“Brain on Fire”

I did something I’ve been putting off doing–I finally bought “Brain on Fire” by Amy Cahalan and read it.  I had heard a great deal about it and had read the AMazon entry about it, so I knew it would be a “competing” title in the marketplace to anything I wrote, so I was interested.

What I read didn’t really distinguish it from other books of the same type I have read except that it was all reconstructed after the fact-she has no memory of the psychosis and had to interview doctors, nurses, her parents, her friends, etc. to  get material for the book.  So it was masterful in that sense that it reads like first-person memories when it may as well be a third-person interview situation.  But I did impress on me that I need to interview people more than I have been doing for whatever I turn out to do.  I just don’t know how to go about it.

 

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Slowly

Slowly grinding away at my book review.  I seem to have a very short attention span for it today. I do a paragraph and then turn it off and do something else. I did sleep in today but I have done other things and seem to be awake for good now.  So that is a plus.

I seem to have finally become immune to caffeine.  I drank a big bottle of Coke this morning and still went back to bed after everybody left.  So I guess that ‘s not helping me any more.  My mood is better than it was a few days ago, so that is an improvement.  I don’t feel as hopeless as I did just Tuesday.

Slowly, slowly progressing along it seems like.  I’ve seen some people, bloggers, other writers, able to wax so poetic about their depressions.  I’m not like that, it seems.  Maybe it’s because I’m not really a poetic type, although I have published a little poetry.  But nothing about depression brings out poetry in me. I just get lower and lower until I can hardly write at all.

 

Advising

Just went through advising with my professor and signed up for another class this spring.  So that housekeeping bit is taken care of.  I talked to him a bit about my concerns that I didn’t feel like I was “learning” anything; ie all my writing gets compliments in feedback and very little specific advice on how to improve it.  I told him I wasn’t trying to malign anybody–just that I didn’t feel challenged enough.  So we will see what comes of that.

I finished part of my classwork today and am partway through the assignment for the week.  I just need to sit down and grind it out.  It’s not hard, just have to pile up 800 words a word at a time.  I just need to do it.

I haven’t slept any today so feel good about that.  Therefore I’ve gotten more accomplished than yesterday.  I talked to BOb about feeling so frustrated last night, and I think talking to my professor and mapping out what I wanted to take in the next few years helped me see an end ahead.  It’s not so scary today.

 

Interesting

So yesterday I get a Facebook message from a long-ago editor wanting to talk to me about freelance writing.   I don’t do the freelancing thing any more, but having just asked GOd what was I supposed to be doing with myself, I took this as an opportunity to find out.  He wants me for some future role in the revamp  of his magazine.  He didn’t say what exactly until I told him I would be willing to do literary type stuff like book reviews.  He said he really needed book reviews actually.  So maybe I will start that in the next season or so.

Otherwise it’s been a long blank day.  I need help, I know it.  But I don’t know where to get it besides GOd, and he’s not acting much like he’s interested in my problems right now.   The depressive symptoms are starting to affect my mood, which they weren’t before.  I just think it’s hangover from last year’s slide that began in October.. At least that is what I am telling myself.  :).

Hope everyone has a good rest of the  week.

 

Another Good Day

Today went fairly well considering how tired I’ve been. I got all my laundry cleaned up yesterday and will work on Bob’s tomorrow.  I  worked up dinner, nothing very complicated tonight after doing something fairly complex last night.  BUt I’m trying.

That is the most frustrating thing–I keep trying and trying and feel like I am getting nowhere in  my life.  I just asked God flat out this afternoon what was I supposed to be doing RIGHT NOW.   And I got the scripture from Ecclesiastes 3 1-8.  “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.  A time to be born and a time to die.  A time to plant and a time to uproot.  A time to kill and a time to heal.  A time to tear down and a time to build.  A time to weep and a time to laugh.  A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to scatter stone and a time to gather them.  A time to embrace and a time to refrain.  A time to search and a time to give up.  a time to keep and a time to throw away.  A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”

So okay. I know that. l get that.  But what is it you want me to do now?  What season am I in?  I still don’t know the answer.  All I know is how to put one foot in front of the other and  do the best I can.

 

Good Morning!

For once I’ve actually been busy this morning. I had a parent-teacher conference at my youngest daughter’s school, then had to deliver a doctor’s excuse to my middle daughter’s school, then went to the grocery store, then went out to eat with Jo for her birthday.   SO I feel good about what I’ve accomplished today.  I’m still feeling awake and may go ahead and start on my assignments for this week for class.  I will have to see if there is anything else I need to do before I sit down and start on that.

I have another meeting tomorrow with the church people about helping write LifeGroup curriculum and will need to see how that goes.  I’m looking forward to it and hope it leads me down the path I’m looking toward to helping people.

I’ve got a week before I hear from some journals about publishing more of my work.  I hope I come out ahead with at least one of them.  Otherwise I’m really going to start questioning my strategy for sending things out.  But we will see.

I feel better at having won this victory over myself in staying out of the bed this morning.  Maybe I can do more of it as the days go along this week.  I’m ready to leave this depressive state and move on.  I’lI need to be out of it before the holidays come on and send me to an anxious state. But I have plenty of Xanax on hand in case that happens.  🙂

 

Panicky

I just realized that with my middle one having a doctor appointment at 2 p.m. in Jackson, I don’t know if I’ll get home in time to catch the y9ungest one off the bus. SO I will need to check her out early then check out the middle one and take them both to the doctor.  Joy.

So I did tutoring this morning.  That went well.  We talked about the reading assignment and about how to write her next paper.     So we will see how she does.  I have stayed busy afterwards checking everything on the computer and doing what all I need to do.

I need to swap laundry around when I get home and get to the grocery store as well. Hopefully I can get to that before I have to get everyone picked up for the appointment.

I’m glad it’s kind of a runaround day.  I’ve been sitting alone on the house for too long. I need to get out more often but don’t know  how to arrange all that.  I don’t want to just be going 9ut to eat all the time.

But I will get it all done.  I’m certain of that,

 

Sick

I feel kind of sick to my stomach today.  I ran out of my reflux medicine and thought I had more but I actually had to wait until today and buy more.  So I don’t really feel good today.  I’m trying to do laundry and seeing how much I can get done and be through with it for once this week.  Mostly it’s mine I’ve let get behind.  So I’ve been working on that.

I also have a headache, which I am not sure what brought that about.  I haven’t had one this bad in a long time. It almost feels like the migraines I used to have, but I stopped having those after I had my oldest child.  I don’t know what it might be from except spending too much time on the computer.

WEnt to eat lunch with Bob today–we didn’t eat where we had planned because the road to it was closed from the office. So we ate at the nearly barbeque joint–which did not help my tummy.  His office is getting ready to do inventory so they are busy preparing for that tomorrow.  I just hope it goes smoothly and he’s home on time tomorrow.

I think I’m going to go back to bed after finishing this,  I just don’t feel good at all.

 

Talk

So my talk went well yesterday.  It wasn’t so much about me running a LifeGroup as it was my helping write curriculum for classes at the church.  SO that sounded good as well.  We had a bit of a talk about my spiritual life and my growth and some of my challenges.  ALl in all I think  it went well.  WE will see what happens.

I’m still tired today but  as bad as before. I got BOb’s and my youngest one’s laundry done today so that was good.  Now I’m just waiting to pick her up at school and go to get the middle one’s allergy shot.  Hoping that will go off without a hitch as well.

Like I said yesterday, I seem to be in a depressive state without anything to be depressed about.  Life is running pretty smoothly.  I’m hoping that I snap out of it soon, though. Bob’s dad is complaining about back pain.  That was how they found the cancer that killed his mother several years ago is that hers had eaten its way through her backbone.  He can’t not remember that.  He’s already had it eat through his shoulder so he must be thinking about that as a possibility. I know Bob is.  I’m really scared we’ll lose him soon and that will be so sad.

 

I Guess I’ll Just Admit It

I seem to be in a depressive state.  I’m sleeping a lot and not being very productive the time that I’m awake. I did find out something amazing this week–I googled myself and saw where the W has put up how often  the MFA students are publishing and I was the most published in the past year –right up there with the very successful playwright in Chicago who is always reporting new successes.  So I suppose I need to stop griping about being rejected.  But I do need some new news in that department soon–I’ve got some high hopes out there but will have to just wait and see.

I don’t feel depressed and I certainly don’t have anything to really be depressed about. Maybe I’m starting a new pattern of drooping in the fall.  It would certainly fit in with Seasonal Affective Disorder.  But we will see.

I’m going to talk to the LifeGroup Pastor at church this afternoon exploring more the idea of having a LifeGroup  for people with mood disorders.  I think we need to limit to that since that is all that I have experience with. But I’m sincerely hoping that this can come to pass so that I really will be using my condition to bring people to GOd and to minister to them the way I’d like to be ministered to.   So that is another”we will see” proposition.