Two of my blogging buddies are doing The 24 hour Blog-a-thon this weekend.

Miss604 is blogging every 30 minutes for the Surrey Food Bank.

Jeckles is blogging every 30 minutes for Freedom from Hunger.

Go on over and show them some support! If you can’t sponsor them, say hi and keep them company they are heading into the long haul.

I unfortunately have the worst migraine right now I am dizzy and nauseous, it is honestly hard for me to type this but the 24 hour Blog-a-thon is important, Blogstock 2007 is also very important but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

For now, there are some great photos up on my flickr.

The weekend was a big experiment that is still on the go and like any experiment I do not know what the out come will be.

On Friday my shrink dropped my Risperidone and switched me to Seroquel and I’ve been pretty much comatose since. This shit be strong. When I took it Friday evening I expected to get a little tired, a bit dizzy, and a bit ‘high’. I got all of those things and MORE! We had already invited John over; Rebecca was in Las Vegas live blogging an intimate evening with Matthew Good on his birthday and so John with his Japanese food in hand headed over as I was slowly and then very quickly taken over by the seroquel. By the time he arrived I was already having trouble keeping focus but was trying pretty hard because I did not want to be rude. I’d say John knows me to be fairly talkative and I was just sitting there staring at him through him what have you and I know he was asking me things and I responded but everything was sounding like I was hammered drunk and I felt like I was hanging off the couch, maybe I was? I went into the bedroom and laid on the bed sandals and all wrapped tightly in the couch blanket. Adam was only able to get my sandals off and pull the quilt over next to me for when I got cold. I woke up around 3am, cold and twisted in the blanket, pants and bra still on. Very nice. In the morning I learned that Adam and John had sat and watched the Democratic debate, totally sucks I missed it.

Saturday morning we cut the Seroquel in-half and I took it with my regular meds and it was still too much and I passed out again. When I got up we were able to get nine holes of golf in. Not 18 because I’m super awesome and AGAIN forgot to take my allergy medication and I allergy up FAST in Stanley Park the flowers are amazing and I used to love the way they smelled and fresh cut grass used to be one of my favorite smells and now I just want flowers and grass to all go fragrance free or bugger off. This would work for me. I used to really like the smell of gasoline as well but not in a pyro way, now it just makes my headaches more prominent if I breathe any in.

Yesterday same, I wasn’t able to stay awake. When awake we watched Wimbledon and the women’s US Open in golf. Sometimes it does suck that the two sports I love to watch almost the most are on when there is a chance the weather will be nice here. But really as proved by my lackadaisical golf skills on Saturday I wasn’t missing much being outside. I lost my favorite ball of the moment on the first hole, had to take a mulligan and ended up getting par but that was it, my only par everything just went super far down hill from there, I didn’t even add the score card.

If I pass out today after having made some adjustments to my morning cocktail I will have to call Dr. Buttle and try something different. This is the first time I have switched drugs that cause sedation when I haven’t been in some kind of extreme heightened state which has made this a whole lot more interesting. I can’t believe how tired I am.

Wouldn’t you know it today I’m all hyper. I LOVE YOU HORMONES! I am so just going with it…..

For a second round match I just watched a crazy awesome one between Alicia Molik and Serena Williams at Wimbledon. Serena is so dramatic I can’t stand her, but she won and is good to watch, it isn’t like she can’t play. Adam and I noticed during the French Open that the men were grunting like the women now and I think we were golfing at the time and had a whole in-depth discussion about how the men are doing it just to support the women and it wasn’t a funny conversation at all it was just a conversation about WHY the men might suddenly be grunting when they were trying to basically ban the women from grunting because Sharapova can break ear drums. And I remember it came up because when I hit the ball really hard I let out a little grunt and it is totally involuntary and generally results in a really far golf shot. At present Sharapova is killing some girl I don’t remember seeing before and there is actual sun in the sky.

Today I got my CT scan appointment and it is on July 10. It has to be at the far away hospital because I can get in there sooner. Now I assumed this yesterday but was still pissed about it so I feel bad calling my Dr. a retard. I didn’t mean it. But I don’t like the receptionist for serious. I was a receptionist for years I feel I know everything in the WORLD about being a good receptionist and she could use some work. I’d be happy to show her a thing or two and I don’t even like strangers or talking on the phone and I was still very good if I do say so myself.

I have to have the injection type CT scan which I was dreading as I had one in 1994 because of my headaches and I had a reaction to the contrast material containing iodine that they inject you with. OF COURSE only some small number of people have a reaction to it my Dad didn’t but that is just sensitive old me nothing I can do about it.

I had a another CT scan in 1998 when I came down with an extreme case of Labyrinthitis but I was so messed up I have no idea what, if and when they may have injected me with it, could have been aliens taking care of me for all I knew that is still the sickest I have ever been in my life. I remember all of it except the parts where I was passed out drooling down my face in the hallway of the hospital because they didn’t have enough beds. Oh Spockette thank you AGAIN for saving me that day.

Sweet, I thought I was going to have to go alone or Adam was going to have to miss some work to get me home but I have a girlfriend who is taking me to the hospital there and back, one less thing to worry about. I know I am 30 now and CAN go alone but I really didn’t want to.

Yesterday I spent most of the day sleeping. I tried really hard to stay up but my depression just completely over took me and it was bed for me. I wanted to read to avoid bed but couldn’t pick my book up. I was freezing and slept in my full track suit and staggered out of bed about thirty minutes before Adam walked in from work. I’ve been trying to fight this off for almost two weeks now but am losing the battle. Each day I seem to be getting worse. I am feeling defeated. And it makes me cry.

I feel like I tried hard, but what does that matter. I found a combination of medications that were working for me, or so I thought, there was bright light at the end of the tunnel. I was feeling good about myself; I was being social, answering my phone, leaving my apartment, running, reading a lot. Right now I have a major headache and I can’t eat which I know is not helping the headache. It is warm out and all my windows are closed because I am freezing. I want go to bed now but I normally try to make it till early afternoon.

I’m pissed off that I have side affects from my medication that are serious enough I need a bloody CT scan. I got called for my appointment yesterday but haven’t called back yet because it is at a stupid hospital far away from where I live and I’m starting to wonder if my Dr. is retarded seriously how fucking hard is it to book me into a hospital near my home not over an hour away on transit, I had my ass surgery there as well and it was a total inconvenience and ended in me barfing in my friend Dvo’s truck due to the crazy driving and ridiculously long drive home. The receptionist at my Doctor’s office is a bitch and I’m just not in the mood to deal with her.

The drop in the Risperidone is really fucking with me. My hormones because I’m producing prolactin when I’m not pregnant are making me feel like I have 24 hour a day PMS. While my ‘breast milk’ is not really going away due one to me playing with my boobs constantly and two because I am still on SOME risperidone my extreme paranoia [negative attentional bias] has returned with a vengeance I can’t even imagine how bad it’ll be get when I’m off the risperidone completely. There are other drugs that can be added back to my cocktail so I will be back on track but that isn’t the point, isn’t even CLOSE TO THE POINT.

I can’t handle the simplest things right now. If I try to talk to someone on MSN and they are ONLINE and ignore me, they hate me. If I’m talking to someone and they sign off-line, they hate me. I’m finding myself jealous of everything and feeling left out of everything and feeling like no one wants to hang out with me. I am feeling like I am annoying everyone and unaccepted. I’m taking everything personally, even things that have NOTHING to do with me or do they I seriously don’t know and am jumping to conclusions because I can’t control my emotions or my feelings. I am so fucking selfish I hate myself a lot, I can’t see past the end of my fucking nose half the time and I don’t even know why people are friends with me because I act like the world revolves around me and all my problems are the end of the world. All or nothing thinking is for pussies and I’m a pussy. I feel like my mind is driving me insane. I wanted to take my whole bottle of clonazepam this morning but didn’t because it won’t kill me anyway and Dr. Buttle will just make me get my dosages in weekly re-fills for months again like last time I pulled that shit. It is fucked because even though I am back to planning out possible suicide attempts in grand detail in my mind that take up many hours of staring off into space I am in a space where even though I can’t stop planning it I don’t really want to die at present I just want to sleep till I’m not depressed anymore. The only problem is my reasons for wanting to live are not my reasons, they aren’t for me.

I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the things I am supposed to be working on in therapy so that one day I can come off medication which is obviously not ever going to happen because I can’t even handle a 25mg drop in ONE of three meds I take. My mindfulness training, my meditation, my empathy exercises and breathing I can’t or won’t do any of it right now because it all seems fucking pointless. And honestly learning how to feel empathy and put myself in other peoples shoes because I’m a selfish fucking bitch is just making me feel worse about myself.

I have finally joined the modern ages of blogging. I decided this tab blogging bullshit had to end. Adam hated that I’d always have LOADS of tabs open slowing down the computer which runs at the speed of light anyway so I don’t even know why he was complaining, whatever the complaining can now stop I built an iGoogle home page and I added Google Reader and now I read blogs via feeds a.k.a. a more modern way. I am a proud nerd for other reasons but none relating to computers, finally I am starting to enter the real computer nerd world. I guess you can say I’ve been in it for a while I have had a blog for over two years but it doesn’t run with any thanks to myself I am very dependent on others, I thank John, Rebecca, and David for their help with that. Reading off of feeds rules I don’t have to go sifting through blog after blog after blog that hasn’t been updated in ages and I have decided I am angry with people whose feed I can not subscribe to, I do however forgive people who have private blogs that I read. For someone who spends as much time on the computer as I do I have no idea how I am still so computer illiterate. Oh to be computer good.

Yesterday some birthday money arrived from my parents [thanks mom and dad] via the mail box and I spent it instantly. I bought three books and a running outfit. I got this kick ass wrist band thing that holds your keys and shit, it RULES, normally if I’m running in something that doesn’t have any hidden pockets I wear my keys on a shoe lace around my neck and I can’t stand it! I went over the amount given by $14.68 but Adam said that was alright. The books I got are:

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini,

Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah

The Road, Cormac McCarthy

All of my bookshelves are full again. I can’t say it bothers me THAT MUCH I do enjoy stacking books up on top of the books already on the shelves; I take such pride in their organization. One day I want a whole wall that is only for books.

OH and check this out, Stephanie sent it to me. If this ever happens to me because of anything I take for my migraines, it will make it all worth it, having a genuine connection to Spock. A girl can only dream.

I love it when you go to the dr. and you know full well there is nothing they can do for you but you go anyway and then you feel like an idiot because you were right originally and there was nothing they could do for you and they have this look on their face which either means you really wasted their time THANK YOU or that you are really stupid. Or maybe I just had a mean lady dr. today. I only went because I’ve been coughing for over a week, I have allergies that are so bad that if they were a super power I could kill you with them and then this morning my nostrils started to hurt to breathe through and my mom is coming to visit this weekend so I thought fuck it I have to go to the dr. WHAT IF I HAVE A SINUS INFECTION. I don’t. I just have really bad ADULT allergies. Adam and I gave it some serious thought and discovered it is THIS TIME OF YEAR EXACTLY that I suffer the very most. I swear it feels like someone is blowing a balloon up in my head and they just won’t stop like it is my birthday forever but it sucks more than getting older.

Basically all I got out of my visit was told to take more Flonase until I’m over this bad attack and to take Tylenol for my cough. Nothing I take for my headaches helps the balloon affect. I don’t think I even have to get into how much that sucks.

I tried to get my mom to change her ticket because I feel like a write off but it is too expensive so hopefully it will rain or something, because golf is out anyway with it being the long weekend, it’ll be busy as death and I don’t have the patience with the allergies to play a pitch and putt course and have it take four plus hours. I’ll probably just rent lots of movies and we can go to the mall where the pollen can’t get me. When she comes down I want to have things to do and I always worry about that because we don’t have a car but add allergies in and I’m feeling a little stressed. Plus I am very picky about the state of the apartment I am NOT the type of person you just drop by on, if it is not clean to my standards I really do not like having people in here AT ALL and it won’t be ‘clean’ because I’ve been putting off cleaning because I’ve been feeling so shitty and now I can’t be breathing in stupid cleaning products when my nose already hurts. SEE how whiney I am, I have apologized to my mom in advance. Granted I may feel slightly better if it rains by Friday and/or the taking the Flonase twice a day helps.

I am feeling a little under the weather. At first I thought it was just allergies but now I am getting a cough. Headache- goes without saying is bad but I said it anyway. I was wanting to invite people over this weekend, so much for that idea.

I’ve been a wee bit more social lately. Don’t alert the presses yet or anything I haven’t strayed far but when I’ve gone out Ive had a lot of fun, which makes me want to do it more.

I am going to get my hair cut next week probably on Monday I need at least an inch taken off maybe two, some of my ends are spitting in three plus places on the strand. CRAZY.

We have not watched Snakes on a Plane yet.

I started a group on Facebook for people who have sock monkeys made by us or may one day have a sock monkey made by us or just like our sock monkeys. The goal is for people to upload a lot of photos of the monkeys we made them. You have to be on Facebook to join so get your ass on Facebook invite me as a friend under my real name and join ‘The Sock Monkey Army’. DO IT.

America’s Next Top Model went exactly how I thought it would last night. I never liked Dionne. Bitchy Renee is probably going to win, but I hope not Jaslene would be better or even Natasha, except she is really really strange even more so than Renee. Renee isn’t really strange she is just unpredictable and gossipy.

Lost is still super good and I’m enjoying the season a lot. 24 on the other hand is falling off my radar. My love for JACK BAUER will never change but the ’show’ is sucking, I have missed two episodes this season [to bad I didn’t miss the one where the Vice President made out with Alien lady. Ewwww] Up until this season, I HAD NEVER MISSED AN EPISODE. Truthfully, I did miss a couple in season one but that was because I didn’t start watching it from the get go but I later watched them on DVD.

I gotta go have a head cold now, watch movies like The Notebook and shit.

Today I am feeling better. Thank you very much. I didn’t like this week at all. I know I am feeling better because it is well before noon and I already have the dishes going and I am very happy it is not raining so that I can walk over to my shrink session today I bloody hate taking the bus and I double bloody hate taking it when it is raining. I have a huge zit on my left cheek that is buried under the skin and because of where it is EXACTLY and how big it is and how much it hurts it looks and feels like a spider bite so I am treating it like one and whining accordingly. I am sad the Canucks are out of the playoffs but mostly because we can’t wear our helmets anymore. I have a wicked bad headache today though I have for weeks and my stomach is being eaten by pills and my nose is being destroyed from Flonase because allergies SUCK. Especially adult ones I think this is only heading into my third year dealing with this adult allergy bullshit. It just sends my headaches through the roof some days. I feel like I could stick a needle up my nose and pop a balloon.

I’ll tell you this about this week. I have been feeling slightly overwhelmed for a while. Dr. B and I discuss it of course. Getting better is scary. There is expectation and I try not to put expectations [I just want them really bad] on things and there are fears, many fears and there is also a resistance. It is a lot easier in some respects to simply be depressed to use it as a crutch to let depression be all of me. And that is not productive. It isn’t fair to me, it isn’t fair to Adam. But when I’m there, when it is noon and I have already run out of things to do to entertain myself that don’t involve actually doing anything, passing out with my kitty on the couch is easier than doing anything that requires motivation. When getting better it is easy to get stuck and/or take on too much. And the lessons aren’t learned over night. The things I work on in therapy don’t take affect the second I walk out the door. And no one can force me out of my apartment if I really don’t want to leave. Forcing fun on a depressed person it like washing a cat with claws in your bathtub be prepared to get scratched and if your cat doesn’t have claws be prepared to get your face bitten off or at least a finger.

When the ‘you are not depression, depression is just a part of you’ came into play it was the start of trying to change how I think. But this is where you have to deal with all the shit people have said about you, the friendships lost, the basic stereotypes and how many jobs you have been ‘laid off’ from because you let your ‘paranoia’ take you over in the office and you’ve been labeled by everyone and EVERYONE thinks you are crazy so of course that is ALL THERE IS TO ME. Nope apparently I’m charismatic and funny, determined, defiant and lots of other things that make me not just a depressed blob. This may be obvious to some, not so much to my medicated mind.

Then entered the, it isn’t ‘paranoia’ it is having a negative attentional bias. I get the whole think positive, don’t waste my time on other peoples bullshit, work on me, deal with my own demons, be selfish, say awesome things about myself out loud in groups of people until I actually believe it, I get it. Worrying about things I can’t do anything about is futile. Like if people are talking bad about me, or thinking I should get off my ass and get a job, what have you. Who cares this is my life, my choices it is about what works for Adam and I. But say I’m ‘paranoid’ about someone stealing my identity because I don’t have a shredder and I recycle everything and someone can piece shit together and steal all the money I don’t have. However unlikely I do worry about this. And I feel paranoid. I don’t see how this is negative attentional bias and not paranoia because N.A.B is a made up term to make help me think more positively and get my mind in general thinking in a different way but even after discussing it with him I am still not buying it on all fronts. It is however a term that does help if I’m having negative or worrisome thoughts surrounding relationships and staying out of situations that could become dramatic.

Working on those two things I was finding I was still being ‘mean’ to myself still feeling jealousy anger towards all things good and still making snide remarks mostly at women to the point Adam said ‘you know you are going to get clocked one day and there is going to be nothing I can do about it’. This generally happens when I’m tired and just plan sick of always having to ‘work’ on being a normal person. Days when I just don’t give a shit, days when I’m basically feeling sorry for myself and feeling like depression is all of me and I’m worthless so I take it out on the innocent civilians of Vancouver. So, Dr. B asked if I was ready to take on another task. I said I wasn’t sure really but to at least tell me what it was. And it was a very obvious task and something you’d say to a five year old- ‘if you haven’t got anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all’. Even with all the improvements I have made with being ‘nicer’ in public I had no idea how bad I still was until I was concentrating on it. And even though at first I couldn’t stop myself I was at least aware. In thinking and analyzing just how bloody negative I can be I started to feel pretty disgusted with myself. I need to work on an attitude of non judgment; I need to learn how to make observations, not judgments and this you see all ties in to depression not being all of me and NOT having a negative attentional bias.

Honestly it is becoming like a twelve step program.

Last Friday I was supposed to go to my doctor for my regular physical - AKA: vag exposed, feet in stirrups, cold metal speculum inserted, enter swab. But I got my period the day before so I had to reschedule it and was only able to fill my prescriptions and ask about the slit in my nose from the dry air in the apartment that was making pain. My doctor is not close to where I live, I hate my period for not being ‘regular’ and making me have to rebook the vag exposed part, but obtained:

Flonase for my allergies they will start kicking in as soon as the weather clears up and we can actually get out and golf. Stupid torrential down pouring of rain is on repeat.

Mefenamic Acid for my cramps, it decreases uterine contractions and;

Naproxen for my headaches that aren’t bad enough to need Excedrin Migraine, but also for headaches that are really bad, so they need both at the same time. Those are fun.

She suggested an over the counter Lubricating Nasal Gel called Secaris for the slit in my nasal tissue that has been bugging me for MONTHS. It cost $5.99 for a 30g tube which is totally reasonable but the tube is HUGE and works so well I only needed to use it once and it sealed the problem area and it hasn’t reopened. Until August 2009 I can have as many dry nose issues as I want. I hope for lots because this shit works great.

My Psychiatrist prescribes the rest of my medications for my depression.

When I was at the drug store I bought some black nail polish. It was the last one and I have always wanted to buy black nail polish, it felt meant to be. So now I wear black nail polish. I think maybe all the Guitar Hero went to my head and I think I’m all rock and roll for serious or something. What it has done for my air guitar skill alone is simply priceless. I could likely teach an air guitar class. PLUS now my nails match my glasses. Awesome.

Almost everyone in British Columbia that I know is sick. These viruses are getting really insane. I have been sick since last Thursday evening when my throat got scratchy. Adam has been sick since last Wednesday. I picked it up from him fast. Normally I just get the beginnings of things take some Vitamin C and it’s gone, other than having almost daily headaches that can become debilitating with little or no notice, I hardly ever get SICK, sick.

THIS virus is SO FUN because it starts with the flu and NOW we have full blown head colds. AWESOME. My fever was so high Adam had to go out and get a thermometer so we could monitor it; it was into the 100’s. Even Gus is barfing. The other night I was so uncomfortable and my body hurt so badly I was convinced I had RLS [Restless Leg Syndrome] until I remembered that only people on TV get it and that I don’t have enough room in my life right now for anymore ’syndromes’ or ‘disorders’.

The worst thing about this stupid flu/cold other than the fever, sore joints and muscles, wet cough, then dry cough, sore throat, sore ears, ridiculous headache, and all the snot AND the watery red eyes [the watery eyes just set in today but they were already red and hurt to open] WE CAN’T SLEEP. Until the full head cold kicked in and the flu part started to get better neither of us could sleep. Talk about frustrating, all I want to do when I’m sick is sleep. Finally, last night I was able to sleep until I woke hacking up a lung at 5:30am and I get up around 7am so I was not complaining after the previous nights in hell. Not being able to play Guitar Hero is so lame I’m not even going to discuss it because I have 14 songs open on hard now. I am in awe of Riss who left a comment saying she battles on EXPERT. HOLY. [IF you are a 24 fan she writes the best after show comments EVER]

AND I get dinged $140.00 by my therapist for missing last Friday’s session because I didn’t cancel in time. SWEET.

As mentioned, coming Thursday: