Troebia's Diary

[Mental Fairy]

Hi team

I believe they don’t know much about many medications. No one person is the same. It’s the same with antibiotics at work, many times it doesn’t work or the patient gets sicker, we have noticed this more in the last two years. Infection sets in fast and sepsis kicks in. Immune systems are so low with people that we can’t keep up.

Troebia, I’ve been on my medication for so long now, I fear coming off it. Reason being is we use it for pain management due to damaged nerves from the tumours being removed. I tried what you are on a few years back and it put me in hospital for three days as it effected my heart rate. Collapsed at home. I had to go cold turkey, I lost my ability to focus with my eyes and brain zapping. Never again. I went back on to my old medication as I was coping better on this. However, I think with a number of different factors going on I am losing grasp of myself a bit. Extremely tired beyond words. Yet, I get to work and switch into my nurse position, and treatment of my patients comes naturally. Underneath it all I’m just holding onto things by my fingertips.
Sleep walking and sleep talking have been major players in my rest state, lucid dreaming in ways that it is hard to feel rested. Night terrors to spook Stephen king himself! I don’t know any different. I feel sleep but crave it. Sounds like a bad relationship!!!

Better get a wiggle on and get to work. Will pop to stationary store today and grab a sketch book.

Talk soon
Gia

[troebia]

Will pop to stationary store today and grab a sketch book.

Please take care of yourself and grab a pen, let's see what comes out on the page!

[Mental Fairy]

Interesting about pen vs pencil. Many people say pen.

How did you start? Age?

[troebia]

The instrument will define your various levels of commitment.

Pencil: I'll draw a line, oh wait it's not right I'll rub it out. I'll draw very lightly now just in case. Oh no it looks all wrong. Erase again. It has to be perfect...doesn't it?

Ballpoint pen: I'll draw the outlines first, then go into detail. There's no going back to correct any mistakes, but I can go over with new better ones several times and they will take over. The drawing emerges from a haze of tentative scribbles.

Fude fountain pen: I can do thin and heavy lines depending on how I tilt the pen. The sketch is already clear in my mind and the shadows are just as important as the outlines. Any "errors" can be turned into happy accidents.

Ink brush (sumi-e): I don't pursue likeness, it's all about personal perception and expressing emotion through the motions of the wrist. The ink mixed with water flows and spreads on the paper almost with its own mind. No two paintings of the same subject will look alike.

---
Oddly enough, I was doing drawings somewhat similar to the ones I've shared here at around seven, just for fun. Then there's a long skip in time until around five or six years ago, in my fifties when I discovered that doodling alleviates my anxiety.

[troebia]

Therapy update #4

The various tests seem to show that I do have a depression, and I have an anxiety response (instead of solution response) to the things that are going wrong right now. I'm apparently not asocial, it's just that I'm too alone and almost without social connections. He drew a flowchart explaining how my anxiety responses to certain situations backfeeds into more rumination and depression, and how the treatment he proposes is supposed to break those connections and make me more resilient to depressive thoughts. Challenges shouldn't make me fall apart, instead I should approach them rationally.

I told him my SSRI medication still hasn't kicked in, after almost seven weeks. He suggested I should try a different one that also limits dopamine reuptake. I'll visit my GP and see if he'll write a prescription. "Just don't tell him your psychologist has suggested it, say instead you found the information online or something" he said, which I thought was funny. "Many medical doctors, especially psychiatrists, despise psychologists."

I got a new list of activities as homework. The therapist suggested different apps that are supposed to alleviate tinnitus. They are basically relaxing soundtracks and I'm a bit sceptical.

[manuel_moe_g]

Howdy Troebia

Your psychologist sounds great! Congratulations on finding an engaged one

[snoringdog]

Hello Troebia

The therapist suggested different apps that are supposed to alleviate tinnitus. They are basically relaxing soundtracks and I'm a bit skeptical.

I've had mild to moderate tinnitus for decades now. I remember reading that one of the early researchers happened to notice that while they were standing near a decorative fountain and hearing the sound of water, that their tinnitus was noticeably reduced. This is what the sound masking devices or soundtracks are supposed to mimic. So it *is* a form of distraction, but a pleasant one.

Stress and becoming obsessed with the sound of the tinnitus obviously makes it worse. (Been there). That's where the CBT can help, in allowing you to actively re-frame the noise as being less than just a torment. (Tried a little CBT with the leaf blowers in the neighborhood this morning. My immediate reaction is "Damn it! I can't stand that noise! What's wrong with those people! Tried to reframe it as less threatening "They'll be done soon", They're working hard, probably to support families", They're probably proud of their work" etc. Maybe sounds naive and stupid but it helps)

I'm sure you've seen links such as;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus
https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/tinnitus#5

Nothing medical/technological on the immediate horizon I guess. Just some hi-tech research not quite ready for prime time. That's a kind of a drag, but things aren't hopeless...

[Mental Fairy]

Hi Troebia

Sounds like you’re on a better path forward, how long does it take to get into GP there to discuss the medication?

I assume you will need to taper off the other one? Before going onto a new one?

I woke this morning and looked beside the bed where I have my sketch pad (new and unused) my pencils and watercolours. I felt nervous looking at them! How does one overcome perfectionism!

[troebia]

I woke this morning and looked beside the bed where I have my sketch pad (new and unused) my pencils and watercolours. I felt nervous looking at them! How does one overcome perfectionism!

My advice is to start on page four or five, instead of the first page. Also, if you've seen those flipthroughs of perfect drawings on every page that some upload on Instagram and Facebook, you should know that those are not made by happy balanced people. They're dead perfectionists who pursue likes, not real creatives. A sketchbook is supposed to be a dumping ground for your ideas and anything goes. A sketch of a head of a cat, a flower pot, and some clouds can coexist on the same spread.

[manuel_moe_g]

Wow, more art to love, please take Troebia’s advice, Mental Fairy!