My walk to the bus stop this morning was not alone as would be the norm; just as I stepped off the drive my next-door neighbour (actually she and her husband and kids live behind my house because I live on a corner of the road and their house is in the road that joins my road) came out of the house on her way to the local newsagent to pick up a newspaper. It was nice to be able to have a chat with someone as I walked along the road. I was lucky this morning (or unlucky depending which way you look at it) because the first of the two buses that I have to catch to get to the CMHT arrived almost immediately and when I changed buses I had only to wait for a minute after getting off the first one for the second to arrive. The net result of this was that I arrived 35 minutes early for my appointment with the HTT.
I didn't see the usual nurse this morning although the one I saw today I have seen before. He is much better than the nurse I normally see at getting the information that they need to ensure that I am keeping well and it doesn't seem like answering questions by rote. It was actually much more like having a proper conversation. This meant that I probably gave more information because we talked around the subject. They are very pleased with my progress and I was told that I should give myself a pat on the back for all that I have achieved since leaving hospital.
When the appointment was over (I was in there for an hour and yet it seemed like five minutes) I walked down the road to catch the bus to take me to the hospital so that I could attend my psychotherapy session. By the time that I went into the psychologist's office I was suffering terrible anxiety and I really didn't want to be there. We got to work immediately and, though it was very difficult for me, it was a good session. I know it was a good session because at the end of it I felt as though I had been put through a wringer, but as I walked along the road to the shops after leaving the hospital I realised that all the anxiety had gone and I was much more relaxed. It really is just the anticipation of what I know is going to happen that makes me so anxious.
By the time that I got to the main shopping area I realised that I was very hungry; it was about 1.15pm and I hadn't had anything to eat since last night so I got myself some lunch and then did the little bit of shopping that I needed and then headed for the bus stop to get the bus home. The nice postman left my parcel at the back door so I don't have to go to the sorting office to collect it tomorrow so I now have a couple of knitting books and three new games for my Nintendo DSi to look at this afternoon.
After a night with only a couple of hours sleep and the rigours of the therapy session I am going to relax for the rest of the day. I shall probably try for an early night tonight, I will definitely take my sleep medication, but before that happens I am going to look at my new books and play my new games. Then tomorrow I must sit down and write the short story for my final assignment on my OU course.
Showing posts with label OU course. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OU course. Show all posts
Monday, 18 January 2010
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Going Without Sleep
Sleep is becoming a problem again. I take all my medication at the proper time, and I make sure that I take the little blue pills that should help me to sleep.
I had been lying in bed reading when I remembered that I hadn't taken my tablets, so it was just a case of sorting out the required ones and taking them with some milk which is in a glass by the side of my bed. I had been on the verge of dropping off when I remembered that I needed to take my tablets. Having taken them, I was suddenly wide awake again.
It's now two hours since I settled down to go to sleep but sleep has not happened. I've been doing some puzzles (crosswords and suduko) in the hope that might help me to drop off, and as that hasn't worked I decided to write a quick post for the blog.
I've had to resort to the blue pills practically every night for the last couple of weeks. they do eventually help me to get to sleep but I keep waking up a few hours later. Sometimes I can get back to sleep fairly quickly, but more often I am awake for several hours before succumbing again. Then I end up sleeping for hours; most days during this last week I have ended up sleeping most of the morning.
What I really need to do is get back into a proper routine and hopefully I can manage that next week. I haven't been out of the house much over the last week or so, but on Monday I start having appointments with various people (HTT and psychologist as an example) and I will be getting to work on my OU course again. Hopefully that will help me to develop a routine that means that I can get to sleep reasonably easily and stay asleep for the rest of the night. I also need to get back to writing some more posts in the Tackling the Mental Health Minefield series as I have so much more to say on that subject.
But for now I will publish this post, wrap myself up under the duvet and hopefully drop off to sleep without too much of problem. I have a book handy so that I can read for a while, and if that doesn't work I'll just have to think of something else that might do the trick.
I had been lying in bed reading when I remembered that I hadn't taken my tablets, so it was just a case of sorting out the required ones and taking them with some milk which is in a glass by the side of my bed. I had been on the verge of dropping off when I remembered that I needed to take my tablets. Having taken them, I was suddenly wide awake again.
It's now two hours since I settled down to go to sleep but sleep has not happened. I've been doing some puzzles (crosswords and suduko) in the hope that might help me to drop off, and as that hasn't worked I decided to write a quick post for the blog.
I've had to resort to the blue pills practically every night for the last couple of weeks. they do eventually help me to get to sleep but I keep waking up a few hours later. Sometimes I can get back to sleep fairly quickly, but more often I am awake for several hours before succumbing again. Then I end up sleeping for hours; most days during this last week I have ended up sleeping most of the morning.
What I really need to do is get back into a proper routine and hopefully I can manage that next week. I haven't been out of the house much over the last week or so, but on Monday I start having appointments with various people (HTT and psychologist as an example) and I will be getting to work on my OU course again. Hopefully that will help me to develop a routine that means that I can get to sleep reasonably easily and stay asleep for the rest of the night. I also need to get back to writing some more posts in the Tackling the Mental Health Minefield series as I have so much more to say on that subject.
But for now I will publish this post, wrap myself up under the duvet and hopefully drop off to sleep without too much of problem. I have a book handy so that I can read for a while, and if that doesn't work I'll just have to think of something else that might do the trick.
Monday, 28 December 2009
Surviving
Well, I have managed to survive Christmas, even if I did spend much of it in bed with a rotten cold. Christmas dinner was bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potato for the non-British readers) with a lovely thick onion gravy. It was washed down with a mixture of Australian sparkling wine with cranberry juice added.
I seem to have spent most of my waking hours watching various films on television although I did manage to do a bit of knitting yesterday and I am hopeful that I will feel energetic enough to do some more this afternoon/evening. I have also managed to record lots of films to watch later so I will have something for when there is nothing worth watching.
I haven't been to the sales; I haven't even left the house for nearly a week. Tomorrow I will need to go out to buy some supplies and get a bit of exercise. I'm feeling low, but not so bad as I did this time last week.
I must also sit myself down with my OU course material and work my way through it so that I can complete the second TMA for my course. It has to be submitted by the middle of January so I had better get a move on. This TMA has only two parts to it; the first part is the most important one and requires me to write a short story or a chapter of a longer piece of writing of 1500 words. It also requires me to include something that relates to one or more of a number of supplied words. These are places or feelings and the one that I have chosen to include is 'abandoned'. I have an idea of what I am going to write, but having an idea is not actually having the words ready to write.
I think some sessions in the library are called for because if I am there I can't be distracted by what's on the television.
I seem to have spent most of my waking hours watching various films on television although I did manage to do a bit of knitting yesterday and I am hopeful that I will feel energetic enough to do some more this afternoon/evening. I have also managed to record lots of films to watch later so I will have something for when there is nothing worth watching.
I haven't been to the sales; I haven't even left the house for nearly a week. Tomorrow I will need to go out to buy some supplies and get a bit of exercise. I'm feeling low, but not so bad as I did this time last week.
I must also sit myself down with my OU course material and work my way through it so that I can complete the second TMA for my course. It has to be submitted by the middle of January so I had better get a move on. This TMA has only two parts to it; the first part is the most important one and requires me to write a short story or a chapter of a longer piece of writing of 1500 words. It also requires me to include something that relates to one or more of a number of supplied words. These are places or feelings and the one that I have chosen to include is 'abandoned'. I have an idea of what I am going to write, but having an idea is not actually having the words ready to write.
I think some sessions in the library are called for because if I am there I can't be distracted by what's on the television.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
The After Effects
One of Newton's Laws of Motion (I can't remember which) states that for every action there is an equal, and opposite, reaction. I believe that this goes for more things than just motion.
When I went to see my GP on Monday I was feeling pretty good. He has even written in my notes that I was the happiest that he has seen me for a very long time. When asked by him to what I attributed this improvement in my mood I said that I felt that the reason for this improvement in my mood was due to two things; first the increase in medication that had been decided upon while I was in hospital, and secondly the incredible visitor figures that my blog had started to have as a result of my having started to write about what had happened to me after he referred me for admission to hospital.
On Tuesday I went to see the psychologist and wrote a bit about it here. I was still feeling pretty good when I arrived at the hospital and I saw a couple of members of staff from one of the wards that I had been on and they both commented on how good I was looking. The session with the psychologist was difficult; these sorts of things always are. I found myself crying as he was asking me things and one of the things that I hate is being made to cry.
When I eventually got home on Tuesday evening (I'd gone to the library from the hospital so that I could do some work on my course) I was feeling drained. I couldn't face making anything to eat, so I just went to bed with a glass of milk and lay there reading a book. I'm not sure how many pages I turned, but I do know that I didn't take in anything that I was reading. By about 8pm I decided to take my night-time medication and try to get to sleep.
Sleep came pretty quickly, and although I did wake a couple of times during the night, I just turned over, snuggled further under the duvet and went back to sleep. Wednesday morning dawned and that horrible old feeling had returned. I didn't want to get out of bed, and I didn't want to do anything. I did try writing a bit more of Part 4 of Tackling the Mental Health Minefield, but although I knew what I wanted to say, the right words just didn't seem to come to mind. I decided that I should give Wednesday a miss and ended up watching a few videos and catching up with television programmes that I had missed.
It was another early night, again my sleep was interrupted with a couple of wakeful periods but I probably managed about six hours in total, which was pretty good because I had been getting only a couple of hours a night just a few weeks ago. This morning I got up early, got myself dressed and ready to head off to the library again. For some unknown reason the bus that I needed to catch has been a bit thin on the ground this last week or so. They are supposed to run every 10-12 minutes, but this morning I was standing at the bus stop for 40 minutes before one arrived. I eventually arrived at my destination and found myself a nice quiet corner in the library where I could sit down to do some work.
I did managed to finish the first block of material for my course. I had to read several bits more than once to be sure that I had taken on board the information, but I had managed to complete in three days the work that was planned for two weeks in the course calendar. My next decision had to be did I have a look at and start working through the second block, or should I have a look at the first TMA which is due in tomorrow. I do have an extension of a week for submitting it because of my having been in hospital when the course started so I don't have to struggle to throw something together for submission tomorrow.
In the end I decided that I would start looking at the TMA and I have started to draft the first 500-word story that is required for it. There are three parts to this TMA and each of them requires me to write 500-word stories or parts of a story. Five hundred words shouldn't be difficult for me to put together. Many of my posts on this blog are much longer than that, but they are about 'real' things and the course is about writing fiction. I realized that I couldn't think up things because there was so much real stuff going on in my brain. Going to see the psychologist has had a greater effect on me than I had thought possible. Suddenly as I was writing my notes and drafting the start of my first story, there were tears rolling down my cheeks.
I had deliberately chosen to write about a real event, but something that occurred before I was born. That way I knew that the story would not be in any way autobiographical. But just the effort of thinking about being the child who is telling the story of what they had seen in a street in a city started to bring things into my mind that I had wanted to keep well hidden away.
It seems that there are after effects from my appointment with the psychologist that I had neither expected or been ready to have happen.
When I went to see my GP on Monday I was feeling pretty good. He has even written in my notes that I was the happiest that he has seen me for a very long time. When asked by him to what I attributed this improvement in my mood I said that I felt that the reason for this improvement in my mood was due to two things; first the increase in medication that had been decided upon while I was in hospital, and secondly the incredible visitor figures that my blog had started to have as a result of my having started to write about what had happened to me after he referred me for admission to hospital.
On Tuesday I went to see the psychologist and wrote a bit about it here. I was still feeling pretty good when I arrived at the hospital and I saw a couple of members of staff from one of the wards that I had been on and they both commented on how good I was looking. The session with the psychologist was difficult; these sorts of things always are. I found myself crying as he was asking me things and one of the things that I hate is being made to cry.
When I eventually got home on Tuesday evening (I'd gone to the library from the hospital so that I could do some work on my course) I was feeling drained. I couldn't face making anything to eat, so I just went to bed with a glass of milk and lay there reading a book. I'm not sure how many pages I turned, but I do know that I didn't take in anything that I was reading. By about 8pm I decided to take my night-time medication and try to get to sleep.
Sleep came pretty quickly, and although I did wake a couple of times during the night, I just turned over, snuggled further under the duvet and went back to sleep. Wednesday morning dawned and that horrible old feeling had returned. I didn't want to get out of bed, and I didn't want to do anything. I did try writing a bit more of Part 4 of Tackling the Mental Health Minefield, but although I knew what I wanted to say, the right words just didn't seem to come to mind. I decided that I should give Wednesday a miss and ended up watching a few videos and catching up with television programmes that I had missed.
It was another early night, again my sleep was interrupted with a couple of wakeful periods but I probably managed about six hours in total, which was pretty good because I had been getting only a couple of hours a night just a few weeks ago. This morning I got up early, got myself dressed and ready to head off to the library again. For some unknown reason the bus that I needed to catch has been a bit thin on the ground this last week or so. They are supposed to run every 10-12 minutes, but this morning I was standing at the bus stop for 40 minutes before one arrived. I eventually arrived at my destination and found myself a nice quiet corner in the library where I could sit down to do some work.
I did managed to finish the first block of material for my course. I had to read several bits more than once to be sure that I had taken on board the information, but I had managed to complete in three days the work that was planned for two weeks in the course calendar. My next decision had to be did I have a look at and start working through the second block, or should I have a look at the first TMA which is due in tomorrow. I do have an extension of a week for submitting it because of my having been in hospital when the course started so I don't have to struggle to throw something together for submission tomorrow.
In the end I decided that I would start looking at the TMA and I have started to draft the first 500-word story that is required for it. There are three parts to this TMA and each of them requires me to write 500-word stories or parts of a story. Five hundred words shouldn't be difficult for me to put together. Many of my posts on this blog are much longer than that, but they are about 'real' things and the course is about writing fiction. I realized that I couldn't think up things because there was so much real stuff going on in my brain. Going to see the psychologist has had a greater effect on me than I had thought possible. Suddenly as I was writing my notes and drafting the start of my first story, there were tears rolling down my cheeks.
I had deliberately chosen to write about a real event, but something that occurred before I was born. That way I knew that the story would not be in any way autobiographical. But just the effort of thinking about being the child who is telling the story of what they had seen in a street in a city started to bring things into my mind that I had wanted to keep well hidden away.
It seems that there are after effects from my appointment with the psychologist that I had neither expected or been ready to have happen.
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