What you have to do in Shanghai or China: 足浴 Foot bath

One thing I love the most during my trip... among all other things... is.. 足浴.. foot message or foot bath.

It apparently is something very common in China.. or Shanghai, at least...

For some people, it might sound like 蜀犬吠日... so they say... in 四川 province, there are a lot of clouds and often foggy... at least some part of the province, I guess... it is so rare for doggies to see the sun in the sky that doggies would bark at the sun.

In other words, though there is nothing new under the sun... It is the sun itself that is new?!  Well, interesting.....

Back months ago, when I was in New York, I started doing foot soaking, especially after I was going through the insomnia resulting from the dosage change of Seroquel...  I would add Epson salt and, sometimes, essential oils to the water.  And, I found out that foot soaking really help me falling asleep.

Some days, I would be knocked down so well that I would think I might have taken Seroquel already since Seroquel has also been serving me as sleeping aids due to its sedating effect for all these years.

When I was in Shanghai, my brother in law took me to do foot bath or 足浴.

At the beginning of the session, they would let you soak your feet in some kind of water... with ingredients such as milk or herbs... depending on the where you go.  While you are soaking your feet, they would give you a message on your upper body followed by foot message.

After my trip to Seoul, due to circumstances, by the time I got to Shanghai, my body was in a-piece-of-crab kind of state.  Not only did I have some really bad flu/cold symptoms... knocking me down the entire day the second day I arrived in Shanghai... My back and knees conditions were both in a really bad shape.

My walking was so not very normal that my brother-in-law coined it the "八家將" style.... (please see the following clip for an example of the "八家將" style... interestingly... does have some resemblance... 8-O lol)



In any case, the first time I tried out 足浴 or foot bath was the day after I was struck down by upper respiratory problem and stayed in bed the entire day.  After the 90-minute session, miraculously, I was able to walk better and it was much easier to climb one stair or two--- although my much-easier-state was still consider very八家將 to the others.... 8-O lol   In addition,  at the end of the session, I suddenly started really productive coughs and was able to get rid of much mucus (oops, too much information...)

So, during my stay, I did a few more times of 足浴 or foot bath... with the last time the night right before my departure day...

When the lady was messaging my feet, at some point, I felt her hand stroking on some interesting knots under my feet, I asked her what that was... Apparently, that was the region associated with sleeping problem... She kept on working on that area and... in no time... I was sleepy.. and, that night, I had the best sleep I have ever had for a while.... still so sleepy when I was on the Maglev on the way to the Pu-dong airport (thank God I was awake enough to not get onto the wrong plane... 8-O lol)

Moreover, the time before landing, when the plane started to decrease its altitude has always been a killer if I felt under the weather upon boarding.  Although I did feel sort of uncomfortable when the airplane was landing in Taipei, it was so much better than my trip from Korea to Shanghai... for 20-30 minutes... my ears hurt, my head hurt and I though my head was about to explode... ouch...

In addition, despite the fact that I have been sick to the state that I feel lethargic all over, my body movement has gotten such much better and that luggage of mine also appeared less burdensome to manage.

Although there is no scientific basis, I suspect these changes might have something to do with the foot bath experiences... As a result, perhaps, from now on, I shall go for a foot bath/message session if I have to get on to an airplane while feeling under the weather. 8-O lol
 
Except for... so my sister had me told... foot bathing is so much more expensive in Taiwan... comparing to that in Shanghai...  In that case, I would simply get back to do my at-home-spa treatment called foot soaking... I guess..

In Shanghai, the price might range between 10-20 US dollars for a 60-90-minute session.  This is something I would strongly recommend shall you be interested in taking a trip to Shanghai or China in general.

12.25 mg

Dosage has gone down again... now... since over two weeks ago because I was zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... most of the times....

Somewhere around 12.25 mg of Seroquel since it is impossible to really cut the pill in half or in quarter with pill cutter...  Haven't been on dosage this low since... I guess... 7-8 years ago..... 8-O

So I went to see a psychiatrist here... already twice since I got back on the 20th of July... he seems to think that I am doing pretty fine.

The added benefit of doing nothing more than... walking, exercising, TV watching and eating.  Not using my head too much, I guess. 8-O lol

In addition, I have an interesting observation... when it is too hot, my head also starts to get overheated and being in a cool place cools my head down.   Also,  when things get on my nerve... the head would start running and running and running.... I would let it run its course in my head and it does run through eventually.... 8-O lol

Sleeping problems did resurrect for... like two days.... I went back to my lavender etc tea or essential oil body product and it worked...

Regardless, I, again, realized... all these years of busy trying to devise a efficient way to cope while trying to live my life and pursuing the goals I have already forgotten....

The most strangely efficient way so far... do what others do for all these times. 

Nothing new. Sort of like... regression to the mean... I guess... 8-O lol

Why did I have to go running around in circle before getting back to this conclusion?  God knows... I guess... 8-O lol

Foot soak and sleeping

I tried out soaking my feet with ginger for a change Friday night since... all of a sudden, I started to have this salty sense in my mouth every time I feel cold air coming out from the bottom of my tongue.

It makes me feel warm and... forgotten already.

Yet, one lesson I learned for myself... ginger foot bath or bath might help others sleeping but it doesn't help with my sleeping... had problem falling asleep and sleep through the night.

I soaked my feet in used tea bags and tea leaves... and two drops of essential oils containing ingredients lavender and rosemary instead last night... Don't quite remember how easy it was for me to fall asleep... one thing I do know... I slept for something like a good 10 if not 11 hours...

Real lesson learned, I guess, for me... different things work for different people and we simply have to find what works for ourselves...

And, again, what really worked?  Not my issues no more... as long as I sleep like a baby.

Lavender

I have this gut feeling based my recent experiences... There is something about Lavender.... or maybe not...

The idea of lavender came to me last week when I found it listed in a book at Barnes and Nobles as a sleep aid kinda herb...

So... I found myself some lavender epsom salt and some tea including lavender and other, presumably, sleep enhancing herbs...

I have been sleeping like a baby since Saturday on... and knock on woods...

Then, I came up with this smart idea... maybe I should go look for some lavender hand cream for the day time so that people don't have to hear my mouth when I see things ain't right... side effects of decreased meds and nicotine....

So... today, I went searching for a lavender smell that I can sleep with and I can be awake with...

Then, I got home... out of curiosity...

Why isn't my psychotic symptoms running overboard? (No complaints)

Did some googling for some info concerning lavender etc and schizo-etc and came up with something like the following...

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/adis/cns/2006/00000020/00000004/art00001

Or... the following info at Medline...

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/patient-lavender.html

Apparently, there is some potential scientific basis for my feeling sedated by my lavender alike venture.... just when I think I am really going crazy due to the decreasing insight blah blah blah.... 8-O lol

At the same time, in my scenario, it doesn't matter whether it is placebo effect or not, you see, as long as it works... such as helping me get a good long night of sleep....

Still on my meds... of course... in other words, the herbal stuffs are the supplements...

Body News: A Sleep Inducing Scent: allure.com

My sleeping problem seemed to have gone away... thank God... and knock on wood...

Other than the natural changes in my neurochemical levels that require time and time....

Some things I have been doing consistently since last posting...

I started soaking my feet using Rite Aid brand Lavender Epsom Salt, use Lavender body cream, and drink tea containing chamomile, lavender etc.

One think I can't handle, though, is Lavender scent of air refreshner...

Just when I though... people must think that I am crazy... while I am crazy...

I came across the following...

Body News: A Sleep Inducing Scent: allure.com

The good thing about these new routines... regardless... it doesn't hurt....

In addition, part of the reason why I didn't entertain this kinda stuff was because--- up to some time last year, "having problem sleeping" was mostly a foreign concept.

Sleep etc

Major things in my life since last posting...

1. Decreased Seroquel dosage
2. Sleep problem
3. Sudden decrease in smoking after I got myself so shit-faced that I spent an entire day and night worshiping the procelain God  

I have never had any problem sleeping until last year...  Don't I miss them golden years of precious ignorance? sigh

First, I started having problem falling asleep...  Then, in my recent times, I started to wake up multiple times during the night.  

Medication... medication.... much of my sleep-related blah blah blah is associated with Seroquel...

At the same time, the sudden decrease of the number of cigarettes I smoke... (2 smokes a day not instead of a pack or so) might also play a role in the sleep problem.  At the same time, something tells me to stick to 2 cigarettes a day for a bit longer because "this might help the system to get back to homeostasis" - so something has me told.

Since the dosage of Seroquel is lowered again

1. more alert or awake during the day time
2. cold air overflowing through out my body and annoyingly coming out of my mouth.  Extremely uncomfortable
3. energy overflowing with a puff or two of cigarette or walking.... as two of the remedies known to me by now   
4. it seems like, right after the dosage get decreased, my body would get into problem again such as pain, walking problem etc. At this point in my life, since there ain't no nothing I could do about it, I just let my body do whatever it has to do as long as I am kicking... 8-O lol sigh 
5. sleep disruption is something that has been driving me up the wall.  The problem I face is that... I would keep on waking up... some nights I would wake up 5-6 times over the duration of a 7- hour or so sleep.  This is pure suffering.  

Since sleep problem is a known side effect of reducing Seroquel dosage and since I don't really want to get into the habit of taking sleeping pills unless necessary, I have to try out something else.  Following are the things that I have been trying so far...

1. Drink Herbal Tea: Peppermint, Chamomile, and... after the sleeping problem got worst, I got this Yogi Tea Bedtime which contains herbs known to help sleeping and relaxation such as Valerian Root, Passion Flower, Chamomile Flower, Skullcap Leaf, St. John's Wort Leaf Flower, English Lavender Flower, Stevia Leaf
2. Foot soaking: I add Epsom salt and all the tea bags left from the day time into a pot of hot water and soak my feet.  I started using this Rite Aid brand of Lavender Epsom salt two days ago and... wow... that wonderful smell itself gave me a buzz... 8-O lol
3. Body lotion: Lavender.... Lavender... Lavender... Lavender... at least upper body... at the same time, my body is getting so spoilt that... if the scent is not right, I can't sleep with it.  For instance, cookie or orange/tangerine kind of smell used to work but no longer work in helping me falling asleep.   Therefore, I am not gonna buy you unless I can sleep with you... my new policy with body cream... So far, I can sleep with bodyshop and Crabtree and Evelyn.  (Maybe I really am a princess... sort of like... the princess and the peas?!  At the same time, never in my life working so hard trying to figure out who to sleep with 8-O lol)
4. Make sure enough nicotine in the system before going to sleep... 

I finally woke up this morning feeling that there is some improvement in my sleep... I woke up only twice before I have to get up to work as opposed to 5-6 times.

At the same time, believe it or not, the whole foot soak thing and tea thing do seem to help me feel sleepy even before taking Seroquel.

What exactly worked or happened?

At this point in my life, not my issue.  

Though I do ponder at times... Am I getting crazier or not?

Abridged status update.

Lessons learned: including "Who told your to invade my head?"

One breakthrough in my coping mechanism with the symptoms (people could read my mind and I could sense their presence etc....)--> "I am not responsible for my psychotic symptoms."  and "Who told your to invade my head without permission?"

Unfortunately, there is no standard interventions for my own symptoms.  Some might work for a while and, all of a sudden, doesn't work.  My coping so far... a constant processing of finding out the things that might work.

Taking symptoms such as people could read my mind and hear my thought thing...

You could tell yourself that... it is but your symptoms.  Yet, good luck with that... if you could win it over this way, they wouldn't have been coined as pathological.

If you don't give a bag of beans about how others feel, you could simply run your mouth on and on at them "unauthorized intruders in your head."  End results, other people might find it difficult to get your attention and find your head all flaky...  This might be the same reason why, sometimes on the street, you hear people all of a sudden yelling at you for no good reason.

Yesterday, for instance, as I was walking down Broadway, this woman came towards me and yelled... "Keep on playing your game!!"

I went... "8-O you could see them people accessing my head without authorizations and you are actually speaking to them?"  (So speak for the synergistic effect of putting two together... 8-O lol sigh)

At the same time, others might feel bad when not-so-nice thoughts would come into their head.  They might feel bad that the not-so-nice thoughts might be known by other people and hurt their feelings.

This is one of my worst enemy... For the longest time, I felt bad when not so nice thoughts would emerge and might hurt the receivers' feelings.... and your know your condition is going down south when it goes from singular to plural because, when you start to feel the presence and hear the voices of many people, your head starts to reenact things like the three kingdoms... 8-O lol sigh

And this is the time when you have your meds up... like what I have to do.. with the minor inconveniences I have to face when going to bed... In addition to them symptoms who have a bad habit of showing up left and right in all forms while you let go of your cognitive control when trying to fall asleep, extremely dry mouth, the sensation of the esophagus getting all tightened up and the body jerking up and down in bed as if a life fish out of water on a chopping board....

Life used to be much easier... you pop the meds, it knocks you down and put your asleep.  The worst thing could happen is for you to feel all dumb all days... none of them physical kinda stuffs... sigh

Then, the light ball went off earlier today and I realized that one way of responding to these kind of incidence is to say to myself...

"I have no control over my symptoms otherwise they will not be called pathological symptoms.  In addition, my head is my head and who the hell are you to intrude my private thoughts... pathological or not.  That should teach you a lesson being beaten up by my disordered thoughts left and right."

(Remember... the reason why symptoms are symptoms is because of the intrinsic bias patients have towards the disordered thinking.)

Then I thought of what that strange doctor of mine said to my over 2 years ago...

"放下" or, in English, "Let go."

I could not understand what exactly I have to put down and, today, I bet, the doctor might have no idea either except for he simply knows that is what I have to do.

Since then, I have learned to let go of many things... although I am still not quite sure what I have to learn to let go.

The most recent thing that I learned to let go is to let go of the control over my symptoms... as mentioned in the previous part of the writing.  I have to learn to let the symptoms to simply be symptoms while finding the least stressful way of reacting to them.  (And, of course, it is easier to say than to do... react not...)

In addition, in my previous life, people mostly could not tell that there is anything not so normal about me... until the point of the accident when I fell free from a collapsing chair in sitting position.

From then on... till today... it is just a normal part of my life to walk abnormal and go into abnormal states.  At this point, when it occurs... whether it is my limping around... sleep walking... experiencing excruciating pains migrating through my body as I take my walk ... etc... It is just the way it is so let it be.  And, hopefully, if I let it run through... I will be able to walk out of it.... and luckily, I have been able to walk in and out of strange states so far....

Essentially, I am regressing back to the mean and simply need to fill the quota.... Nowadays, I am having a paradigm shift in my MO... pretending no more... trying no more to act like them people-- normal... though I still do have my boundary and though I have no idea what it really means to act normal. 8-O  Somehow, something tells me that this is what it takes... I simply have to do it and get it over with.

Of course, God knows whether any of these thoughts are intuition or delusions...  Everything shifts and morphs all the time...  Along this line of thinking... I have given up trying to figure out how sane or insane I might be.  Somehow... no need no more.... unless... insufficient cognitive capacity.  In addition, the want to figure it out make you think and convoluted thinking drive you even nuttier.

In addition, this idea just came to me yesterday.... what about creative writing? 8-O

Allergy?

I have been intending to make this posting for weeks if not months.... something told me it was not yet time until now.

I have been having this feeling and talking to some of my friends about this thing I might call allergy.

It is as if I have become allergic to pursuits involving my head.... at least...

Every time I try to read and try to do the work necessary to complete my academic assignments, my psychotic symptoms go on a field trip and I feel physically no good....

Worst of all, the things I try to read and learn about become my delusions and hallucinations.

The only thing I could do, in addition to take my meds, is to do nothing, to do my sleep-walking or do my swinging exercise..  with the purpose of these brainless activity.... seemingly... to erase it all which eventually would lead to the "waking up" moments.... (a never-ending theme nowadays.)

If I try to do "too much," my body and mind would take the whole day or two to take me off such tasks....

There would be no point to fight it since there ain't no nothing you could do to fight it....

This is something nobody, I guess, could understand since I can't understand either myself....

How do I know these are delusions but not simply some non-delusional beliefs?

I intend not to persuade anyone about insanity but... following would be the example...

I have been reading or try to read about the grounded theory method.

There has been much phenomena emerged associated to what I learned about it...

One night, after I read this article, I decided to make some smart ass comments and post it in this blog....

"An interesting theory proposed by Stern (1994) about the divorce of the parents for Grounded theory.  According to Stern, the crux of the divorce might have resided in their MO....

“I think, that Strauss, as he examines the data, he stops at each word to ask, “What if?” Glaser keeps his attention focused on the data and asks, “What do we have here? Straus brings to bear every possible contingency that could relate to the data, whether it appears in the data or not. Glaser focused his attention on the data to allow the data to tell their own story.” (P. 220)

.... no wonder I have split-heads.... 8-O lol

Be serious... how do you reconcile the differences?  That would be the question...."

I made this post on December 30th. Right after I publish this post, I had this sense of fear... this feeling that somebody is unhappy.

Since I read from somewhere that Strauss has passed away in, I thought, 1996, I could not help but think that it was Strauss that was upset about my making it something so light.

Thereafter, I felt Strauss's "presence" and "guidance." Strauss told me to focus on the first chapter of the book "The Discovery of Grounded Theory for instance."

When taking my daily sleep-walking kind of walk, grounded theory related contents also came looping around like broken record in my head.... For instance.... I walked on and on with "emerging versus forcing" in my head... for many a block if not many a mile...

And, every time when I try to push something through... "Emerging... emerging......."

At the same time, there have even been times when I was instructed to stop reading and to start doing other brainless activities because "you have to take care of your health."

One night, as I was doing my swinging exercise in front of TV, I felt the presence of Strauss moving away... Apparently, the intensive mentoring program had ended and all that he has to do now is to pop in at times to do some advisement. 8-O lol sigh

Was talking to my friend about it earlier today and I said...

"I heard of "the neighbor's dog made me do it." Yet, in this case, it is the methodologist himself's spirit led me through it." 8-O lol sigh

These are but some of the examples that lead me to think once in a while...

Why is it for the others... things... so easy?

Why can't I simply get some writing done without all these strange things?

Then, as I was typing out the above qestions...

In my head.... "Emerging...."

And, en route to this posting through the past few months… in addition to all of the above and more… I stopped by sleep walking… swinging… origami tessellation… knitting… and so on to keep myself in one piece during the emerging process….

Post for the New Year's eve

On my way home from my daily walk, as I was yawning involuntarily in my sleep walking state down Broadway, NYC, I heard this guy passing me by said...  "Disgusting."

I kept walking on and let my body finish up with the yawning routing... naming... mouth opening and closing.... and so on...

And, I let these words out simply out of my mouth without disturbing anyone... hopefully... "You are disgusting."

And... move further on.

Such captures some essential lessons learned this year.

I would have stopped right here except for something tells me to say more.... therefore, I decided to copy the following from my internal journal posted 2 days ago.

This has been a strange year in the sense that....

I spent hundreds of hours sleep walking.... mostly on Broadway.... in and out of psychotic episode grade of sleep walking... hundreds and a mile... in between... yawning, tearing.... trying to keep my eyes not closing.... floating around in the sea of hallucinations and delusions.... as well as the never-ending waking-up moments.  (Thank God. 8-O)

I also spent hundreds if not thousands of hours... swinging... to make sure the existence that is in gazillion a piece not breaking apart.

In addition, it had come to my realisation that... what I usually thought as intuition might be more than what is commonly considered as intuition.....

So I have often said... my intuition blah blah blah... therefore I blah blah blah... to follow my intuition.

Then, there were times when I tried to follow the intuition not (to defy? 8-O lol sh....)... thinking to myself... I could plow it through... like what I used to be able to... and, I realised... I simply could defy the force what I thought as intuition not.



Sort of like... da illusion of control... spoken of by da turtle... 8-O lol

Get to the core now.... to link all other categories together... simple or simply love.



Happy New Year and a happier New Year!

God bless

Mentioned that before... the day doesn't end until I wake up the second morning...

Woke up in the morning, I say... a perfect day yesterday and wonderful to be able to sleep without bed time terrors....

Sleepy day

Might have something to do with too much salt in last night's instant noodles for dinner... my favorite Taiwanese instant noodles... or whatever theories to blah blah blah

Might have something to do I didn't drink enough water....

Not quite sure what I did but not enough water....

When I went to sleep, I could feel things coming up... sort or warm if not hot... raising to my throat...

Two pillows didn't work...

Then, there came sinus problems...

Problem--- can't breath with my nose and can't breath with my mouth.... attempting to breathe with my mouth... dry mouth that can't be alleviated by water-drinking emerges...

Then, there came anxiety.... and blah blah blah...

About two o'clock... I got up... took an Advil and a sleeping pill because, all that I can have not, sleep is essential...

So I woke up... today... 200 mg day plus the sleeping pill's lingering effects... feeling all dosed... still... How could them chemicals stay so long in my body?

Sleep walking if not working.... 8-O lol

What to avoid

Didn't get to sleep until late last night and had to woke up early in the morning...

More and more of the running around to meet the DHS deadline for tomorrow...

I was still missing some ER records.... Yet, the time was pressing... I went ahead and shipped everything out by 4 o'clock....

I don't know how other's might handle it if you were in my shoe....

A psychotic and crippled at times chick running around trying to mail out a sea of documentations for the Department of Homeland Security of the United States of America... (especially when the phrase Department of Homeland Security itself is so... wow...)

In addition, I stupidly made myself do some unnecessary extra amount of stair climbing... might have added extra stress to the body itself as well...

So stressful that I actually took the patches off and switch to the real smoke....

Let go or not...

The whole scenario is damn tiring for me...

I observed a significant increase in positive symptoms.... primarily... self-referencing and them strange bodily sensation etc... just like that... simple as that...

Like... ever heard of the stress model? Duh...

So, after class, as I was dragging myself home... I had this realisation...

Things to be done to ensure my selves in good shape...

1. Go to sleep early to make sure I get enough sleep
2. Avoid getting to tired because it seems that when I am more tired, the symptoms come out easier
3. Eat my food
4. Avoid stress when possible

(Like nobody every told you anything like that before? 8-O lol)

absence seizures

Great... speaking of da sleep walking thing and as I have it forgotten....

On House... the topic of the episode... the first diagnostic hypothesis... absence seizures... 8-O 8-X

Walk

Just took another walk...

Something told me to take the riverside park instead...

So I walked.... in a state... limited were thoughts...

I did have thoughts...

I did have words spoken in my head...

I did sense them never-ending gerne of feelings... love, sadness, hurt.... which were released and forgotten...

You feel love... loving feelings... you thought... loving feelings....

You feel sadness... sadness... you came up with the label... sad feelings...

You feel many other things or perhaps not too many.... you labeled and be in the dasein...

When things change, you find yourself in, simply, an alternative dasein....

Then, you realised... the thoughts... the words themselves... dasein...

And you kept on moving on or life moves on carrying you with the flow... let daseins manifest themselves... unfolding like a stream of running water...

And... you walked on... walked on down Broadway...

You walked on like anyone else...

You even ponder what is in their head at times... wonder whether how you are is the normal way they feel...

You stopped at the red light...

You jaywalked when no traffic...

You went into shops and finally made some purchase...

You kept on walking on while yawning at points...

Then, you are almost home...

This voice inside your heart... relative to the region that is the central point of your chest.... this voice like many others that have emerged so far... repeating itself... in its own rythem....

The voice called... "Love... love... love... love......"

All of a sudden, you felt awake...

It was as if you have just waken up... from a trace... (although I don't really know what it means to be in a trace but it surely sounds nice....) 8-O lol

So you walked into the supermarket, grabbing some fruit and vegi, you proceeded to the casher, and, you thought to yourself...

Sleep walk....

Was that sleep walk?

Where did them hours of time go?

On your way back home... crossing the street... you felt even more awake... as if you have just came out of a hypnotised state....

You think to yourself... "I am some kind of nuts."

You think again... "I am already nuts but this is even more aberrant if not abnormal...."

Then, you ponder to yourself... Am I really awake this round for sure?? What does it mean... anyways... for sure? 8-O 8-X

At the same time, you brought this question to thyself... Does it seem like my delusional system has gotten stronger? Yet, how would be valid and reliable measure?

You also wonder... Could it be an alternative outlet for my the delusional self?

And, you stop.

And, you thought of the voice you heard repeatedly by pier 1.... "Stop fighting... stop fighting... stop fighting..."

And, it is your heart's desire for more interpretations but you stop.

Awake

This has been happening...

I try to fall asleep... but I can't....

I know that I am still awake...

When I finally decided to get up in the middle of the night to do something about it....

I realise that I have been dreaming though I was still awake...

What does it mean to be awake?

First night 200 mg

By 5:00 o'clock, it felt as if the energy in me was about to overflow....

I felt the need to go take a walk... to walk it off...

It is as if immediately after I started walking and as I left my mind... perhaps... relaxed...

Things calmed down...

I did a few more blocks of walk...

I did a bit more swinging exercise after I got home.

How does it feel now?

Still relatively calm although the head feels relatively flex... no more helmet.

It feels as if this is the kind of feeling one might have when one could decided to think or to think not.

Not too many positive symptoms either... on and off at times... yet not too much...

Time to try to fall asleep again...

Hope I don't have to live through that dreaming awake stuff again.

And, of course, this age and time... God knows....

On a second thought... I have blogged myself into the nut house.... while knowing the conditions were going south.... (at least I still had some insight then...)

What it be like.... OMG... I am losing my insights? Guess just need to leave it to tomorrow and its tomorrows... 8-O 8-X

200 mg

First day on 200 mg, I am feeling lighter and my head does not feel so much like I am wearing a helmet...

I am actually being in a good mood.

Last night I went into the dasein phase within which I found no meaning in no nothing. There was despair. There was no hope. Today, I wake up feeling happiness, wish, hope and loving feelings.

When comparing to yesterday, I feel more dissociated from the surrounding even though I do feel less detached from the external world when comparing to before the dosage change.

Will be trying out reading....

In addition, last night when I went to bed, I, again, went into this strange state...

I was dreaming all along....

However, I was still half awake...

It lasted so long... an hour or two... and I have to wake up early to come to work....

I eventually had to get up and take a sleeping pill at around 2:30....

I think the sleeping pill might also have some contribution to my current state.

Rock climbing

I always wanted to try out rock climbing... but never had the chance or take the chance...

Can't quite lift a mac book... rock climbing might be a bit too technical...

Baby steps maybe...

Hope one day soon I could go hiking...

All else seemly unapproacheable... at least, feeling sort of tired... tonight I could fall asleep....

Coffee

Tonight I seemed to have become even slower...

Then I thought of the second cup of coffee I took and I was unable to sleep all the way till 3:30 in the morning.... and I had to, unfortunately, take a sleeping pill to put me to sleep since sleeping is of vital importance to me...

Maybe the slower-er-er-ness has something to do with the pill....

Yet, how could the effect last so long?

Fish on cutting board

It's been a while since this has been happening...

Every night after I take my medication and when I go to bed, I would have this involuntary movement in my body...

Essentially, all different parts of my body would go jerking around... the chest, the stomach and the legs... You can't help it and you feel parts of your body jumping around on your bed as if they don't belong to you... (speaking of neurological impairments). All that you could do is to pray to God that it will end soon or you could fall asleep soon so that you don't have to deal with it. At times, I even have this thought that... why don't I simply go and take a sleeping pill so that I will let the body deals with itself....

To envision what it looks like, envision yourself looking at a live fish pulled out of the water and on the cutting board... How it jerks around...

After a certain point, you just lay there quitely letting it happen and run through its course because there ain't no nothing you could do other than simply letting it do what it has to do... My mama, for instance, who sleeps in the same room has no idea at all...

Everyday I wish it to be the last night for it to happen.... since it would take time for the decreased dosage to take effect...

Yet, everynight is just another night... for da wishful thinking...

Last night, after I took 250mg of Seroquel as opposed to 300 mg, I went to bed and wishing that run-away-horse kind of experiences would not occur.

It did happen again. However, the intensity decreased drastically.

You would say that it might be self-fulfilling prophecy.

Even so, first night dosage down, the horror at bed time seems to have become less horrible.

Cognitive impairment and flat affect both are bad. Ain't so good either, nightly, being da fish on cutting board.

Shall you wonder why I am playing Russian Roulette with my meds.

(And, by the way, I do sometimes ponder whether what I am describing here is actually seizures or myoclonus induced by Seroquel.)