Suffering

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 

State

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.

The unavoidable

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?

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

Self

The scary reemergence or reclaiming of my long lost selves...

Remember how this ex of mine actually wish me going back on higher dose of depakote... when I was trying so hard to get off it because Depakote is known to cause birth defect?!

Something gotta change... but I could only recalibrate one day and one thing at a time.

It is going to be like babies learning to walk... might inevitably stepping on someone's toe at times... Sorry in advance because simply the process of learning to walk... especially when I am absolutely confused what exactly it is that I am supposed to learn and how.... a recurrent theme, I guess... 8-X

Sort of like... the structure... 8-O lol oops...

Bitch

On my way home from my walk, I stopped by a shop to get myself a bottle of juice...

I walked to the end of the line and waited with my head somewhere else...

The line might have shifted though I didn't move since they didn't move too far anyways...

Then, I sensed this woman on the phone walked passed behind me...

I paid her no mind... sometimes... people would go and pick up stuffs on the other side.

At some point, I looked to the right and found that woman went to the right and started forming her own line... standing parallel to me...

I paid her no mind... maybe she just wants stand close.

The line moved a bit...

I moved closer to the woman in front of me..

Now that woman speak in rude tone and moved right before me..

"Excuse me. I am in front of you."

I spoke back at her...

"I was here before you and I am right behind this lady."

People looked back... some not sure what was going on and something made me feel they believe in that woman more over me.... and isn't it amazing how easy it is for us to take side while we have no idea what the hell is happening in life...

I know that woman was lying unless she did not even know that she was lying...

I know that I came before her although... God knows... I might be wrong...

At the same time, it ain't like I was rushing anywhere...

If only she could have not come across as a bitch and speak to me nicely, I would have let her go before me anyway....

However, if she has to confront me with a huge ball of negative energy, don't blame me for mirroring it back since there ain't nothing better I could do in life nowadays other than mirroring.... possibly just a phase I am going through with God knows what... 8-O lol 8-X

Chances are.. for her... I am the bitch... and bitch let it be...

And... did I use the word bitch? 8-O lol

Yes, I used the word bitch...

Then, it occurred to me... OMG... isn't it such a relief to be able to simply calling someone a bitch when I think they are bitches?

Oh... no... I couldn't before.... because of the delusions, medications, and some obscene pursuit to be understanding, taking perspective and be not judgmental....

But, today, I finally have grown back to feel freely calling someone a bitch... though only in my mind....

Perhaps, it is the meds since the meds have gone down...

In any case, I am overjoyed with the reclaiming of a part of my selves that I didn't even know I have lost....

And, so I thought... wonder what that bitch might have gotten out of it....

And, thank you for being a bitch so that I could call you a bitch.

OK... Now stop bitching. 8-O lol 8-X

In addition, now I am aware that this part of me is back... gotta learn to be not confrontational... a skill to be learned...

Motivation

6:20 in the afternoon, I walked past some smokers....

I thought to myself... "You could do it." At least waiting the the night grows older when I take the patch off... 8-O lol

Then, it daunted on me...

Motivation... the resurrection of motivation.... a long lost friend....

Gotta be careful though... the water could carry a boat and could sink a boat...

Crutch

My coworker told me about how this lady has been harassing people at work...

I have had my encounter with this lady as well myself...

Let's put it this way... I am crazy and she ain't normal either... based on my hunch...

Then, I heard of how this lady has been causing problems at public places... causing disruptions to the others...

However, perhaps, other people also sensed that her head is also sort of flaky like mine... people put up with it...

So I heard those stories with a common theme emerged... she wants it... she demands it... and she engages in conducts that cause disruption to other people's rights... so as to get what she wants... Perhaps but hopefully not, with this thought in her mind... I am going to push as far as I could because I know it has worked...

The stories I have heard are but simple manifestations of the principle of conditioning...

What gets me upset about this scenario is to see how her behavior patterns are tainting the "reputation" of the people with mental health problems.

Maybe this is another gross sin of mine...

Yet, what I hate most are people who use their conditions as a crutch... because, then, the "normies" would come to the conclusion that all patients with mental health condition are like that.

This gets me mad.

So I told people...

If she is not flaky in the head, she has to be stopped from causing further disruptions or harassment to other people.

And, if she is really flaky in the head, she also has to be told to stop from continuing to engage disruptive actives.

You see, even when patients are in the psychiatric wards and when their conditions are worse, if you engage in disruptive or harassing activities, the staffs on duty will tell you to stop. The staffs might even take away your privilege such as going out for fresh air... the smoking break. By taking away such privileges, you are taught that you are responsible for your behavior even when you are locked up in the cuckoo's nest.

This is because what is wrong is wrong regardless your mental health status.

This is also sort of like a jerk is a jerk regardless of cultural background.

I can't speak for everyone but I believe I might not be speaking for only myself....

Even in the worse of the conditions when one no longer lives in the reality as we know, most of us still have the basic sense of what is right and wrong...

Make no mistake...

There eventually comes to a time when that boundary of right and wrong becomes grayer and grayer... and this is usually when you are dire in the reign of insanity...

This is when you speaks of the neighbor's dog...

This is when you keep on calling your supervisor to open someone else' office because you thought you have been given the authorisation to enter the room to pick up someone's body.... 8-O 8-X

This is why you do not go to teach the scheduled class and simply disappeared for the entire semester because you thought you have informed the president of that college telepathically... Even in this scenario, when you are only hours away from institutionalisation, you still know about responsibilities and consequences....

And, did I lose the opportunity for a full time job and the sponsored green card afterwards? Yes. I did. It is because there are consequences to your actions in real life whether you live in a different reality or not.

So they say... I did not promise you a rose garden and I somehow suspect that it might be applicable for most people... 8-O

True... patients with mental health conditions might also have other peculiar problems associated with the conditions...

You could be slow and really slow...

You could have limited ability to process information because the cognitive ability you have you hand on is the half size of a peanut when others' have it the size of a soccer field....

You could have limited affect or motivation... and all else otherwise not explicitly identified here...

However, it is my belief that most of us try to make efforts to do what we could do.

When we have a job, we try to perform our duties as well as we could.

For instance, I remember the time when I was at the Taipei City Psychiatric Institute. In this institute, patients whose conditions are more stable and whose functioning are higher have the chance to work in the shop and in the cafe as part of occupational therapy. They might be slow. They might sometimes fall short in affect and expressions. They might appear to be curiously and stringently adhering to the rules. Yet, you know and, in case you do not know... they are trying their best to perform their job and to be responsible.

It is also sort of like when I was inside of the hospital and they assign us to help out making sandwiches. We make sure that we put in ham, cheese and anything that is supposed to be inside properly even unless there is a special order.

Some of us might not be as "(not quite sure how you put it)" as the rest. Yet, I know many of us try to do as well as we could in the face of constraints.

At the same time, I am not saying that there is no need for accommodations...

A lot of times, despite that fact that we have busted our heads trying our best, our best is still not enough.... and very much not enough... At this point, it is dependent on other people's good well to accommodate us. And, I sincerely believe that those of us who have been granted with the opportunities are thankful to the accommodations.

I know I have rambled on for too long…

After all, one thing I am trying to say is that… there is the need for accommodation… and, personally, especially nowadays when I have been disabled in both body and mind while trying to recover… it is the accommodations that have enabled me to do many things in life that I otherwise would not have been able to do.

Yet, like many others, I try and I take pride in what I could do.

And, I believe I am not the only one who has a problem with those using their condition as a crutch so as to bully people out of their way. 8-O (did I say that... 8-O oops...)

That gets me mad and I do not like it at all.

On a second thought, guess the reason why I feel so comfortable making these comments is because… I am one of us and you can't tell me that these are discriminating comments since I am speaking of myself and on behalf of myself... 8-O lol

One of the added value I guess for being so very well endowed.. 8-O lol

And, perhaps, maybe the person I have in mind is simply... pushy.... That's all. 8-O lol

And.. man.. I thought too much and it's making my head hurt... and now I have to go back to origami to relax my head... 8-O 8-X

Harasement

I hate asking people to do things... the same time... again and again... especially in the lack of responses...

Guess this is why yesterday was so exhausting...

I had to contact multiple locations only to obtain some stupid medical records about my psychiatric problems for a purpose that I don't even whether would serve anything at all... while something stubbornly insists me on pushing through with it despite of the fact that I have mostly lost all steam or in simply a steamless state...

See, even if my status really gets reinstated, it would only carry me to next spring to allow me to finish up the course work... not to mention that if a negative response comes down, after all these headaches, I would simply have to pack up and leave... unless miracle happens and I either find a full time job or a husband. Or better yet both since they are not mutually exclusive. Simple as that. 8-O lol sigh

Why trying so hard still? I have no idea.

Yet, something just keeps on pushing me forward as if it just has to be done and I can't escape and defy it... oh.. no...

So I contacted them and contact them...

One person at a time trying to figure out whether this is the real person and trying to decipher which part of the records I am speaking of....

Since I have been playing phone tags with my shrink, I had to make myself leave multiple message trying to convey to him the urgency of the issue since, fucked up as I am in the head, it would take at least some work for the medical records to be prepared since June 2007... considering my head did take me back to the hospital in February 2008 and got worst again in Fall 2008....

Once is charm...

Twice is old...

Having to do it even more time... that makes me feel that I am really heading towards a harassment law suit.... 8-O

Yet, so is the reality in life.... sometimes.... so they say... you just have to push and push some more so that it could be done...

At the same time, just because you push and harass people as much as possible... something it just doesn't work at all especially when you also feel that pushing too much might result in rebound....

This is the point when you wish... if only self-reliant could be sufficient in all business in life...

All the phone messages I left on my shrink's machine lead me to ponder...

"So could such efforts be deciphered as the instability of the mental condition?!" 8-O

Or... simply insanity?

The pain involved with the harassing moments of everyday life... sigh

And.. perhaps... the moral of the lesson... the insufficiency of self-reliance-- necessary but insufficient?

If you don't quite understand what I am talking about here... let's look for a analogy that might help you to relate to... surface information might be different but... I guess.. the structure is there...

So I cry... I pray... I beg... 8-O lol sigh

Head

It is very important to be healthy....

So you try to observe things and find correlations although correlations are not causation...

Now I could use my head to do things such as reading and thinking... it makes me feel really happy...

The problem...

It appears as if the use of my head, unfortunately, makes the occurrences of positive symptoms more frequent....

It is also as if... when I leave my head along, the observations of positive symptoms also lower....

So... now... you know have the choice to use your head to do more when access is granted...

However, you also have to make sure the symptoms are under control.... provided this half-baked theory you build up about the correlation mentioned above... regardless its validity....

This is a catch 22...

To use your head or not to use your head...

Or more accurately, how do you make the best use of your head while not risking loosing your head?

At the current point, it is as if my head still has this build-in mechanism to shut itself down for maintenance purpose.... It tells me to do things which would appear to be a waste of my life and it tells me when to get on with some more constructive work. It has its own rule and, even if you try to defy it, you don't really get too far.... (which sometimes would make me wonder whether this is the "neighbor's dog tell me to do it" kind of phenomena. 8-O 8-X)

In addition, it seems like I still have sufficient amount of ability to dissociate myself from the symptoms.

At times, it feels as if what I am going through is to learn to live with mes.... as if it is an internship with tasks at higher levels of difficulties gradually get unlocked upon the appropriate level of my attainment.... 8-O lol 8-X

At this state, it feels as if the lesson to learn is to learn to find a balance.... the line just keep on getting finer... and... I need to learn the art of balancing...

If only there exist a class or even a manual..... codified rules to follow.... Give me the science for artistic I have never been.... If only the lesson plans are based on information delivery model rather than the constructivist, if not constructionist, approach....

And, sometimes you ponder... I didn't even register for the class and pay the tuition.... Why are you making me learn? 8-O 8-X lol sigh

And, even if all of the above deemed nonsense.... one point stands true in this post... health is of vital importance.

First night 200 mg

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

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

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

Things calmed down...

I did a few more blocks of walk...

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

How does it feel now?

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

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

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

Time to try to fall asleep again...

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

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

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

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

Dial up vs gigabyte network

Was talking with this friend of mine today... about gym use... and he started talking about how rental car companies provides services differently... as an analogy I guess...

Except for... by the time him finished with how the general rental works, I was already experiencing cognitive overload from his description of how the rental car works, and, the discrepancies between my mental model about the discussion and what he was talking about.

This scenario has the same effect as the scenarios that occur so very often at work when people go on and on describing things which would get me all confused.

The experience I had... it was as if the head was starting to freeze....

As he continued, I was thinking to myself... "Information overload... memory dump..." except for I am not quite sure how to dump da memory in my head... 8-O lol

This reminds me of the things I observed often on this laptop.... I would have multiple browsers open with each running scripts to automate Mafia War related tasks such as collecting boosts and do jobs.... Given the old age of the machine, the browsers and programs would run really really slow... and unresponsive.... Very often, it would even take a minute or so or more for it to respond to control+alt+delete....

Then, as I was taking a shower, I had this smart idea.... it is as if my head is running dial up while other people's head operates on gigabyte networks...

You see... you could try to push as much information as possible but my dial-up connection could not receive so much information... as a result things run extra slow.... packets might get lost as well...

Sort of like trying to watch a movie on youtube using dial-up connection on an obsolete computer... To begin with, the computer already runs slow due to reduced memory available... the browser runs slow... With rich media that involves large files... everything just keep on getting slower... until finally... there is a system crash... and I sit there with a brain freeze... that kind of freeze when it doesn't even respond to control+alt+delete... 8-O lol 8-X

Now I think I understand what it might feel like to be a program like a browser when it has to run a lot of excessive codes... this is, I guess, the reason coding is so important and why it has to be succinct... Otherwise, it will have to spend extra amount of work interpreting irrelevant codes, such as those extra codes written by Microsoft, before it finally finds something to execute...

It is very unfortunate that what is negligible overload for better programs on better machines could result in the stalling of my processor. 8-O lol

Interestingly, it is like my head was getting an "if" commend... after waiting for a long time for the "then".... it can't hold the "if" part anymore and decided to hang..... Or, this might be how the old PCs feel on NT when we see the blue screen of death... 8-O lol 8-X

The key point... I am dial up and you are gigabyte network... Please refrain from sending large files such as multimedia files until the system resources get unlocked a bit more... 8-O lol sigh

Can't wait for my meeting with my shrink to free some memories up.... lol sigh

Academic pursuit

Funny how Charlie's comment came right after my question about da thing called career...

As I was taking a shower, I revisited this thought of academic pursuits...

There was once upon a time when academic pursuits were something to die for.

Believe it or not, I even brought in piles of papers in to the psychiatric wards concerning topics such as information processing theory or cognitive load... Of course, over drugged as I was... every time I touch the paper, I could never move, perhaps, beyond a sentence or two before I started to sort of dosed off... 8-O lol sigh

The second time when I was institutionalised, I was running my dissertation research all the way into the cuckoo's nest and, after coming out, I went right back to that....

Just two simple examples to show how I was once so aspired or inspired by academic pursuits.

Today, life seems to have lead me to a diverse path...

There is nothing wrong with academic pursuits. Maybe I will eventually try out writing a journal article or two when the time comes. Except for, today, it is my belief that anything I could contribute, somebody would be able to do it, too. Sort of like the implications of social loafing theory... I guess... 8-O lol

In addition, the one country, two governments policy of my body and mind doesn't really grant me too much slack to traverse a path I thought I would have chosen.... This is especially true when I walk as a cripple and think as a retard... and live, legally, a lost soul in limbo... 8-O lol sigh

In other words, all lay out on the table, with the concept of synchronicity in mind, I guess... a logical option for an irrational mind... It ain't like I am saying anyone should pursue academically not...

I do love learning and, however I might get beaten up, I still have this stubborn habit to learn...

So I thought something this good friend of mine had my told almost 20 years back...

My girlfriend was one of those hard working or smart students who gets to be the number 1 or 2 students in college.

One day, I found out that she was number 1 again in the previous semester and got the scholarship again. So I said to her...

"OMG, you are so amazing! How do you do that?!!"

So responded my good friend, "人各有志".... (ouch) or, in English, perhaps, "Every man has his dream and direction."

20 years or so ago when I heard so... I felt.... ouch...

About 20 years later, after all the searching and unfolding... I thought of it... and I ponder... maybe and hopefully it ain't so bad... 人各有志... at least for today... I guess...

Functional

Just when I was taking down the following passage from the book "Madness"...

"I sit down at my desk to work. I'm not writing well, but I'm only writing for myself. This is to make me feel functional, a feeling I lost during those years of total disability, so that at the end of the day I can feel good about the fact that the day did not pass me by." P. 243

No better way to put it... the pursuit of functionality...

This voice rose from sort of the center of my head...

"I envy you. You feel so settled." 8-O

So... my delusional and hallucinational self/selves are envious of this useless me? 8-O lol oops...

Love

Had this conversation with this friend last night about someone else with the gift of psychosis...

Apparently, there was once upon a time, during their conversation, when this psychotic fellow of mine thought he was talking to Satan... and his misfortune was caused by God...

So I said, "It must have been Satan who told him that God was the culprit."

I think I have mentioned this story many a time...

Once upon a time, right before I went into the hospital due to my perceived "heart failure," I spent the entire night thinking that I was overcome by demonic forces, which were coming to kill me... many and many a time...

Funny enough, all forces came to help... them forces from Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso and all other sources..

They were Gods...

They were spirits...

They were ghosts...

They were devils...

They were zombies...

They were fictional figures...

They were heinous and poisonous beasts... such as the most poisonous spiders and scorpions...

Each of them contributed to a certain part of my healing from one attack after another...

When I was poisoned by the most potent poison, the most poisonous spider and scorpions from hell sacrificed themselves and came to my rescue by injecting me with their poison and absorbing them poisons from me...

So say the Chinese... 以毒攻毒… or use poison to fight poison…

When all measures failed to bring me back from death, I was turned an undead...

From there and with help, I became a zombie and possibly also a ghost... until, eventually, born again I was... a human... with help from all sources with all means... conventional or unconventional...

Yes, and, it was the day and night after when I lived through the apocalypse… where all structures dissolved and where there existed nothing more than chaos….

It was the same time when I was told that 想好事,做好人 or do good thing and be nice people is the only means of having the orders and structures in life be restored…

It was around this time when, walking up them hill in bitter cold, my hallucinations had me told… one step at a time…

Years gone by… memories remain vivid…

And, when rethinking the path I have traversed so far, I never cease to be marveled by this strange gift that I have been granted regardless the severity of the conditionｓ…

There is something that has been protecting me from the inside... or outside…

However strong the delusional system might be, I never, and knock on wood, my delusions never told me to do harm to anyone else…

In addition, I’ve never failed to see how people I know have unconditional love and care for me…

I have also never ceased to believe in their loving intention… (although I did scream out loud in the ER ward stating this specific guy was my husband due to the delusional belief that when apocalypse befall.. all will be gone include that love… And, in a tragic moment as such, there does not seem anything meaningful to let a love be silenced simply because it has not been pronounced. Speaking of react not… 8-O 8-X lol sigh)

So, today, as I was strolling down with these old friends and as I was thinking of all them loving people alike…

I thought to myself… how lucky I am, albeit my propensity for psychosis and neurosis, to feel so secure… so secure that even in the direst moments of madness and insanity, love still lights up in the bottom of my heart and carry me forward… one step at a time…

Good way Freud had it put… Lieben, Leben, Arbeiten… let love precedes all and all else will follow…

And, shall you ask me how such is possible?

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you why (in addition to not quite sure whether this really helped…)

The only thing I know is… thank, God, it is simply the way it is so far… (though no magical thinking intended)

Delusional

How do I know that I am still delusional?

This is a question I have to answer myself time and again...

On a scale of 1 to 10, I score a 3 on the degree of delusions based on my naive estimation although I can't quite tell you what that number of 3 really means other than it is higher than a 2 and lower than a 4. In addition, what I could tell you is that, chances are, I scored a 10 when drafting the posting about my concerns......

At the same time, following are some of the distincts feature of my current state of "delusionality".....

I had some discussions about some sports team with my coworker the other day. Although I have no ideas about sports and do not follow it, I have heard from hearsay that the sports team we were talking about were not very good. Then, on my way home from work, I had this thought and feeling that people who follow sports were not so happy at my comment. And, I found myself thinking in my head this thought...

"I don't know sports anyway...."

And, I came to the realization that the above sentence was a reaction for this delusion of mine that someone out there is capable of reading my mind and hearing my thought even though I have no idea why anyone would want to do so.

In other words, I had thought of that thought so that the mind reader in my imaginary world could hear this though... so that the thoughts could be broadcasted.... and so that people won't pay no mind to my comment at all...

Other times, when I am thinking about whatever is in my mind, I would catch myself thinking in some fairly strange fashion....

Essentially, it doesn't feel like I was purely thinking silently to myself...

Rather, if feels more or less like I am thinking my thoughts out in a "sharable" fashion--- so as to share them with that thought reader of mine in my imaginary world.... although I can't quite tell you what it means to think without the intention of sharing my thoughts..... 8-O lol

And, the features are... I guess.. I still, believe it or not, still have that internalized automatic self-correction system running and thinking thoughts are broadcasted.... (like magical thinking and thought broadcasting? Isn't it amazing how after I go running around after my own tail all these years but still come back to the same thing? 8-O lol sigh)

Such concludes my current response to the initial question....

How do I know, currently, that I am delusional...

Terminal death

As I was trying to let go of some of them crafty supplies in my room today, I leisurely moved to the following clip on youtube with the topic of discussion concerning whether there is an end of time... and, of course, theoretically...



So, if I recall correctly, after the degenerate state of the universe where all matters decade and after the later state when even the black holes evaporate, there comes to the final stage of the universe.... where there exist nothing but the photons running around like headless chickens... 8-O lol

That reminded me of that version of terminal death after the Apocalypse--- in my delusional imaginary world... at the high noon (or night) of my second acute psychotic episode...

I must have mentioned that experience of mine numerous a time... could have simply linked to that posting except for I can't find them right at this moment...

Essentially, all orders broke down... there was earthquakes, tsunami, volcano eruptions, and all other deadly events everywhere....

Up to a certain point, I could still communicate with the deceased... for they were the spirits... with whom I could still channel with...

Then, not only was Purgatorio (Purgatory) doomed..

No longer existed were Inferno (Hell) and Paradiso (Paradise)...

All Gods, spirits, human, ghosts, devils, etc were dead.... leaving only THE demonic forces in charge...

It was at that point when all dead came through my body and, into the big abyss of nothingness... evaporated into particles... leaving, for me, no trace...

Ok...

So, I was leisurely listening to the topic concerning the terminal death of the universe...

And I thought... what a match...

So I thought... are you telling me that da demonic forces in my imaginary world is actually la forza of nature?

Did what I just heard somehow get transmitted to the head of that me years back on the ER bed facing the end of THE world? 8-O lol

Of course, so we could say... them delusional thoughts... nonsensical.... and... looking for senses in nonsense... non-non-sensical?! 8-O lol

Imaginary world

One thing I learned so far about my disordered thoughts is that...

I am my own worst enemy because it takes me to construct an imaginary world about unfounded expectations.... no one else to blame... unfortunately...

As I have mentioned before.... such an imaginary world does have an impact in real life... such as the full time position that I had at hand which I lost.... because I thought I told the president of the school that I could not make it to work "telepathically" while I didn't realize until much later that.... the message apparently was lost somewhere in the ether.... 8-O lol sigh...

In addition, I just could not shake this unfounded feeling that, somehow, some people are accessing my private blog without me granting them the access.... Crazy does crazy does... I guess... 8-O lol


A quote from the Art of Possibility by Zander & Zander
'Nature makes no judgment. Human do. And while our willingness to distinguish good and evil may be one of our most enhancing attributes, it is important to realize that “good” and “bad” are categories we impose on the world--- they are not of the world itself.'
P. 105

Mendelssohn 'Italian' Symphony No.4 - 1st mvt. p. 143-145

Dance to...

I gotta say that I had some pretty tough kinda God knows what to call it last night after I went to bed....

I laid down trying to go to sleep.... then I knew the past is coming back...

There were not too much of "perceivable" visions, hallucinations and even delusions... other than these four words kept on going on in my head the whole time like broken record... "無量壽佛"...... Just don't ask me why....

Essentially, what I went through was what I had experienced the night before my second hospitalization....

I was laying in bed.... receiving attacks from the darkest of the demonic forces for the whole night...

Other than all of the things that went on in my head, there were all those real bodily movements... involuntary...

So for over an hour, off and on, that part of the past came back to me....

It was as if my body went into seizure.... the whole body just kept on jerking around in all different ways... so violent that the whole body actually would jump away from the bed...

So, I just laid there the whole time.... letting the body jump up and fell back down.... again, again and some more times...

At points, I could still feel in my heart the deepest sorrow and wept...

The whole time, I begged to God... "Don't let anyone be exposed to what exactly is going on..."

Yet, most of the times, there is nothing cognitively going on other than the sound of "無量壽佛" in all different ground... It was as if the chanting of "無量壽佛" is to provide me with a safe haven to go back to the past I would never want to revisit again.... It was if it is the prayer for God's mercy to spare me from trials unnecessary....

At times, I could vaguely have the vision and remembrance of the past... then, there would come this whispering.... "Let go of your cognition...."

The Dasein itself.

Other times, as I inevitably wondered whether there is a shortcut to end all these... so I heard... "There is no shortcut."

The Dasen remained real... despite of the lack of deligent cognitive processing weaving up them webs of delusions that feed on each other...

At some point, I had to make this request....

"Do me a favor... remember that I still have to wake up early to go to work...." 8-O lol

Eventually I fell asleep and slept right through the night...

Waking up in the morning, I pondered to myself.... how much more insane am I going to be... indicators being them voices and delusions?

Then I walked out of my room... into the world.... only to find...

Man... where are they--- the excessive amount of psychotic symptoms? 8-O lol

Then, I started working on them software programs the whole day.... till towards the end of the day.... observing that slow yet symptom-minus head of mine...

I couldn't help but say....

"What an insane life...."

The insane sanity of life... I guess...

After work, on my way home and later towards the park, the self-referencing kind of propensity got stronger and, at some point, this voices said, "Time to be psychotic...."

Having spotted the hawk flying past, the might have made me feel a bit more settled....

So they say... hawks watch over the small ones and I am a spring chicken (although sort of old)... so I thought... 8-O lol

So I was prepared.... come what may... let it run...

Yet, nothing unusual....

The body moved and moved slowly till there came the time when I went into this dancing kind of mode...

So I thought... "Dance to my psychosis...."

Then, I danced on and danced on... and... happier and happier with my psychosis we danced....

I was happy... Absolutely happy...

It felt calming... really calm....

And, there was nothing but joy... to feel... I guess... in sync... somehow...

Then this old poem came to my mind and in my heart I recited...

起舞弄清影 何似 在人間
轉朱閣 低綺戶 照無眠
不應有恨 何事長向別時圓
人有悲歡離合 月有陰晴圓缺 此事古難全
但願人長久 千里共嬋娟

Later on... this other poem came up to my mind...

漢皇重色思傾國 御宇多年求不得 楊家有女初長成 養在深閨人未識
天生麗質難自棄 一朝選在君王側 回眸一笑百媚生 六宮粉黛無顏色
春寒賜沿華清池 溫泉水滑洗凝脂 侍兒扶起嬌無力 始是新承恩澤時
雲鬢花顏金步搖 芙蓉帳暖度春宵 春宵苦短日高起 從此君王不早朝
承歡侍宴無閒暇 春從春遊夜專夜 後宮佳麗三千人 三千寵愛在一身
......
七月七日長生殿 夜半無人私語時
在天願作比翼鳥 在地願為連理枝 天長地久有盡時 此恨綿綿無絕期

Then... I thought... so sad... the departure.... I guess... of whatever I have been fighting all these times....

The, I heard... "Take care of yourself..."

Then, I thought... take care of yourself though let's not say "see you again"... 8-O lol

I know I am not symptom free...

I know I still need my drugs...

I know.... at the same time... the core that has been with me all these times... almost time to depart....

Then, as I felt all was quieting down....

I heard this voice... "The toughest task is still ahead when you are to be taken away what you really want."

I started to ponder and ponder....

What is it that I want? Fame, wealth, career.... or.... the worse of all things imaginable... the well being of my family?

So I said to God....

"Do no harm.... you promised me... you will keep them save and sound.... You can't hurt them.... you have to keep your promise... or..."

Walking up the hill... I could not let go that fear and the ever growing thoughts...

In Dasen, "You could never catch it..." My psychosis me spoke--- back to the ground me brought.

Arriving at home, as I was working on my dinner.... this thought, to me, occured...

"What if you are but ordinary.... nothing special...."

Reminding of them pursuits... extraordinary.... special.....

Let go....

Witch hunt

Once every so often, as I am doing whatever I do in the park, this thought would come up to me...

Thank God I live in the modern era.... otherwise.... witch hunt?! 8-O lol

Then, I thought what the doctor had told me repeatedly.... it is all about 氣--- the vital energy that makes up the universe including you and me. It has nothing to do with ghosts, witches, spirits, Gods etc.... in the conventional sense.

What I learned recently through my hallucinations and delusions is... perhaps, it is simply about nature and the power of nature if I could call it this way.... and what I call as nature now might be what I had, once, called... God, spirit, life... etc.. I guess, naming is something that doesn't quite matter anymore for me at this point...



Another lesson the doctor could not stop reminding me was.... be good and don't try to do bad things... especially things that could get me into conflicts because conflicts beget conflicts.... manifested not necessarily in the "just in time" manner....

That brought me back to last night's experiences..

That was the experience that some other forces were trying to invade me and to attack me because they thought I had some special kind of "power".... I laid there--- having the feeling that I am all protected from all angles... with the only concern in my mind.... I have no control over anything... just do no harm....

Some recurrent theme... whenever I am approaching the gate towards the cuckoo cuckoo's nest...

It did not last long and then it ceased...

In dasein... they felt real... while, yes, they are possibly just my delusions, hallucinations, and, the chi that didn't flow quite so smoothly...

Then, as I was doing my exercise in the park this afternoon, one voice I could not shake or one thought that followed me from beginning to end was...

"Do no harm."

The matter of the fact is... well, it is for pure selfish reason... since, I have no control over anything, at least one thing I could do is to rest my faith in nature's forces... to protect me from harming the others... and, thus, myself.... (and, to be honest, at this point of time, if there is anyone I am most afraid of... it would be "myselves".... 8-O lol)

At perhaps, nature has been trying to teach me the same lessons repeatedly... except for... I just kept on missing its points...

So ends my posting on the day I saw that Mr. Hawk hovering in the sky... and, yes, its tail is red... 8-O lol

For more information about what ancient Chinese said about 氣 Chi (Qi) or Qi Kung.... feel free to check out chapter 23- QiGong by Lee, C. & Lei, T. in the book Essentials of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Eds. W.B. Jonas and J. S. Levin).