All my life I have been a morning person. I have never found it difficult to get up in the morning, and once up I was always raring to go for the day. By 9pm I would be starting to flag and 10pm was my bed-time for many years. I might not go to sleep straight away, most nights I would read for about half and hour and it was not uncommon for me to fall asleep with my book in my hand and still wearing my glasses.
Over the last year or so, I have found that I am becoming a night owl. I no longer find it easy to get up in the morning and it is not unusual for me to still be awake in the early hours of the morning. I know that part of this is caused by depression, but I don't think it explains it completely because even when I am not in the depths of depression, I am staying up later and sleeping well into the morning.
So, it seems as though my life is becoming topsy-turvy, that I am able to function well into the evening where just a couple of years ago it would have been impossible. This means that I am often still knitting at midnight, and it has meant that my eating habits have changed too. I rarely eat breakfast in the morning; my first meal of the day is more likely to be a kind of brunch taken at about 11.30am. My next meal will probably be in the early evening, and if I have a large meal this will be my last meal of the day, or if I have something more akin to a snack then I will probably have something else to eat at about 10pm.
This change to how I spend each 24-hour period is being reinforced by the medication that I am taking for depression. I have recently had an addition to this medication and it has meant that I am at long last getting a decent night's sleep most nights. But it also means that I am finding it even more difficult to get up in the morning. I seem to wake at about 7am to answer the call of nature but I have to go back to bed again because I am so sleepy. I will fall asleep almost as soon as I am in bed again, and will usually sleep for several more hours.
I'm hoping that this extreme sleeping will become less of a problem as my body gets used to the new medication. It makes me wake up with a very dry mouth but while at first that dryness would last throughout the day, I have realised that today that dryness was gone by mid-afternoon. And the extreme sleepiness that I have been experiencing well into the afternoon is now staying with me for far less time. Now I just need to see if I can experience an improvement in my mood so that I don't feel depressed all of the time.
Showing posts with label sleeping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleeping. Show all posts
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Slight Improvement
Yes, there has been a slight improvement in my mood. Although I didn't get to sleep until gone 2am, once I was asleep I stayed that way and slept through most of this morning. That may seem like a waste of a good part of the day but when you have been surviving on a couple of hours sleep (or less) for a week, it is well worth losing those daylight hours.
Yesterday evening I managed quite a few rows on my latest lace shawl. It's a triangular shawl which starts with just 4 stitches and grows with an increasing number of stitches on alternate rows. It's not the most difficult pattern that I have ever knitted but it does require careful watching and I'm afraid that last night I was paying a little too much attention to Midsomer Murders and not enough to the pattern and I have made a mistake.
Making mistakes is an occupational hazard when knitting lace with its combination of knitting stitches together and yarn overs which create the lacy texture and the pattern in the lace. It looks as though I forgot to make a yarn over so I am a stitch short and the only way to correct it is to carefully unpick two rows stitch by stitch. If I was near the beginning of the shawl then this would not be too much of a problem but there are now just short of 200 stitches on the needles so unpicking those two rows is going to take quite a long time. I was going to do it last night so that I could pick up the knitting today and just move on, but I realised that it was probably a task for when I was a bit more awake so I put the knitting aside as a task for this afternoon or this evening.
I'm hoping that having managed to get some sleep last night the same will happen tonight. I hope that the vicious circle of not sleeping so I get depressed and because I am depressed I don't sleep has been broken. And I have something to look forward to tomorrow because I am meeting Lily for lunch and a chat. And I will be delivering Daisy Livingstone Fairy, too.
Yesterday evening I managed quite a few rows on my latest lace shawl. It's a triangular shawl which starts with just 4 stitches and grows with an increasing number of stitches on alternate rows. It's not the most difficult pattern that I have ever knitted but it does require careful watching and I'm afraid that last night I was paying a little too much attention to Midsomer Murders and not enough to the pattern and I have made a mistake.
Making mistakes is an occupational hazard when knitting lace with its combination of knitting stitches together and yarn overs which create the lacy texture and the pattern in the lace. It looks as though I forgot to make a yarn over so I am a stitch short and the only way to correct it is to carefully unpick two rows stitch by stitch. If I was near the beginning of the shawl then this would not be too much of a problem but there are now just short of 200 stitches on the needles so unpicking those two rows is going to take quite a long time. I was going to do it last night so that I could pick up the knitting today and just move on, but I realised that it was probably a task for when I was a bit more awake so I put the knitting aside as a task for this afternoon or this evening.
I'm hoping that having managed to get some sleep last night the same will happen tonight. I hope that the vicious circle of not sleeping so I get depressed and because I am depressed I don't sleep has been broken. And I have something to look forward to tomorrow because I am meeting Lily for lunch and a chat. And I will be delivering Daisy Livingstone Fairy, too.
Friday, 26 March 2010
Making Up For Lost Sleep
I'm not sure whether it is because the increase in medication has now built up to a proper therapeutic level or it was just a case of lack of sleep catching up with me, but I have spent a significant proportion of the last 24 hours asleep. Even as I sit here writing this post I know that it would be fairly easy for me to sit back and close my eyes and probably drop off to sleep in a couple of minutes. But I am determined not to do that. I need to stay awake for a few hours so that I stand a chance of sleeping through the night.
So, with that aim in mind I am going to sit down with my knitting this evening and work on Daisy Livingstone Fairy. I have finished knitting all her little bits and pieces of jewellery and I am working on the finishing touches on her jacket at the moment. When that has been completed, there will only be one bit left to knit and that is her hair. This means that tomorrow it is more than likely that I will start sewing Daisy together and stuffing her. And maybe I will add her features too.
Once Daisy Livingstone Fairy is finished I will get back to knitting the teddy bear that I started a couple of months ago. I have enjoyed making these toys and I am sure that toy-making will form a part of my knitting for many years to come.
So, with that aim in mind I am going to sit down with my knitting this evening and work on Daisy Livingstone Fairy. I have finished knitting all her little bits and pieces of jewellery and I am working on the finishing touches on her jacket at the moment. When that has been completed, there will only be one bit left to knit and that is her hair. This means that tomorrow it is more than likely that I will start sewing Daisy together and stuffing her. And maybe I will add her features too.
Once Daisy Livingstone Fairy is finished I will get back to knitting the teddy bear that I started a couple of months ago. I have enjoyed making these toys and I am sure that toy-making will form a part of my knitting for many years to come.
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Tackling The Mental Health Minefield Part 8 - OT? What OT?
(This post continues the story from Tackling The Mental Health Minefield Part 7 - The GTN Story)
Having to spend a long period in hospital, and these days anything more than a week can be considered a long time, means that there can be a lot of empty hours to fill. When that hospital is a mental hospital then one can expect to be mobile and the empty hours can seem interminable. Mental illness can make it difficult to concentrate, or to be able to do something for a long period of time. My experience of mental illness is depression and I have tried many things to deal with the hours of the day. I read, I study, I do crossword puzzles, I knit, I do embroidery and I make cards. Sometimes I can't do any of these things for more than an hour at a time and sometimes I can spend all day on one of these activities as long as I don't encounter any problems. Problems are very difficult to deal with and so I end up putting whatever it is I am doing aside until I am feeling a little better and can deal with the problem.
During my stay in hospital, life soon settled into the routine so loved of such organisations. Breakfast would be served at about 8am, meds and obs at 9am, lunch served at about 12.15pm, meds at 1pm, dinner at about 5.15pm, meds at 6pm and night-time meds at 10pm. I expect that it is pretty much the same in any hospital.
Visiting hours were 2pm to 5pm and 6.30pm to 8.30pm. The difference between visiting hours in a mental hospital and an ordinary hospital is that there are very few visitors; most patients have no-one visit them from their admission to the day that they are discharged.
So what do patients do during the rest of the empty hours in a day? Well, there are of course ward rounds, but while these may take a considerable time during the day, the patient only attends ward round for a limited time. Most of my visits to see the consultant psychiatrist and whoever else was in the room (see Tackling the Mental Health Minefield Part 6 - Throwing The Christian To The Lions) were no longer than about 10-20 minutes twice a week.
While I was on the admissions ward there was nothing organised for us to fill the empty hours. As is common to most accounts of time sent on mental wards, we were expected to spend most of our time in the communal areas. These were the TV room and the dining area/day room. During my time on the admissions ward I went in the TV room twice; both occasions being for ward meetings. The dining area/day room had tables and chairs sufficient for 12 people, but the ward could take up to 16 patients, which meant that if the ward was full it was impossible for everyone to be able to sit down together at meal times or during other periods of the day. So I spent some time in the dining area/day room particularly when I had made myself a hot drink or for meals, sometimes I would read a book or doing sudoku puzzles. I had always found sudoku puzzles impossible to do even though I understood the requirements for completing them because I have number dyslexia. However, one of the patients that I was on the admissions ward with spent time explaining how to do them and I became hooked. Most of the rest of the time I spent in my room trying to catch up on sleep that I wasn't getting at night or reading. There were no organized activities for us to take part in.
When I was on the second ward, there was an activity semi-organised for each morning (Monday to Friday) between the hours of 10-11am but these rarely took place. The two which did seem to be regular events were a session of creative writing on a Tuesday morning and a group psychology session on a Thursday morning.
The first Tuesday that I was on the ward (I had been on the ward for five days then and in hospital for two weeks) two occupational therapists approached me when I was in the main corridor of the ward walking from the laundry room with my arms full of the washing that I had just done, and tried to get me to join in with the creative writing. I took my newly laundered clothes back to my room and went to the OT room to wait for the OTs to round up any other patients who could be dragged along. They were unsuccessful, so there I was sitting in a room with two OTs and all they could suggest to me was that I might like to write about what had led to me being in hospital. Now maybe I was just being over-sensitive, but I really didn't think that was a very good thing for me to be doing at that time. So I thanked them very much and left to go back to my room to read my book.
I was absent from the ward on the following Thursday morning as a result of being on my first attempt at home leave. I arrived back on the ward at lunch time so I missed the group psychology session. The following week however, I was persuaded to join three other patients from the ward and one of the nurses at the group psychology session and spent an hour away from the ward with one of the psychologists and his trainee psychologist. Each of the patients were given time to talk about how they ended up on the ward, the other three having been present at the previous week's session they went first and then it was my turn. I was asked a number of questions which I have to admit I answered only briefly and then I was asked about my depression and how long I had been suffering from it and how I had ended up in hospital. I answered at length and what I had to say somewhat surprised the other patients who had no idea that I had been suffering for so long or that this was my first admission to hospital.
Then we began to talk about life on the ward and I raised the subject of the 'protected hour' that we were supposed to have everyday between 11am and lunch. As this is going to be the subject of another post in this series I won't go into too much detail here, but from being someone who pretty much kept to myself on the ward although I did talk with a number of the other patients, I suddenly found that I had become a spokesman for not only those patients at the group psychology session but also those who weren't.
So, at the end of this post I go back to the subtitle that I used. OT? What OT? I know that some things that traditionally come under the title of occupational therapy involve cost and money is something that seems to be in short supply in mental health services, but the significant lack of anything that could be termed as 'helpful' in making the empty hours pass more quickly for the patients was alarming. The wards had televisions, and a small supply of books, but nothing much else. The result was that some patients spent most of the time in their rooms and socialised only at meal times. It is probable that the nurses wrote up their notes on the patients on each shift and commented that the patients didn't seem to do much, but it has to be said that there really wasn't anything to do. I would have loved to be able to do some knitting, but knitting needles were not allowed on the ward. I understand that they could be used as a weapon if used in public areas, but if I was to knit in my room and return the knitting to the staff when I had finished for the time being would certainly have helped me considerably.
I was lucky: I was only in hospital for a month but by the time that I left I was desperate to do some knitting or something other than read a book and do sudoku puzzles. As far as I am concerned this is an area what definitely needs something done about it. I know that some patients probably wouldn't want to partake in anything but there are definitely some who could almost certainly be helped considerably if there was something to help to pass the time in an environment that is not always conducive to improving one's mental health.
Having to spend a long period in hospital, and these days anything more than a week can be considered a long time, means that there can be a lot of empty hours to fill. When that hospital is a mental hospital then one can expect to be mobile and the empty hours can seem interminable. Mental illness can make it difficult to concentrate, or to be able to do something for a long period of time. My experience of mental illness is depression and I have tried many things to deal with the hours of the day. I read, I study, I do crossword puzzles, I knit, I do embroidery and I make cards. Sometimes I can't do any of these things for more than an hour at a time and sometimes I can spend all day on one of these activities as long as I don't encounter any problems. Problems are very difficult to deal with and so I end up putting whatever it is I am doing aside until I am feeling a little better and can deal with the problem.
During my stay in hospital, life soon settled into the routine so loved of such organisations. Breakfast would be served at about 8am, meds and obs at 9am, lunch served at about 12.15pm, meds at 1pm, dinner at about 5.15pm, meds at 6pm and night-time meds at 10pm. I expect that it is pretty much the same in any hospital.
Visiting hours were 2pm to 5pm and 6.30pm to 8.30pm. The difference between visiting hours in a mental hospital and an ordinary hospital is that there are very few visitors; most patients have no-one visit them from their admission to the day that they are discharged.
So what do patients do during the rest of the empty hours in a day? Well, there are of course ward rounds, but while these may take a considerable time during the day, the patient only attends ward round for a limited time. Most of my visits to see the consultant psychiatrist and whoever else was in the room (see Tackling the Mental Health Minefield Part 6 - Throwing The Christian To The Lions) were no longer than about 10-20 minutes twice a week.
While I was on the admissions ward there was nothing organised for us to fill the empty hours. As is common to most accounts of time sent on mental wards, we were expected to spend most of our time in the communal areas. These were the TV room and the dining area/day room. During my time on the admissions ward I went in the TV room twice; both occasions being for ward meetings. The dining area/day room had tables and chairs sufficient for 12 people, but the ward could take up to 16 patients, which meant that if the ward was full it was impossible for everyone to be able to sit down together at meal times or during other periods of the day. So I spent some time in the dining area/day room particularly when I had made myself a hot drink or for meals, sometimes I would read a book or doing sudoku puzzles. I had always found sudoku puzzles impossible to do even though I understood the requirements for completing them because I have number dyslexia. However, one of the patients that I was on the admissions ward with spent time explaining how to do them and I became hooked. Most of the rest of the time I spent in my room trying to catch up on sleep that I wasn't getting at night or reading. There were no organized activities for us to take part in.
When I was on the second ward, there was an activity semi-organised for each morning (Monday to Friday) between the hours of 10-11am but these rarely took place. The two which did seem to be regular events were a session of creative writing on a Tuesday morning and a group psychology session on a Thursday morning.
The first Tuesday that I was on the ward (I had been on the ward for five days then and in hospital for two weeks) two occupational therapists approached me when I was in the main corridor of the ward walking from the laundry room with my arms full of the washing that I had just done, and tried to get me to join in with the creative writing. I took my newly laundered clothes back to my room and went to the OT room to wait for the OTs to round up any other patients who could be dragged along. They were unsuccessful, so there I was sitting in a room with two OTs and all they could suggest to me was that I might like to write about what had led to me being in hospital. Now maybe I was just being over-sensitive, but I really didn't think that was a very good thing for me to be doing at that time. So I thanked them very much and left to go back to my room to read my book.
I was absent from the ward on the following Thursday morning as a result of being on my first attempt at home leave. I arrived back on the ward at lunch time so I missed the group psychology session. The following week however, I was persuaded to join three other patients from the ward and one of the nurses at the group psychology session and spent an hour away from the ward with one of the psychologists and his trainee psychologist. Each of the patients were given time to talk about how they ended up on the ward, the other three having been present at the previous week's session they went first and then it was my turn. I was asked a number of questions which I have to admit I answered only briefly and then I was asked about my depression and how long I had been suffering from it and how I had ended up in hospital. I answered at length and what I had to say somewhat surprised the other patients who had no idea that I had been suffering for so long or that this was my first admission to hospital.
Then we began to talk about life on the ward and I raised the subject of the 'protected hour' that we were supposed to have everyday between 11am and lunch. As this is going to be the subject of another post in this series I won't go into too much detail here, but from being someone who pretty much kept to myself on the ward although I did talk with a number of the other patients, I suddenly found that I had become a spokesman for not only those patients at the group psychology session but also those who weren't.
So, at the end of this post I go back to the subtitle that I used. OT? What OT? I know that some things that traditionally come under the title of occupational therapy involve cost and money is something that seems to be in short supply in mental health services, but the significant lack of anything that could be termed as 'helpful' in making the empty hours pass more quickly for the patients was alarming. The wards had televisions, and a small supply of books, but nothing much else. The result was that some patients spent most of the time in their rooms and socialised only at meal times. It is probable that the nurses wrote up their notes on the patients on each shift and commented that the patients didn't seem to do much, but it has to be said that there really wasn't anything to do. I would have loved to be able to do some knitting, but knitting needles were not allowed on the ward. I understand that they could be used as a weapon if used in public areas, but if I was to knit in my room and return the knitting to the staff when I had finished for the time being would certainly have helped me considerably.
I was lucky: I was only in hospital for a month but by the time that I left I was desperate to do some knitting or something other than read a book and do sudoku puzzles. As far as I am concerned this is an area what definitely needs something done about it. I know that some patients probably wouldn't want to partake in anything but there are definitely some who could almost certainly be helped considerably if there was something to help to pass the time in an environment that is not always conducive to improving one's mental health.
Taking A Nosedive
I didn't write a post for this blog yesterday. Okay, so that's not a big thing but since the start of the year I have been trying to write something every day. I have been trying to finish the eighth part of Tackling The Mental Health Minefield this afternoon and I hope to have it published some time today, but it isn't easy as my mood has taken a bit of a nosedive over the last couple of days.
I went to bed early Thursday night as I found that I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I was asleep by 8.30pm, woke again at about 12.30am and took my night-time medication (minus sleep medication because I didn't think that I was going to need it), fell asleep again almost immediately and then didn't wake until about 10am. I got myself something to eat, took my morning medication and went back to bed again. I then managed to sleep again although this time it was only for a short time.
I didn't get much done during the afternoon and while I was playing Mah Jong on the Nintendo DSi I actually managed to drop off without being aware that I was feeling tired. It was only momentary because I woke with a jerk when my head fell forward as I was sitting on the settee. I was finding it difficult to focus on anything for longer than about five minutes so I settled down to spend the evening sitting watching television but by 9pm I knew that I would have to head back to bed again.
I woke today at 11am having slept for more than 12 hours. This is often the pattern that occurs when I am starting to sink into depression again and having had a few days of feeling reasonably well I am rather annoyed that I seem to be sinking into depression again so quickly.
I'm not sure what has caused this to happen. It may be that the anxiety about the interview on Tuesday is causing it, but I hope not. I don't need the additional pressure of feeling absolutely sh*t through depression on top of the anxiety about performing at my best. I know that I can do this job, after all what I will be required to do is something that I have been doing for some time already. I am quite passionate about patients having access to their medical records and I believe that a patient is the best person to persuade the doctors of the benefits that can accrue from this, particularly when it is done online.
So, this afternoon I am not going to think about the interview. I still need to put the finishing touches to my presentation but that can be done tomorrow. Instead I am going to spend time completing another post for this blog about my time in hospital and then do a bit of reading before going to bed at a reasonable time. Then tomorrow I shall get up early, finish the presentation, get all the paperwork together, get my clothes ready for Tuesday, and when I have done all that I shall spend some time doing whatever I want to. Maybe it will be some knitting (I haven't done any for quite a few days now), perhaps it will be playing a game on the Nintendo, perhaps it will be a bit of reading.
I just need to stop thinking about the interview and concentrate on making sure that I am feeling as good as possible for Tuesday. Easier said than done, I know, but I shall do my best.
I went to bed early Thursday night as I found that I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I was asleep by 8.30pm, woke again at about 12.30am and took my night-time medication (minus sleep medication because I didn't think that I was going to need it), fell asleep again almost immediately and then didn't wake until about 10am. I got myself something to eat, took my morning medication and went back to bed again. I then managed to sleep again although this time it was only for a short time.
I didn't get much done during the afternoon and while I was playing Mah Jong on the Nintendo DSi I actually managed to drop off without being aware that I was feeling tired. It was only momentary because I woke with a jerk when my head fell forward as I was sitting on the settee. I was finding it difficult to focus on anything for longer than about five minutes so I settled down to spend the evening sitting watching television but by 9pm I knew that I would have to head back to bed again.
I woke today at 11am having slept for more than 12 hours. This is often the pattern that occurs when I am starting to sink into depression again and having had a few days of feeling reasonably well I am rather annoyed that I seem to be sinking into depression again so quickly.
I'm not sure what has caused this to happen. It may be that the anxiety about the interview on Tuesday is causing it, but I hope not. I don't need the additional pressure of feeling absolutely sh*t through depression on top of the anxiety about performing at my best. I know that I can do this job, after all what I will be required to do is something that I have been doing for some time already. I am quite passionate about patients having access to their medical records and I believe that a patient is the best person to persuade the doctors of the benefits that can accrue from this, particularly when it is done online.
So, this afternoon I am not going to think about the interview. I still need to put the finishing touches to my presentation but that can be done tomorrow. Instead I am going to spend time completing another post for this blog about my time in hospital and then do a bit of reading before going to bed at a reasonable time. Then tomorrow I shall get up early, finish the presentation, get all the paperwork together, get my clothes ready for Tuesday, and when I have done all that I shall spend some time doing whatever I want to. Maybe it will be some knitting (I haven't done any for quite a few days now), perhaps it will be playing a game on the Nintendo, perhaps it will be a bit of reading.
I just need to stop thinking about the interview and concentrate on making sure that I am feeling as good as possible for Tuesday. Easier said than done, I know, but I shall do my best.
Saturday, 29 August 2009
A Boring Day, But I Survived It
Today seems to have disappeared without me actually achieving anything much. I woke at about 5.30am but knew that it was far too early to get up so managed to convince myself that I could get back to sleep again. I will admit that I took some medication to help me sleep last night so I knew that dropping off again was a real possibility.
I woke again about 10.30am, made myself some breakfast, got some bits and pieces out of the freezer to tide me over the weekend, and sat down to check my emails and read a few blogs.
Sleep was still something that I thought I needed but I knew that I needed to get the most important chores done first. Once they were out of the way, the rest of the day would be my own. My Saturdays are for relaxing, if at all possible, and I didn't really have the energy or the enthusiasm for anything too taxing.
The first exciting (or not) job that I gave myself today was to sort out the problem that I had with one of the scarves that I am knitting. I made a mistake a couple of days ago and it required me to unpick a few rows to put everything right again. So having unpicked about 10 rows stitch by stitch I eventually go back to where I had made the error and then reknitted some of those rows so that whenever I decide to do some more work on that particular scarf I know that everything will be okay with it.
The next job was to sort out the squares for the Flower Garden Shawl. I wrote last week about having made all 64 of the squares necessary for this shawl, but having completed them I realised that I probably had enough wool to add another complete row to the shawl so yesterday I decided to crochet another 21 squares, and because I now know the pattern by heart and can crochet each one in less that 15 minutes, it didn't take me long to create the extra squares and add them to the pile. This meant that this afternoon I could sit down with all 85 squares and do a little sorting out. Most of the squares are a combination of two or three different colours, but because of the way that the wool is dyed there was a tendency for a number of the squares to turn out to be completely gingery brown and it was important that these get spread around the shawl as much as possible so the first job was to pull out and place in a separate pile all of the ginger squares. Once that was done it was simply a case of selecting 13 squares and then joining them together in a V-shape so as to form the first row of the shawl. While selecting the squares took seconds, joining them was much slower but an hour or so later the job was finished.
Having completed the first row, I decided to select the 15 squares needed for the second row and then to lay them out alongside the completed first row to see how they could be put together. While doing all this, I was also half watching a DVD (Out of Africa). The problem was that I don't remember much of the film because after what was probably only about 15 minutes of it I dropped off to sleep and didn't wake up until about three hours had passed.
Since waking again I have done some more work on the shawl. More than half of the second row's squares have been joined to the first row, although they still need to be joined to each other. I have also had something to eat, and watched a programme on BBC iPlayer. I have read a few blogs, and I decided to sit down to write a little about my day.
I haven't achieved much today, but what I have achieved has all been good and worthwhile. Depression so often robs me of the ability to do even the simplest things that to achieve anything at all can seem like winning an Olympic medal. I've found myself crying at odd moments for no apparent reason, I have collapsed into sleep because my body needed it and for a moment my brain was still enough to allow it to happen, I have managed to force myself to eat some food at regular intervals through the day and made sure that I had plenty to drink, none of it alcoholic.
It might not be much, but I am quite happy with what I have managed to do today. It is living one day at a time that has enabled me to get through the last 11 years and it is what will hopefully keep me going for a long time yet.
I woke again about 10.30am, made myself some breakfast, got some bits and pieces out of the freezer to tide me over the weekend, and sat down to check my emails and read a few blogs.
Sleep was still something that I thought I needed but I knew that I needed to get the most important chores done first. Once they were out of the way, the rest of the day would be my own. My Saturdays are for relaxing, if at all possible, and I didn't really have the energy or the enthusiasm for anything too taxing.
The first exciting (or not) job that I gave myself today was to sort out the problem that I had with one of the scarves that I am knitting. I made a mistake a couple of days ago and it required me to unpick a few rows to put everything right again. So having unpicked about 10 rows stitch by stitch I eventually go back to where I had made the error and then reknitted some of those rows so that whenever I decide to do some more work on that particular scarf I know that everything will be okay with it.
The next job was to sort out the squares for the Flower Garden Shawl. I wrote last week about having made all 64 of the squares necessary for this shawl, but having completed them I realised that I probably had enough wool to add another complete row to the shawl so yesterday I decided to crochet another 21 squares, and because I now know the pattern by heart and can crochet each one in less that 15 minutes, it didn't take me long to create the extra squares and add them to the pile. This meant that this afternoon I could sit down with all 85 squares and do a little sorting out. Most of the squares are a combination of two or three different colours, but because of the way that the wool is dyed there was a tendency for a number of the squares to turn out to be completely gingery brown and it was important that these get spread around the shawl as much as possible so the first job was to pull out and place in a separate pile all of the ginger squares. Once that was done it was simply a case of selecting 13 squares and then joining them together in a V-shape so as to form the first row of the shawl. While selecting the squares took seconds, joining them was much slower but an hour or so later the job was finished.
Having completed the first row, I decided to select the 15 squares needed for the second row and then to lay them out alongside the completed first row to see how they could be put together. While doing all this, I was also half watching a DVD (Out of Africa). The problem was that I don't remember much of the film because after what was probably only about 15 minutes of it I dropped off to sleep and didn't wake up until about three hours had passed.
Since waking again I have done some more work on the shawl. More than half of the second row's squares have been joined to the first row, although they still need to be joined to each other. I have also had something to eat, and watched a programme on BBC iPlayer. I have read a few blogs, and I decided to sit down to write a little about my day.
I haven't achieved much today, but what I have achieved has all been good and worthwhile. Depression so often robs me of the ability to do even the simplest things that to achieve anything at all can seem like winning an Olympic medal. I've found myself crying at odd moments for no apparent reason, I have collapsed into sleep because my body needed it and for a moment my brain was still enough to allow it to happen, I have managed to force myself to eat some food at regular intervals through the day and made sure that I had plenty to drink, none of it alcoholic.
It might not be much, but I am quite happy with what I have managed to do today. It is living one day at a time that has enabled me to get through the last 11 years and it is what will hopefully keep me going for a long time yet.
Thursday, 16 July 2009
Not Exactly A Perfect Day
After a couple of nights where I haven't slept at all well, I sort of made up for it last night although it would probably be more true to say this morning because after an early morning (5am-ish) trip to the bathroom I went back to bed and fell into a deep sleep and then slept through until lunch time. Getting some sleep has meant that I have not got deeper into depression, but neither have I felt any better.
I have been having terrible problems with my knitting over the last week or so; it has meant that I seem to have spent more time unpicking it than actively knitting. However, this afternoon I corrected the last mistake that I found and I have managed to get beyond the point where I started finding mistakes and the end is in sight. Well, when I say the end, what I really mean is that I have almost finished the charts, but I still have to decide what I am going to create as an edging and then actually knit it. I was going to adapt something from my Heirloom Knitting book (written by Sharon Miller and an absolute must-have for lace knitters) but they are all too fine for this shawl which although a lace pattern is less intricate than most would expect for something under that name. So I think I will be creating some graph paper on the computer tomorrow and trying to design something that will be suitable for myself. It will be a first for me and may actually lead to me designing a complete shawl myself.
I have become a real ER junkie over the last few weeks having started to collect the complete set of DVDs of the 15 seasons of this incredible programme. This afternoon and this evening I have been watching a few episodes as I fought with my knitting. I always seem to want to watch just one more episode, but I forced myself to switch off and I am now thinking of getting myself ready for bed and reading until my eyes get too heavy to stay open any longer. A thunderstorm started about 15 minutes ago and it sounds as though it may be rumbling around for quite a bit longer so I may be reading for quite a while as I am unlikely to fall asleep with the thunder and the pouring rain that I can hear through the open bedroom window.
Reading means a great deal to me and while I often look for new authors to read, I regularly reread books that I love. At the moment I am working my way through all seven of the Harry Potter books and last night started reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. This means that I am nearing the end of the series and it will probably be another year before I start to read them again. There is so much to enjoy in these books which although intended for children are so well-written that they are a joy for adults too.
So today has not been perfect, but neither has it been too bad. I suppose that is the best that I can hope for at the moment, and the fact that I can actually sit down and write a post for my blog shows that perhaps I am not doing too badly.
I have been having terrible problems with my knitting over the last week or so; it has meant that I seem to have spent more time unpicking it than actively knitting. However, this afternoon I corrected the last mistake that I found and I have managed to get beyond the point where I started finding mistakes and the end is in sight. Well, when I say the end, what I really mean is that I have almost finished the charts, but I still have to decide what I am going to create as an edging and then actually knit it. I was going to adapt something from my Heirloom Knitting book (written by Sharon Miller and an absolute must-have for lace knitters) but they are all too fine for this shawl which although a lace pattern is less intricate than most would expect for something under that name. So I think I will be creating some graph paper on the computer tomorrow and trying to design something that will be suitable for myself. It will be a first for me and may actually lead to me designing a complete shawl myself.
I have become a real ER junkie over the last few weeks having started to collect the complete set of DVDs of the 15 seasons of this incredible programme. This afternoon and this evening I have been watching a few episodes as I fought with my knitting. I always seem to want to watch just one more episode, but I forced myself to switch off and I am now thinking of getting myself ready for bed and reading until my eyes get too heavy to stay open any longer. A thunderstorm started about 15 minutes ago and it sounds as though it may be rumbling around for quite a bit longer so I may be reading for quite a while as I am unlikely to fall asleep with the thunder and the pouring rain that I can hear through the open bedroom window.
Reading means a great deal to me and while I often look for new authors to read, I regularly reread books that I love. At the moment I am working my way through all seven of the Harry Potter books and last night started reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. This means that I am nearing the end of the series and it will probably be another year before I start to read them again. There is so much to enjoy in these books which although intended for children are so well-written that they are a joy for adults too.
So today has not been perfect, but neither has it been too bad. I suppose that is the best that I can hope for at the moment, and the fact that I can actually sit down and write a post for my blog shows that perhaps I am not doing too badly.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Sleeping And Reading
I have not been feeling my best for a few days now. In fact, I have been feeling pretty low. It's been a bit strange because instead of not being able to sleep as is quite usual for me when depression starts to take over, this time I have had trouble staying awake. When I have been awake I have been reading and I have really enjoyed reading for enjoyment rather than reading for studying.
I have finished reading two books over the last week or so. Moondust, about the men who walked on the Moon, and Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. I read books in much the same way that I knit. I can't have just one on the go, I have to be reading several books at the same time so that I can pick one to suit my mood.
I have been off novels for the last few weeks, so Pride and Prejudice is sitting waiting for me to get into the mood for fiction again. And tonight when I go to bed I will need to start a new book. As luck would have it I have another non-fiction book waiting to be read; Bill Bryson's Shakespeare. This is quite a slim volume (only 200 pages) and certainly shorter than many of the books that I read. I'm led to believe that Bryson's book, while not the in-depth biography that most would feel that they had to write about the Bard, is nevertheless worth the read, and funny to boot. Having read Bryson's A Short History of Everything, and thoroughly enjoyed it, I am hoping that I will be able to say the same about this book too.
Reading is such a comfort when I am feeling like this.
I have finished reading two books over the last week or so. Moondust, about the men who walked on the Moon, and Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. I read books in much the same way that I knit. I can't have just one on the go, I have to be reading several books at the same time so that I can pick one to suit my mood.
I have been off novels for the last few weeks, so Pride and Prejudice is sitting waiting for me to get into the mood for fiction again. And tonight when I go to bed I will need to start a new book. As luck would have it I have another non-fiction book waiting to be read; Bill Bryson's Shakespeare. This is quite a slim volume (only 200 pages) and certainly shorter than many of the books that I read. I'm led to believe that Bryson's book, while not the in-depth biography that most would feel that they had to write about the Bard, is nevertheless worth the read, and funny to boot. Having read Bryson's A Short History of Everything, and thoroughly enjoyed it, I am hoping that I will be able to say the same about this book too.
Reading is such a comfort when I am feeling like this.
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