Those E-mails had included a lot of self-loathing and self-doubt, including about our possible DID. I did explain about the dependency issue, like I said above. He also made sure I’m no longer in actual crisis. I confirmed this. This means I no longer need more frequent contact with the mental health team than I normally have.

Looking Forward to Summer

Posted on by Astrid

One of Mama Kat’s writing prompts for this week is to share what you’re looking forward to about summer. Summer is my favorite season. I just love the sunshine and warm temperatures, even though I don’t care for temperatures above 30°C. In 2018 and 2019, we had a lot of crazily hot weather, with temps rising to nearly 40°C on several days each year. I don’t like that. However, usually our summers are warm but not hot.

The main thing I look forward to each year, is my birthday. My birthday is this coming Sunday – I’ll be 35. This year, I don’t really have much planned and am a bit apprehensive about it, but I bet I’ll still have fun once it’s there.

On Saturday, my husband and I are going to visit my in-laws. My husband talked about asking his Mom to make lasagne. Without celery, mind you. Yes, she usually puts a small amount of celery in her lasagnes and, while I am not so picky anymore that I’ll fish it out of my serving, I don’t like it at all.

I haven’t asked my mother-in-law for any specific present, so I’m not sure what I’ll get. Last year, she gave me a giant teddy bear.

On Sunday, my actual birthday, my parents will visit me and my husband in Lobith. They haven’t seen the house since we bought it, so my husband will likely have a lot to show them. I’m a little worried about topics to talk about, as I don’t want to cause tension by bringing up my own issues. My staff suggested I tell my parents that we went to the monkey zoo a few weeks ago or the like.

I asked my husband for an outdoors side table for on my balcony. From my parents, I asked for jewelry-making supplies. I really hope my creative juices will be flowing again soon.

I will probably return to the care facility by about 6PM. During our evening coffee break, I will treat my fellow clients at the care home to custard cupcakes or nut bars (those who can eat those).

As for my plans for the rest of the summer, I am hoping to visit some new places, like the local large playground. Aside from social distancing, most restrictions due to the pandemic will be lifted by this Saturday (hopefully not to return again by the fall). I also hope to go on many walks, as well as sit on my balcony some more.

What are you looking forward to this summer?

Mama’s Losin’ It

Reading Wrap-Up (June 23, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Okay, I guess last Sunday’s post didn’t get me out of my writing rut. I did finally find the focus to read again though. I had started reading a book again a few weeks ago after a lot of slow reading in various books. Or rather, no reading at all even though I have a lot of books I’m in the middle of.

To celebrate the fact that I finally seem to be able to read semi-consistently again (my reading streak in Apple Books is twelve days), I’ll post a reading wrap-up. I’m joining in with WWW Wednesday.

What I’m Currently Reading

Still in the middle of The Choices We Make by Karma Brown. And My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga. And After the Cure by Deirdre Gould. I think I may give up on that one, since it’s a pretty plot-dense story and there’s also a little too much profanity in it for my liking. All that being said, I’m not actually currently reading any of these books, since I spent the majority of the week trying to finish off the book I got into a few weeks ago.

What I Recently Finished Reading

For some still unknown to me reason, a few weeks ago, I was drawn to the books I’d downloaded for free thanks to BookBub. I still think I picked the one I chose pretty much at random but it was a good choice. The only reason I didn’t end up giving Once Gone (Riley Paige, #1) by Blake Pierce five stars on Goodreads, is that it’s my first traditional mystery read and I think others might be even better. I ended up giving it four stars.

What I Think I’ll Read Next

Probably another mystery. I have several of Blake Pierce’s other series starters downloaded for free. I might also check out one of the other books in the Riley Paige series.

In addition, I really need to start on Thrive (The Overthrow, #3) by Kenneth Oppel. The ending of Hatch was a little disappointing, which is why I’m not eager to start this one soon. However, I really want to finish the trilogy anyway. If for no other reason, then because it was my first read that wasn’t a standalone in a long time.

What have you been reading recently?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (June 20, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this sunny and comfortably warm Sunday. I didn’t join in with #WeekendCoffeeShare last week again. In fact, I haven’t been motivated to write much at all over the past week or so. Today though, I’m trying to get out of my rut and join the Coffee Share community again. I just had my afternoon coffee and will probably take a soft drink break midway through this post. If you’d like a drink, feel free to get one and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that the weather over the past week has been beautiful. It was even a little too hot for my liking on Wednesday and Thursday and the nights were uncomfortably sweaty. However, I’m liking this much more than the rain we had over the month of May. We did get some thunderstorms during the night though, which scare me.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I went to the doctor with my lower abdominal pain that I’ve had for about a week now. I wrote about this on Tuesday, but hadn’t been to the doctor at that point. I went on Thursday and, even though the urine sample I’d sent off for checking, didn’t show an obvious UTI, I did get antibiotics just in case while the sample is being further cultured. The doctor explained that it’s unlikely I’ll develop resistant bacteria, as I hardly ever take antibiotics. I am also to take paracetamol for the pain.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I’ve been in a bit of a crisis over the last few days. On Thursday, while I was still in quite a bit pain, my care facility’s manager came by to inform me that I cannot get more support than I get now. I realize it may seem silly to get into a crisis over this, but I’ve been struggling with major anxiety lately and was really hoping that more support could help me.

With respect to the anxiety, my husband tried to be supportive, but I ended up being triggered by some of his words. Like, he said he thinks I might have dependent personality disorder. This was the exact diagnosis I got in the psych hospital in 2016 and which was used as an excuse to kick me out. I don’t want to be kicked out of long-term care. I guess that proves I’m just being dependent though, as like I’ve mentioned before, I wasn’t dying living with my husband.

My husband tries to encourage me to do more things independently. While really I would like to be able to, the activities he mentioned (showering, for example) give me a ton of overload even now that my staff help me. Then again, who knows this isn’t just anxiety and dependency either? Apparently I’m not able, in my screwed mind, to make that judgment myself.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m almost certainly going to start taking the topiramate in early July. I started the depo-Provera injectible birth control last Thursday and I will be able to start the topiramate once I’ve been on this one for two weeks. Now I’m only hoping the antibiotic won’t mess things up again.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would share that today, my one-on-one staff took me to visit her family’s horses. I loved petting the horses. One of them kept reaching for my lower abdomen. The family member whose horses these were, explained that she goes for the person’s body part with the most tension. I guess she’s right.

How have you been?