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.
Today is the third day I started my mission to tour around in Shanghai on my feet... (Just in case you wonder... This has always been how I like to see a city... believe it or not... 8-O lol)
Took off earlier since the weather is milder... than... as I arrived at my destination... God granted my wish... sort of.. "let it rain down so that the temperature could cool down..."
One thing differs this trip from my previous trips is that....
I spent a whole lot of time looking for disability access... escalator, elevator, or taking detour... 8-O lol
One day, I was stuck at a subway station in Seoul because there was no elevator going to the ground... The gentleman working at the booth found out I was having so much problem bringing myself up them stairs, he graciously pushed me all the way up through all those stairs till I was up to the ground...
I was and remain extremely thankful to him because, otherwise, I might be struggling to get up till the day break next day.... 8-O
At the same time... a different definition of getting a lift... I guess... 8-O lol
Been sick like a dog since I got to Shanghai.... second day I arrived... I laid flat for the entire day... and have been laying low till yesterday.... when I decided to accomplish what I came here for... a determined though sick tourist... 8-O lol
Anyways, finally, I am growing out of this cold/flu thing slowly and sturdily...
Been able to get out to see the city a bit more...
Today, I came to the realization...
My biggest accomplishment this trip.... giving directions... 8-O lol
I don't know where I have not been to but I know the roads I have traversed... and... I actually gave people directions at least twice correctly today....
Even in Seoul, Korea, where I was absolutely illiterate... can't read and understand korean at all... I successfully gave people directions twice... one time in the subway where a lady sitting next to me was looking for the bus station.
The other time... a lady who spoke no English at all approached me to ask for direction...
Somewhere among the korean sentences I heard something like... "Lotte"...
So I asked, "Lotte department Store?"
Apparently, yes.
Since I spoke no Koren, I walked her to the corner of the block and pointed to the big sign on the building down the Road... "Lotte."
She was happy and appealled to be thankful...
So I thought... Did I just give directions to a Korean lady who I could hardly understand in a city I hardly know? 8-O lol
Brother in law went to play golf with his friend today... and he dropped me at 朱家角....
The first thing I accomplished after I arrived at the front entrance... I made a great entrance... I took a really ugly fall and got this not so nice booboo...
Arrived in Shanghai late in the day yesterday... supposed to be working on touring around by now... except for... been sick and... gotten really sick overnight... chest congestion, nose running, my head all stuffed up, and, in addition to the pain associated with my neck, back and knee conditions, another kind of ache and pains... I think that is what they call the body aches...
Thought I was about to die when I saw the color of munus coming out when I first woke up in the morning..... 8-O lol
If you ask me at this specific moment, it is far worse to have a cold or flu like this than to be suffering the disability associated pains.... 8-O lol sigh
Yet, I have been working really hard on popping whatever pills I could pop to get myself feel better soon.....
(Trying to see whether I will be able to get this message posted through blog-by-email from Shanghai)
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
OK, I did travel between Taiwan and the US in 2008 and three weeks ago. Yet, that is called transportation. Not travel.
Finally, I will be going traveling for the first time this Saturday.
Seoul first and Shanghai second.
Why Seoul and Shanghai?
Also.... free accommodation available and the cheapest most economic way to fly... 8-O lol
The only problem... give me a road and I could keep on walking till the cows come home provided there are restrooms available....
Yet, I can not carry weight.... It slows down my speed and causes problem to my back and, then, the whole body.
For instance, before I left NYC, I had to move some stuffs and it killed my body so bad that... 5:00 AM, curb side, outside of JFK... People in the airport had to pick me up with a wheelchair..... and, from there on, they carried me all the way back to Taiwan...
Well, I WAS really in pain and it really was sort of miserable then... especially having to deal with excruciating pains on a 25 hour trip.... Sounds pretty funny now since, 3 weeks later now, I am back to walk relatively fine and mostly pain-free again.... 8-O lol
Since I intend not to waste too much time recovering... I have to travel.... REALLY light to prevent any potential damages... while... since not making any money.... budget traveling.... 8-O lol oops...
In addition, although I now can "walk"---- 80 Manhattan blocks or more kind of distance--- I still have problems and mucho problems with stairs. Unfortunately, based on the pictures I have seen for many of the tourist attractions, there are stairs and stairs.... slopes and slopes.... Well, it is not until I became disabled did I come to realize that... this world really is not designed for people with disability.... 8-O lol sigh
At the same time, if I can find ways to walk in NYC and in Taipei, I should be able to walk in Seoul, Incheon, Suwan or Shanghai.... After all, walking is walking, right? 8-O lol
Regardless, it would be really interesting to see what it would be like to travel on a budget, disabled.
And... this would be the first time I go traveling with my strange kind of disability....
Ain't like it is the kind of "first time" experience I would like to have... Yet, well... even if my body could heal till I could carry some ordinary weight and do stairs like a robot, for the time being, I want to travel and I will learn to travel my way again.
What is even better... my brother in law will be on his business trip while I am in Shanghai... I will have a two-bedroom apartment all to myself for a week... could finally through a house party... though not gonna have too many people to party with in Shanghai... 8-O lol
As a result of the combination of heat and radiation, yours truly would 撐洋傘抗UV even when walking in the shade as early as 8 o'clock something in the morning.... 8-O lol
Regardless, when in Taipei and taking my walk, I now either take it to the underground shopping mall (東區地下街) or the Sogo department store right across the street....
An avid participant of the national sports called... 美白 frenzy... 8-O lol
If you ask me, the Taiwanese sun seems to be much scarier than that in NYC though... um... should be the same one.... 8-X
To end today's posting spree, I will share with you something I have been trying really hard to learn...
So far as I am concerned, a lot of suffering in life are unnecessary. I suspect that it might be the young Werter's sorrow kind of stuff that might have sustained my propensity to maintain or establish the suffering kind of state I might entrap myself in once ever so often.
Can't quite give you a solid example now but it must be evident somewhere in my year's of blah blah blah.... 8-O lol oops...
The key point...
It is no good to suffer because it does not make me happy and I don't like it anyway.
As a result, I reflect upon this question every once in a while...
Aches and pains and physiologically based things... I have no control over them.
Other things do make me feel... Oh... how I suffer! Ya, sometimes gotta cut myself some slacks as welll
Yet, have I made myself suffer unnecessarily and excessively?
If yes, my newly developed and developing self-training style would be applied... back to conditioning...
I would beat myself up so bad with my mouth till I dare not do it again.... till something happens or I find myself slip back... then... conditioning again... 8-O lol
Following are some of the lessons I find most interesting and could help me to recenter myself:
Very applicable for people with paranoia and delusions like me...
What other people think of you is none of your business. (There goes the reiteration of my can't-mind-my-own-business disorder)
Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does. (Actually, nobody else really gives a rat's ass. 8-O lol oops...)
Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years, will this matter?" (This would be helpful if you can't snap yourself out of the looping thoughts and, in a perfect situation, the above two should be sufficient. If the looping thoughts still don't run dry after a long while and keep on building on, check the meds. 8-O)
What I have tried my best to apply...
Always choose life. (and... health, happiness and love)
When in doubt, just take the next small step.
Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.
Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
Overprepare, then go with the flow.
Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
Pay off your credit cards every month.
Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
Some other quotes...
Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
You can get through anything if you stay put in today.
Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
Believe in miracles.
Growing old beats the alternative - dying young.
If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
Today, I read that time magazine has listed Farmville, a game I have been playing on facebook, as one of the 50 worst invention.
Interestingly, last night, I was pondering to myself about this thing I would call... "Virtual generation atypical antipsychotic medication"... or facebook games such as Farmville.
Cafe World
Or other online games alike.... that are...absolutely brainless, not all that exciting and involves this mechanism called click till you die... 8-O lol
I don't know what other people get from playing these games...
One thing I do know is that...
The what would otherwise be considered as boring tasks: cooking them dishes in Cafe World, growing crops in Farmville, collecting bonus/rewards through news feeds, sending and receiving gifts to facebook friends etc... definitely helps to slow and calm me down....
And, I thought, over a month now on 25 mg Seroquel only, my head somehow kept on getting clearer and clearer... In addition, after an entire year of struggling, now I finally could really read. I now also feel more like I am in this world... (though... no doubt, I am still psychotic and my body could do things as abnormal as could be, which I have become accustomed to after these past two years...)
Maybe... part of it is the contribution of the "virtual generation atypical antipsychotic medication"? 8-O
How does it work? I am not even gonna further entertain it since it defeats the purpose of having total concentration in brainlessness. 8-O lol
Does it really work? How is it even my business anyway since my business is to find ways to live and..... especially when different things work for different people and the effects might even vary within the same person?
The Lamont Hall at LDEO (A campus of Columbia University that reminds me of UBC) is apparently a library now where I am accessing the Internet from....
A deer and I were just staring at each other until the guy ran away not too far from the picture...
If there is one person I am most afraid of on this planet to me at this point... guess who?
Yet, it would be me myself. 8-O lol
So, I let myself be a drama queen and whine and whined and whined... reminiscene about the times past while the time is, no doubt, always passing by.
It was either Saturday night and Sunday morning... when that drama queen part of me intents to come out and become, I guess, the daily queen... 8-O
OMG... The pending departure in less than a month if ain't no nothing happens... above and beyond all the other blah blah blah....
Sad... hurt... depressed... and so on, so forth...
Finally, I really was not about to entertain it any more...
So to myself I said... something like...
"If you can't enjoy the remaining time in New York and consider it a chance to live your life in New York, you don't deserve to stay and I am gonna go and book the cheapest flight tomorrow to shuffle your sorry behind right off this continent since you can be sorry anywhere. Stop it already." 8-O 8-X lol
It is not like I won't allow myself to feel bad etc. That would be counter productive.
It is more like... it doesn't make sense for me to make myself feel more miserable or worst off than the appropriate quota... If I were to over do it, I am simply entrapping myself in unnecessary misery and I won't even get any sympathy, empathy, and whatever-athy--- except for apathy--- from myself for such stupidity. 8
More importantly, have I done everything I could do and have I been responsible for myself? I think so....
Not to mention, ok, not to discount your predicament, but... there are plenty of people who are worst off.
I must have gotten myself really scared and da drama queen stopped.
Then, when melancholy comes to visit, I still welcome it and entertain it since it is entitled to its place. When I think I get it entertain well enough, with due respect, I say...
"Come again if you want but right now I've got to say bye bye."
Intuitively, this would be the most logical solution... 8-O lol
Whether I am really doing what I think I am trying to do is another issue...
Some interesting progression in my cognitive processing in recent times... and as the dosage gradually went down in recent months...
First, I finally was able to convince myself that... How is it anybody else's business what the heck is in my mind?
A bit later, I finally was able to think... "How is it anybody else's business what the heck I write in my private blog since it is but a private journal for myself?
In even more recent time, finally, "How is it anybody else's business what the heck it is that comes out of my mouth if I am not talking to them?"
So, I was asked this question...
"What make you think so?"
"Oh... because I am psychotic. It is the most fundamental of the condition." 8-O 8-X lol
Then, in even more recent days, something this friend of mine once had me told kept on popping to my mind...
It was before I was labeled as psychotic.... over a decade ago now...
One day, I was sitting at the bar. A few seats away sat this other regular. We had been hanging out at the same bar for quite a while then...
Each every move and look of his told me that he knew something....
Finally, I collected enough "courage" and asked him this question....
"Have you ever heard anyone talking about me recently?"
My poor friend apparently was interrupted from his own train of thoughts and gave me that embarrassing look...
"I am so sorry! I have been having so much trouble at home that I have not been paying anybody else any mind."
Since normal people can't quite tell me how they think and since this seems to be an example of how normal people act and think...
So I think to myself.... maybe the next task to learn about how to be normal is... "I am having so much problem keeping up with what is in my own "house" that I can't be paying nobody else's no mind." lol oops...
Believe it or not though... personally, I prefer to believe such progression as an improvement somehow... Of course... only time could tell.... remember... emerging vs forcing... except for.. not quite easy a task... especially when you are using an "invalid" instrument as an evaluation measure... such this whatever-it-is head of mine... 8-O 8-X lol sigh
My learning to let go is like playing Mafia War...
When I was under level 400 or 500, I tried really hard to level up and always ponder what it would be like to be at a higher level.
After a certain level, I stop pondering since...
Come on... what is the point since, don't bust your head too hard over it since, as long as you keep on playing, today's level up would always be tomorrow's lower level. 8-O
Some days you even forget to level up because I was busy cooking or training my dog.... or checking out beauty products. 8-O lol
My Mafia War view at level 653... not too high... not really low... sort of somewhere in the middle...
Wonder whether it is the maxima/minima or again local maxima/minima?
1 month or two after my June 19th, 2007 accident, mama cooked me an egg and let me cracked the egg open and eat it... 8-O lol
What it symbolizes is the idea of 脫竅 or 脫殼... essentially... get rid of the bad... bad... bad...
or
Unfortunately, the egg my mama cooked that day was still raw and not yet done.... 8-O lol
It was around this hour 3 years ago when the chair collapsed... and my whole life shattered with it...
I lost everything.... essentially my health and who I thought myself was or was to be.
While everyone else is busy building their career, wealth, smart, etc, I was busy trying to find ways to piecemeal my body and mind together.
OK, I know it is exaggeration, but, I suspect that sometimes it is only healthy to allow myself to be a drama queen once for a while for the sake of it. It is because... come on... when can I be "authorized" to mourn about my lost functionalities in my knees, shoulders, neck, back and head... especially when now the worker's com case has closed and I have sold my body for money (shoulders and knees only since nobody wants to pay for my back 8-O lol sigh)? (And, yes, FYI... you don't get compensated for your pains and suffering. You also don't get compensated for your back in scenarios like mine. You only get compensated for permanent damages in your shoulders and knees. It is simply the law. Please noted that here... I am focusing on what I lost.)
So I decided to cook myself an egg this afternoon.... I cracked it open and ate it. So I took a second to investigate the boiled egg... This time, it is ready... (and I hope so since the egg is already in my stomach and I don't really want to eat this thousand year old egg raw... 8-O lol)
What is the purpose?
Guess, it is a ritual.
A ritual I participate in to help myself let go of the past.
I know that the arrival of June 19th, 2010 will not gonna bring forth a miracle... (I know I am certified crazy... but you think I am stupid?! 8-O lol)
I know I still can not run and I can only walk as fast as my body allow me to... etc.
I am still psychotic while symptoms manageable at a "really" low dose.
Yet, it is a benchmark for me.
Also, most importantly, I am still kicking...
And, the shell-cracking of a cooked egg and the act of eating it is not going to shrink me a whole size so that I can look like them skinny toothpicks on the street.
To be honest, my recent venture into exfoliation from head to toe might do a more real kind of job to help me get rid of my dead skin... and that is part of the ritual as well... 8-O lol
However, so far as I am concerned...
All else I might and might not accomplish with blah blah blah blah blah...
One thing I am sure is... and I just realized is... that...
That egg you saw me eating and was actually cooked well... neither too raw or too old...
That egg was the first egg I boiled in my entire life so far and I did not realize until today that I have never boiled an egg by myself in my entire life... unless... oh... my bad memory... Did I forget? 8-O lol 8-X
Years back, this friend of mine had me told... something like...
"You are too much influenced by your mental health condition."
At a much younger and more understanding age, I responded with something along the line... Human development.
Speaking of the power of environmental impact on human development... nature + nurture...
2-3 years later, I have developed low tolerance for BS or what I consider as BS (well, if everyone is entitled to their opinion, I am entitled to be opinionated as well and in exercising my right to judge things as bull or not, I guess).
If it were today, I would have shut him up even before he could voice that opinion with...
"Cut the bull. I am not gonna entertain that."
Although this might have something to do with the dosage of 25 mg which is essential in keeping me in touch with reality and a sense of self.... 8-X lol
Such is one of the developmental outcome for having lived through the last 3 years.... not like it is any better or any worse... just the way it is. 8-O lol sigh
Whit
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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
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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?
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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
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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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