A Lack of a Memory....Good or Bad?

So I will start off by saying that I'm a little....I guess you would say, bothered, by the fact that when I looked at the last few blogs I wrote, I have no recollection of writing them, or what I was really even talking about. I know the most recent one, I can figure out what I was probably talking about, but it's like it's been completely wiped from memory. Now because I have an idea of what I was so upset about, I'm thinking maybe it's a good thing I don't remember. 

I have this little tape recorder that I had used for a couple days when I got really sick not too long ago and was hallucinating, I believe from the medicine I took. I remember the hallucinations like one might recall a dream, kind of hazy and almost like you're not sure it happened or not. I know it did because of some of the strange comments I had made on my Facebook status at the time though. I had found the recorder a few days before I got sick; I had been wanting to use it to record things as I thought of them since I forget things as quickly as I think of them usually. So once I found it, I did just that. Thing is, I can't find it now. I know that I used it when I was hallucinating, and I remember getting really upset and crying as I was talking, but I don't know what it was about. I don't have any recollection of the time just after the hallucination problem and I can't find this damn thing for the life of me. Part of me wants to find it because I want to know what I was talking about, it's really unnerving this whole memory thing. But another part of me is wondering, am I forgetting all this for a good reason? Maybe my mind knows it would be best not to remember and that's why it seems to be blocked. 

It brings up that whole argument about repressed memories, whether they're real or is a suggestion from someone making you think you're recalling things that never actually happened? Did I really have a tape recorder even? I can't find the thing, so maybe I didn't. And herein lies the issue of my memory problem. I get told by people that something happened, and I have absolutely no recollection of it, I seriously wonder if they're just screwing with me. But then I think, they wouldn't do that. And then there's little things, like the other day, there was a new bar of bath soap in the shower. I asked J if he put it there and he said he hadn't, M said the same. Which only left me. To this moment I have been trying to picture that and recall it and I can't. It seems so minor, but these things happen all the time and it's driving me crazy. Although it seems I may already be there. I've seriously begun to wonder what's real and what's not these days. How could two whole weeks be completely gone from memory, especially two that were so rough, and just happened? 

My meds don't seem to be working, all this weird memory stuff is happening, what is going on with my head? I have an appointment with the memory clinic at the VA next week, we'll have to see how that goes. It's just kind of disturbing to see things that you know you wrote, but it feels like a stranger wrote it. The more I think about it, the more I think I may not want to find that tape recorder. Which of course means that I will. 

Funny, I was just looking up bipolar disorder associated with memory loss and it appears to be a symptom of depressive episodes. After looking through the stuff though, it almost seems like I'm having symptoms of both manic and depressive. I know that can happen, and I think it's happened with me before. I just had to call M and ask him what happened when I took lithium because I actually couldn't remember (the page had mentioned lithium is often combined with depakote, they've only ever given me one or the other). How one doesn't remember getting lithium poisoning is beyond me. So I think I'm in an episode....or something, or am I? Dammit I don't know anything for sure anymore. 

Get off the tracks!

what do you do when you think something is completely behind you, and I mean YEARS and with one innocent click of a button WHOOOSH....it's like the Tokyo Express just came barreling past my head, bringing with it all those memories that were supposed to be put away....you start feeling sick...try to breath calm....but I can't stop looking....even if I don't look, I can see it in my face, it's all back again, doesn't matter. Wow. I really thought this was gone. And gee, I suddenly find myself cutting everyone out of my life, even though I don't want to, gotta make room for all the intrusive thoughts that are everywhere. I can't stop it. To any and all who are caught up or casualties of this SOBs aftermath, I do truly, over and over and over again apologize.  But see that's just the thing....I'm not the only one, I know it. Maybe not to an extreme, but still...

It's happened to just about everyone, a situation, a place, a person in which you were in a painful place in your life at some point, but over time you managed to put it away, lock it in a safe closet where it should be. But inevitably, because the universe is so painfully cruel like that, the person, situation, place whatever is thrown back at you like....you're walking down the street *whistling* "Here catch!" yells a passerby at you and your automatic reaction is to reach out and grab it, keep it from getting hurt. It's only then that you realize you just rescued your nightmare. Irony. What a bitch. What is one to do? Slowly whittle oneself away? Who knows. I do know that I'm gonna go have a smoke before I go beating the shit out of something and inevitably hurting myself. (I'm such a weakling lol) What about you all out there? Thoughts? Recommendations? Examples? 

Dream Interpretation Help!

Swoosh......…swhoosh.......…shwoosh......….the sound goes not just through me but envelopes all of me in this coolness….as I  slowly sway with the waves. I wish I could say that I’m enjoying the feel of the sun on my face, that I’m loving how the water cools my skin just as soon as the heat warms it…but I am just beneath the water, unable to quite feel it….my mouth not quite reaching the crests of waves….how am I not drowning?....yet I just lay there, yearning to breathe, to reach for the edge of water, but not really being too concerned either as my fingertips just skim under the surface. I continue to float along, knowing that something had just happened but I can’t figure out what it is. No confusion….just a calmness, but a knowing that it’s not over.

 

Through the water I see something falling towards me….it lands in the water near me and I go get, all the while staying just slightly submerged, always out of breath, but never feeling like I’m going to suffocate. It’s a large brown-gold talon….like a  bald-eagle talon or something of the sort….clutching it, I feel calm….But I still have no idea what to do. I’m floating just under the water, unable to breathe, holding this talon, now realizing that pieces of the talon are coming off in paper-like sheaths…I just watch them float away…there’s a sorrow at their loss, the loss of the whole, but a deadness too. A simple dead nothing as I watch them go, all the while still trying to hold on to the talon as a whole, making me feel strong. That’s how it all goes, you’re calm in the water as they take paper-thin pieces of you…..so what do they do when they get to a defective piece like me? Anyone and everyone, you're welcome to help me figure out what this dream could mean, cause it's bugging the hell out of me!

Ambien and the Bell Jar

So what are you supposed to do when your mind and body both are trying to get you up to just get a few simple things done, make something of your day....but you can't seem to move. Simple lead in the boots. When you know that you have pushed everyone away, but have no idea why. It's especially infuriating because you're aware that you're doing it but can't seem to stop. Now I've apparently kept this wall around me to the point that even my one main ally, the DH, simply looked at me and said "What am I supposed to do? What's next? This has been going on for over a year now." And he's right. I was doing great when he came home last summer, man if life could only be like it was those two months. Traveling around, just my two guys, the road, an occasional visit to a family member, it was just.....happy. 

Now here I am not even a year later, having been up and down on meds more in the last few months than I have for as long as I can remember. A big part of me wants to just say fuck the meds, fuck it all. Grab some stuff, just disappear. That way I don't have to worry about affecting anyone with my mood swings. But hey, those people in the movies, they have family, the family just avoids them, right? So I could do the same thing. Just be so unbearable that they leave me be. Cause I can't exactly subsist on my disability if I don't want anyone to find me right? Oh what the hell am I saying. It all comes back to that damn thing called a conscience, where I actually care about the fact that I hurt those that I love. Especially my little guy. But don't I do the same just as I am right now? Only difference being how much of a burden I am on them. WHAT THE HELL?!!?! Why can't I be a normal human being that can take care of myself and doesn't have people checking up on them. 

So what is this doc gonna tell me this week? Let's up this med a little, or lower this med a little? I'll be damned if they put an antipsychotic in that lovely little cocktail of theirs, I don't care how many things or people I hear or see. I will not allow them to admit me either, just so they can throw some Haldol my way and my family can visit me in a wheelchair drooling out the side of my mouth. Bite me. 

Look, just chill. I'm not doing anything. Something, who knows what, feels like a crushing weight on me, and has slowly tightened a circle around me to the point where I don't really want to talk to anyone. Don't take it personal. As I told someone last night, have you not noticed that I'm not really talking to ANYONE these days unless I have to? It's nothing that they've done, I just don't see the point in conversation. Over time this has closed in, to the point where the one that I never shut out, my DH, has been shut out. I'm pretty sure my telling him it's not personal wasn't very helpful. I feel dead inside. There isn't a single thing that I enjoy right now. Oh well.  I'm allowed to vent right, isn't that what this is for? And for others who are having similar issues to talk. Cause there MUST be more of me out there. As much as might like to think I'm such a "special little person", lol, I'm just one of many. I'm just crazier than the majority of the people in my family and/or friends, so I stick out a bit. I need to find a group of sore thumbs that I won't stick out from as much. Although I doubt I'll want to talk to them much either, since I don't like being around people, or talking to those I don't know....hmmm I don't know just how far this is gonna go. 

I just find it funny, some show I was watching last night, I was watching some comedy show and the mom said to the daughter "I'll just stick you in your room with a bottle of Ambien and Slyvia Plath books and we'll see who makes it longer!" lol She was joking of course. I however looked to M and laughed said "Funny, I have both, and I love "The Bell Jar"." ha

Do the infomercials ever stop?

Can't focus..

Watching a show about coke and meth and the effects on the brain, it mentions a lot about various areas of the brain, the neuron path receptors with the dopamine, the frontal lobe that deals with impulse control. If I could, I would love to be a neurologist working on my own brain. Slice that sucker right open and start doing little pokes. Poke here....Oh! There goes the right hand! ha ha

Find out why I react so differently from everyone else. Why does she see the color green when you play a d flat? (And don't think that I wouldn't want to scap up some of those people other "synethesia" folks with me to be picking at, I know I'm not the only one.) Oh man I suddenly want a Leonardo da Veggie bagel from Brueggers Bagels back in AZ. I miss the west coast, a lot. Not that it matters.

I'm taking my medicine just like I'm supposed to. Why am I so....disaffected? I don't want to be around anyone, talk to anyone...and yet I do want to talk in a way, just not have a direct conversation. Yes, that's what it is. I want to be able to blog, let someone read it, they comment, I read later, I comment...back and forth etc. The whole exchange of texting and being on the phone and in person, any kind of actual requirement that I have to be witty somehow, just isn't working for me. I want to sit at home all day, then I suddenly will start going on cleaning binges. Then I don't want to be home, but I don't know where I want to go.  So I start getting ansty for no reason. Follow? Doubtful, mostly because no one reads this and two because the few people I know that might look at this stick me in their "Crazy Friend" slot.

Ideally, my conversations would go something like this, "Oh hello, how have you been lately?" "Umm....you know, I don't really have a quick answer to that question just yet, so I'm gonna get back to you on that. And I really don't feel like sitting here nodding my head to feign interest, so I'm just gonna go now, mmkay? Thanks. I'll get back to you when I'm feeling human." 

But everyone is so damn sensitive, they take it personal and all. It's not personal, it's a jacked up brain is what it is. It's times like these that I want to just wander off and leave everything behind. It seems easier. But I know I know, that wouldn't be right to Mike or Jason or anyone else who knows and loves me. The usual bull I hear everytime these thoughts creep in. But you know, when the hubby tells me "What's your problem? I'm beginning to take offense, cause you certainly don't want to have anything to do with me these days." I try to remind him that it's just a phase I'm doing my damndest to work through and I get a scoff, like a fuck you, you're not the only one in this family. No kidding, as if I don't know.

But I am generally not on here to whine about the crap in daily life, what fun is that. You can get that from your local gaggle of hens. I will ponder, and come back with something MUCH more interesting. I know there's a way to put a poll on here...once I find it I'll put up what ideas I have for my next blog, answer the poll (it only takes a second for crying out loud) and I'll see what I can concoct.

This is ridiculously frustrating. I have so many thoughts and ideas, things I need to do buzzing about my brain. It's like there's a whole bunch of gnats and I keep grabbing but can't seem to get ahold of a single one. 

I know people get songs and such stuck in their head, but what about words? As I was walking to the laundry center this evening (yes, I do my laundry at 11 pm, we'll get to that later) the word "cuidado" got lodged in there. Now that one I can understand, I had just seen a "Caution" sign on the wet floor because of the rain. But let's try to follow this here....I put the clothes into the dryer, whilst trying to keep ahold of my dog (not too difficult since he's all of 10 lbs) and started walking back to the apartment...passed the trash bins, having all my usual thoughts and fears that someone was going to jump out, was stalking me, grab me and more not good thoughts that should never be shared. But suddenly, the word "corpus callosum" jumped into my head (and just now that made me want to watch "Because of Winn-Dixie"....wtf?). For those who don't know, the corpus callosum is "a broad band of nerve fibers joining the two hemispheres of the brain". Understandably, this reminds me of an episode of "House" called "Half Wit" in which the patient has one hemisphere of the brain removed in order to gain more function...long story, but a really good episode. 

HA! I think I just figured out how I jumped from corpus callosum to Winn-Dixie. Dave Matthews plays the patient in that "House" episode and he also plays a character in Winn-Dixie. But there's a few steps in between, and they jumped so rapidly from one point to the next, it took me this long to figure out the connection between the two. Are you starting to see the trouble with my brain going to fast? I get the image of running an engine without shifting gears and it starting to smoke and burn up. See right now, I'm not really writing with a purpose. I'm just typing as things come to mind, free writing I guess they call it. I don't care for this kind of writing much, I prefer to find a topic and discuss it, but I suppose this is better than not writing at all. 

I caught a frog tonight...the rain brings them out I suppose. Just a little guy, I saw him hopping along in the grass when I was near the laundry room. (A lot seemed to happen to and from there this evening...odd). I put down the basket to catch him and a neighbor girl came by from checking the mail, which reminds me, I need to check mine, I'll be back. I need to take my meds too, might as well while I'm up and remembering to do it. Funny thing is, you, my dear reader, will actually have no concept of how long I've been gone. Isn't that strange? But because I want to be honest here, I'll let you know how long it took to get back. It's 12:40am right now (and I'm bright eyed and bushy tailed...what does that even mean? Ack, let me get going, now! So I'm back now, and even though I was technically back by 12:47, I'm actually sitting back down to write at 3:01 am. Still up and awake. But can anyone really explain what the term "bright eyed and bushy tailed" means? I mean seriously, I'm not a squirrel. I remember back in tech school I had a hard time working on a day shift, so they moved me to night shift. I did better on the night shift, was much more aware of what was going on in class. But even then I had trouble, my  instructors tried having me stand at the back of the class at attention...nope....and I really pissed them off when they would ask me a question (assuming I didn't know the answer since I had been sleeping moments before) and I would get the question right. We tried chewing on sunflower seeds....not so much.  I guess I'll refer to this blog to blog about some of the other things that popped up that I felt like going further into depth. Cause I'm gonna try to actually sleep in my bed for the first time in days rather than just pass out on the couch. Don't worry, once I splat all of these thoughts out from my mind to paper, it'll make more sense, since I'll have a bunch of points to work from. Hey, it makes sense to me! Au revoir!

General Disclaimer I suppose you could call this

A few things I feel I need to get straight before I start writing on here. 

1. This blog is simply a continuation of my "pointless essays" that I used to write when I was in high school. I'm trying to find my words again. Forgive me if I stumble, my articulation isn't what it used to be.

2. That being said, these are generally just my thoughts about things I see in every day life, and are not directed in any way at people that I know personally. So if you read something and you feel like I'm talking about you, I'm not. If that feeling persists, perhaps you should look at yourself and figure out why.

3. At first I was concerned about upsetting people I know, or offending others that I may not know as well. Until it occurred to me, I'm a grown up, and I'm allowed to have my own opinions. I have no problem discussing a point with anyone, as long as it is an informed and civil discussion. I'm usually pretty set on my views of things, but I'm not foolish enough to think that I know everything, and sometimes I do change my mind. It's not riding the fence or being a hypocrite, it's simply changing my mind, life isn't black and white.

4. There have been no shortage of people who have had any problems telling me what my faults are. I am aware of them, often times painfully so. One of these though, I have come to decide, is not a fault, it's a "quirk". Ha. I am terribly longwinded, as you can already tell. I can never just get right to the point of something, sorry just can't. I am a story teller, and if you're here reading this, you must feel like reading the story. If you don't, you don't have to read it. Don't complain to me about it though. My blog, my rules. *raspberry* ha ha

5. "If you don't like it, don't read it" is the general rule here. Now if you simply have a differing opinion and would like to talk about that, see rule # 3. But otherwise, I don't want to hear it. I get enough flak in real life, I'm not about to take it on the internet. Overall though, I'm just here to wax philosophically on life and other nonsensical things. And to somehow find my way back to writing again.