A week and a half.... I think I reached a point then. A deeply scary one.
Not been that manic before - though I've been close enough to know that its not where I would want to go.
I've just realised that I've gone full circle here, with this blog. My first post was about starting to take citalopram... and now I have stopped taking it.
Well - who knows what the trigger was, but not so long after stopping I was high as a ... kite, no. High as something far more unpleasant than a kite.
Oh - ain't it fun this manic stuff.. HAA HA and HEE HE. Yeah, a bit hyper is entertaining .... but not when its not wanted.
And that, fundamentally, is the point. What I have - depression - hypermanic - manic/mixed/whatever - none of them are welcome. I don't invite them in or tempt them with good reason.... "come on now depression my [mum - cat - sister - car {delete as appropriate}] just died so make me feel like shit".
The fuckers come in, push "me" (me's) out and piss about in my head.
A good person heard what I had been saying and said that she had been learning about mental health and it seemed, to her, like a continuum - sanity and depression and mania at extremes. So, in that view we can slide from one end to the other and perhaps not stop that long in the middle.
Being in the state that I was in, genuinely without malice and also without any awareness, I told her that she was talking total crap. My experience was not sliding along a logical progression.
I had gone as far as I might normally and then fallen down an endless pit - dark panic pit. Fight fight fight for freedom - in the dark, in the silence and the screaming.
There was though a continuum back - a gentle return through to a fairly normal position.
Still, today, hyper but controlable.
Being mindful helped me back up - but not up from my knees. It was time that did that... and perhaps beer...
Be together folks, Pxx
Showing posts with label manic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label manic. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Ups and downs
I've been about the town seeing whats about and its not nice. Not all of it - mostly its nice - well, mostly - some of it I like and some of it makes me sing.
I shouldnt sing, I sing badly. I love to sing I love to sin - I sin and sign and sing badly. My lip reading is shit too - I don't do it, ever, and when I do, I do it badly - never.
Did you know me when I sang - no, you didnt. Well I didnt sing, well I could - I could sing - I've told you that - I could sing loudly, badly, when I'm singing. When you heard me sing you didnt hear me sing - don't tell me you did - don't, not even if you did.
I shout Shout and shout - its better to sing Sing and sing - badly and not at all. Impossibly never and ever always after I didnt do it and I'm so glad, mostly, that you didnt hear me SHOUTING!!
You know when its inside me - no you don't how could you, you havent seen or heard me - I just do and then I don't and then its all over the place screaming Ag A Fukin DOOO
Shouting Lager Lager Lager 0 thats the only song I ever loved - other than all of the others I loved but mostly I loved to scream BOLLOCKS and then to sing gentle songs to babies who did not know - like you do not know - what it is that is inside until it comes outside and then you might wish it didnt as much as I do do cos when I hear it coming - starting to sing then I know that more is going to come until it stops and all that pours out is bad song, bad times, bad songs.
Px
I shouldnt sing, I sing badly. I love to sing I love to sin - I sin and sign and sing badly. My lip reading is shit too - I don't do it, ever, and when I do, I do it badly - never.
Did you know me when I sang - no, you didnt. Well I didnt sing, well I could - I could sing - I've told you that - I could sing loudly, badly, when I'm singing. When you heard me sing you didnt hear me sing - don't tell me you did - don't, not even if you did.
I shout Shout and shout - its better to sing Sing and sing - badly and not at all. Impossibly never and ever always after I didnt do it and I'm so glad, mostly, that you didnt hear me SHOUTING!!
You know when its inside me - no you don't how could you, you havent seen or heard me - I just do and then I don't and then its all over the place screaming Ag A Fukin DOOO
Shouting Lager Lager Lager 0 thats the only song I ever loved - other than all of the others I loved but mostly I loved to scream BOLLOCKS and then to sing gentle songs to babies who did not know - like you do not know - what it is that is inside until it comes outside and then you might wish it didnt as much as I do do cos when I hear it coming - starting to sing then I know that more is going to come until it stops and all that pours out is bad song, bad times, bad songs.
Px
Friday, March 27, 2009
Neural connections
Hi some thought and experiences generated by a friends very vivid memory and by their saying "no, I think he is describing a journey" when I struggled to describe thought/visualisation.
The experience I have - that I just touch on - as my thoughts become more visual (also auditory, tactile and whatever the fancy word is smelling - NLP, cant keep it in my head ) is actually like that in a trip, more LSD than a day at the sea. Its also like what I think is called wakeful dreaming - a state just before sleep or just before waking when my conscious mind is able to influence the very vivid thoughts that are present in my dream state. Influence... well slightly and to a greater extent than I could with practise .... too much will and I snap out of it, too little and I slip back fully into sleep.
Anyway - they said, about the image, something about where we have images within us ( I suppose others might think from without us ) that are brought together to form something so vivid and beautiful.
A perception I have from wakeful dreaming and other experiences is that we have a phenomenal supply of images. Laid down as we experience new and repeated experiences - praps linked to the creation or maintenance of neural connections.
In some way the images may form some sort of library stock - being brought together to help generate perceptions of what might be - in the future or in terms of how we think about alternatives options.
Thought - in "words" - may be a short cut to the whole image (remember, including sound, touch, smell etc.). Its easier to use this sort of short cut most of the time - it does not take as much computing time and, like words themselves, thoughts can be taken to equate to symbols. Like symbols they can be arranged in linear orders to form greater meaning and sentences.... communication. Something it took me longer than most to do as a child - I never understood the point of words when "reality", (at least) 4 dimensional, and in glorious technicolour, was so much more useful... but then I spent more time looking at trees and clouds than communication.
I wonder whether we "learn" (acquire perhaps) the tendency to replace raw image with worded thought and then become less able to access that raw information - except perhaps in dream or, perhaps, in other states of mind.
An experience of taking LSD is that it stops the filtering of information for relevance. For eg. normally we don't notice the carpet beneath our feet. With acid you see the carpet (with hallucinations too to entertain and baffle) but at the same time every thought/knowledge/etc that has ever been associated with carpet is accessed in true colour, sight, smell and sound.
I wonder (I do a fair bit of that) whether, in meditation, there is something in the way that we allow thought and experience to enter and play around in the mind that tends too to allow access to the more vivid, deeper, true (non-symbolic), store of mind.
Praps in conditions like altzimers where there is damage to the neural connections access to information stored as symbols/thoughts is restricted - as the words or thoughts fail to come the context ceases to have meaning. I think its a common experience for people to "find" a thought or memory at some other time - I wonder whether the brain continues to try to process unfinished searches for information and finds that the images that it wants for one process are still accessible attached to another memory and associates them together - sometimes the associations are very accurate and others are more bizarre.
It makes sense then to keep laying down images - to notice life in a mindful way. Praps this is the way we see/perceive new events - they make an impression, create new connections or support existing ones. If, as it seems so many of us tend to do, we do few things mindfully then praps we are not making new neural connections - we feed what we see into the existing script and do not notice anything new... like the fact that its a new day, song, smile, touch etc.
So, being, seeing, touching, mindfully - its a way of feeding our raw data, the splendid soup.
That was a long one. And, needles to say, a fairly manic one.
On identifying triggers for depressive states - its far easier to do for manic states. The examples people give some times seem too broad; as if they were not really accessing, or getting the need to, the tipping points - the little things that make all the difference.
Take care, Px
The experience I have - that I just touch on - as my thoughts become more visual (also auditory, tactile and whatever the fancy word is smelling - NLP, cant keep it in my head ) is actually like that in a trip, more LSD than a day at the sea. Its also like what I think is called wakeful dreaming - a state just before sleep or just before waking when my conscious mind is able to influence the very vivid thoughts that are present in my dream state. Influence... well slightly and to a greater extent than I could with practise .... too much will and I snap out of it, too little and I slip back fully into sleep.
Anyway - they said, about the image, something about where we have images within us ( I suppose others might think from without us ) that are brought together to form something so vivid and beautiful.
A perception I have from wakeful dreaming and other experiences is that we have a phenomenal supply of images. Laid down as we experience new and repeated experiences - praps linked to the creation or maintenance of neural connections.
In some way the images may form some sort of library stock - being brought together to help generate perceptions of what might be - in the future or in terms of how we think about alternatives options.
Thought - in "words" - may be a short cut to the whole image (remember, including sound, touch, smell etc.). Its easier to use this sort of short cut most of the time - it does not take as much computing time and, like words themselves, thoughts can be taken to equate to symbols. Like symbols they can be arranged in linear orders to form greater meaning and sentences.... communication. Something it took me longer than most to do as a child - I never understood the point of words when "reality", (at least) 4 dimensional, and in glorious technicolour, was so much more useful... but then I spent more time looking at trees and clouds than communication.
I wonder whether we "learn" (acquire perhaps) the tendency to replace raw image with worded thought and then become less able to access that raw information - except perhaps in dream or, perhaps, in other states of mind.
An experience of taking LSD is that it stops the filtering of information for relevance. For eg. normally we don't notice the carpet beneath our feet. With acid you see the carpet (with hallucinations too to entertain and baffle) but at the same time every thought/knowledge/etc that has ever been associated with carpet is accessed in true colour, sight, smell and sound.
I wonder (I do a fair bit of that) whether, in meditation, there is something in the way that we allow thought and experience to enter and play around in the mind that tends too to allow access to the more vivid, deeper, true (non-symbolic), store of mind.
Praps in conditions like altzimers where there is damage to the neural connections access to information stored as symbols/thoughts is restricted - as the words or thoughts fail to come the context ceases to have meaning. I think its a common experience for people to "find" a thought or memory at some other time - I wonder whether the brain continues to try to process unfinished searches for information and finds that the images that it wants for one process are still accessible attached to another memory and associates them together - sometimes the associations are very accurate and others are more bizarre.
It makes sense then to keep laying down images - to notice life in a mindful way. Praps this is the way we see/perceive new events - they make an impression, create new connections or support existing ones. If, as it seems so many of us tend to do, we do few things mindfully then praps we are not making new neural connections - we feed what we see into the existing script and do not notice anything new... like the fact that its a new day, song, smile, touch etc.
So, being, seeing, touching, mindfully - its a way of feeding our raw data, the splendid soup.
That was a long one. And, needles to say, a fairly manic one.
On identifying triggers for depressive states - its far easier to do for manic states. The examples people give some times seem too broad; as if they were not really accessing, or getting the need to, the tipping points - the little things that make all the difference.
Take care, Px
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
On the ramblings of a fool
"Evening all" said the fool thinking that his voice carried around all of the world.
There are times when things change - the weather ... and probably some other things too.
My kids are supposed to be trying to get to sleep - that is not what they are actually doing though. What they really want to do is to chatter and giggle - I don't blame them for that but I do want them to have had enough sleep so that their brains work well enough tomorrow.
Enough ramblings of a fool.
A week or two my Great Aunt Phyl died - I went to the service for her cremation and it was as enjoyable as these things can be. Several of her nearest and dearest gave accounts of her life and how they had enjoyed being with her.
I had only met Great Auntie Phyl a few times. I sent her a letter once, she replied telling me that she was Phyl and to ditch the fancy title. I loved her for that - she lived up to the image that I have had of her. The accounts of her life matched the fleeting glimpses of that life that I had seen - Phyl was an excellent person - an atheist, socialist with a big heart and love flowing over for her family and friends.
Definitely not the sort of person who would ever want to be on a pedestal - but certainly an inspiration and a life to watch and be pleased that people like that crop up and brighten the day.
So good on you Phyl - you are only in the memory now of the people who's lives you have touched but a good person's influence lives on through those people and everyone they come across.
Be the fish. Px
There are times when things change - the weather ... and probably some other things too.
My kids are supposed to be trying to get to sleep - that is not what they are actually doing though. What they really want to do is to chatter and giggle - I don't blame them for that but I do want them to have had enough sleep so that their brains work well enough tomorrow.
Enough ramblings of a fool.
A week or two my Great Aunt Phyl died - I went to the service for her cremation and it was as enjoyable as these things can be. Several of her nearest and dearest gave accounts of her life and how they had enjoyed being with her.
I had only met Great Auntie Phyl a few times. I sent her a letter once, she replied telling me that she was Phyl and to ditch the fancy title. I loved her for that - she lived up to the image that I have had of her. The accounts of her life matched the fleeting glimpses of that life that I had seen - Phyl was an excellent person - an atheist, socialist with a big heart and love flowing over for her family and friends.
Definitely not the sort of person who would ever want to be on a pedestal - but certainly an inspiration and a life to watch and be pleased that people like that crop up and brighten the day.
So good on you Phyl - you are only in the memory now of the people who's lives you have touched but a good person's influence lives on through those people and everyone they come across.
Be the fish. Px
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Citrolopram and history to today
Today - I was tired. How did I get here; a journey through sleeplessness from yesterday to today. I put the world to rights. Organised work. Entered a dream I had not seen before and contemplated citrolopram.
Would the drug moderate my thoughts - lift the lows, smooth the panic. Turn me bland.
Well, as I mentioned to my boses when I started on this course of drugs a couple of weeks ago "I've been down this route before - no big deal". I have been dragged out on this road before.
Amitriptaline, Sertraline, Dophiapine and now Citrolopram. Sanity comes and goes - actually, depression, thats not insanity just nasty, self-soul-death. The manicness and the panic - that feels like insanity.
The first time I realised that the miserableness I had was more than just a dip, a low, was in 1986. Back, back in the mists of time through curtains and curtains of drink and drugs. I don't think it scared me then - I just wanted a release and I had enough sense to know that the doctor would have some sort of release for me.
It was though a release through ultimate blandness - flat, dead, empty moods. And empty pointless life of beer, telly and noodles - getting fatter and smellier but simply no longer caring about it.
It was after that - once I'd got over it that I became scared of getting bad again. I began to cherish the sanity now; now that I knew what it was like to have lost it.
So - 1995 I lost it again and fell into a hole of depression again - a desire only to drown in the river Lea followed closely by a desire to drink and take as much dope and speed as possible. So I went back to the doctor and got some sertraline and bounced about like a fucking stupid monkey climbing up the walls of nothing.
Mania - tears a my muscles, sucks the oxygen from my blood, speads my head, shouts my thoughts, speaks and whispers and shouts all manner of thoughts - confuses. So, back to the doctor and then to a psychatrist and on to dophiapine as well as sertraline - to calm the madness.
And there I was again - flat, tired, calm.
And I got over it - passed it by. I spend the next 10 years finding ways to keep myself busy and happy... mainly busy. Keep the evil away from my idle hands.
But now, again, even with so much to do - or probably because of too much to do and no power over my situation here I am again - actually I do have power, I just don't feel able to exert it - perhaps thats what it is.... I'll think about that one.
So now I feel crippled with depression but now it comes after the mania heralds the way - a cavalcade of 10,000 tuneless trumpeters, hopping, jumping. Down my street - pied-pipers of insanity, pulling me out of the house and pressing me in to the service of so many sinking ships.
So, today - I'll end this story here.
Would the drug moderate my thoughts - lift the lows, smooth the panic. Turn me bland.
Well, as I mentioned to my boses when I started on this course of drugs a couple of weeks ago "I've been down this route before - no big deal". I have been dragged out on this road before.
Amitriptaline, Sertraline, Dophiapine and now Citrolopram. Sanity comes and goes - actually, depression, thats not insanity just nasty, self-soul-death. The manicness and the panic - that feels like insanity.
The first time I realised that the miserableness I had was more than just a dip, a low, was in 1986. Back, back in the mists of time through curtains and curtains of drink and drugs. I don't think it scared me then - I just wanted a release and I had enough sense to know that the doctor would have some sort of release for me.
It was though a release through ultimate blandness - flat, dead, empty moods. And empty pointless life of beer, telly and noodles - getting fatter and smellier but simply no longer caring about it.
It was after that - once I'd got over it that I became scared of getting bad again. I began to cherish the sanity now; now that I knew what it was like to have lost it.
So - 1995 I lost it again and fell into a hole of depression again - a desire only to drown in the river Lea followed closely by a desire to drink and take as much dope and speed as possible. So I went back to the doctor and got some sertraline and bounced about like a fucking stupid monkey climbing up the walls of nothing.
Mania - tears a my muscles, sucks the oxygen from my blood, speads my head, shouts my thoughts, speaks and whispers and shouts all manner of thoughts - confuses. So, back to the doctor and then to a psychatrist and on to dophiapine as well as sertraline - to calm the madness.
And there I was again - flat, tired, calm.
And I got over it - passed it by. I spend the next 10 years finding ways to keep myself busy and happy... mainly busy. Keep the evil away from my idle hands.
But now, again, even with so much to do - or probably because of too much to do and no power over my situation here I am again - actually I do have power, I just don't feel able to exert it - perhaps thats what it is.... I'll think about that one.
So now I feel crippled with depression but now it comes after the mania heralds the way - a cavalcade of 10,000 tuneless trumpeters, hopping, jumping. Down my street - pied-pipers of insanity, pulling me out of the house and pressing me in to the service of so many sinking ships.
So, today - I'll end this story here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)