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

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

In the morning

When I was trying to fall asleep last night, I found the usual suspects reconvene again...

I laid there trying to fall asleep but can't fall asleep... while facing da hammering sound in the back ground of the right side of my head...

That sound I have no control over might have gotten me a scare because, thereafter, I found this sense of fear rising....

Could this hammering sound and da train station be alternative versions of auditory hallucinations? I don't know... Yet, they surely are distressing...

Then, that tightening of the esophagus thing came up again... Might have some thing to the merging sense of anxiety or did it?

Adding one more pillow seemed to work yet only so much... for... at some point, I was hit by da dry mouth thing again...

I got up, took a piece of dried peach, down some more of the water, resisted to pop da sleeping pill, and, went back to bed wishing the sleep will arrive eventually since I have to make it to my class today...

Although sleeping is essential in maintaining my health, especially mentally, I usually do not resort to sleeping pills unless I am tossing and turning for at least 2-3 hours in bed...

After getting up twice and some more tossing and turning with hammering in the head, esophagus spasm and extreme dry mouth on the side, I guess... I must have fell asleep since I did wake up this morning... 8-O lol sigh

Could I be overdosed again? I suspect but I am absolutely not sure since the dosage did get lowered less than 2 months ago... Yet, I do feel that I am walking around feeling much detached from the external world... which usually is an indicator for overdose....

At the same time, all these night time activities are starting to lead me to wonder... more...

Why the night time dramas of my boring life?

And, I thought of those days of Jackal and Hyde... when I was walking around looking like any ordinary person during the day but couldn't shake the habit of experiencing the delusional nightmare awake in the night....

Why in the night?

Why between awake and sleeping?

Could it be true all them psychoanalytical talks?

Could it be that part of my psychic is really being blocked so well that it could only have itself, in the night, when all control is let go, manifested?

Then I sat through the class... talking about segregation, desegregation and resegregation.... poverty and low SES....

Then I sat there hearing about the challenges involved in teaching when the learners speak no English...

And, with the scenarios presented, I saw in my mind this five-year-old being handcuffed-- taken to the precinct...

To myself I thought... I did wake up in the morning...

So they me taught

Although I am not working, everyday I go to work on schedule... It was an intuition that tells me to do so... (once for a change when I know da ist not delusions 8-O lol sigh)

It has remained a naive theory of mine until I came across the following summarization of work-related literature today... something I might have come across earlier on as I was out of work due to my temporary total disability...

"...research have found that regardless the level of medical condition, it is better to keep people at work for when people are separated from their workplace, they and their families are at a higher risk of suffering from outcomes such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse, social isolation, family dissolution… etc (Atkinson, Liem, & Liem, 1986; Hammarstrom & Janlert, 1997; Kaplan et al., 1987; Mrazek & Haggerty, 1994; Rahmqvist & Carstensen, 1998)." link


To be honest, from the very beginning, some part of me knew this is what I need to do to survive all the strange encounters such as esophageal spasm, dry mouth, mood swing, anxiety attack kinda symptoms etc...

So I thought... I am lucky... for, at least partially, my health saves by work... and, perhaps, what they, in school, had me taught.... 8-O lol

Lesson learned: Spasm

Last night I laid in bed, trying to fall asleep while dealing with them ordinary uncontrollable images that came into my head.... (short of auditory hallucination, though, I think...)

At a certain point, I found myself having difficulties swallowing...

If was as if the bottom of my tongue was a piece of some foreign object in my mouth that would not respond to my command at all...

There after, I came to the realization... it appeared that the area right below the bottom of my tongue is also neglecting any request I made concerning this swallowing activity...

So I got up, but the condition did not change....

In my mind, I knew.... esophageal spasm... so it is...

I decided to take one of the Naproxen... to ease the spasm...

I picked up one pill and carefully tried to swallow it down the throat with water....

Yet, this amazing phenomenon happened....

That huge pill did not go too far...

It felt as if it move 1 or 2 centimeters down, if not shorter distance, and got stuck there perhaps at the very top of my esophagus.

I waited a bit and tried to swallow a bit more water... while curiously monitored what was going on with the pill...

A bit later, the pill moved a little bit lower... and it felt as if the areas above was becoming a bit more flex and not so tense...

So, I sat there a bit more... observing that pill behaving as if it is the gate keeper... soothing the esophagus one segment at a time until finally the pill went down as low as in my chest area...

Thereafter, I went back laying in my bed, trying to fall asleep again...

Shortly, I knew the pill was working because the internal organs seemed to be feeling much more relaxing.... 8-O (of course, this could simply be my imagination...)

And, I realise that... I was attacked again by this thing called dry mouth... something that hasn't happened for awhile...

On my way home today, I thought of this incidence, and, I had this insight...

I have been bad with smoking these past few days when I am trying to finish up the homework and paper....

Possibly, it is the body reacting to them smokes....

And, I thought how funny it is... even when in the scariest moments of upper esophageal spasm... when the spasm was so bad that I could not swallow the pill....

In addition to the uncontrollable concern about whether this spasm thing is gonna turn me eternally adios or not...

What was in my mind, the cognitive part of my mind, was the thought...

"Damn esophageal spasm again..."

And... again... just when I thought I knew what it means to have spasm... I know that I don't know jack about spasm...

And, of course, speaking of the multiple manifestations of the same principle... 8-Olol

Integration

I used to be, and, perhaps still am, a gigantic integration freak...

For instance, with my dissertation, I was trying really hard to integrate all that I have learned through out all these years... psychology, methodology, statistics, technology, ratology 8-O etc... although nobody ever told me that a dissertation has to be a work to integrate my entire life so far... (and it was and is all in my head... 8-O lol)

To this date, I still believe that I had not reached a state of integration through the work I did with my dissertation.

In any case, after one of them recent nights of sleeplessness with the following experiences:

1. I was having physical symptoms with them dry mouth etc.
2. I was sensing elevated level of anxiety and so on which could be classified as anxiety or panic attacks.
3. Worst of all, one night, I actually had this feeling that them memories of scary delusional stories were lurking around and were about to come out to play. Again, although those are the memories of the past, the dasein moments remained to be dasein moments.

And, I came up with this interesting thought...

That seems to be some fairly integrated kind of experience....

So they say.... Body and Mind? 8-O lol

Neurosis vs psychosis: A comparision

You see, one thing I have to admit is that, for the longest time, I had this grandious belief that it is worse to be psychotic than to be neurotic alone. Yet, after my recent revisit to depressive and anxiety-related symptoms, I eventually come up with the conclusion that when it comes to how bad the conditions could make me feel-- both psychotic and neurotic kinda dasein moments could be really annoying and make me feel really bad... just in different format.

For instance, both the symptoms of psychosis and neurosis could make you feel like you were about to die and, honestly, at points, unfortunately, make you feel that death might be the only solution. Yet, fortunately, I have been able to remind myself time and again that I have worked too hard through out my life to survive and giving it up is not an option....

Take neurosis kinda condition such as anxiety attack or panic attack for instance, which might have happened quite a few times in recent weeks-- following that night when it felt as if the esophagus spasm could have gotten me suffocated.... Although the experience of esophagus spasm did not happen again, for nights after nights, my mouth would turn so dry that it would feel as if the wall of the esophagus was sticking together and there was no saliva at all present.

During this phase, the anxiety level would rise up, the heart would start pounding. The extreme of both psychological and physical discomfort would make me feel so bad to the extent that I would start fearing for my life, and, it would feel as if I were to go into the state of a full-blown anxiety attack--- for a reason... (unconditioned response... sort of...)

After a few days, I started to find myself gradually developing this sense of fear about going to bed... This is because I was started to associate the concept or the act of going to bed with the torment mentioned above. In other words, going to bed is now associated with all the minor inconveniences and could now serve, on its own, as the trigger for the dasein moments which were very much like anxiety attacks. The experience was so annoying that, at point, I would find me thinking to myself.... This is no way to live.... This is no way to live... How could people live this way and I can't live this way?

Thank, God, I eventually live out of that phase and, believe or not, I do thank God for allowing me to fall asleep without da fear no more....

With psychosis, the delusions and hallucinations do amazing work in building delusional stories to scare myself. For instance, on the night before I shipped myself back to the psychiatric ward, I had this delusional belief in my mind that some patient in the psychiatric ward escaped and he is on his way to me-- on the mission to make me go adios....

Although some might believe that delusions are simply delusions and there might not be any meaning to them delusional beliefs. I do find some interesting questions related to the above delusional kinda story.....

Who could that patient be? Who was this cuckoo at large that intended to do me harm? And, regarding the danger I sensed.... what exactly does that sense of danger mean in reality?

Could that sense of danger have something to do the deteriorating mental state I was in? Could it have something to do with the fear of having to go back to the cuckoo's nest? Or, could it have something to do with the plausible guilt I sensed about not having upping the dosage of my meds earlier enough due to my foolish pride about wanting to take control of my mental states without having to use meds as the dominant means and wanting to test my own limits?

In any case, what I am trying to convey with the above scenarios is that... both neurotic and psychotic symptoms could cause high degree of annoyances even though the experiences might be substantially different.... In other words, having psychotic symptoms make you suffer neither more nor less than having symptoms associated with neurotic kinda condition.

Getting back to the topic of honesty.....

Ya, honest to God, for the longest time, I was... psychotic-centered (?). It was not until my recent encounter with the hit-by-a-truck grade of depression and them experiences like anxiety or panic attack did my memories about neurosis get refreshed. And, thereafter, I finally can come up with the, hopefully more impartial, conclusion that, when it comes to the dasein moments both psychotic and neurotic symptoms could afford, all symptoms are equally bad although their nature might be substantially different. 8-O

Scheiße or Kaka?- to speak or not to speak

Hardly would you hear me talking about other people--- in my much younger and more vulnerable years. 8-O lol

Strangely, through out the past few mouths, the propensity for me to just say what happens to be in my mind just kept on getting stronger and stronger. To the extent that I might consider myself as starting to develop some kinda OCD for I just can’t help that the hell simply comes out of my mouth in the format of verbal diarrhea…

The funny thing is that…. now that I have gone through both the phases of to tell and not to tell…. It gives me an interesting perspective about the MO of to tell and not to tell as well…. 8-O lol

To be honest, I no longer remember why I used to talk about the others not.

Could it have something to do with my being so 清高 in my younger years that I used to be able to speak of no one? If my not speaking of the others represents my being above it all, could my starting to talk about the others be the benchmark of my finally coming down to earth? 8-O lol

Or, perhaps, it might have something to do with my not feeling it as a good thing to talk about people. In addition, consciously or not, I might have the belief that people who talk about people worth less then those who do not.

In reflection, there is a high chance that my not talking about the others might simply an act to make me become more likes them “good” people.... No longer do I believe that I had kept my mouth shut simply because I was above it.... Rather, I, be it intentionally or unintentionally, was acting in a way that would make me be considered and judged as "good."

So, that was the time when this good friend of mine and I would get together. Out of boredom or whatever else, we would attempt to gossip about the others--- such as this other girl and her propensity to gossip about the others… 8-O lol Yet, other than that, our thoughts were dry and it was fairly difficult for us to generate gossips about anyone else…

For quite a long time, we thought we were the good people since we hardly talk anything about the others. Yet, at some point, it occurred to both of us that, perhaps, the main reasons we didn’t talk about the others much was that we simply didn't know too many people and we also didn’t know too much about them limited number of people who we knew. 8-O lol

The, in the past few months, something inside has been driving me to spit whatever is there out whichever enters my mind... This is a drastic difference from how I actually had been for the longest time, especially during the times when my paranoid delusions were worse or worst.

And, today, I found myself turning into someone I would never dream that I could become of….

Essentially--- I am now one of them really bad people who speaks of the others…. OMG…. 8-O lol

Although, it would be preferable for me to think that I am no longer that someone who dare not engage in the act of speaking about the others simply because such act is socially considered as bad and I do not wanting to be considered bad?

To date, I have been someone who spent the majority of my life trying to be good due to the mandates set by my delusions which states “See no evil, think no evil, and do no evil.”

I have also, somehow, turned into almost a compulsive speaker of all things that approach my mind, including observations, perceptions, observations, etc… while, of course, such new found propensity could simply be the manifestation of the over-compensation for the past….

Yes, I had been someone who keeps all things inside until it gets so jammed packed that I finally exploded, and, many a time. I have also been someone who has the slightest idea why on earth things just come out of my mouth the way they do.

And, if you ask me which type of MO is better….

My guess would be…

"Welche klingt besser? Scheiße or Kaka?"

For... it all eventually comes out anyway.... 8-O lol

Lazy and/or invisibly disabled

It is very funny that, last night, as I was going to bed, I posted this simple sentence in my private blog...

"One thing I could tell myself is... Thoughts have gone dry...."

It seems as if there was just nothing more worthwhile for me to speak of in Ratology anymore....

Then, today, as I came out from some of my everyday experiences, I came to understand that it was not because there exists nothing more in this pitifully boring state of my life... Rather, I have not been able to reload them raw thoughts....

So after some drama that occurred at work, I came face-to-face with my disabled state of being and its consequences.

You see, before I became disabled, one day, I got in the mail this letter speaking about how people with disabilities are often being thoughts as lazy. It was a foreign concept and I must have thought then.... "How on earth did they get my address?"

Then, the concept of disability was operationalized. For the longest time, forget about the thought of achieving anything... deal, first, with learning to walk and see whether I could move past 30 steps or 40 steps before I have to stop for spasm to pass... And, up to less than an year from now, I was still not sure whether there would come one day when I could simply walk without spasm and, maybe, one day, without walking aids...

It has been about two years after I became disabled and, to date, I am still trying to recover. Yet, once every so often, situations occur and the notion resurrects--- disability is considered by an act of laziness...

There are many things I have become unable to do. For instance, since the gym is no longer an option for me... this leaves walking and my swinging the only exercise I have been spared and I could afford.

I also remain to have difficulties with lifting weights.... What I have learned so far through life's lesson is... if I do too much of moving things around, the pains resurges and the inability to walk comes back for the body to take its toll.

Today, again, I came face-to-face with the everyday scenarios surrounding the issue of moving and lifting weights.

It, finally, came to my realization that my lost ability to lift weights could actually be perceived as an act of laziness simply because "you look so good".... How could you be disabled? Why does anyone else have to be the one to be doing lifting while all you do is mingling around with some accessories such as cables? In other words, you are either lazy or malignant and I don't believe you could be disabled.

Of course, no one ever put things out the way I have spitted it out as above. In other words, these are things coming out of my mouth-- a representation of my worldview and mental model.
One thing I thought nobody could understand, I might have never spoken of, and, possibly, I have never realized is that...

Disability is not a past state of being. My inability to perform the tasks I used to be able to perform did not go away with the disappearance of the cane or walker as the walking aids.

Rather, the cane is gone but the disabilities remain.

Rather, disability is a way of life.

Life is never the way it was and I have no idea how close to the way it was it could get.

Although I would like to keep staring at the full part of the glass, I finally am at a point when I have to face the empty part of the glass--- staring into the void filled with them activities I can no longer engage in and I can no longer perform.

So I thought I knew what it meant to be disabled. And, of course, again, I am slapped in the face by my own absolute ignorance.

Then, as I pondered about why I look good to everyone, including myself, but can't do them things I used to be able to perform, and, I wondered whether it is simply laziness or I am really disabled (which is something I am still having trouble accepting, I guess...)

It was not until then did I perform a search online and come across some writings about people who are not only disabled but also "invisibly disabled."

And, I came across quotes such as the following:

From: But They LOOK So Good!

1. While the person with the illness/pain is mourning their loss of ability and freedom, others often accuse them of just being lazy or malingering.
2. Frankly, it is impossible for us to be compassionate, until we have acknowledged there is a situation for which to be compassionate!
3. I do not believe you are sick, because you don’t look sick?
4. Ironically, those with chronic conditions would like nothing more than to gain complete control of their lives and not have to adjust to any limitations at all! Nonetheless, their bodies do not always cooperate with their desires, no matter how much they want it to.

From: Invisible disability

1. Invisible Disabilities are disabilities that are not immediately apparent.
2. Those with joint problems or chronic pain may not use mobility aids on good days, or at all.
3. About 10% of Americans have a medical condition which could be considered an invisible disability.

And, it was then did I realize that....
However lazy people might consciously or unconsciously think I am....
Some people might think I am lazy simply because they do not believe with their eyes that I could have any physical constraints....
In addition, I could come to think that some people might see me nothing more than being lazy because they don't believe I am disabled in any capacity...
Whatever it is, ignorant as I am, I finally come to learn that there is a term for it....
"Invisibly disabled."
Apparently, I am not alone and it is just normal.
In any case, whether I am purely lazy or not, anyone is welcome to judge and, for me, I will let it God to run its credit check...
And, if you ask me that, if God exists and does do his credit check on our every move, why on earth would I be in a state of invisibly disabled--- like the remaining 10% or so of my American cohorts?
For me, the answer is simple. Other than the possibility that I am simply a bad person and that's why I have to be punished for God knows what I have done in my life so far...
Chances are, without living through them experiences unnecessary to them normal people, I wouldn't have understood what it means to be totally disabled and the process it take to come to face my existence as an invisibly disabled. I also wouldn't have come up with this question--- would there come a day when I can be declassified as an invisibly disabled?
Where else could I find life-long and tuition-free immersion education based on constructivist principles as such that eventially grants me, the above, useless thoughts (even though I have no idea why I shall come up through my life's experiences them meaningless thoughts)? 8-O lol
As for anyone else... you are entitled to make whatever interpretation you want to make as long as you remember the interpretations are yours. 8-O lol

From esophagus spasm to dry mouth only

Following is a posting I made this Wednesday for my private blog... It sort of documented my recent encounter with esophagus spasm and dry mouth....

Like what I always say.... I have no idea why I have to go through the things I have to go through in life.... Yet, in retrospective, I do see how my own action have an impact on the outcomes.... 8-O lol

In addition, after I tossed and turned for a few hours in bed, I eventually got up to take a Clonazepam.... unfortunately, it took this pill much longer a time to put me to sleep then usually....

Go to sleep
drafted on Wednesday, April 8, 2009

I have never known how difficult it could be to fall asleep....

Yes, it is true...

I have lived through nights of sleeplessness....

I have lived through them nights of sleeplessness.... so many a night... and... within which I were haunted by the ghosts of my own delusions.... and the associated delusions concerning death...

Yet, what has been happening to me nowadays is something different....

What I have been experiencing in recent days are the extreme of physical discomfort.... the inability for me to swallow--- even my own saliva, the dry mouth.... so dry that it feels as if my mouth produces no saliva at all, the ensuing sense of anxiety.... especially the tension resulting from the bodily discomfort and the inability to fall a sleep....

I had the worst symptoms last Thursday night....

What I ate for dinner was one of the cup a noodle with some mushrooms....

Thereafter I had a beer and a strawberry Margarita along with 4 pints of hot water while hanging out...

After I got home and before I went night night, I put the dissolvable tooth whitening strips of Listerine.... In other words, I went to bed with them Listerine whitening strips still in my mouth waiting to be dissolved and broken down by my saliva...

Then, the next thing I realized was that..... it was 2 o'clock in the morning and, after I got up, I found myself lost the ability to swallow even my own saliva.... Worst of all, I was having trouble breathing through my mouth... It was then did this thought occurred to me... OMG... I could die in suffocation here along in my room and no one would even know about it...

I struggled and finally swallowed down one of my Naproxen.... The pill immediate relaxed my neck area and I finally could swallow again... although still having to deal with the increased heart beat rate as well as the unbearable dryness in my mouth...

Regardless, I went back to bed since there seems to be two options only I saw... I go to bed and wake up the morning after or I wake up not....

Apparently, in retrospective, I did fall asleep and I did wake up....

Following are a few of the options that I entertained:

1. The chemical in the whitening strips might have built up in my mouth and caused irritation
2. I have become allergic to something (e.g., alcohol, shrimp, wheat)
3. I drank too much liquid and the water built up in my cells such as those in my throat... or water intoxication
4. I might have experienced an anxiety attack or panic attack
5. Or, the combinations of more than one of the above

Friday night was a good night since I had no trouble at all falling asleep...

Saturday night... I think I had some problems falling asleep again but not so bad... some sensation of dry mouth, maybe...

Sunday night... maybe a bit of dry mouth kind of problem....

On Monday, I went to see my doctor... and we came to the conclusion that it might have been the Listerine strips that got my throat totally irritated... Yet, that after noon, against her advise, yours nothing in the head decided to get another kind of extra powerful tooth whitening strips...

Then, Monday night, again... I had great discomfort and difficulties falling asleep... First, it felt as if I was having difficulties swallowing and there seems to be something stuck in my throat... After I got up and moved around a bit, I went back to lie in bed... only to find myself being attacked by dry mouth... and dry throat.... So dry that I felt the lining of my throat was touching each other and rubbing against each other.

I got up again and again only to find myself still being attacked by da dry throat and mouth...

And, the same thing happened again last night...

I wanted so bad to take either one of the Clonazepam or Naproxen...

Yet, I decided to not take additional pills instead....

Eventually, I fell asleep and woke up this morning... spending the entire day feeling still sleepy...

In retrospective, I think what happened since Monday night might have something to do with the Crest Advanced Seal whitening strips... It is because I was able to feel their after effects all the way into the later part of the day on Tuesday even though I applied the strips later in the evening...

Given that I have also been feeling gas coming up through my esophagus, I decided tonight that.... Maybe what I am experiencing have something to do with this thing called acid reflux...

I was going to hold it though the night to see whether I am going to experience the same thing tonight without any further intervention...

Yet, I decided to take two of the Tumbs.... for... it ain't making sense for me to kill myself over some stupid and methodologically unsound experiments... 8-O lol

Let's hope and pray to God that I could finally fall asleep.... once for a change.....

Last note... perhaps... something else in the equation... da prune juice might also be part of the equation since I am trying to use it to help me with da constipation department.... (8-O lol oops... did I say it? lol)

And, God... let me fall asleep for once... tonight... shall you exist and shall you be listening... in addition to letting me find a husband soon... 8-O lol sigh... (Think this is quite funny for me to be still thinking about finding a husband while under-going the given condition.... 8-O lol)

Phobia-- dry mouth and can't sleep

Speaking of phobia... though out the past few days... I think that I was about to develop some kind about phobia about going to sleep..... at least up till last night... when I finally fall asleep...

This had been happening....

Every night... falling asleep has turned into a more drastic battle than I would like it to be...

More nights than I would like it to be... I would be lying in bed, tossing and turning-- tormented by xerostomia or this dryness in my mouth....

I got this sinus that came from no where... and I need to use my mouth to breathe...

Yet, or maybe as a result, the mouth would go dry and so dry... so dry that it felt as if there is no saliva at all....

For over an hour or two.... I lie there waiting.... for the time to come.... for me to wake up to a new day... a new beginning....

As days go by, I started to have this fear that the same thing is to happen again as I go night night.... As a result, the anxiety level might have been heightened, which doesn't really help the condition either...

If you ask me why I don't have a glass of water by my bed side to quench my thirst and to compensate for the dryness....

I do.

Throughout the night, I would get up again and again.... drinking more water and some more... only to be overcome by this sense of dryness again shortly....

If you want me to compare between them nights of delusional terrors and them nights of never-ending dryness...

If you want me to choose which one would be the worst....

Honestly, neither prefer I....

So, before I went to see my physician yesterday morning and as I was pondering whether there are any other people who suffer from similar kind of minor inconveniences, I did a google search with the key words "dry mouth can't sleep".... only to realize that there are so many other people out there sharing the same experiences and struggling to find a means for a sense of relief...

Luckily, after I took my physician's advise and ate some "pears" before bed, once for a change...

Last night, I was able to fall asleep without having to be tormented for hours by da "dry-mouth-ness"....

Then, I thought of those people who have to live with this condition for years.... God bless and have mercy.....

And, for those who can't understand what I mean by being tormented by dry mouth and being kept awake as a result of it... Lucky you.... and may you keep your bless...

And... hope that... tonight... dry mouth won't come back to keep me away from falling asleep....

drooling

By drooling, I am refering to the activity within which the saliva, the secretions of the salivary glands, falls out of your mouth.

A few days after I stopped taking Risperdal, the problem I have now is more of that of dry mouth than the drooling activity that makes me look extremely unladylike-- when it just come out of my mouth-- oops-- when I was not paying much of my cognitive capacity to monitor its activity.

Don't know whether I have told you this or not, the day I was discharged from the psychiatric ward, I went to get myself some Wanton soup in a Chinese restaurant. I thought I was quite alert...

Yet, when the soup was on the table, as I was staring right into that soup I had been dreaming of, in split second, I found the saliva came out of my mouth unwittingly like Pavlov's dog.

That was the point when I understood why some patients might drool.

It was from then on did I realize that, to cope with the psychiatric condition and its consequences, I also have to spare my already limited cognitive capacity to making sure I do not drool. 8-O lol Sigh

It was much later, after I tried to cope and cope with my own saliva, did I finally have the insight that...

No wonder dentists put the suction thing underneath the tong because that is where the saliva secreted from... 8-O

Something I would rather to have no deep understanding again. 8-O lol