I hope I am in a better state of mind with this post than I was in my last post. I do feel differently and I can't think of any real reason why - but I'll take it! My therapist is breaking down some of my resistance to change, which I actually appreciate now, though I didn't at first. I have read quite a lot of Buddhist philosophy from different authors (Pema Chodron is my favorite) and I have worked really hard on letting go. I also worked really hard on losing hope, which some Buddhists talk about as a necessity. I had lost everything in my life that I loved due to schizophrenia and there was no way to build a life like that again for myself. It was all over. So I took these thoughts and practices to heart and it has helped me to have a perspective that is not based on grief and despair. But my therapist is giddy for me to get married, get a job, move back to LA or wherever my 'dream' lies. At first I found it jarring and irritating. I did not go through all I had been through just to try and build it all back up again. But now I think that, even if I don't make a move like she suggests, being open to change as a real possibility is kind of freeing. Schizophrenia is very unnerving and unsettling, so I have focused on my home, my car, my finances, my relationship with my brother - things like that, tangibles - as a way to retrain my mind toward stability and even happiness. But maybe I have a death grip on those things. I want to loosen up and think more widely and openly about all the things I might want to do in my life. I mostly just think, when I think of it, that I'm old and my situation is what it is, not my choice, but a lot to be thankful for. This is a position I would not want to change much. I have found a lot of peace in accepting my circumstances for the fortune that they are. But what if I had friends in my town and not just online? I buy lottery tickets and I think of moving back to LA if I win. I could take my brother, set us up nicely, have good medical care. But my therapist would like me to think of moving like now, like anyway. I won't, but what if I did? It's a nice new avenue of thought. My self confidence is too shattered to think of taking up work again - I also still have regular episodes - but I could think about it. With technology today, everyone is a photographer and filmmaker. And it so happens that I lost my Safelink phone. But the replacement they sent me has a camera! So, I don't know, I'm just loosening up I guess, shaking up the scene a little. Maybe it's time for that. I seem to have gone as far as I can go without actually trying to take on something new. I don't know what - or if - it will ever be, but maybe it's the thought that counts.
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I don't know what is happening in my mind. There are signs of spring outside - warm weather, daffodils are blooming - and I'm glad it's spring for a change. Usually I like autumn and winter but I'm wanting to shed my warm layers and feel new. But my mind is adrift and it's weird. Usually I am appreciating my home, my car, the food I eat, the weather, my family. But now I'm just gliding through my days with barely a notice. I have been working hard on letting go. My schizophrenia caused so much irreplaceable loss that I was ripe for some eastern philosophy. Letting go. Maybe I have let go. I don't know. I don't understand what my mind is doing and I don't know what will happen next. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe I'm opening up to new possibilities. I just hope I can be aware enough to recognize a good thing if it happens. I just hope it's not some medicinal fog. I like to make memories and I like to notice my surroundings. I am still in shock from the demise of my former life and I have not encountered the famous other door that is supposed to open after disaster. It has been 17 long, barren years. On top of the schizophrenia I was robbed. All my cameras were stolen. I can't replace them, I was between insurance. I usually spend a part of each day going through a mental list of things I might want to do - paint, photography - and I never do them. I had just run out of doable ideas. I have watercolors, pastels, stuff that I remember loving to do when I was healthy. None of it seems to appeal now. I guess it's the Haldol. I also have no wanderlust and I was very keen on travel when I was healthy. Now I'm so sensible that I don't understand it. I think only practically and while it's good for my bank account and my general safety, I just wonder if I will ever be creative again in my life. So much of my early adult life was spent with a romantic partner and we did everything together. I find I'm not much of a spark now that I'm on my own with a body full of antipsychotics. This is the first plateau I have reached on Haldol. I don't know what it means. I hope I am being prepared for a new event of some kind. I get really tired of working on letting go. I have nothing left.
I apologise for the fragmented last post. Weebly, the people who run this site, have a few bugs in the system I think. It has happened before and it is disappointing. I could write in word first, then post, but it doesn't seem as fresh as just swooping in on the spur of the moment - typing my post directly into the site. I am doing fairly well. I seem to have fewer episodes since I quit smoking last September - though I had two fairly major ones of a new type. I feel quite good, able to think more and maybe a bit more functional, I don't know for sure. Come to think of it, maybe I should change my subtitle from 'tea and cigarettes' to something else, now that I'm not smoking anymore. Maybe I'll give it a few more months, to make sure I have kicked the habit for good... I have been having a lot of dreams with people I know in them. Usually my dreams are just strange. But I have had six or seven dreams with friends in them and it's nice, the dreams are quite reassuring of our friendship. I am a little off center in my confidence about friends since I became ill with schizophrenia. So it's nice to see my brain being nice to me for a change. I am in desperate need of exercise... Last year I was walking every day for 30 minutes and this winter I have let that slip by. I don't know why. Except for the past couple of weeks (snow) the weather has been fine enough for walking. And I haven't been to the recreation center for the gym either. I hate it when I go through this, it comes with a drop in self esteem, which I could really do without. But, I know I will sort it out soon. I am anxious for spring and I would like to get in shape and lose some weight for the season. Quitting smoking has made me understand that I am actually quite sensitive. I thought the cigarettes were making me be more relaxed, but in fact, they are a cycle of anxiety and despair. I couldn't see it before... I started smoking when I was hospitalized in Georgia. They let you outside for half an hour if you smoke. So I figured out who had been discharged and smoked their cigarettes. I must have been desperate to have been so surreptitious. This illness always brings up aspects of myself I couldn't see before. I can be sneaky! I learned that. And I hate it. Schizophrenia has made me live outside the lines and I really resent it. I miss my normal, healthy, gym-loving self. My therapist would encourage me to get over schizophrenia, which is just her ignorance (she's not a doctor). Every episode I have is like a disappointment to her, but to me it's just normal now. I don't have hope of outrunning the illness, but I do try to work with what it brings, classify it, identify it, analyse it and put it in it's place, which is the past. This is the only way in which I can feel 'I am moving on' in my life at all, since, in practical terms, nothing much ever happens. No friends on the phone, ready to go somewhere and for me no plans either. It's weird to have my days free. I miss having a job and friends and a husband to love so much. Whenever I look at it, I am devastated at what this disease has taken away from me. I no longer paint, photograph, I no longer direct, I no longer have a place of my own to live, I no longer have my husband at my side. It's hard to figure out what's next. I have looked for opportunities for volunteering for years, more than a decade, and the fact is I just live in a town with limited opportunities. It is a big change from London and Los Angeles. So I have to take it easy now and then and just remember that I am not where I want to be because of illness, not failure...
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