Experimental Goalie God

Now how do you work this new set up…?

So it’s been January since I last wrote, and it’s been fun because there have been a lot of confidence boosters. For the most part, I’ve been feeling on average between a (4) and a (6) since then. It’s not a bad range considering the range I would have at, let’s say, the same amount of months at the start of writing this blog where it would be higher. I managed to be a part of another team that went to our division Finals, so that’s three Finals appearances in three tries, while winning one. That’s not too bad, especially when I’ve only been playing for a year and a half! This time last year, I set out to win at least one championship before I graduate and accomplished that while learning so much more of the mental side of the game that led to a hell of an improvement in my game.

Statistically, I’m almost…uh…an average goal against lower than what I was this time last year. My Goals Against Average was 5.87 after I finished my semester last year, and I managed to get that down to 5.20 lifetime (including that miserable semester), and 4.90 for the past two semesters’. For the true statisticians, that’s also 49 league games; I had 10 in Winter 2014, 22 in Fall 2014, and 13 in Winter 2015. So the power isn’t the greatest, but anyone can say that 49 games is good power to see where I am as a goalie, and 35 games (Fall 2014-Winter 2015) is also good power to see how much of an improvement I had since getting rid of that stupid insole.

It was insanely tough to keep going though. I was training from last May until early April without even a week off to recover, and my body felt it. By the end of the school year, I was exhausted and played like garbage in the last championship game. Some may say that I choked, but I was just gassed. So I took that week off and slothed around; didn’t even bother to de-train. I even spent some time with my Playstation! I’ve probably played 3 or 4 games in the past three weeks, and they felt pretty good after some rest, but…meh, wasn’t up to my usual standards. I was also asked to fill in for a playoff game, after an entire week of sloth and eating delicious fatness (poutine). After about 4-5 minutes into the game, I was hunched over wondering when the game was going to end. Suffice it to say, we lost that game 4-3, but at least I had a good reason, and that reason was delicious….lots of delicious (poutine!).

(Seriously, if you’ve never tried poutine, get the gourmet ones; you’ll never go back to fast-food poutine.)

All of that improvement and learning so quickly…I really wished my parents were able to afford goalie gear when I was a kid. I could’ve made professional! 😉

The New Experiment

So after a year, I decided to start experimenting again. Nothing major, this is more of a precautionary, stop-gap. Just to recap, it was the Cipralex I took for a couple of years. I learned later (in passing, not in class) that it was a neutral SSRI. There are three classes: That neutral, an upper, and a downer. Uppers are used to bring the person….well, up, while the downer is used to calm the person. It sounds more like it’s used for a super-low grade form of bipolar disorder.

The way I see it, anxiety is like a gateway mental illness symptom that has the potential to foster into something more, dependent on your genetics and brain chemistry.

There were also times last summer where I would get these terrible attacks because of the stupid people making the planet hotter, and I hate the summer heat. (FYI, it’s currently 8C, lower with the windchill, and I’m wearing pants and a t-shirt….bliss!) This summer is especially important because I’ll be doing my honours project to finish up my psychology degree (the law one is in the bag) which is designed to be an 8-month course condensed into 4 months, while working and struggling to make rent, while dealing with moving. Luckily, I don’t really care much about my hockey right now because it would cost more money to join a league in September, money that I just wouldn’t have. Thus, I think it’s a good time to start another experiment!

Again, it’s not a major experiment like the one I did last year’s 5-month experiment with trying to get off the Cipralex from 20mg. The premise is simple: 5mg for the entire summer, just to get through with this. I currently feel fine right now, but I also had loads of rest in the past month, so who knows how I’ll feel 4 weeks from now when it’ll get so busy, I wouldn’t even have time to rub one out.

I wrote…somewhere in this blog that I can’t find anymore…that getting on the SSRI safely was hard. I would be on the 5mg, felt good for a little bit (let’s say [4]), and then back to crappy again (let’s say [7+]), increased it to 10mg (which, by the way, is the minimum dosage the pill can come in), felt crappy again, and then settled for 20mg when I felt the happiest. I feel better now than what I did all those years ago, but still a little concerned about 5mg not being enough. I don’t want to increase the dosage to 10mg simply because I wouldn’t be able to afford more, so I want to stay at 5mg. It’ll also be much easier to ween myself off at 5mg because I wouldn’t have to keep taking it for another 5 days (magic number of days to adjust to the change in dosage as discovered from the experiment on myself) when I don’t have to.

I’m hoping to start next Tuesday because it’s the last free week I’ll have, and I’m hoping my neurochemistry will adjust to this by Saturday. I already requested the prescription from my headshrinker, so hopefully he’ll come through for me by Monday.

Cross your fingers.

Follow upcoming madness on Twitter @288theabe.

Experiment Take 2

This experiment is brought to you by…

Hog’s Back beer. Well, they’re not sponsoring me, but that would be amazing. At the same time though, that would be unethically stupid. Although, that would be an interesting premise to get this blog sponsored: Getting random companies to give me money to run my experiments on myself. Again, that’s a shit-ton of ethics that would be possibly violated, but…need money. Oh, well.

That’s the most awesome picture I’ve taken in a while. I mean, what can be better? Got the Stanley Cup Finals on (Rangers won to stay alive and take it to Game 5), very local brew that’s straight from Ottawa, Ontario, and a very comfortable couch.

The Experiment

So the point of this experiment is to get a better idea of where I am with my SSRI withdrawal, because the last one was a bit of a bust. There were just way too many confounding variables to get an accurate read on my anxiety because too many things were jacking it up. There was the stupidity that is the scheduling for my psychiatrist, and then there was the screwjob by life, once again.

I’m so sick of this broken record, so I’ll make this quick. Basically, I found out that an old high school crush has been living in the same city as I’m living in for several years now. Great, hope, right? Wrong again. A week after contact, she made it official with this guy she was seeing that they’re in a relationship. Seriously, you can’t write this shit up! Even my psychiatrist was flabbergasted at “my luck,” which is in actuality, my life…who I want to drive my knee into his balls. Suffice it to say, I was at a (7), possibly higher.

But, I’m getting angry thinking about it again. I was angry for about two weeks over that and didn’t get much of a chance to hit the gym over it. I only have work for the next few days so I only have that to deal with. Hopefully nothing stupid happens…again.

Here’s a random song.

Follow me on Twitter @288theabe.

24

Beep-boop! Beep-boop!

So, I think I hit a little snag, and it all happened in 24 hours. I really did like that show, 24, and I know it’s back out, but I caught on late, so…yeah, can’t watch the rest of it.

Basically, it started with hockey on Friday, right after my last post. There’s a female there that I have my eye on, but being a goalie, and her being a skater, we don’t normally get too much of a chance to talk. I bumped into her and timekept one of her games a couple of weeks ago, where she grabbed the back of the head of some other chick with the puck, pushed her, then looked like she thought, “Might as well go for the whole 9-yards because it’s a roughing penalty,” and slammed her face into the ice. This happened right in front of me, and I was dying of laughter. Oddly enough, she didn’t get the penalty.

Anyways, on Friday, she came in with some guy, and pre-Cipralex me would be thinking all sorts of jealous thoughts, but they weren’t much this time around. It was only when the facilitator told me that she had a thing for hockey guys that got my anxiety going again. I really wasn’t feeling well during the game, but I kept telling myself that I’m a good goalie; I ended up letting in 4 goals in about 40 minutes, so that’s pretty good considering the company of Junior players I was with and how long I’ve been playing ice net (since October; and I let in a bunch when I was dying afterwards…leg day and then hockey day doesn’t mix). From what I seen though, I kept telling myself that I’m a better goalie than the guy was a skater, and I ended up shutting him down the entire time I was playing against him.

It didn’t stop there though. I carried the anxiety to work and wasn’t able to shake it off. There were blurbs during the day when I was fine, but for the most part, I couldn’t even form sentences. Same thing with work yesterday as well.

The Cipralex-less Experiment

I wrote a while back that Tylenol (or maybe ibuprofen in general, haven’t found that out yet) really helped alleviate the headaches and dizziness associated with the Cipralex withdrawals. It even took away the anxiety with it, which was a total surprise, and lead me to believe that the starving-for-SSRIs hippocampus (which is what SSRIs repairs) is what, at least majorly, causes anxiety and depression. So, because of the past couple of days, I wanted to try it out again; to see if Tylenol does relieve anxiety. I highly doubt that it would (my null hypothesis), but given my history with SSRIs, my current situation could just be my brain deeply “needing” it. I had a friend who told me once that it took her 2-3 months for her symptoms to fully go away when she went off her Cipralex; at least I think she said “months.” I’m also 99% sure that she just quit cold turkey after only a month or so on them, whereas, I was on it for a good two years and I ran a weening experiment on myself. So there’s that that’s influencing my attacks and headaches.

With all that said though, I did just take a Tylenol, but I’m not 100% sure if it’s from the anxiety or the fact that I really didn’t drink that much water and sweating buckets yesterday at work. Regardless, I took one an hour and a half-ish ago, and I still have a mild headache, no anxiety problems right now, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.

I don’t have much of an operational definition for this, just a simple “Does it have any personal effect or not?” type experiment. Very non-scientific and unempirical, and I probably won’t even give out numbers, but it’s a nice little mini-experiment.

That’s about it. Work also isn’t helping with the anxiety since I’m making next to nothing with 3 jobs and barely any hours (corporate greed), but at least I keep having better thoughts that I have a job, money’s sort of coming in, and I got the time to look for a better job in the meantime. I’m not sure what I would’ve thought pre-Cipralex though.

Here’s a random song.

Follow me on Twitter @288theabe.

Pics

I’ve been meaning to put these up after taking their photographs and it always slips my mind whenever I write. I’m just going to photo-clusterbomb it all in one post so I delete them from my hard drive forever.

The Porno

I’ve mentioned that I like to keep track of who visits my page and from where. Another thing I like to check out is how people find me through search engines. This is one I found back in mid-February and I still have no idea that this sequence of words made any sense at all.

 

 

I mean, were they having an orgy while overdosing on SSRIs…? I really wouldn’t recommend that!

The Star Wars

During the holidays, my mum got me the LEGO Y-Wing and I immediately assembled it when I got back home. It really put me in my happy place as I just zoned out everything and started building. It got so happily bad that I bought two more…neither that I can afford to.

Yeah, they look kick-ass and they did an excellent job of controlling my anxiety and its attacks, but…it pretty much pushed it back and created more now that I’m broke. Oops!

My counsellor and people in group therapy told me that it’s a good thing, and that it’s better than getting high off heroin; which, price-wise, isn’t that much different. I still feel guilty, but I still play with them while making the screeching noise the TIE Fighter makes.

The Do It For Daron

My regular readers (if they’re still around since I don’t post enough) would know that I started out in hockey as a skater first before I transitioned into goalie this past October. Last year, while I was still assembling my skater gear, I bought a DIFD sticker for the back of my bucket. I went back to the store I bought it from and got another one for my goalie bucket.

For those of you who don’t know, DIFD stands for the subtitle I gave this section: Do It For Daron, and this is the story behind it.

The Exam Season

I took this picture last semester, and totally forgot about it until now.

Granted, this is only for Ontario, but if this exists here, then chances are, something similar exists outside of it. Use it. I think I’ll need its services soon myself…

That’s it for now. I’ve been feeling a (4.5) since my last post. I’m still feeling very antsy about securing a job here and about my finances. Here’s a random song.

Follow me on Twitter @288theabe.

Title-less

You know, that sounds awfully similar to Titleist. It’s a sign that I should be golfing and not playing hockey anymore. I know, it sounds weird, but I ended up hurting the entire left side of my body, from my ankle up to my wrist. Hockey’s about the only thing that’s kept me sane all school year, and resting right now blows major donkey balls. I strained my hip flexor two months ago playing ball hockey and I think I re-aggravated it again a couple of Sundays ago, playing more ball hockey. I think I’ve had enough of ball hockey and willing to make the full switch over to ice; less painful. It’s gotten to the point where I want to shut it down for the season after my last league game on Wednesday so my body can heal. I’m also planning to stay in Ottawa instead of Shithole, Ontario so I won’t have to deal with any more grief of that dump, so no golf for me.

I know it’s been a while since I last wrote, but it’s been hectic with school and trying to find a job. I just had a panic attack where I had one thought about checking myself into a hospital, but I managed to come off of it for the most part, but I’ll talk about that later on. (Suspense!)

The Experiment

Things are going great. Not good, but great. For the most part, I felt an average of (4) for the month of March. I went into my 5-day cycle without much of a hitch, surprisingly. I also gave my 4-day cycle a few more cycles for my brain to adjust, as I’ve mentioned last post. I haven’t even been relying on my Tylenol anymore because I don’t need to. Maybe the 4th day/cycle of getting off the SSRIs is the major hump and after that, it should be free-wheeling. As of the 26th of April, I should be okay to get off my Cipralex completely! But…there’s always a but…I may go on a 6-day cycle just to see how it goes, and if I don’t feel anything bad, I might just get off them without doing 5 cycles, as per the experiment design.

The Tinder

In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s a sort of dating app that’s ridiculously superficial. Basically, you either find someone attractive or not, and if there’s a mutual like, you can start talking to each other.

Possibly the greatest problem I have is that women doesn’t find me attractive in general, especially with my statistical numbers crunching, but this app sort of busted that. I say “sort of” because there are too many network variables that I don’t know about to get a more accurate estimation so bear with me here.

But what is factual is out of the hundreds of women I swiped like, only 17ish liked me back. I say “-ish” because there were a few that blocked me for whatever reason, I can’t remember and don’t know, and they were taken off my list. I’ve also set my parameters to 20-50+ years old, and distance radius at 69km, because…well, 69 is a good number. 😉 Because someone has to like me back to get a good percentage, they also have to set the same parameters. Chances are, they’re not! It’s going to be all over the place. I can’t even crunch the numbers or scenarios in my head to find a remotely good guess to get anything, so I’m not going to bother to try.

What I do know, however, that out of the 17ish, I’m currently conversing with two. That gives me an 8.5% of being attractive. That’s a shit-ton better than the less than 1% I originally came up with.

There’s also the Sriracha sauce that liked me back.

Don’t tell her I’m in love with another hot sauce from Tennessee though.

The really odd part of it is, I had more liked back from women outside of Ottawa. One of the women I’m talking to is actually from a slightly shitter part of Shithole called Brampton. (The other one is from Ottawa, in case you’re wondering.)

I’m still not 100% sure if it’s this app that’s making me feel better about myself, or the hockey I’m constantly playing, or both, but something’s working right now. I guess that’s a good thing.

The Realization

I’m still a little tired from my attack and can’t come up with better sub-titles. That and I haven’t written much because of school; I don’t want to write because of school. 😉

So there’s someone in my group therapy session who’s in really bad shape. Like, she’s borderline bulimic, cuts herself, suicidal and had a brother who committed suicide. I don’t remember much about details, but I remember that he had everything going for him in life, and then he just offed himself out of the blue. So basically, she has both a genetic disposition and environmental factors going against her.

I bumped into her while I was waiting for the train to get home and she was in such a sunny disposition. I remember her talking about how she puts up a happy front to people to hide what happens in her life, but I did not expect it to be that…effective. Coming from a law enforcement background, I pride myself on being able to read people, but this actually scared me since I know her deepest, darkest secrets from the group.

So that got me thinking if I am or was the same way. I know I put up a shield and a humorous front, but I also know that it’s pretty dark. Just something to ponder about, but it just goes to show that not everyone you see is “normal.”

The Attack

So I’ve been freaking out for the past week or so about my finances. As I mentioned in my last post, the student loans office figured out my little quasi-legal scam over the years and just flat out screwed me. I deserve this, don’t get me wrong; whenever I know I’m doing something wrong, I always prepare myself to face the music. I danced the line between legal and illegal, and was caught. Oh, well, move on.

But as I mentioned, finding a job is giving me an attack. I haven’t been able to make rent, and I’m so hesitant about asking my folks for help. As I mentioned, I also don’t want to go back to Shithole. So I really don’t know what to do. The whole business side of things pisses me off as well. It was never how hard you work, but who you know and how well you can kiss ass. I just work hard when I need to, but I can never kiss ass.

While I was waiting for this attack to subside, I learned a new song. Here it is. I’ve been a (5.5) lately.

Follow me on Twitter @288theabe.

So Hot

So I was able to head back home to civilization for a couple days last week; mostly to do some house hunting and settle some school stuff. Even as I was on the outskirts of Shithole, Ontario, I was feeling a little more positive. My entire mood did a 180 degree turnaround when I got to a small town called Tweed, where the women are a hell of a lot more attractive and knows how to be polite. It got even better when I was finally able to set foot back home. It was essentially night and day. Even the air had a noticeable difference to it because it was cleaner, and I just noticed that the sun doesn’t burn as much as it does in this dump. I think the ozone layer is thicker over there than it is here.

I was playing a few holes when I got back and I definitely felt the sun burning on me, compared to the past couple of days where I just felt warmth. It’s a very peculiar feeling.

So, all in all, those couple of days have been a good (2). You may be wondering why I’m saying this.

For the past couple of weeks, I was wondering if my panic attacks were attributed by the lower dosage of Cipralex I’ve been taking, and I can honestly say, it’s not: it’s just being in a shitty city where everybody’s spe-shul, and they think they’re uniquely special. I felt the calmest I’ve been in weeks for a whole two days and I came back feeling very refreshed, but now, not so much. I’m currently waiting for a co-worker to go out for a smoke so I can bum one off of her.

The Bloody Heat Wave

The heat wave here in the Northeast isn’t helping with it either. It’s been consistently humid as hell for the past few days since I got back and I feel so trapped. I can’t go anywhere because this weather brings out the anxiety; it’s almost like feeling claustrophobic again. I mentioned a few blogs ago (I’d link it like usual, but it’s been so long, I can’t even remember when I wrote it) about density, uncomfortableness, and aggression. I can’t think very well because of this heat right now, but I think it’s safe to say that aggression and anxiety are intertwined.

The Sports Drink

I had an interesting incident with the heat and anxiety attack the other day. The Ida Situation (which is a small situation compared to the other situations) sent me into an attack for some reason as I saw her at work, setting up for another banquet. Now, the air conditioning was running, but there were so many open doors that the humidity was still coming in, so I had a Powerade with me as I was doing the physical grunt work….during a small attack. It was pretty brutal, but still a lot better than other attacks I’ve faced (like this one). It wasn’t until i was mostly done with a 591ml bottle of the sports drink when I started feeling better about things. Maybe I was just dehydrated that also contributes to these things? It would also go back to the whole comfort thing and feeling good about life. Maybe I’ve just been so programmed (by myself) to default back to the anxiety and depressing stuff that I don’t even know what to feel when I’m uncomfortable. But at the same time, if the whole population density thing holds true, I should be feeling aggressive, and not going through anxiety.

I don’t know, it’s hot, people are talking around me as I’m writing, I can’t think straight. I’ve definitely felt a (5) in the past few days since I got back. I was even going through insomnia last night because of this heat, with the a/c on (it kept seeping into the house because it’s so old). I’m off work tomorrow and they’re calling for a ton of rain in the couple of days afterwards, so hopefully, I’ll be off until Friday. After that, I won’t have to work until late August when I’ll be back in this shithole.

Here’s a song I’ve been to put on. I actually heard it on the radio and enjoyed it.

Follow me on Twitter @288theabe.

Reminders

Do you know how pathetic I am?

Audience in unison: “How pathetic are you?”

I’m so pathetic, a douchelord is a better boyfriend material than me.

*canned laughter*

I must be the most pathetic human being on the planet, and yet, there are worse people, in my eyes. People who drives around in their Mercedes-Benz (which is the most overrated motor vehicle in the world, by the way), with the sunroof down, in the rain, while wearing sunglasses, cutting people off because they think they’re better than everybody else, are better than me, apparently. At least, that’s what all the women I’ve ever been interested in are implying; the latest one being Bernadette.

I woke up with my fat cat beached like a whale next to me.

So instead of nudging him off, I let him beach himself against me like said dying whale that purrs, and went on my laptop before starting out my day; even breakfast (which I haven’t been having consistently, and that’s another story). To my unprepared surprise, she wrote about spending time with King Douchelord and how much she’s enjoying it.

Huzzah! I’m worse than a douchelord! I’m worse than someone who’s arrogant as fuck, such as, not cutting people off in traffic.

I should also point out that my 27-hour-ish Cipralex relief has already worn out by now so I was flipping shit…while my cat has beached himself against me….purring no less. So in a way, this was my cat’s fault as well. But I can never get mad at him because he’s just a giant suck. And he’s just a cat. A Bobo Cat.

(Psychology note: Not to be confused with a Bobo Doll.)

This seems to be a theme in my life.

The Panic & Depressing Employment

For the first time in my life, I called in sick for work due to mental illness because it got so bad (6.5), and second time in 6 years or so. I took my pill and I tried doing a bit of retail therapy without the buying, and that didn’t really help. I drove around for a bit, and then went into work to see if they needed me for tonight’s banquet shift. I felt so bad telling them I can’t work tonight, but they didn’t seem to panic like I was inside my head, so I was okay with that. I just hate calling in sick when a team needs me though. It feels like such a cop out, but I can’t concentrate and do my job. I’m wondering if I would be able to do my job, since I pulled off a shift last spring when a panic attack occurred, and it just disappeared at the tail end of my night. So, I’m not sure.

I used to work with a supervisor who claimed to be suffering from depression, too. Now, I say, “claimed” because he was really withdrawn to the point where he was such an asshole (surprisingly, more so than your average Torontonian) and I wasn’t able to trust him to have my back if that were to happen. He would also call in sick repeatedly and leave us short-handed and picking up after his responsibilities. It felt really lazy of him since all we did was nothing but drive around all day (or parked somewhere with a laptop), and do some random patrols in a really nice luxury car. Hell, we could’ve sat around a coffee shop all day, or slept in the cars, and the bosses wouldn’t know.

He pissed me off because of these things. I did not like him at all, even from one mental health sufferer to another, if  he was indeed one. Personally, I’ve always used my anxiety as fuel for dangerous situations; I think it keeps you on your feet from an evolutionary standpoint. In other words, Yoda was wrong…sort of. So with all that said, I just don’t want to be that guy in the workplace, especially when free golf is on the line. (Another problem to work on, my addictions, but one at a time.)

So, nothing like a day of being snapped back to reality and reminded of being a pathetic lowlife on life’s totem pole. Here’s a quasi-random song. Quasi since it’s from a random playlist and it does have some kind of meaning, I guess.

Follow me on Twitter @288theabe.

 

Attacks

Isn’t waking up in full depression and anxiety fun? Yeah, you’re right, it’s not, it’s a hell of a whore.

I woke up this morning, realized that I needed to go to work for the first time in a year, and the fact that I was still stuck in this shithole. The fact that I have to work to someone else’s time will take some getting used to, but it’s at the golf course and I’ve already played 6 rounds for free because I’m on the payroll. I must’ve been feeling a (5.5) already at this time. Before I physically got up, I was checking my phone and ended up talking to Bernadette. Somehow, we got to this point where I think I found out she’s talking to another guy that she seems to be interested in now, who’s either in or from the same shithole I’m currently in. I looked him up on her friend’s list (yeah, this is why people say facebook is evil) and he looks like a total tool. He’s got this stupid South American moustache with his gel-slicked hair, striking some “tough” pose.

Is that what really passes for attraction nowadays? Some fucked up cocaine gangster wanna-be ass-clown? So how horrible am I as a person if she’s interested in…that?

I mentioned to her when she rejected me back in February that I don’t want to hear about how some other guy is better than me, and that’s the impression I got when she told me: She just shut the hell up as if she shouldn’t’ve said it. At least, that was what was going on in my fucked up little mind at the time. By that point, I was jacked up to a (7); highest I’ve been in a while, and I’ve been averaging a (3) for the past couple of days.

Granted, this is all in my head as I’m having this attack, but this is usually exactly what happens to me. I’m always left in the dust for someone better than me, and it pisses me off to no avail when it’s some fucking douche who thinks he’s all big and bad when he’s actually some two-bit coward inside. Trust me, I know, I’ve physically stood my ground against many Torontonians and they’re all fucking pussies when they don’t have their friends or guns or knives with them.

Fuck.

What a fucking dick and kick in the fucking nuts.

Oddly enough, I’m not even at a (7) right now; more like a (5) as I’m writing this.

I’m done. Here’s a song about all the fake hypocritical douchebags in this pathetic excuse for a shithole city.

Mental Nutrition

Bernadette sent me this the other day. Yes, I still talk to her. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Yeah, I know, beefcake! A beefcake talking about science too! lol I’m not sure how accurate it is, but it sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, especially with the protein bit. I took a first-year biotechnology course which also talked about genetics and genetic sequencing, and that stuff kinda makes sense to me. I would’ve never thought what you eat would affect your mood in that way. I mean, I know that it affects mood, but not in a direct neurological sense like that. I’ve always thought that, say, after polishing off an entire pizza pie, you would feel lethargic because of all the carbs…and the fact that it’s an entire pizza sitting in your stomach. I thought it would have that kind of effect on your physiological chemistry. But to have these “good proteins” (which, I’m still not too sure what exactly that would be) in you would affect your serotonin and dopamine levels…hmmmm….I’m not sure on that, but it does sound plausible. I would check with someone I knew, but she’s a self-absorbed torontonian now, and would probably be too good for a question like this.

The Bernadette Situation

As I said before, I still talk to her, and she’s pretty much the cause of my issues today. It’s mostly my fault and my stupid, obsessional thoughts though. We hadn’t really talked much today so my immediate thought was that there’s someone else. Oh, yay. Hey, if it’s the norm of what happens, that’s my automatic thought. Turns out it wasn’t, and we talked for a bit, nothing major. I told her how I was feeling in a vague kind of way, and she said that I should cook for her again. The screwball came afterwards. Before she went off to bed, she said that she needs to put me in touch with someone and then logged off. What the hell does that mean?!?!?!? Is she setting me up with someone or…? It could just be me and my old training, but I don’t like these kinds of mysteries with people. Animals, situations, yes, people, no. People are unpredictable, and I don’t like that. I like to have all available information to predict what’s going on in life. And this is before I need to get to sleep too, so now I have this goddamn thing to obsess over. Another night of insomnia? I think so! Son a bitch…!

I’s tres annoyed. Random song. And this shit really isn’t my idea. Not sure why anybody would think it would be a good idea….

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Cipralex and Me

So I realized that it’s been over a year since I started on the Cipralex. October 13th, and it’s almost November. It hasn’t been too bad since the new year, definitely better than years past, and way better than when I was trying to get on it. That was brutal. Back in June, I wrote a Dummies’ Guide to Cipralex for those who are thinking of getting on the pill. There’s also the latest research that shows how they think Cipralex works, and it doesn’t look like it has much to do with the serotonin now. At least, that’s what my very amateur, very not-graduate eyes are looking at it. But all in all, I don’t regret taking it. It was incredibly rough in the beginning, but so worth it after a couple of months. I do recommend people who are thinking of going on it to get on it and prepare for a hell of a ride because the light at the end of the tunnel is much better than being stuck in the darkness. The one thing I do still have an issue with is my focus on my readings, but that could be because legal philosophy is so…bleeding….dry. Overall though, I have a better focus in everything and I can think much clearer now. Not 100% yet, but getting there and it’s better than being at zero percent.

The Recent

Keeping on the theme of the pill, I had an interesting reaction to it in the past couple of days. Lately, I haven’t been eating on time, and missing on meals like breakfast. On Monday, I came home from class, felt really weak, dazed, and relatively confused. One of the small side effects I’ve noticed about the Cipralex is that my teeth feel really sensitive sometimes. I can’t remember what exactly triggers it, but it definitely has some kind of trigger, and I’ll feel the anxiety. I always took the teeth sensation as a sign that the Cipralex was kicking in and doing its job. Before I started doing anything when I got through the door that night, I immediately nuked a couple of pizza pockets and chowed it down before they had a chance to cool. Within 15 minutes, I felt good enough to start on my actual dinner. Last night was the same thing. I’m also starting to think that these are diabetic, low-blood sugar attacks, but I’ve never had these sensations before so I wouldn’t know. It definitely felt like the same confusion diabetics look like they’re going through, and believe me, I’ve first-responded to enough to know. So that’s the weird bit. I haven’t had any attacks today, but I also had a couple of burgers and fries for lunch, and took a nap before class. Not sure if the nap slowed down the digestion or not, but I feel pretty fine when I got back. I also had breakfast and lunch today, and went six hours between that and dinner. Yesterday, I had breakfast, lunch, and only 5 hours between lunch and dinner. If anything, I had more to eat on Tuesday than I did tonight. Maybe it was the food itself because I did have a lot of white rice? I’m not sure, I’m not anywhere near educated enough in the field, but the bread the burgers had was also white. My guess would be the nap.

The Ankle

I didn’t give an update on my ankle in the last blog. It’s going way too slowly. I’ve been able to go about in my house without the use of my soft brace, but I’m still not confident enough to go brace-less outside, so I use my hard one. I really like that one a lot. It’s got two soft splints on either side which stabilizes the ankle, and lets me take baby steps to recover from rough terrain. That’s good because I’ve had a few close calls since. I’ve been given the green light to run softly for a bit. Another one of those “stop if there’s pain” things. Skating wise, it hasn’t been a problem what so ever, so I’m hoping to improve on that. So…I’m clear to start working out again.

The Something

I’m so tired, I can’t think of any sectional title for this bit. I’ve been really tired since Saturday, and I’m not sure why. I can’t seem to focus much either. I’ve been on a tear that ended Friday so maybe I just pushed myself a little too hard. I want to take a night off but there’s just so much to do that I can’t seem to shut myself down to reboot. I’m not sure if it’s the fatigue and stress, but I’ve also been feeling kinda lonely lately. The chick I mentioned a few months ago is back in the picture. She’s just been really flirty lately and today was the first time in a while where we didn’t talk. I started reading through some of our conversations in the past couple of days and it’s obviously all in my head. That has helped a bit. And I actually slept before continuing on writing this sentence so my thinking is so much more clearer now.

The Group

So group therapy is starting to get a bit more interesting. Practically nobody has been showing up lately and the Doc is getting worried about it. Personally, I’m not: I still got my counsellor and him to fall back on so whatever. lol But he seems hellbent on having a group though, it’s kinda creepy. It’s an interesting thing because I’ve never thought about having an incomplete group and what would happen. I always pictured it as a thing where everybody shows up and that’s hardly an issue. I think I’ve also been getting better at opening up, too. I’ve been talking about….oh, let’s give her a name….uh….Bernadette. No one uses that name anymore, do they? Last time in group, I wasn’t be able to do that because I felt like I was being judged, but now, I force myself to do it, no matter how uncomfortable I get. So I guess this has been better for me, we’ll see some more.

The Stats

Yes, I know, it’s the end of October, and I should really be doing my stats, but…is it really worth it? I can take a very estimated number and plug that into the equation, but I don’t feel that it’ll be very accurate. Instead, I think I’m going to take the month of October very lightly, and only use the average number as a comparison to the other coming months, and a total average for the 12 months I’ll be doing this. It’s a bit of an asterisk, much like how baseball’s steroids use makes it a “sport.”

Here’s a really random song because I don’t listen to Them that often.

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