(no subject)
Haven't typed this past month, so it's time for an update.
We got possession of the condo on Nov 15. We have now purchased a couch, a bed, a mattress, a dining room set and a floor lamp. Currently the condo is being painted, then the furniture will be delivered. The actual move is scheduled for Dec 12. Well, that's when the big stuff will be moved by movers, and hopefully a lot of boxes of smaller stuff. We don't have to vacate the current premises until Dec 31, so that leaves us some more time to deal with cleaning up.
For a while I was really into purging stuff and organizing, but right now that has fallen off as I feel very unmotivated and out of it. Though we did move a bunch of Mark's stuff into a storage unit last Sunday, and yesterday I got rid of my big old filing cabinet (a strong couple came and gave us $10 and took it away).
I suppose I could talk more about what we're trying to do with the condo... or how I feel about the interior designer (not positive)... or the new neighbourhood... or saying bye to the old condo... I suppose I could talk about those things but I am still so distracted with how my mind doesn't work! Or maybe I have just exhausted those topics.
For maybe six weeks (?) I have been taking leisure classes. A bouffon clown class on Tuesday evenings and a weights class on Thursday evenings. I actually don't mind these classes, though I will also be glad when they're over and I don't have to run anymore, because I don't feel much like doing anything. But I guess I have met a few people and had a little bit better time than I would sitting at home.
On the one hand I am foggy and shut down, but on the other, things are worrying me. Like I just went through a 4-month bout of insomnia that has thankfully given me 2-3 nights of respite now, sort of. (I say sort of because two days ago I was still waking up after every sleep cycle, but was getting sleep in between.) And I have eczema or some kind of skin condition right now...
I don't know how I can keep doing this. On one hand I haven't been in the hospital in a very long time - even with severe imsomnia - but on another hand I feel so "stable" I am flat and disinterested and completely lacking in dynamism. It's not as bad as on my old meds - I can read articles now, I can follow TV and radio, I even have a slight sense of interest in what I read/hear/see - but it's still really impairing. I would love to just once have some kind of spontaneous desire, impulse, curiousity. I am always just keenly aware of my existential reality. It's not so much a thought as a sense of how I am in the world, the sense I never relax and hardly ever experience anything spontaneously, not a thought, not a feeling. Still, I could be grateful that I have this much. I am closer to human than before, I can utter many novel utterances even if they're not particularly creative, I can laugh and carry out conversations... even if I still struggle to process verbally.
I have been trying to read and write, but the reading is hard (read: boring) and the writing is very uncreative. I wish I could have more hobbies. It's really hard to want to do anything though. It's not just that I don't have motivation, it's that I don't have the ideas of what I want to do. Nothing just pops into my head. Almost everything in my head has to be put there deliberately, or is very shallow and obvious (e.g. what I am eating, when I am going to bed). It's a pretty dull life.
I wish I could care again, about science or science fiction... Just read for pleasure, or learn a new hobby... Watch movies... Build something, bake something... I did carve a pumpkin in October. And I managed to sell some stuff on Kijiji including the filing cabinet. And give other stuff to charity. And catalogue our record collection to give away or sell. Also did some research on WordPress hosting for a friend's website. As well as purchasing furniture... But I struggle to read for my book club, and write for my writing group.
I reflect sometimes that I haven't gotten anywhere in the years since being on meds. But that is about as deep as it goes. It's just that the nature of my writing has been so similar over the years. Endless complaints.
I don't know whether medicated people with bipolar ever do experience deep or abstract or creative thoughts, or spontaneous ideas and desires, or we are just, I don't know, robots, all of us. Robots or vegetables. Obviously drugged people.
I need to think about something else but it is so very hard to concentrate and come up with stuff. Not impossible anymore, but hard. Everything feels like some kind of "discipline", even the simplest thought or subject. I am getting to the point where I can follow and understand some of what Mark talks about when he talks about his hobbies, and I have been active in the condo stuff...
Maybe something more will come to me in time, though.