Anti-mads Revisited

My Dr was almost on time last week, so no sleeping bag was required for my evening appointment. I have been put back on anti-mad pills. This doctor will do just about anything if it is handed to him on hospital letterhead. I'm just the patient who's had the disease all their life, what would I know. The tablets are making me so tired that my arms feel too weak to hold things sometimes and I find myself sluring my speach a bit, but if they don't make me feel actually sick, I'll give them a go. There's just one thing though, the tablets contain Aspatame. So this doctor sits there with a 'just do it' attitude to diet compliance but then turns around and presribes me a medication with phenylalanine in it. You can't have it both ways. I found that I was too dopped up to be too angry about it. I've decided that as long as they don't make me totally dysfunctional, I'll keep on them, just to see what difference the extra phe makes on a daily basis. What the hell, I feel like crap anyway.

On the Merry-go-round of life

Today is designated the first day of Autumn. It is also the day designated as my blood test day, which I have just done, it took me two goes though, now my fingers are sore. My last blood test came back at 770. Ordinarily I would be thrilled, except for the fact that I feel so bad. I feel like my life is spiralling out of control and that at any minute it's all going to hit the fan, then fall in a stinking pile at my feet. Maybe I'd be feeling like this anyway. Once again I am very aware of the concept of being on a merry-go-round. Some things change but some stay the same. I have found that I am reacting to things in exactly the same way as I did maybe 10 years ago. I feel that the only reason I am coping at all is because I'm not trying to do anything - study, work, have a life etc It's quiet at the museum today and I'm not expecting anyone in. Today, in a fashion typical of this place, there is not one, but two separate events to raise money for the bushfire appeal, both held at the same time of course. At the movie club you needed to book in and it's an ordinary ticket price, the concert held at the club around the corner, is for a gold coin donation only. Maybe they could have worked together. The local council once again seems to be doing nothing. They gave 10, 000 dollars so feel they've done their bit. What about bringing the community together? This area is in the top three bush fire 'hot spots' (*no pun intended!) in the world. People here remember when this town was threatened by fire and Victorian firefighters helped us. People want to help and want to feel like they can do something. I can't help but to feel that the council is letting people down. I'm starting to get boring! Sorry! I wish I could think of some way of picking myself up a bit.

Fractured fairytales

I feel myself unravelling. I wonder if the way I see the world and my fractured place in it, is an accurate reflection of reality. My last blood test came back as 980. I thought it would have gone down, not up. I'm tired but can't sleep, hungry (sometimes) but can't eat. I start to feel that the world would be better off if I wasn't in it. I was doing great with the Plexy 10 until I reached the end of the first box. It seems to happen that way. It's like I feel that having finished the box that should be it. I can't handle stress but everything seems to be stressing me out. How do I stay motivated to stay on this supplement and diet if I don't give a rats about myself? It's a vicious cycle - I need to be on the supplement in order to feel better about myself but I need to feel better about myself in order to stay on the supplement. To voice the actors lament, 'what's my motivation?' I have no children, no 'other', significant or otherwise, in fact I hardly have any family at all. The motivation has to come from somewhere inside me and let's face it, sometimes it just aint there. I used to think that a slow decent into madness would be a bit like Alice's trip to Wonderland (I use the word trip deliberately, as there is an opinion that Lewis Carol was on opium when he wrote it, explains a lot really) However, it hasn't been a day dream to an exciting fantasy land, but one of anxiety and some despair. It wasn't until I developed an anxiety disorder that I realised that my happy slide into crazyville wasn't going to work out like that. Just another unfulfilled dream I guess. Fairytales are supposed to start with "Once upon a time" and end with "And they all lived happily ever after." This one hasn't, so far. At least Alice had Wonderland.