Service temporarily disrupted...

I've been feeling insanely tired for the last couple of days, everything I'm trying to do or get done takes so much energy and attention that I'm feeling very worn out at the moment.


It started last Tuesday and for whatever reason I ended up feeling so totally overwhelmed by everything needing doing that very little could be done in the end. I've been muddling along for a couple of days, Wednesday at work I'd been falling asleep at the keyboard at moments, Thursday was at a different location where most of my time was spent sorting out why printers weren't working and finding out what the logic was behind the mess my colleague had left for me. Not her fault by the way, she's seriously overworked at the moment and I suspect she's not able to keep things under control effectively herself any more.


The tiredness is unfortunately part and parcel of the depression cycles I go through occasionally, even though I sleep seven or eight hours a night that is not enough at times, I wake up feeling severely depleted and out of sorts, and unable to shake off the lethargy. I've called in to work to inform them I wouldn't be coming in today, deciding instead to be a little self-indulgent and go do something to shift my thoughts for a while.


This is, once again, one of the limits I wrote about on Monday (perhaps a little prophetically) and one I need to accept for what it is. In the past I would be throwing myself full-force into the fray to force myself to get things done, achieving little more than unnecessary frustration and wearing myself down even more.


Today will be filled with a little gardening (some weeding and reorganising), a long walk later this morning, catching up on some correspondence and doing some reading. I guess today is a good day for doing all this, tomorrow is going to be a busy day and there are less distractions since everybody else is either at work or at school.


I've started a journal for myself, to keep track of moments, moods, happenings, thoughts and reflections in the course of the day. In this way I can see if there are particular circumstances or triggers for certain feelings and states of mind which tend to see-saw at best and resemble roller-coasters at other moments. I'm thoroughly fed up with not being able to maintain a reasonably consistent pattern of moods and even though there mightn't be anything I can do about it I would still like to get some grip on what's happening. At least by writing things down I'll be able to identify and name what's happening, and at least find a bit of peace and quiet in that way.


Have a good day, keep well...


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The Elf Fantasy Fair 2008 (final)

I've finally managed to get my photos of the Elf Fantasy Fair 2008 sorted out, reworked and published. It's taken me a lot of energy and effort this time, along with the need to not rush myself too much if at all possible.

Here's a couple of the better images, a lot more of the Elf Fantasy Fair can be seen on my website.





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Previous posts on the Elf Fantasy Fair:
Elf Fantasy Fair 2007
Elf Fantasy Fair 2006
Elf Fantasy Fair 2005

Photography done by myself at various Elf Fantasy Fairs:
Elf Fantasy Fair 2007
Elf Fantasy Fair 2006
Elf Fantasy Fair 2005

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Forgiveness

At any particular point in life, I need to face the awful fact that I might have been wrong. In an abysmal way and it's humiliating and it hurts. About everything.


In the course of many years I have built my world carefully, constructed my own views of reality according to my insights and my preferences, and have lived my life to the best of my ability and possibilities. Nevertheless, when push comes to shove, I realise that some of the core values I cherished were based on false premises and that they had no basis in reality whatsoever.


During the last half year (and actually during a number of preceding years) it has become necessary to start life again in certain ways, first by unravelling the mess I've made, then tending to my injured self-esteem before picking up the pieces and starting again. The world doesn't stop for any of us, life moves on and all that can be done is to find a new way of living in which I can be comfortable, feel happy and safe.


Admitting I'd been wrong was probably the hardest step. I'd been putting off fully recognising that I should have been doing things otherwise, even though my intuition had been ringing the warning bells for years in it's own, quiet, incessant fashion. I often knew perfectly well when something I was doing wasn't right or wasn't going to lead to the desired results, but I let my desires and perceptions get in the way of clear thinking with all the attendant results.


Picking up the pieces is no fun in itself, but in true Mary Poppins style I've taken to gathering all the shards of my previous life and examining them, one by one, to dissect my motives and wishes, identifying my possibilities and my hopes for the future and assessing the practicality of the reconstruction being undertaken under the present circumstances.


Today's a new day, with a new start and with new possibilities. Day by day, step by step, thought by thought. I'll leave you with the following...

We often discover what will do,
by finding out what will not do;
and probably he who never made a mistake,
never made a discovery.

Keep well...

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Thought for the day

Colours of happiness...



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A little "test" I took today, which I'd like to share.

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Your Karmic Alignment is: Zen Intuition!


Score: 17
You have a direct perception of truth. You are very keen and don't use it to take advantage. When you commit positive deeds, you don't do them to get ahead, you do positive deeds simply because it makes you feel good. Your intentions are almost always meant well and all this positive karmaic energy is bound to come back to you in a great way!

TrueLifeKarma.com - Online Karma Test Click Here!

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Keep well...
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Recognising limits

Despite all wishes to the contrary, there are definite limits to what I can do. Despite the adage "if you put your mind to it, you can do anything", I often get stopped in my tracks by the physical, psychological and social barriers I face. No matter how hard I try, there are hard and fast givens which need to be respected with failure resulting when not doing so, causing more difficulties for myself than necessary.


The point was driven home forcefully last Saturday, during an extra training for the match on June 7th next. I've been a member of our rhönrad group for quite a while, longer than most actually, but see that the youngsters who have come later are doing much better and progress more swiftly through the levels of proficiency than I'll ever be able to do. We had a good training, I'd learned a lot and was seriously pushing myself at a certain point because I needed to get a couple of routines worked out properly when I had a short blackout and fell out of my wheel, thankfully close to the ground so there wasn't any real damage done to either myself or the wheel. Once again I had to recognise that, despite all the time and effort I was putting into my sport, my age was a definite disadvantage and that my body will never again have the same physical possibilities as those of a teenager.


Not me, by the way... ;-)
The same applies in so many other settings. For example, I would dearly love to be able to fly, but no matter how much I try and no matter how many hours I spend practicing, I'll never be able to do it. It's that simple, and until I recognise and accept that fact I'll never be able to move on, and otherwise end up frustrated and angry with myself for having "failed". It's the same for many other things in my life... so many things I would like to do, be able to do or feel the need to do but I need to be realistic in my needs and my wishes, not trying things that are patently impossible for me no matter how hard I try.


Whatever I do, I won't be able to rid myself of my addiction for the rest of my life, I need to cope with that in my own way in the same way a diabetic needs to come to terms with his/her condition. I'm never going to be a top athlete either, because of my age and the difficulty I have with motoric coordination at moments, nor a succesful business person because that's just not the type of person I am. The key to moving on successfully is neither downplaying my own abilities nor overestimating what I CAN do, but also recognising my strong and my weak points and working on them as such. I can do a lot, but need to stop somewhere because too much time and effort can be exhausted in something that isn't really going anywhere after a while.


The Woman in the Park, of whom I wrote yesterday, hit her own personal limit last week, relapsing after a couple of serious personal setbacks despite all her determination and wishes to the contrary. She was confronted with an insurmountable part of her own psychological makeup, and perhaps she will have the ability at a later stage to confront her limits beter after extra councilling but right now she hit a remorseless wall, with all the ensuing consequences. One of the limits I've recognised and have acknowledged is that I now know that I can't/shouldn't take on too many activities in a short space of time because I end up confusing myself and driving myself into a goal-driven mania, which usually produces less than I would like and launches me into a new depression cycle.


Of course, there are moments when I need to just do the little bit extra, above and beyond the normal level of activity, but a little realism as to where to stop is very important. I have a great need nowadays to find stability in my life and will need to recognise more limits than I've been doing in the past.


All part of growing up, I guess. Off we go, keep well...

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A never ending story

One of the realities of overcoming an addiction is the fact that a relapse is always possible. A particularly distressing state of affairs for the individual concerned since he/she/I will never be free of the habitual cravings and the environmental cues which led to the addiction in the first place. The only thing that can be done is to learn techniques with which one can cope more effectively with life and life circumstances which cause the unease and pain associated with usage in the first place.


Many things in daily life can remind me of my previous usage. People, places, thoughts and objects all associated with previous usage can trigger cravings at any given moment. In my own case, I have several moments each day in which I'm reminded of how I used to feel at that time and how pleasurable it could be in the short term. The little background commentary keeps, asking me quietly if I wouldn't I like to try again, just once, to see how it was and to prove to myself that I've effectively kicked the habit?


Just for the record, I haven't had a relapse and I'm not planning on doing so. What I do know is that I will constantly need to be on guard to monitor straying emotions, reroute negative or potentially self-destructive thought patterns and continue to rearrange my daily routine so that the temptations associated with previous behaviour are brought down to a minimum.


I came across one of the participants in our therapy group yesterday, obviously in distress and drinking herself blind in the park. I'd seen her once or twice in passing during the last few days and had had the impression that something wasn't quiet right, but at those times wasn't in a position to stop and talk. I passed her yesterday, while I was on my way home and she was on her way in the opposite direction toward the shopping centre, apparently not seeing nor hearing me. An hour later, after I discovered that there was practically no milk for the rest of the weekend so I went back and on my way there saw her in the distance, sitting on a bench in the park. I went over to her for a little chat but could see straight away that she was really out of it, could hardly speak coherently and was in tears about what she'd been doing. As a result of some family circumstances she was so severely stressed out that she had sought out the one way of coping which she knew would work, at least for a short time. She was also so afraid that the people from the treatment centre would be disappointed in her and, although she had already been planned for a crisis admission she expected that she would be in their "bad books" for the time being. We talked for about a quarter of an hour, I managed to calm her down and get her on her way back home but could see that she was going to have a difficult time ahead of her.


The episode shook me in a sense. It could have been me, if I'd let go for a moment and entertained my fantasies instead of keeping my goal fully and squarely in front of me. For me, addiction isn't just a physical problem, there are many psychological and psychiatric issues involved, that after breaking my initial cycle of use/abuse the underlying personal problems need to be identified and addressed, continually, incessantly. It's a question of looking, listening honestly to myself, learning new and useful behaviour, relearning things I thought I'd known or had perhaps forgotten, and unlearning the dysfunctional behaviour which triggered usage.


It's an ongoing problem and one that won't get any better. All I can do and what I've seriously been doing is be totally honest with myself about my feelings and intentions, the difficult moments and my driving motives. Perhaps I will slip up at some time in the future, who knows? That's a problem I'll attend to then, at the moment there's still the need to build up my defences in whatever ways possible. It's all I can do.


Keep well...


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Points to ponder

A rerun of a post from a couple of years ago... enjoy!!

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1. My husband and I divorced over religious differences. He thought he was God and I didn't.

2. I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.


3. Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them.

4. I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.

5. Don't take life too seriously; no one gets out alive.

6. You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me.

7. Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

8. Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.


Made by my daughter, in a moment of inspiration...
9. Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.

10. NyQuil, the stuffy, sneezy, why-the-heck-is-the-room-spinning medicine.

11. God must love stupid people; he made so many.


12. The gene pool could use a little chlorine.

13. It IS as BAD as you think and they ARE out to get you.

14. Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.

15. Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

16. Being "over the hill" is much better than being under it.

17. Wrinkled was not one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up.

18. Procrastinate Now!

19. FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION. It comes bundled with the software.


20. A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

21. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.

22. STUPIDITY IS NOT A HANDICAP. Park elsewhere!


23. They call it PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.

24. He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless dead.

25. A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS, but it uses up 3000 times the memory on your computer.

26. HAM AND EGGS -- A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.


27. The trouble with life is there's no background music

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Words, meanings and misunderstandings

Have you noticed how often you've misunderstood what people are telling you, whilst at the same time you are blissfully unaware of the fact that the message was about something completely different in the first place?


I do, it happens on a regular basis and to be perfectly honest I find it quite annoying. It happens during conversations, it happens when I'm writing when replying to an email or writing comments on other peoples blogs and when reading as well. In each case, for some reason, my own thoughts take over and send me down a completely different garden path, leaving myself and other parties mystified and vaguely irritated at moments.


I wonder why I should be making the wrong associations so often, homing in on the wrong detail which wasn't meant to be the main subject and drawing skewed conclusions based upon what I thought the input was. It's certainly not due to lack of concentration, that's one thing I'm sure of and it's not due to any lack of intelligence (or so I've been told anyway :P ) so one of the things I still need to look into is why information presented takes the strangest and most convoluted detours through my synapses occasionally.


Communication, for me, is a process containing many factors, one of the most important being that the transmitter is a totally different person to the recipient, with his/her own field of reference and associations and assigning different meanings to the same objects and concepts. This might possibly be one of the largest stumbling blocks for me... how can I be sure what you are saying is the same as what I'm hearing. Words themselves carry no meaning, we assign our own values to them depending on experience and inclination, and whilst there is a great degree of overlap within any social group, the personal colourings associated with ideas and physical entities can still contribute to a good deal of confusion.


For myself, in between the transmitting and receiving parties is also what I'd call a "noise field", in which external events and distractions can colour or distort a message being sent. I cannot concentrate when input arrives from different sources at the same time, I miss a lot at moments because my mind is doing an enormous juggling act trying to keep the input sensible and coherent and thus filtering out only the most important elements for further use and filtering out the nuances which might have been helpful as well.


Sometimes I also suspect my own wishes get in the way of what I take notice of or what I should be taking notice of. Most people like to hear what they think themselves and I guess I'm no better in this respect... I often judge what I read or what I've been told by comparing it to an assumed outcome which I'd prefer already, instead of stopping to wait until all the data is in and processing it all as objectively as possible. In as far as I can speak of objectively, because how can a person be objective about him/herself and his/her thought processes?


Hmmm... I've got myself delightfully mixed up again this morning, something to ponder on for a while yet here. Do you have any thoughts on the subject? I'd like to know.


Keep well...


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What is my dream?

To be perfectly honest, I didn't have a clue until a few years ago what my dream was at all. Well, actually I did but never really took the time nor had the inclination to find the words in order to describe what I actually wanted or needed in life. When I look back and when I look at myself right now, I see a pattern which was there all along, which I wasn't willing or able to see for a very long time.


We need to have dreams and create goals for ourselves. In a daily life filled with chaos, noise and deadening routine we need something to cling to and work towards, in the hope and the wish to create a better future for ourselves. Some are materialistic goals, others are dreams of greatness and good fortune, yet others again are targets set as personal challenges to transcend the present feelings of inadequacy or stasis.


For most of my life I seem to have been searching for myself, in many, often unconscious ways. I've always been unable to accept the situations I found myself in, have been looking for meaning in fundamental givens I've been presented with and trying to find answers which can give me the satisfaction of being relatively complete instead of unsatisfactory, half-hearted partial solutions.


My dream is to be able to find out where this dissatisfaction comes from and why I continually search for something that seems only to exist as a vague notion in the back of my mind but nevertheless determines how I function on day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis. My dream is to transcend the weltschmerz and come back to life, bring back meaning and pleasure into my existence so that I can live my life feeling fulfilled and justified in all that I do. Once the healing is in progress, I will then also be able to reach out and offer a helping hand to those who need assistance or are in distress. How can I be of any use to anybody else if I don't even understand my own motives and makeup, while I'm doing battle with myself at any and every given moment with all the ensuing tiredness and frustration?


That, in short, is my dream. At first sight it might sound a little selfish, but I've come to the conclusion that I'm unable to help others before I've been able to help myself, that I can't mirror and assist if my own reflection is clouded. Physician, heal thyself [first]!


Hope this helps. This has been an interesting reflection for me this time too.
Keep well...


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