At the very beginning, there was Ratopia. Then, there's ratology. In ratology, we observe whether psychotic and neurotic people could amount to something. Then came the spinal disc herniation and impingement, bringing forth the stage of physical disability. Could someone like me go anywhere or amount to anything is the question. After the official ending of the second psychotic episode lasted for five years, I am ready to move on to the next phase of Ratology- as the solutions unfold.
Something someone said reminded me that I have not posted anything here for a while...
I-20 expired again and now I have about a month and a half, as per immigration law, to get myself back to feeling alive cuz... if ain't no nothing gonna happen, such as me winning the green card lottery etc, at least... I gotta be in a state more awaken and alive than now by the time I arrive in Taiwan... 8-X
Anyways, though long story... I must have written something alike before...
To share with you here is quote from "coloring Mandalas"... some words absolutely speak for my life's experience nowadays...
"Fragmentation, confusion comes about because the pattern is beyond your compreshension."
At this point, I stop or try to stop wanting to figure out whether I have completely lost it or something strange is in the air... Too much thinking is useless since most of my thoughts are transient and don't need to be encoded in long term memories anyways-- a waste of storage space, I guess... 8-O lol
All that I can say is I have never lived my life so hard in my entire life... partially having something to do with the fact that... it takes extra amount of work to live a life when you feel so dissociated or disconnected from the rest of the world while, at times, the sense of dissociation would get so bad that you would feel even your "self" dissolve. (Don't understand what I mean? That's fine. I don't understand the majority of the things I somehow have to experience either. It makes at least the two of us.)
My past experience would tell me that this is... once again... the indication that I am overdosed again... except for... it was only about 2-3 months again when the dosage when down to 50 mg of Seroequl?!
In any case, one thing I am sure is that... I am not gonna BS you about not having this big fear about metamorphosis... as in
(Saw this bookcover @ barnes and noble and love it... Am I turning into a da bug? 8-O lol sigh)
And, the matter of the fact... perhaps... the learning that has incurred, at least in the last 3 years, more than I could bargain for above and beyond the contribution of formal school education... though I didn't ask for it. 8-O lol 8-X
For instance... there ain't no nothing more important than health.... lesson extracted through my encounters with total disability in different flavors in recent years.... And, of course, that me I used to know, if not be, for example, would not be able to understand.
Twice in a day, this topic of "can't read" came up after I logged for myself yesterday in my private journal that now I am finally regaining my ability to read again in baby steps.
So I have been saying... it is this kind of never-ending synchronicity that got me stuck in my psychotic state.
A blessing in disguise... nowadays.. I only have memory the size of an atom.... would be nicer if it were the size of peanuts.
Anyways...
The materials I can process now while at the onset of relearning to read... still relatively selective... mostly related to the maintenance of my beauty and health... such as...
How much do I believe in the things I now finally can start reading?
Well... as long as I don't have allergy... it ain't gonna do me any harm to be spraying on me myself some Aqua Rosa Italiana, I guess... 8-O lol
Well... shall I be right... my ability to read is slowly coming back.... what I might need to figure out... how to learn to use this skill without breaking myself... yet, again, apart.....
I got a million calls on my answering machine looking for "Y Chung" or "Y Chang"... Like the following....
Finally, I called them back tonight trying to figure out who the hell is calling me and what for.
So, I asked this woman who answered my phone call what kind of debts they are collecting.
She, instead, asked for the last 4 digits of my social.
I told her... "I am not gonna give you the last 4 digits of my social. That is private information."
She then asked for my birthday. "I am not gonna give you my birthday. That is private and confidential information."
Then, she gave me a wrong last 4 digits of my social and a wrong birthday. And, she told me... sorry... we got the wrong person.
Later on, I realized that... wait a minute... I do recall now that for many a time... I received these debt-collection mail for someone called "Y Chung" (not even my name) and I actually called them back to tell them that I've never had a Victoria's Secret's card and... although I ain't got nothing... me ain't got no debt either except for... oops... gotta take care of some of the bills I haven't got to....
Don't know what it might sound for you.
For me, it seems fishy and I think it is a scam.... and... speaking of... identity theft kinda thing.
Decided to cook myself some miso soup based dinner tonight... only to find out... possibly... especially smokers or those attempting to quit like me....
Miso soup and soy products might help you save your lungs...
There is something strange about my walking... above and beyond what I have mentioned so far...
Every time I walked out of them long walks... I have the feeling that I am a life time away if not many life times away from where I started... if not... also... many reincarnations away.... (and... I must have done many many a thing wrong having to reincarnate so many a time... 8-O oops...)
Then, I think to myself...
Thank God... now I have been trained to not really care what my head has to say... since, apparently, my head changes its mind almost at the speed of light... 8-O lol sigh
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.
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...
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...
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.
Used to be, it takes the medication to help me dumb myself down to the lowest common denominator for the benefit of my mental health condition. And, I tried so hard to fight it.
If anything I have been trying to learn these past few months if not years... a dream or not... I think I am or whichever parts of me are getting pretty good at dumbing me down nowadays and I am damn happy about it... (tell you I am crazy).... although not yet expert level... and hope there is some truth in it.
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
more alert or awake during the day time
cold air overflowing through out my body and annoyingly coming out of my mouth. Extremely uncomfortable
energy overflowing with a puff or two of cigarette or walking.... as two of the remedies known to me by now
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
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...
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
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
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)
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?
I had to rush home right after work... I got a date.
So I waited patiently or impatiently... for the man to show... from 6 o'clock on....
Sort of like...
Almost 9...
Where is the man I have been waiting for for all these time?
I finally decided to pick up the phone and made the call....
So I asked....
"I have been waiting the entire night... dare not go anywhere and dare not even take a shower.... where is the cable guy who is scheduled to pick up my cable box?"
"The appointment is next week."
OMG... I have been sitting here thinking I have a date with the cable guy for the entire time except for no man have me on the calendar at all?!" 8-O lol
I haven't been jotting thoughts down for a while even in my internal blog or journal.
The following words spoken by my voices captures it all... "Ratology can wait."
It ain't gonna do nobody good if I am not in a stable and healthy state.
Think this might be time for some notes:
The core assumption: alright, I am abnormal. As a result, any deliberation about whether I am crazy or not is non-sensical.
Meds: Somehow there was the feeling that I was becoming overdrugged again. It's been a week since I am on 100 mg Seroquel as opposed to 150 mg (and as opposed to 600 mg I was on last year this time). Strange enough, symptoms are like ships passing in the sea.
The main life's tasks now a days: stay 空空 (Taiwanese expression of dumb dumb I guess... 8-O lol) and do exercise, eat well and walk.
Survival principle: Some things I have been learning to practice these past few weeks if not months:
Dedramatization: Given my conditions (hallucinations, delusions), I am a certified drama queen... as a result, you want drama? Go watch TNT.
Dumb and dumber: It is actually my preferred state now to not have to think too much especially when, for me, a lot of thoughts are very useless. Moreover, somehow I am coming to believe that my biggest problem in life is that I am too good at thinking... good to the extent that I got myself thoughts intoxicated. 8-O lol sigh
KISS (Keep it simple and stupid): If I like something then I say I like it and I act on it. I love food therefore I eat. What is the need for them strange complications. (No wonder sometimes I seriously think that, I am crazy but normal people are crazier... 8-O oops... )
Don't know nothing: Just live it and I have the feeling that I can live through it. I don't need to know (e.g., why the cold running through all over the body... the extremely uncomfortable feeling of energy running through out too fast... why walking in and out... blah blah blah... til why feeling my whole body bubbling recently... sort of like a fish... 8-O lol etc). The more I try to know, the more useless thinking I engage myself in, the more efforts I make to drive myself nuts... I guess... 8-O lol
"I am not entertaining it."... or the 無聊 or 吃飽太閒 (in Taiwanese even better) principle... or the Harry Potter "ridiculous" strategy: many of the things could be it... a means towards dedramatization.
Side thoughts about them normal people.... the burden of being normal.... too much slack.... 8-O lol oops...
I have a good feeling, though, that... soon... all these will run through... As for the keeping my head and mind empty thing.... what is the point of trying to stuck more stuffs into your head if the purpose is to vacuum it? And, how on earth could I have lived my past life the extreme of a type A personality in New York City? (is she crazy? check your assumptions.)
On my way home, this thought emerge... Thank God not I am not the norm... otherwise, shall the entire world be operating under my kinda MO... we would all be but waiting to eat air or 吃空氣... 8-O lol
Therefore... you know.. it is ok to be normal.... whatever it might mean for the normal to be normal...
Got this email from someone who I have not heard of for the longest time.... telling me that she was severely ill.
The last time I spoke with her really, I was listening to her and I saw myself.
I told her.
"You might not want to believe it but you need to see a psychiatrist. I don't know your diagnosis but you are psychotic because I am one."
Like me at the onset, she did believe it and, I suspect, neither did the people she knew.
Instead of going to see a psychiatrist, she chatted with this acquaintance of her who was a school guidance counselor in training and cooked up the diagnosis of some kind of personality disorder.
Today, it is my belief that...
Coping is difficult. Granted.
At points, you falter and you get back to the cuckoo's nest. This mostly has to do with the fact that symptoms morph and they morph. In other words, simply because you are aware of the fact that you are psychotic doesn't immunize you... otherwise, I would not have gone back to the psychiatric ward for the second and third time.
And, honestly, today, I have eventually moved to a stage within which I am not even gonna entertain why so many of us have to go through similar process yet needing to find our own way home....
However, the most difficult part, in retrospective, is living with and through the onset.... especially when... you and the people you know simply can not believe that you could be one of them.... psychotic.
(Think about this... how guilty might you feel trying to even conceive the notion that... so and so is having a psychotic onset....)
After I heard from her, I felt a bit guilty because... what if I have tried harder to persuade her to see a licensed doctor instead? Would that have helped her to prevent the worsening of the symptoms?
Then, I realized that it was a nonsensical thought.
First of all, it is not like I am her family and there is anything else I could have done about it.
Second, patients need to have enough of I don't know what you might call it and knows that they need help.
Rethinking the onset...
I actually was seeing a psychiatrist and my psychiatrist actually told me point-blank... "you are delusional."
I walked out of the clinic, getting back to work... thinking... "He is part of the conspiracy."
Luckily, some time later, I eventually walked myself into ER voluntarily on that Saturday afternoon and told the people on duty.
"I need to be locked up."
So I shipped myself into the psychiatric ward for the first time because I realized that I was losing control over my ability to concentrate... 8-O (Still lack of insights I guess... Yet, enough of insight for help seeking behavior.)
So I think... ouch... ouch... ouch...
All the advances they speak of in science etc.... onsets still pop up left and right all over the globe?!
Could it be... the unavoidable--- the unavoidable.
And, how could it be? The unavoidable remains the unavoidable?!
What could help?
One thing I am pretty sure is that... since even in person communication didn't seem to help at all, this blog... What help?
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...
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
Came across the following table in a paper.... Following are the current names of psychotic symptoms. The texts in purple are the symptoms I have to cope with on a daily basis... As I was going through the list, I realize... oops... 100% hit... shxt... pretty bad... or not good.... 8-O lol sigh
Current names of symptoms
Descriptions
Acoustico-verbal hallucinations
Voices heard arguing or commenting on patient's actions.
Audible thoughts
Patient’s own thoughts heard by him/herself.
Thought broadcasting
Patient’s thought are passively diffused to other people.
Thought insertion
Other people intrude their thoughts upon the patient.
Thought withdrawal
Other people actively take patient’s thoughts in his/her mind.
Made affect and feelings
Experience of influences playing on patient’s sensations.
Somatic passivity, delusions of influence, alien control
Experience of influences playing on patient’s actions.
Delusional perception
Patient’s experience of a peculiar, intense, convincing experience not shared by other people.
It seems like every time I try to read adult kind of stuffs (I can read children's book without words well), my body and head gets into trouble and it would take forever, such as days, for me to recover.
The major task I am trying to do today and the days to come is to learn to read and to find ways to minimize its damages. 8-O
One plausible principle that might be useful is un-attention-un-deficit and one adaptive strategy I have come up with is to do something else distracting such as knitting while trying to read.
At the same time, reading is not the only thing that drives mes crazy.
It just came to my attention last week when trying to help this friend preparing her dataset to be analyzed.... my psychotic symptoms went for a field trip and my body went down south as well.
When the dasein moment of them fearful delusions emerged when I was doing coding or data analysis, I actually had to outsource my delusional beliefs to calm them dasien down so that I could push the thing through... Interestingly, after I decided to leave it to my delusional protective figure in my imaginary world to help taking care of my delusional moments of extreme fear, them dasein sort of went away leaving more manageable symptoms floating around... 8-O lol sigh
What I mean by the dasein moment... example... someone I care or not is going to die or hurt really bad... as I have described too many a time.
Some other commonly observed indicators... yawning, tearing, really deep breathing as if there is old air that needed to come out of my chest, mouth and eyes....
I don't know how them experts might classify this kind of condition.
Not my issue anyways...
Time to get back to my unknitting...
At the same time, something tells me.. incidences are but peripheral and if it were not one incidence, it would always be another....
It is just part of the process... and that is just the way it is.
I won't be stuck in this state forever... in the meanwhile, the question... How long is it going to take before I finally could grow out of this strange form of disability? I suspect... the same answer my doctor in Taiwan gave me when I asked him... "When could I walk again?"
"Depending on you."
Delusional or not? Well... at least this is a belief I can manage....
For ordinary people, disability is an abstract concept. A concept is something that comes into your head and goes away when out of sight, out of mind.
For people living with non-progressive disability, disability is a way of life that comes with a whole bundle of packages.
In addition, even you are disabled in your own way, sometimes your understanding of others could only go so far because... I can only draw references about your plight from my own experiences. The experiences I have no idea about which I have been taught to be awful... all that I could do is to assign an empty awful tag and act accordingly. For instance, I don't know what is RSD but since the lady seems to suffer a lot based on her report, it's gotta be awful. However, this void tag and response could only go so far because, in split second, the label itself turn void and you forget what the label might entail. At the same time, when she started to talk about pain and mobility issues... that I can connect with and now there comes a more meaningful sense of awfulness.
Also, after a certain point and million a time, you stop trying to explain because all starts to sound like simply an excuse to yourself.
The adjustment to disability itself is a process developing along with the actions and reactions in time and the context provided.
A common theme emerging.... from comparisons between incidence and indicators to indicators
Can't quite name the core yet though all others seem to interlinked to the core.
Yet, I have the feeling... almost time to see the regression line... if you know what I mean...
At the same time, what would be the implication of measurement and evaluation here? A gateway towards compassion? (A category might or might not link to the core.. pondering)
Another interesting thought... if I have so much problems doing thing as a result of my problems, why don't I simply stop trying? (I didn't just think of that... 8-O lol)
A final note about my postings
Again, 99% of the times I have no idea what the heck it is in my head and that is coming out of my mouth, since I have been trained to not give a rat's ass about the products of my existence, my suggestion would be for readers to not quite care about my blah blah blah for fear of "the shining" effect. 8-O lol 8-X
Sort of like what they say about emerging and forcing...
Also kinda like the constant updating process of this post... what exactly are my thoughts trying to convey? What do I care if not how could I care? For... in time, it shall emerge... I guess? 8-O
What would be interesting to see though is... if theory is a process... what's your theorizing process?
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….
Was hanging out with this good old friend of mine this afternoon...
One flattering comment he made...
"You are the sanest person I have known. This possible has to do with the fact that you know you are insane."
Ya. The good thing about these good friends of mine is that... well, for them, I just just who I am. 8-O lol
I sincerely thanked him for this flattering comment.
At the same time, the benefit of being insane is there is no need to doubt your own sanity because.... insanity... that's a given... so get on with it. 8-O lol
Or like...
"You crazy? I am not gonna waste my time and energy defending my insanity." 8-O lol
My necklace broke and I lost my pure gold ratprincess pendent today.
Now I feel depreciated.
And, man, that ratprincess has been with me for over a decade if not two.
At the same time, I think I dropped my pendents when I went to the washroom in a clothing store while waiting.
This lady when came out from the toilet was staring at me in a strange way... it was not when I got into the toilet did I realised that the neclace was broken...
When I came right back out, one pendent was on the floor and the gold one was no place to be found.
Someone I had the feeling that it was that lady who knew it was me who lost it and took it anyway. If it were true, that wouldn't be too nice and wouldn't be good karma either.
Since it was pure gold, it might worth a bit more than a few dimes...
Just in case....
That round and gold pendent with a rat on it has gone through a whole lot of different times with me... Shall anyone find it and decide to keep it... you might wanna do some energy work on it.... because... God knows what has gone alone with it.... 8-O oops...
Haven't posted here for a while because I decide to keep this phase of my mumble jumble to myself given that... after all these years.... same old same old...
Still I can't defy this feeling that... somebody reading my internal journaling posted in my private blog.
Still positive....
At the same time, anyone ever heard anything about my internal dialog? Please post a comment....
(At the sound of the above question... OMG... Jesus Chris... )
Nice quote about Blumer's symbolic interactionism... something I haven't came across since 1997... I think... (OMG... I am getting old... 8-O lol 8-X)
"Objects do not have any intrinsic meaning- that meaning is conferred on them by us- and that different people, and the same person at different times, may confer different meanings on the same object." (Hammersley, 1989, p. 135)
Even better... in Blumer's own words:
“Human beings act toward things based on the meanings that the things have for them; the meanings of such things is derived from the social interaction that individual has with his fellows; and meanings are handled in, and modified through an interpretive process and by the person dealing with the things they counter.” (Blumer, 1969).
Hammersley, M. (1989). The Dilemma of Qualitative Method: Herbert Blumer and the Chicago Tradition. . London, New York.: Routledge.
Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: perspective and method Los, Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
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.
Came across this fine song as I stopped by Starbucks during my walk in the sun...
A place in the sun-- Stevie Wonder
Like a long lonely stream
I keep runnin' towards a dream
Movin' on, movin' on
Like a branch on a tree
I keep reachin' to be free
Movin' on, movin' on
'Cause there's a place in the sun
Where there's hope for ev'ryone
Where my poor restless heart's gotta run
There's a place in the sun
And before my life is done
Got to find me a place in the sun
Like an old dusty road
I get weary from the load
Movin' on, movin' on
Like this tired troubled earth
I've been rollin' since my birth
Movin' on, movin' on
There's a place in the sun
Where there's hope for ev'ryone
Where my poor restless heart's gotta run
There's a place in the sun
And before my life is done
Got to find me a place in the sun
You know when times are bad
And you're feeling sad
I want you to always remember
Yes, there's a place in the sun
Where there's hope for ev'ryone
Where my poor restless heart's gotta run
There's a place in the sun
Where there's hope for ev'ryone
Where my poor restless heart's gotta run
There's a place in the sun
Where there's hope for ev'ryone...
Anyways, 7:15 AM Taiwan time or 6:15 PM New York time, I was born again... What a asynchronous lifestyle! 8-O lol
Today also is my 2.5 years old birthday into my physically disabled life. What a synchronous and asynchronous lifestyle! 8-O lol
In addition, today marked the day I see a paycheck deposited into my bank account since my I-20 expired on May 15th because the reinstatement notice finally arrived the day after I heard the sad news about the passing of my dear uncle. ;-(
I finally can get pay now even though my bosses were kind enough to put up with having me hanging around like them little friends who are driving everyone up the wall in the office these days all these times. 8-O lol
The reinstatement only gives me up to May to finish things up and it gives me more time to finish things up.
The lesson learned... today...
Gratitude makes you happy and brings forth the sunny side of life even when it might feel as if the whole world is coming down... including your ceiling....
It is because, when you have gratitude, it means something good has been done for you... even though sometimes you do want to use your stick to beat people up really good when they get on your other side.... 8-O lol
罪過罪過善栽善栽... 8-O lol
T'is the nature of being human...
Among many things and people I am grateful about this year if not this life so far is that... I thank the opportunity I have been given to continue to "work." Something tells me that I might have gone back and out of my bird nest if I had sat there everything-less and drowning myself in sentiments of blah blah blah while waiting for the decision on my reinstatement application to arrive, provided God knows what the outcome might be.
I am still psychotic but I am on 150-200 mg Seroquel while still kicking at large and I had never stop living for a moment( (Thank God) ... other than them never-ending waking up moments...
In any case, focus on live a happy life regardless! A suggestion I could offer to whoever might want a suggestion...
I, unofficially speaking, have more than one mafia war account... for fear that if one accounts gets closed, I have other accounts to work with to see what it might be like towards the end of the journey.
Funny enough, some time after I created the second account, my dominant account became disabled... and it remained disabled since....
That rain-day account I created eventually surpassed the growing speed of the dominant account... Today, it is the main account....
So, I finally get to finish the Third Tier of Episode 6 "Pakhan" in Moscow today...
The day when I was not yet awake while starting to feel regretful about not having gotten up early enough to catch the free shuttle to see my shrink... and heard my voice said..."If you push harder, you will break."
Not you "might" break. No uncertainty here but you "will" break. Psychotic symptoms or not... scary enough... especially when I am all broken and still try to find way to patch myself up... 8-O 8-X lol sigh
The day when my voice force me further to reexamine my life... and the prices...
I knew it is time to really put down and let go da thing relating to academia.... And, apparently, there is still this thought in the back of my head saying... maybe one day, after I retire from something else, I will try out academia...
There might be other people both mentally and physically disabled like me and who could continue to pursuit a career as such.
Good luck to you and take care of your health and life. Of course, best wishes to you non-disabled as well... ya... non-discriminating.... 8-O lol
I have now made a conscious choice... weighting all things... and decided to preserve myself for a wonderful life ahead and it ain't like my non-existence in academia would mean a ding to no nothing and nobody. It seems like IT or number-related jobs are best for me. Running a craft shop would be nice except for I need to first really win my mega-million... 8-O lol
It is not like I have come to this conclusion simply because I am disabled in the head and in the body.... Like... OMG... I am too constrained by my disabilities such as my head status to do it.
Rather, it is... based on my estimation and since the past seems to have some pretty good predictibility on the future... what outweigh what and what is the cost-benefit ratio?
Do I want to go against the odds if not Gods regardless... perpetuating the modus operandi of my past life... which seems to have led to the shattering of my existence bottom up... literally... because I want to prove that I can do it, whatever it is?
Not saying anyone should simply decide to not pursue no nothing without any effort because I did conduct my dissertation experiment all the way into the psychiatric ward and came out jumping right back into it and I have not stopped. And, I did work and study while living with them ups and downs of my mental health conditions all the way and all those years till I deposited my dissertation and got that doctoral degree. In other words, don't let nobody tell you that because you are psychotic... you can't get things done... provided you get your jobs done (oops... am I reacting to something? Imaginary or not? 8-O lol).
I have no regret about my life so far other than not making big money to take my parents for trips... it is just, at times, one just has to recalibrate.
Then, upon the completion of da Pakhan job, I saw this message...
Your choices are now permanent... 8-O lol
Speaking of synchronicity.... and no wonder I am delusional... 8-O lol
And, only hope this note will reach someone... positive way.
Told the shrink about voices and presence of my uncles ...
So he said...
You know normal people could also experience it during the grieving process.
On a second thought, I do remember two guys told me that they could hear their fathers voices and sense their presence... including someone who is a physicist...
8-O
Then, I had this thought... if our ancestors still come over and check on us once in a while.... the empty spaces surrounding us all might actually be not so empty and might actually be really busy... then... 8-O
Sometimes I think the reason why I went nuts might have to do with the fact that...
I tried to hold back judgment on people because I understood blah blah blah blah blah blah...
Somehow I think the whole holding judgment and being understanding thing might have used up all my available memory and caused the system to constantly hang or crash. 8-O
One thing I have been trying to learn in this new life is to be "normal" or "human"... to reclaim the rights to make judgments about people's deeds and speech as per my "perception" and to authorise myself to feel pissed off...
For instance, one thing that really pisses me off is to see how evil people could be to use my disability as a weapon against me.
I am not BS-ing you that I don't have an evil side since I have this belief that everyone has an evil side except for one might just not want to face it. (see 墨子)
Since God forbids me from cursing people as per my delusional thoughts...
My evil side is that... the next time somebody pisses me off by using my disabilities (e.g, physical) as a weapon against me, I am gonna beat them up good with my cane 8-O to teach them a lesson on what it means to be like me to be in a "extended partial recovery course." (see page 154 about the process of coming back in Strauss and Corbin (1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques.) (Oops... a bit too violent... no good modeling to children... not to mention I can't even kill a bug without squinting or move my own butts fast enough... sigh... Guess this is the reason why they took my cane away and gave me a walker instead in the cuckoo cuckoo's nest. 8-O lol)
zen moment... zen moment ... God I have sinned... 8-O
Apparently, I am gradually moving into a state of anger... rather than simply low and depressed....
And, of course, if you say... this chick got issues...
No truer words... my head splits and my body broken... etc...
There ain't no doubts that I've got issues... so many that you don't wanna know... 8-O lol sigh
And, I got an issue with being disabled? Which part of my English don't you understand? 8-O lol sigh
"There is a difference between an open mind and an empty head."
Verbatim of an individual with Lupus erythematosus:
"If you have lupus, I mean one day it's my liver; one day it's my joints' one day it's my head, and it's like people really think you're a hypochondriac if you keep complaining about different ailments... It's like you don't want to say anything because people are going to start thinking, you know, 'God, don't go near her, all she is-is complaining about this.' And I think that's why I never say anything because I feel like everything I have is related one way or another to the lupus but most of the people don't know I have lupus, and even those that do are not going to believe that ten different ailments are the same thing." Page 52
A quote from Charmaz, 1991:
"A desire to recapture the past reflects yearning for a lost self. That yearning results from grieving for accumulated losses from illness. Here, the person defines losses and acknowledges illness. Though she writes that she learned to live moment by moment after her stroke, poet May Sarton simultaneously longed for her past self: "Now I am frightfully lonely because I am not my self. I can't see a fried for over a half-hour without feeling as though my mind were draining away like air rushing from a balloon'. (1988, P. 18)
The sorrow for a past self increase when people believe that they might not reclaim it. Even after trying to wait out illness or treatment, regaining the past self and recapturing the past may remain elusive. Sarton suggests this elusiveness when she writes that 'to manage such a passive waiting life for so many months I have had to bury my real self-and now realize that bringing back that real self is going to be even more difficult than it was to bury it'. (1988, p. 78)
A quote about preconceived notions (P. 68):
"You cannot assume what is in someone's mind-particularly if he or she does not tell you."
"If you reframe participants' statements to fit a language of intention, you are forcing the data into preconceived categories-- yours, not theirs."
"A fine line exists between interpreting data and imposing a preexisting frame on it."
The table of content was what I wanted and I found in Chapter. 11 what I was thinking of and might be unconsciously looking for... "Chinese Bereavement Ritual".... Unfortunately, my understanding of much of what is written here have been based on personal experiences... including polytheistic religion, orchestrated crying ritual and so on....
If only I could be simply God-blessed-ly ignorant...
Interesting enough, as I was preparing this post, I tried to look up this book... it was not until when the book was loaded on the webpage did I realise... I know that guy who wrote this book... I see him all the times at the College.... 8-O
I don't like the grieving process... it makes you feel really sad even if you want to make yourself believe that... perhaps, all of those passed now have become Gods.. or 仙...
The thought of them becoming 仙 makes death not so awful... because now they have supernatural power and they could protect you.
Yet, regardless whether you believe in it or not, you still get overcome by sadness when it comes.
And, like what my grandma said to me in a nightmare years back... years after she passed away....
"It is just the way it is."
So many other people have lived through and out of it. So could others including me.
The bad habits of hallucinations and delusions do make it more complicated for me to deal with the process... I think... not to discount anyone else's experience... and, perhaps, this is why they were trying to hide the news from me...
So... my uncle's funeral took place on Dec. 13th Taiwan Time.... which translates into yesterday night in New York time....
Then, I thought of the idea of a funeral....
In addition to using it as a function to show our respects and everything else to the deceased... who we would love to believe to have now 成仙 and taken by Buddha to 西方極樂世界......
The funeral provides a space for the survived to be together and give each other supports....
I would have preferred to stay home and mourn... listening to them useless thoughts in my head in whatever form...
Yet, something told me that I need to be with people...
So... I went out to be with people....
I did not tell no soul what the heck was going on in my mind other than simply being a melancholic drama queen for the night. For me... that was good enough since I was not 涕淚縱橫...
I did stick to the 素菜 (vegetarian) diet for the Taiwanese December 13th....
Later I thought...
If my uncle really has turned to be a 仙, he would rather me to stay with people and listen to real people talk... What it be like if he has something to do with that something that got me out of the house?
Where is the boundary between pathological magical thinking and cultural beliefs?
How bad is such a thought?--- a question for myself... (and, I guess, as long as I can keep it real... 8-O)
The topic came up today about the concept of proving oneself...
To prove that I am in dispensable to human race.... including the United States... 8-O lol
To prove that I am all encompassing... perhaps... I am or I will do all that I could do to be the best... the expert... the whatever...
Been there...
Done that...
Today, OMG...
I am done proving myself to myself.
This piece of wreck is literally a perfectly broken piece of work... especially worsen in winter times... the longer I stay out in the cold... the slower I walk... And, that head of mine? God bless... 8-O lol 8-X
Yet, I guess... well... could always try to fine-tune it in some capacity... yet... good enough for myself.
From one perspective, 2 and a half years seem to be a long time.
On the second hand... ain't seem like it took all that long to break a rat till all that the rat wants is to be healthy, happy and play... so they say... play therapy... I guess... (of course, I could manage to learn to be rich.... 8-O lol)
Of course, only my unconscious knows whether I really think I am good enough for myself... Therefore, the burdon of proof is on my unconsciousness and got nothing to do with I who am in a state of one country... God knows how many governments.... 8-O lol
I actually woke up early to cook string beans and ground beef with black bean garlic sauce. Not quite sure how edible it might be though since this is the first time I did it (sh......). 8-O 8-X lol
First of all, I used oil in my cooking.
Second, I used black bean garlic sauce to cook for the first time.
Third, I used garlic to season.
Fourth, I added meat.
Fifth, this dish included multiple ingredients and multiple steps (as opposed to putting everything into the pot to bring everyone to a boil together).
Most importantly.... OMG... cooking involving all of the above already do I hardly do... less than 10 times many in my life... not to mention doing it 8 o'clock in the morning... 8-O lol oops...
Ever since I started going through the grieving process, even my body has gone into a much worse shape with aches and pains and discomfort taking their comeback...
Might have something to do with the cold weather as well...
In any case, perfect scenario of psychosomatisation.
You know it helps nobody to be in this state... Yet, it simply is the way it is until I finally get myself out of it.
The Seroquel XR commercial caught my attention... especially the side effect section..... death... uncontrollable muscle movements as it might be permanent... 8-O 8-X
"They want us to blog every week..." if not every class...
I was laughing my head off on the inside...
I tried to make my students do blogging on a daily basis years back when I was teaching graduate school class... and, that, among the plausible simple fact that I am a really bad teacher, got me away from them teaching jobs.
The moral of the lesson...
Until you get tenured or established...
Don't try no nothing funny..... though what was once funny might eventually become the norm... 8-O lol
Eating my dinner while watching Rudolf on TV...
What on earth did I have to be different? 8-O lol
While... the matter of the fact... I just had to do it.... 8-O lol sigh
(Where is the misfit toy land? Expect for... living things can't live on da land...) 8-O lol
To be serious, it would be wonderful though if it's implications could really be realised... Would be wonderful...
Whit
-
Whit sounds like wit and according to dictionary.com, it means
a particle; bit; jot (used especially in negative phrases).
I have changed not a whit. I do...
A dream: Backpacking
-
On my way back from NYC to Taipei in April, I managed to get myself an
extended layover (over 2 weeks) in Japan, landing at and exiting from the
Narita Air...
Ratprincess in Technology not lost?
-
Given my sick-in-the-headness, sometimes it's hard to trust my LTM. Did
Ratprincess in Technology really exist or was it my false memory?
As I was marv...
Traces of the past
-
A link I found that has been live online from the Down with Meds age.
Apparently, the past has always been there whether I knew it or not.
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