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A big win :)

DATE: Aug 26 2008, 2:15 pm / MOOD: Other

Last saturday there was a special festival day in Reykjavik with over 400 events all over town, too often I have done nothing this day and let it pass, I was so sick of it so I went and did something and I´m pretty damn happy about it :) I went to a huge concert that went on for almost four hours, so many things I worried about so it was quite the victory for me :) the tv stations were there, lot´s of people making documentaries, i could have been forced into interview live, I worried and obsessed about my looks, worried about drunken teenagers, other people, being seen in the media or in a documentary and so many other stuff but I enjoyed it all the same. I then walked on the streets with tens of thousands of people, so fun and we all went to the harbour to watch the fireworks. I didn´t have anyone to go with me so I just went alone and I was very close to the stage :) I am a little paranoid I think, I always expect people and especially teenagers to harass me but that didn´t happen and never does really but every time I go outside I am thinking about my head, face and expecting this, it was hard to go to this concert.

But now I have a new attitude, it´s better to live and have bad things happen to you than to let fear hold you in prison and not live at all. There is nothing as bad as looking back and seeing nothing, no life.

I appeared in pictures in the newspapers and in the tv news and it was so strange to look at myself and I just said Oh God :/ but then I looked at it several times and it wasn´t so bad, I think I judge myself so hard and see something others don´t but it doesn´t bother me so much now that I was filmed and photographed.

Just before the concert I was obsessing about my head and spent some time infront of the mirror and didn´t get any happier with my looks, never am but I just said Oh f@ck it and walked out the door :)

And I enjoyed the concert but now for the first time in a long time I felt the longing to share my joy with someone else, I would have wanted someone with me, that´s a change.

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A big win :)

DATE: Aug 26 2008, 11:01 am / MOOD: Other

And I enjoyed the concert but now for the first time in a long time I felt the longing to share my joy with someone else, I would have wanted someone with me, that´s a change.

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therapy

DATE: Jul 12 2008, 12:51 pm / MOOD: Fearful

Well, let´s see if I remember the last session, hmm. I told her I was having a bad time, I was sad, anxious, unsatisfied, reasons being that I am expecting the dentist to call me for a check up, my sister and her daughters are coming from Sweden and I was sitting inside in anxiety waiting to be shocked by the doorbell. I told her about my experience with the dentist who had drilled me last two times without being able to numb me, she told me to get another one and I will if this happens again and will complain which I didn´t the last time. She wants me to call him and go for the check up instead of waiting anxiously for the call. She adviced me to invite my relatives to visit and offer them something from the bakery, "you have to do something for others sometimes you know" that´s what she said, I´m not gonna do that, I just don´t know how to act in such visits. She told me I was full of selfhate, was my worst critic by far which I see now is true. She gave me a whole seminar folder about low selfesteem. I was having a hard time with my hair, on the verge of not being able to leave my home. She took a look and told me nothing was wrong with it, it´s not vanity, it´s this BDD thing. Told me I looked normal but no matter how many times I hear that I always think the opposite. I told her I often went over the past and checked that I had experience and had done things people normally do, she asked why, I said just to feel like I´m normal, she said you do alot of things that are normal and pointed out things like living alone, showering, cooking... I was meaning social life, work, relationships. I said I had such a big head hehe, like 2-3 times larger than others, she then told me Einstein had a very big head and was thought to be retarded when young. I told her that some professionals thought that about me when I was 2 years old, she didn´t say much about that, she did say that all the pain and neglect from when I came into this world till I was 5 years old caused extreme damage to me, we all hear how important those first years are. I think that era changed me so all the other things came because of that and caused a chain reaction, not lucky with parents. She said she knew she was causing me anxiety, we wouldn´t be doing some drastic changes with each session, but what we had to do was push myself one step farther then I dare. We are gonna get an appointment with the skin doctor, the exem has been good for over three months now, the bleeding I spoke of was just two times, not a big deal. She complemented me how well I was doing in this therapy. She also said meds don´t do very much, I feel anxiety and everything strongly although I am on 5 different meds. Of course meds just diminish symptoms, don´t take them away, she said I just have to face my anxiety, exposure therapy. I think I would be alot worse though if I had not these meds. She said "we have to make you more disciplined", so have a routine, eat, sleep at the right times and do something, more movement. And she mentioned, "well you went to the nature concert, that´s normal". She went over what we have overcome in these months and yes we have had big victories. I can go outside, to the movies, to concerts, my exem is almost gone, my worst ocd is gone, many other ocds are gone, I can go to coffeehouses, take the bus and more. She told me that often roleplay is used in psychology and we would be doing that soon, good practice for the real thing, I said I was anxious going out for dinner with the whole family and order from the waitor, she stood up and wrote down food I was supposed to order and it took me a couple of minutes to say something, I just locked, was the weirdest thing but I managed to order from her lol.

Call the dentist, make an appointment.

Go after the directions for the exem exactly, don´t check it.

Have breakfast.

Wake up in the morning between 10-12.

Eat regularly.

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Therapy session, my bad exem and hydradenitis

DATE: Jul 03 2008, 10:02 pm / MOOD: Sad

Finally spoke with my psychologist. It went well. It was wednesday like usual. I told her about my difficulty with responding to criticism and she gave me a paper she translated where I can learn to handle people who critizise me. That was missing, I just have to train myself. I read it aloud into my computer cause reading and remembering is hard for me so I will listen to it alot and really master this. We talked about age, I said I felt so old and how I was to old for rock concerts and to live things I´ve missed. She is over fifty and she told me she went to Rammstein concerts, that kind of concerts and that she went to the sliding track in the local pool, she still did "young" things so I wasn´t old and could do the same, not like I pee myself or have to use a walker, that made me feel better, I still have time to have "young" experiences. She also went to Metallica :) She´s really into this, I really like that. She asked me about my exem and the Hydradenitis, I said it was no problem anymore.

Some small homework:

Stop the compulsion of touching you both sides of your body.

Don´t stare at the door when you have closed them (before sleep, I do that cause it´s so important for me that they are closed, I go over them over and over)

I got the time table, the CBT forms as usual.

Then after the interview the exem I have flared up, I´m bleeding and also the other disease Hydradenitis is flaring up. It has hit me pretty hard, I wrote about it for my therapist. So I went into deep depression for a while, I was broken, dealing with this is so hard. I´m also thinking about this alot now and if I can get infections and stuff, been worrying about that. The exem had been okay for three months and then it´s just come back, also I spend most of my time alone so I have alot of time to think this ove and over. I´m trying to cheer me up but it´s hard. I was thinking even of starting drinking but then I thought it would only be even worse. I have to admit I am having a very hard time with this in addition to all the other sh*t and I´m very angry this is happening to me again and again. I have to wait many days till I can talk about this with my therapist. I feel very alone, thinking about some serious stuff. I´m trying to stay positive and strong, do what I usually do, to choose that makes this a little easier. This battle never ends, I´ve had enough.

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Victory

DATE: Jul 01 2008, 10:34 am / MOOD: Other

So I had decided to go to a concert, my family is overseas, those who speak to me and my cousin who was gonna go with me couldn´t go so I decided, well I´m still going, alone. The concert had various artists but the biggest were Sigurros and Bjork.

It was totally awesome to hear and see Sigurros :) I went there early, walked a long way from home and sat there before the stage, cameras everywhere, people being interviewed by the television network right next to me, surrounded by people, sat there for over an hour and then everyone stood up, I was close to the stage, had my camera, after a while Sigurros came on stage and they are just breathtaking, amazes me just how good they are. After them came Bjork, never really digged her but now I did and she is so joyful and charesmatic. Stood there for 5 hours. I could hardly walk after the concert lol. Don´t know how many thousands were there. My pictures aren´t really good enough, my old camera is bad and stupid me forgot to zoom in on Sigurros and that really bugs me but hey no need to focus on one bad thing amongst 100 good ones.

So I walked a long way in the sun, sat alone amongst so many people for an hour, also when the tv was interviewing people a few meters away, I had an answer if they would come to me but thankfully they didn´t come to my area, stood in the same place for five hours, there were flies and I just ignored them, on the way I had my ipod which I was afraid of cause then I couldn´t hear the wasps but that became easy, I took 78 pictures and videos. We sang a little. On the way home I saw how many had been there, thousands and thousands, although my pics won´t show it I was very close to the stage, I almost catched Sigurros´s drumsticks, was like one meter away from that :/

So all this were problems a very short time ago, somehow I did this pretty easily, I can´t believe it, just hope I can keep it up :)

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my doc about memory

DATE: Jun 25 2008, 5:46 pm / MOOD: Other

So I talked to my psychiatrist about my memory problem, this is what he told me:

The reason is anxiety, it´s part of your illness. You could better it by diminishing your anxiety. Go for walks, do relaxation techniques, avoid too much caffeine, don´t drink more than two cups of coffee a day-that can sharpen you but more than that increases your anxiety and makes your concentration and memory worse. This is quite common with mentally ill people. Although you don´t feel the anxiety it´s still there. Gingko beloba is just like having two cups of coffee.

And then about my fear of being attacked or ridiculed in public by strangers: Just run away, don´t let that stop you from going out, that´s going way too far. It isn´t any more likely that it will happen to you than anybody else.

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Therapy session then four weeks break

DATE: Jun 06 2008, 11:06 pm / MOOD: Mellow

This time my psychologist spent 1 and a half hour with me. She tests me from time to time but now she had more for me to fill out, she got me coffee. Maybe cause she is going on vacation for four weeks. It´s gonna be a little weird not talking to her for a month. She went over the results, I´m very depressed and anxious, stressful according to the tests. I told her about a test I did in hospital 6 years ago which tested intelligence and that I got 130 on that and had 57 out of 60 right, she said it wasn´t dependable, just said I had a good ability to reason, that was thing that was being tested. She also told me I had good insight and complimented me and said we had made much progress. I was talking about intelligence, she said it was in my files that I had an IQ slightly above average so that made me feel better cause I thought I might be retarded hehe. That was because I have a very bad memory, can´t remember a thing, sometimes my mind just goes blank, not good in conversation. But yeah she said it was just the anxiety in me that is and has been causing this and I´ve been this way for many years. What I wrote she went over and discussed with me, amongst other things I said that when I saw a happy pretty couple, especially if the girl was hot I would get upset, angry, envious and thought I will never have this, no girl could ever be interested in me, she begged to differ and said that if I thought right about myself and was positive, confident, funny and I could be that it could happen. She told me I could feel alot better mentally if I changed my diet, ate regularly, had breakfast which I haven´t been doing. She wants me to have a routine I stick to every day. Told me to read the papers she gave me about extreme anxiety, I just protected me from it like so much else because it´s not in my comfort zone, I have to read it and go through it. Have to go out of my comfort zone. She told me to take someone with me shopping for clothes who could hold me in the store and tell me if the garment fitted and looked good on me cause I´ve been having trouble with this for many years, I just need to get out of the store five minutes after my arrival. Told me I was very able to learn which I doubted, to go out and see more people and do fun stuff, like go to a concert and to the movies. She told me to stay in the now, stop living in the past, feeling sorry for myself and thinking my life is over and the future is bleak, which I am guilty of. Also I´m supposed to use the Mindfulness technique. I said I feel so old, I missed so much because of the violence and my mental illness, then she said "You´re talking like you´re 90 years old, your life isn´t over". You are what you think she said, it determines what you feel and do. Now both my psychiatrist and my psychologist are on vacation this whole month. The following was to be done before today June the fourth: Write. Did that. Wake up að eleven in the morning. Far from doing that. When I go to sleep, lay in bed with my legs apart; Since I saw the new exorcist movie I have had to cross my legs to prevent evil spirits attacking me lol, I also felt like if I didn´t do this a saw would cut me in half, of course I know this is nonsense but I´ve felt like that, so I´m supposed to let the anxiety come and skip doings this. Did that. When you feel the anger, notice the feeling. Don´t judge the feeling, don´t try to change it. Look at it, examine it and notice where it is and how it describes it self and notice your thoughts. Did not do that, not all of this. Go to a movie. Did that. Visit. Didn´t do that. Take the bus. Did that. Now for this month: Wake up at 11 o´clock in the morning. Change my diet. Take someone with me to buy clothes. Live in the moment.

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The earthquake

DATE: Jun 01 2008, 6:38 pm / MOOD: Anxious

The last few days:

Wednesday: Saw my therapist, we talked mainly about my family, about my anger towards them for not caring about me all those years I spent in isolation at home with my mom. She was surprised my mom never tried to do a thing for me but tried to understand the others but I think this is inexcusable, I am so angry. She went through a muscle tension relax method with me cause I have very tense muscles in my legs cause of the anxiety. Then I took the bus which is easy now. She told me to get out of the house and do something so I wouldn´t have so much time to think about my problems negatively. So I went to the movies, just alone, then after the movie I decided to go to another one right away and I walked up the busiest street in the city, not a big problem now and hope it continues. Harold and Kumar sucked but 21 was great. I had some fun, nice to get out of the house.

Thursday: Woke up, went into the kitchen to have breakfast and suddenly the house starts shaking and swaying, I knew this one was big. I was lucky I was in the capital. In Selfoss some houses are ruined. In the wine store every bottle had smashed and luckily nobody was in there, in the milk factory many tons work machines gave and tumbled but the workers were in a coffeebreak so they could have been killed, roads opened up, enormous rocks fell from the mountains and that´s why there is dust in the videos, they rolled over the roads and took them apart and luckily nobody was hit, we have a new hot spring after the quake and it erupts, many are mentally done in and need post trauma help some serious cases there, a few broken bones but no fatality, some have lost everything they had. The european and american flakes meet in Iceland, near Selfoss and when tension builds there the quakes are always pretty big. It´s amazing how well we came out of this. The quake was 6.1 on the Richter scale but only 2 km deep so that made him strong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc_g6XiGwTM

Well, after the quake I met with the nurse, we went walking, my cousin who was in the ward (she´s home now and is feeling fine) came to visit me. She was scared and frightened that a big earthquake would come and kill her even though she was in Reykjavík but I managed to calm her down.

Since Friday I have done nothing, yesterday I was sick and now I woke up in the evening again like friday and too late to do something. I have so much anxiety and tension in my body it´s hard to sit down and read, concentrate, I must start to do these exercises from the therapist, I´ll put them in soon but now I´m pretty tired after writing this, gonna relax, do the exercises and maybe then if it works I´ll write more. Man I hate being like this, I can´t stop shaking my leg most of the day.

This week, before june 4th:

Write.

Wake up að eleven in the morning.

When I go to sleep, lay in bed with my legs apart; Since I saw the new exorcist movie I have had to cross my legs to prevent evil spirits attacking me lol, I also felt like if I didn´t do this a saw would cut me in half, of course I know this is nonsense but I´ve felt like that, so I´m supposed to let the anxiety come and skip doings this.

When you feel the anger, notice the feeling. Don´t judge the feeling, don´t try to change it. Look at it, examine it and notice where it is and how it describes it self and notice your thoughts.

Go to a movie.

Visit.

Take the bus.

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Underwear

DATE: May 26 2008, 7:24 pm / MOOD: Tired

Last wednesday I as usual went to see my therapist. We talked about how my whole family did not ever try to help me or even ask me if everything was okay for those years between 16 and 24 which I spent frozen in isolation with mom, I guess all the sh*t that I had been through finally got to me, she tried to defend them a little bit and that made me angry, I don´t think they can be excused, I´m full with anger towards my family, I rarely let it out, my doors are ruined, I felt bad then plus the anger added to it. But she said at least that she wasn´t saying what they did was right. I went home and wrote a lot about my family, felt the anger and had a hard time calming down. I can´t remember more from the session.

The same day Man Utd were playing in the Champions league final, I watched it alone but that was fine with me. I managed to calm down before the game and really enjoyed it. I was like a kengerue on acid just hopping around and letting out a scream now and then or in the fetus position in the sofa peeking through my fingers, I´m actually surprised nobody called the police. I was so happy when Van der saar defended the shot from Anelka I was like the players themselves and I actually cried tears of joy lol. Now I can make my nephews life a living hell for a whole year :) He´s a Liverpool fan, big mistake. No just joking, I won´t bragg, don´t have to.

Then I phoned my aunt which I deeply care about, her husband answered and told me he was taking her yet again to the mental ward, I immediately thought she would try to kill herself cause she has tried numerous times and always in the ward but luckily she is feeling better everyday and assured me she wasn´t going to do something stupid. I´m going to see her soon, of course I´m nervous going in there where I was myself, some of the people there now I know a little. It´s mainly because I´m insecure of how I look, I just see this monster and expect everyone to laugh at me.

And just now I went to the grocery store, as I was leaving I saw a man in nothing but he´s underwear walking to the busstop, I kinda felt nothing and did nothing, just stared and thought this isn´t gonna be good. Sure enough he made his way to downtown busstop and tried to enter, a few men, busdrivers stopped him and tried to talk to him I think but almost everyone was laughing or smiling not realising there was nothing funny about this, the man seriously sick. Then came students drinking after their exams and met him and laughed their brains out and took him with them and didn´t leave him alone, he then ended up standing beside me when I was paying for my groceries. I was just frozen, I don´t know why I didn´t do anything and I really regret that now and I´m dissapointed in myself. For a moment I almost smiled like the others, I´m ashamed of myself. Maybe I just felt too bad and insecure to do anything, just makes me sad people react like this. I was convinced those boys would laugh at me too when they saw me but they didn´t. I just wish I would have done something for him. He was not drunk, so he must have been high on drugs, maybe mentally ill otherwise. I will talk about this next wednesday with the therapist.

Last session she told me to try to stop having my leg constantly moving, then and since then I´ve been nervous and my leg has been shaking, when I stop I need to start moving him again. She had me closing my eyes, relax my body and tell her what I felt and thought, I told her I had intense tension in my legs and anxiety feeling in my chest and down. So I was to stop moving the leg but I haven´t. I´ve been so full of these feelings I have been too exhausted to write or even sit infront of the computer. Haven´t had a full blown panic attack though so, and surely things could be a lot worse.

Today I slept till 4 o´clock in the afternoon and missed my assistant who is supposed to take me somewhere or just walk with me since I´m so socially isolated still. Can´t control my sleep.

My blood tests showed all was okay, don´t know why but I expected and prepared myself for the worst kind of news but no reason for that, that´s health anxiety she says.

And I got a letter from the city that I rent from, they are going through all the house. Putting in new plumbings, taking the bathrooms and completely renewing them and other stuff. I am supposed to attend a meeting with my neighbours and the city in the end of the summer and then they are making me move out in the fall, my therapist says don´t worry about this, it´s months from now, of course she´s right and I don´t worry now. I am gonna ask them for a bigger apartment in another neighbourhood and to stay there if I like it.

Last week´s assignments, supposed to be done before the 28th:

Don´t check the doors after you get into bed, successful.

Go and have your blood examined, done that, I was pretty nervous doing this, always thinking what if I say something weird or wrong? What should I say? Or, what if I do something stupid? But it went well, no problem.

Buy 2l of Pepsi this week and no more, almost, drank 3-4 liters, switching to water and a little coffee :)

The hygiene ocd, get it under control, skip the rituals and doing things too often, this one is tough, I´m slowly getting there, almost rid of this.

This week:

Write situations, feelings, thoughts, what I do all day. Been writing more.

Take the bus, did that

Watch my surroundings, the people, had a hard time with that sometimes.

Don´t check the stove, almost did that

Take care of me, don´t let me go, done that, stopped skipping showers if I´m depressed, just jump in and don´t give me a chance to cancel.

Don´t check the doors after you get into bed, successful.

See my aunt, will tomorrow.

Stop a hygiene ritual, haven´t been able to do that.

Go to the bank and get a creditcard, did that.

Drink 2l of coke, not more, did that and I mostly drink water now and for the first time ever I like it.

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Panic attacks

DATE: May 19 2008, 10:16 am / MOOD: Anxious

Had a panic attack last night. I was going to sleep and I started having some crazy thoughts while in bed, maybe that triggered it. Yeah expected someone to kick down my door and slit my throat. I have to cross my legs so I don´t feel like some evil spirits will attack me. When I lay on my side I couldn´t stop thinking that some monster creature hand would come up under the bed and grab my face and suffocating me. I almost felt it happen because I almost expected that to happen, it´s hard to explain. I sat up when I hadn´d been able to breathe well for a while, I did what I always do and sat in the sofa but that didn´t help, I felt a huge weight when walking like I was carrying something that weighed 30 kg. Went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, my eyes were almost completely red. Went back to bed, couldn´t lay down for long, sat up until I was so sleepy and exhausted I just fell asleep. All this time I periodically felt like I was dying.

I´m having these panic attacks now regularly and am a little worried about that. Starting to think maybe this isn´t panic attacks, rather some bad effects from my meds cause they all happen shortly after I take them. What I had usually done to soften this was telling myself this wasn´t killing me, was not dangerous but that didn´t work now.

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