Well, I am stalled in the middle of my book of the writings of Nichiren Daishonin. I notice that in Buddhism there is a lot of math - the eightfold path etc. Daishonin is into the 10,000 worlds and I'm lost. I had hoped for something more intimate about Buddhism in this book, but it is instead a scholarly script of lots of questions from initiates on the sutras. I am a little disappointed in myself, but I think I'm just going to have to write these books off. Sad too, I had hoped to find more in the writings, like that such is quoted on the web... The letters are the only books I can find by him on Amazon. There are about 8 volumes as far as I can see. I ordered volumes one and two. I have been a little anxious these past few weeks, maybe that has something to do with my lack of attention span... I still have three more books to check into though. Good summer reading. It's just that I wanted to work more on my mind and Buddhist thought seems to really help. Well, on to Long Ago in France by MFK Fisher. I first read one of her books when I was at university. It was just for pleasure and a pleasure it was. An American, she writes of her time in France, I always remember her describing the life of fresh summer raspberries - she had no refrigerator. Everything had to be eaten in time before the turn. It reminds me of picking raspberries at a farm in London and making raspberry jam. My first batch was a triumph, the second batch was overcooked and tough, unfortunately. I love to cook, but I don't have a natural intelligence for it. I have to follow the recipe to the letter. I just don't do well at all when I wing it. This is true of all my cooking, except for soups and pastas. Those I can do from memory, but I still stay true to the original receipt. I wish I had more talent for cooking. I used to watch the Food Network on television, taking notes as they cooked and then trying it for myself. I made potatoes dauphinois and a chocolate tart that turned out pretty well and a tub of coffee icecream, which was delicious. But none of it makes sense. I am not a meal planner, I just don't envisage the whole concept when I start cooking. Again, I am a little ashamed of myself. As an artist, I should be better at the art of cooking in my mind. I love to eat and I order well, but I just don't have the gift. The thing about having schizophrenia is, it gives one time to reflect on one's strengths and weaknesses. One becomes disabled and then the whole thing takes shape quite quickly, no longer is one fluid in one's thinking and efforts, there is no more 'I'll improve' next time. It's just that didn't work, move on. Maybe I could work on this. Maybe I could find just one cookbook and work my way through it, trying things over again, improving my cooking reflexes. I am just so medicated that I don't think in grand anymore, I just think in practical. It gets a little routine, a little boring sometimes. I can at least remember what it felt like to be young and in love and trying everything for the first time, I am sure that is how it was. One thing I learned was, never cook from magazines that don't have test kitchens. It is almost always disappointing and flawed. It is expensive to ruin a dinner and if the recipe is no good, it's just a waste of everything. I learned this the hard way twice. I tried a stuffed savoy cabbage and quails and calvados. Both recipes were flawed and I was left embarrassed and frustrated. Still, my husband didn't mind. It was just all part of life's rich pattern for him. I could stand to be a little easier on myself. It would be nice to open my heart again to some of life's pleasures like I used to do. I am so out of practice with cooking it would all be new again. I could even stand to paint again someday maybe. I don't know. I just know that there will have to be more to life than the way I have been living it since diagnosed 16 years ago. My clothes are threadbare, my shoes have holes in the soles, it's all just really lived in, my whole life. I would like to step out again into some new adventures. Maybe I am finally going to see a turning point in this illness. I don't know, I just know that I need to keep living and my regular routine of meds, sleep, smoking and eating is just too worn out, like my shoes.
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Well, things have lightened up. The past three days have been markedly cooler, I think that has helped... In the heat I am limp spaghetti, a Dali-esque nightmare... My medicine has a warning on it for me to avoid sunlight, maybe that has something to do with it. I am just not as down and that is a good thing. I am looking forward to September when my exercise and diet starts. I have to give myself a run-up to it or else it's just not official. I need to change my eating habits and to burn more calories. I would like to lose a substantial amount of weight. Plus, next month I turn 50 and I want to start a regime that will carry me through the years. I have had a fairly easy time of it in the last month in terms of episodes. I think that my therapy has helped me to take better care of myself and also I have become less stressed about the future. Still, I am on a bit of a rollercoaster in terms of mood, I have been down most of this year. But I think that I am finally adjusting to the losses caused by schizophrenia. I still miss being married and full of the joys of living, but I am coming to terms with my situation, slowly but surely. I have decided that being single is kind of fun, as much as schizophrenia will allow, but, following my friend's advice, am staying open to life's surprises. A week ago I felt that life had no more surprises for me and that life was just a highway to old age. But, I have adjusted my thinking a bit. If I allow for a surprise, I will be more ready to receive it when it comes. If it comes. If not, life is still a cup of tea and the Archers on BBC Radio 4.
Summer heat is beating me down. Summer was my favorite season growing up but now that I am older, I can't take the heat as well. The Kangaroo up the road sells 44oz Diet Dr Pepper for less than a dollar, so I have been buying that there, trying to keep cool. Now I love autumn and winter. I am looking forward to it this year. I plan to start working out in the fall, when it's cooler. I need to try and lose some weight, plus both my doctors have asked me to exercise. I just have such a hard time motivating for that, or for anything, when it comes down to it... It's bothering me. I miss being healthy, I miss being married and happy and in love, I miss having friends and a job that I love. I'm turning 50 next month and it's just so hard not to think of my fantasy life, the life I would have had if not for schizophrenia. I realize that half my thirties and all of my forties were a complete write-off. And really, things have not really improved much. I am fairly stable, but I am not the achiever I used to be. I am just getting through each day with the minimum of effort, which is actually a maximum for me now. I really miss my husband a lot. He has moved on now, is married with two children... Someone else is living my life. I am happy for them, but I am faced with the ruination that is my life and I can't help but wish that things had turned out differently for me. I still love my husband very much. I think of him every day. We were very close and had a lot of fun together all the time. Today I went food shopping and there was none of the joy of it like there was when I was with him. I just hate this impasse... I know there will be no other love. Just him. I can live with that, but sometimes the nostalgia gets the best of me. I keep wondering what the future will hold. My friend in Manchester says life is full of surprises, but I have not had a pleasant surprise in 16 years and counting. It has been an endless round of doctors, drugs and psychosis. I try not to indulge the idea that God is punishing me for some reason and it really grates to think that this is part of His plan to make me a better person. I am utterly whipped. It has been too much for me. I find little joy in life anymore. I am just coming out of a stage where I was really angry about it all. I still get mad. Schizophrenia is just terrible. I just want to get up off my knees from it and have a good day. It's so hard. It is just such a mean disease and there are few answers to be found. Plus, I am alone all the time, which is both boring and disheartening. I used to see friends every day when I was healthy. Sorry to complain, just don't have a good mood at the moment. Waiting for the summer heat to leave, bearing down with all it's might on the facts of my life as it stands... Maybe it won't be too long now...
I usually have a lot on my mind... My parents, who are aging gracefully, talk of wills and burial preferences. My brother and I will be left alone when this happens, two schizophrenics facing the world. I worry a lot about it. I'm doing fairly okay now, episodes down, voices down, still some hallucinations, but stress is a trigger and I do spend a lot of time trying to rehearse what I will do when the day comes that we are alone. This is good according to my therapist and to be fair, it does require some thought. I am to inherit the house we live in, with the stipulation that I take care of my brother, who has been declared incompetent by his doctor and the court. I don't mind this - taking care of him is second nature - but I worry that the stress, combined with grieving and having to finalise all the accounts will be more than I can handle. Both my parents and my brother are depending on me. It is a new dynamic and one I'm trying to adjust to. I just want everything to go smoothly. I want to be prepared. In addition to burials and settling estates, I think that my brother and I will both need to go on food stamps and that is a bit of a process, I know, I started my application and couldn't finish it. My brother will have a court-appointed guardian (my dad is his guardian now) and I think I will be relying quite heavily on their help for a while. I'm fifty next month, and I look at the 30 some-odd year stretch ahead and tremble. It is going to be really hard. Disability, which both my brother and I have, is very little money and I will have no slush fund for emergencies - car trouble, appliances go out, that sort of thing. I'm really nervous about it all. And I just don't want to lose the house due to some unforeseen circumstance, a new tax or something... My brother copes well without his medication (he refuses to take it) but he is still unable to do some things, like take out the trash (he's afraid of the trash can). It's going to be very challenging just during the most difficult and precarious phase of life, old age. I just want to be able to take care of us, the way my parents are expecting me to do. Everything is riding on my ability to cope. I don't know anything about settling an estate, so I will have to rely heavily on my parents' lawyers to help guide me through that... Plus, my parents are my two best friends, they are all I have in the way of someone to talk to. When they go, I will be truly alone. And my brother is younger than me, so I have to think of providing for him too, for when I go. It's a lot to consider. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, researching tax law and so on, in order to make it. My brother never worries, he is always provided for by my parents and nothing is expected of him. He just lives day to day with his guitar and coffee. It' s kind of inspiring, that kind of faith. I try to put my faith in God and just hope I don't go off the rails.
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June 2017
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