getting information

Today an intern of myself (from work) told me something interesting: she was doing a semester/term of her studies in a foreign country. The lectures have been in the language of that country but the literature was in English* and the exams were in English as well so that she could take part.

But the problem was that she did not know on what parts of the literature she had to focus because she could not take part in the lectures. And this was the same situation for me when I was studying. I could not take part in the lectures because they were loud and crowded so if I hadn't had to take part** I didn't because I didn't gain any knowledge from the lectures anyways. So I had just the literature - lots of literature, with no idea on what I had to focus and where to start learning.

The problem was enhanced by the fact that we hadn't regular tests but just very big exams in the middle and at the end of the studies. So I just learned twice, ever. And though I would get crazzy while trying to do you, because all this information where just too much.

Luckly this is done now. But unfortunatly the problem that I don't know on what I have to focus to get the information I need still exists. I don't know where to get my information. And because I don't know I'm really unmotivated to (try to) learn what I actually would want to learn under other circumstances. (There are some other problems though).

*wish is a second language to us, but we are used to it in the studies in our country as well because a lot of the literature here is also in English.
 ** Of course there have been some lectures where I had to take part because it was forced. But I didn't learn from it.

Gummi bears for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

It is so difficult to organize every days living. "Normally" I have muesli/cereal for breakfast and either rice or bread for lunch and then bread again for dinner.

But sometimes I get confused and me and my routine get separated. Or I'm just too tired to have breakfast before I go to work. Then I just prepare a bread for the lunch-break and leave my apartment without breakfast. Maybe I grab some gummi bears, maybe not. Then I have the bread at the lunch-break at work and for dinner it depends again on my motivation. If I'm motivated and not too stressed from work I make another bread. But if I'm too stressed or too tired I just distract myself until I'm really hungry and then I have gummi bears because that is the fastest way to get some energy.

On weekends it is sometimes even worse. On some days I need till 3p.m. to start eating, and I don't know what happens to this time... often I don't eat but go to sleep instead, because I feel so out-of-energy (but not hungry). And even if I'm hungry I'm not really motivated to eat. I have no appetite. It's like brushing teeth. It's necessary and I know it, but nobody likes brushing teeth.

So at the weekends it is often even worse because there is no lunch break where I "have" to bring (or buy, I choose bringing) some food. So I can stick to gummi bears if I want to. (Of course I could bring gummi bears to the lunch break at work, but I know that this would not be appropriate.)

I don't feel good with this. But it is so difficult to change something.

Stressed and tired.

Sorry, I haven't written anything the last few days. Christmas and New Years have somehow been stressful for me (not the kind of stress were you have to do a lot of things... a different kind of stress, but still stressful) and now I'm back at work and just very tired.

And I'm not too happy about my last entry so I want to edit that before I write something new. But I can't motivate myself.

At least I wrote an e-mail to a doctor yesterday and asked for an appointment. The office is closed until Monday, but I hope that I will get an appointment then.

I have to go to the gynaecologist as well, because I got the blood-values another doctor took and a lot of them are a bit too low and he now wants me to go there to check for internal bleeding. I don't want to go. I hate going to gynaecologists. I went there only 3 times in my life, 2 time because of my back-pain and once after someone did something with me I don't want to describe.

I can't really motivate myself for working as well. I write or read half a sentence (if that) or do one out of ten necessary mouse-clicks and then my attention goes somewhere else and until I notice the shift of my attention some time passes on. Then I have to remember what I was doing, catch my attention and try to pass on but the attention flies away so easily.

I don't know why this is the case... of course the pain distracts me very much. But it's not only that. I'm also very tired. And there are so many other things to thing about.

Thank you for reading.

"Saturated loneliness"*

*"And I wish there was something
Please tell me there's something better
And I wish there was something more than this
Saturated loneliness" 
KoRn - Tearjerker

I can relate to these lines of the song "Tearjerker" from the Band Korn quite much.

Until the age of 16/17 I've had no friends. Not only no friends, I didn't know a lot of other people. Barley any.

Then I found the internet and there I met someone (on a political board) with whom I became very good friends over time. We wrote very many e-mails, hundreds of e-mails. Personal e-mails of course, and about politics and philosophy aswell. 

The internet and especially those e-mails have been my first touch to an outside world.

I printed some parts of the mails out and read them over and over again. Nothing has been more important to me. It is no exaggeration to say that hose e-mails kept me alive for a few years. I'm quite sure that without them I'd given up... completely.

This is blurry intentionally because it is an e-mail to me
and not to other persons: One of the pages I kept in
my pocket and read thousands of times.

Yet... after several years of knowing this friend and all the trouble we've gone through* I still feel lonely. Sometimes very lonely. Sometimes I feel very lonely and it is OK for me, but other times it isn't. 

Then I wish I could open up a bit more. Express my thoughts, explain myself. Tell what I'm thinking, and why. Explain why I am the person I am. And who I am. If I only could answer these questions myself. I don't know a lot about myself. But even if I don't know this, there are still so many thinks I know but can't tell. For some things I'm not brave enough, others are simply inexpressible.

I think one of these reasons connects to each other (not knowing who I am, inexpressible thoughts, being not brave enough to tell the things I know about me).

E.G. I was nearly 2 years in psychiatry. My friend knows this (of course, he knew me, while I was in psychiatry), I don't hide this information in internet (boards etc.), but at work no one knows. I'm not brave enough to tell this. They would make fun off me (and maybe not only this). I'm not brave enough to tell it a friend from work aswell. Because I don't want to be a freak. Maybe, if I knew who I am and if I were self-confident, I could tell everybody and it wouldn't have such a negative touch.

Other things I can't tell because I'm not brave enough are things I've done to myself. Like self-injury or eating-problems. (I'm judged for this again and again by my mother.) Or diagnoses I got (but I don't think that this is that important).

What might be more important to me are the inexpressible things. I would like to express them so much, but I don't know HOW. So I will for ever be loneli. Even if I'd be brave some day.

Thank you for reading!

* this would need a lot more explanation which I can not give in just a few lines... I tried.

Speaking, writing, expressing myself

I have so many thoughts going on in my head like crazy and can't stop thinking. But I somehow can't express these thoughts (with) writing or talking - I wish I could.
Some of these thoughts disappear when I try to put them into words in my mind.
Others disappear (and leave big hole of emptiness) when I try to write them down or to speak about them.
Others are still in my head when I try to write them down or speak about them, but the connection to my fingers or to my tongue seems to be disrupted so I can't express them.

I wish I could give more inside into my head or someone could read my thoughts.

This is also true for my doctor. I wish I could tell him more or let him read my thoughts.
Some days ago I received a letter* in which he says that I'm well adjusted to my medication, that a new medication I'm talking is working and that my pain decreased. All that is not true.** I don't know if he just write whatever he want to write or if he has totally misunderstood me. I have no idea, though, how he can come to the conclusion, that my pain decreased. Of course it is bad for me, if he thinks I'm well, because that means, I won't receive any further treatment (don't want to talk about help).

I wish some people could look into my head. If it weren't for understanding me, than just for information purposes.

Thank you for reading!

* I received that letter from another doctor. I it is a letter my pain-doctor wrote to that other doctor and that other doctor send that letter to me.
** There is more in that letter which is clearly false, but those are the most important points.

Guilt

I recently noticed that I feel guilty for pretty much everything. (Not everything, but A LOT of things.)

My friend reminded me that this I have improved over the last few years, because a few years ago I would feel guilty for preferring the false kind of yogurt or something like that. I wonder, though, if I really feel less guilty now of if I can just cope better with the guilt.

Today for example I have not been at work and I feel very guilty for this. I have taken holidays, though. And I have a certificate from my doctor, that I'm ill (pain, burnings, open wound cos of burnings*). And I visited another doctor (orthopedist). So I have had at least to reasons not to go to work (I also have a cold). But I still feel guilty.

Most of the time the guilt-feeling for me is so terrible that I just do whatever it takes to release it. I go to work, I don't take my holidays, I don't ask for anything (which might help me) at work, I don't ask doctors for help (I just describe my problem if that). Because I don't feel worth that and I would feel terribly guilty.

I don't think that is good for me, though. But it is difficult to overcome.


* I used the hot-water-bottle too much as pain-relief.

going on...

Two days ago I spoke to a very good friend of mine very long (on the phone). And I figured out that one part of the problem I have when I visit doctors is that I know I will feel very desperate afterwards because they usually don't help me, yet of course I put some hope in the visits.

Knowing that I will feel desperate afterwards makes me reducing the doctor-visits to a minimum. I only go when I really need to, like when I've run out of medication. Pain usually doesn't make me go to doctors anymore, because visiting doctors doesn't change anything about the pain.

Knowing that I will feel desperate afterwards makes now also feel desperate and sad already before I visited the doctor, because I'm so sure about the outcome and I get all kinds of depressive thoughts in my head when I only think about visiting a doctor (another reason to reduce the visits).

I try to tell myself then, that I can have depressive thoughts at any other time, but just not now, that I have to focus on something else, but it doesn't work.

Then yesterday I spoke to another friend (I know her from work, she's really nice, but I don't know her as long) about the same problem. I told her, what I've found out with the friend of mine. She asked me, why I am not angry at the doctors for not finding a solution for me. I don't know the answer to this question, it's just that I'm never angry. I'm always just sad. She also said/wrote that it must seem to the doctors like if I would feel guilty for my pain.

I don't know if I do. I feel guilty very easily. But not really for the pain. I think that it might be my fault, but I don't feel so guilty actually. So it is difficult to answer. She asked me then if I feel embarrassed. Maybe I don't feel embarrassed for the pain so much, but for being me. For all my problems, for my past, for not being able to cope with live properly.

She also said that the doctors could think that I'm a drug-addict, if I appear so guilty and embarrassed (if I understood correctly, I hope I did). That is actually a thing I worry about too, because there is nothing I can really do to prove that my pain is real and that I don't get any positive side-effects (apart from pain-relief of course) from pain-medication.

She, the friend I know from work, also suggested that she would go to the doctor with me and speak with them and explain them some things about me. That is really nice and I appreciate it a lot, but I don't know if this would make me appear even more strange to the doctors.

Anyways, tomorrow, on Monday, I will (try to) call some doctors and ask for appointments. Maybe there is one who understands me better and does all the examinations needed and finds a solutions. I hope. Because I can't live with this problem, so I have to go on, no other choice.

I could...

I believe (some things are not tested yet), I could...
... starve myself until I die.
... walk until I brake completely.
... stay awake until I get psychosis and even longer.
... bear being hurt/beaten/abused until I die.
... put my hand on a hotplate.

But I cannot save myself. 
This takes so much more effort.
This is demanding so much more.

I can not explain myself.
I can not talk efficiently to my doctor.
I can not explain my collegues what is wrong with me.
I can not brake the routine.
I can not jugde what is right or wrong. (So I do my best to please.)

I can not live*, yet I don't die.
I can not cope with this.


* of course I am alive, I am writing. But I am basically just hoping the hours pass by.

Sad

I'm so sad. And I can't tell why.

I have to learn for an exam, but I'm too sad to focus. I don't know what to do.

I forgot my hot-water-bottle at home (the thing from phillips which produces heat with blue-light is broken), so I have really bad pain. Maybe this contributes to the sadness.

Other than that, I feel alone, because I will never be able to have friends (for a longer period of time and who like me for being me), because I can't explain myself and I can't even tell who I am and simple stuff about myself.

Because I'm too fucked up.

(Actually no one should be facing the difficulty of knowing me. But despite I know this (that nobody should knowing me), I wish someone would. Even though it is impossible, anyways.)

Edit: I guess, I am sad because I realised that I will never be able to express myself thus not be able to have very deep friendships. So I have lost hope in this thing. Even though I always thought this I still had a little bit of hope. Losing hope (the remaing part of it) makes me sad.

A few pics

Here are a few other pics. I took them in winter 2001 with the digital compact camera of my parents. I found them on a backup-CD a couple of minutes ago.

Is life going to get better?

Ever since I have developed memory, and probably even before, I am hoping* that one day I will finally feel better. (*even though the hope fades away more and more because I get in touch with reality more.)

And I think the question all is about is: is this going to happen, is it worth to withstand hard times in your life even if they endure and finally is life worth living?

The last part of the question is of course the most difficult to answer. There are hole books with hundreds of pages about it. And the possible answers are anything but simple...

The other question - for me - is are things going to improve? Of course, if one is truly happy, one doesn't have to hope that things improve. If everything is fine, that's fine. But if you are ill, or suffer from a disorder like anxiety or depression or OCD or psychosomatic pain or something similar (or completely different but another bad thing) or are simply not happy, you maybe hope that you will be able to overcome this one day. So do I. So did I.

I want to explain you.

When I was a child, I was not happy. I had a lot of anxiety and I was easily scared and also a lot of negative things happened (abuse), probably because I was just too stupid to tell anyone (I thought they would know anyways. It didn't came to my mind that someone who doesn't see doesn't know if I don't tell. I didn't get this at all.) There have been moments when I have had hope or felt some kind of happyness, though. I remember a situation, where I was walking up the stairs (I don't know why I have exactly this picture in my head) thinking I was pregnant (I didn't know about biology, or maybe I didn't wanted to know) and I was happy (or had hope or something like that) because I thought this child I would give birth to would understand me. I felt understood by this child (I was like 6 or 7, so a child myself). This kept me living for a long time (not only this situation of course, it was just an example because I remember it so clearly like it was yesterday).

At school I was bullied a lot, because I was very different from the other pupils. But I was in my own world and I didn't value the opinion of the other people in my class, so I guess this made it less painful. Even though sometimes it was physically painful and one thing I hated a lot was when they stared at me or tried to put my trousers of. But I didn't understand a lot of the words they said to me and I didn't even tried to understand. Also for the bullying it came out a few years later that my parents didn't know. I always thought they knew because it was just so natural for me. But I most probably never told them.

Of course, due to this, I didn't liked school, and I didn't liked going home. But I somehow was still able to live. At a certain point I started cutting, but at that point it really helped me. And as I didn't wanted to stop it wasn't a struggle.

In 1994 my father got diabetes type 1 which is a common disease (not as common as diabetes type 2, but still quite common). The problem is, that he can't handle this disease very well and was in coma due to hypoglycemia several times. For several years we had to call the ambulance like once every two weeks or so... My parents fight over this a lot: what my father eats, how his blood-sugar levels are and so on...

I have always been a thin child and I've never enjoyed eating. My weight has always been around or under the 3rd percentile. A few years (about 2) before my higher school diploma I started to sometimes walk home from school or taking the bike to and from school even though I had a long way to go to school (about 15-20 km / 9-12 miles each direction).This was calming me down. The problem was that I also reduced my calorie intake to almost zero (in 2004). I liked to watch my body wasting away. I liked the feeling of almost fainting. I liked the energy bursts I got from diet coke. So I went down to a really live-threatening low weight. Strangely enough I remember this time as a good time. I was too starved to worry.

I was admitted to hospital at that weight. The first days were an up and down (emotionally). I felt alone (even tough I was not more alone than before) and scared. But physically I started to feel better really fast. The first day (or first few days, I don't remember) they only gave me sugar through an i.v.. This increased my energy levels so much. I could walk around the hospital flors (with the i.v. in my arm). This felt great, because before I was admitted, I could barely walk anymore. Then they put a stomach-tube down through my nose. And then something was wrong with my blood so I was put on intensive care. There I got an port to fed me. I don't remember that time very well. My brain was very dizzy and I got lots of medications. After that I got a stomach-tube again because I was "released" into closed psychiatry. The time in psychiatry was very stressful to me and I think that they made so many thinks false. They didn't explain anything to me (maybe they thought it would be clear and everybody would now, but it wasn't and I didn't realize some obvious things) and I haven't had therapy. It was just being locked up, not much more. Maybe I will write a comment / blog entry about that time one day later, it's too much for now.

From this psychiatry I was referred to a psychosomatic unit at a hospital and than from there again to several psychiatrys. It would take to long to tell all this now.

But I gained my weight back. Have already been at a low weight (BMI around 14-16 range) when all this started (or got really serve) and I still was underweight when I finally left psychiatry. However, I have never had a therapy for an eating-disorder. I have had one for the cutting in one of the psychiatrys though. It was no talking-psychotherapy, but a therapy where they told you that you should try to focus on other things.

I don't know if it is due to the fact that I have never "relearned" (or even learned form childhood on) normal eating, I was very confused when I had to decide and eat on my own. I didn't know when and what to eat and when I'm full or hungry. This ended in a overeating (binging would maybe be a too strong word as my binges haven't been so big) - purging circle. This lasted the hole time I spend in university, but I finally got it under control. I'm still underweight, though.

During that time at university I also developed a headache which occured everyday. I went to a lot of doctors and tried a lot of medications but nothings seemed to work also some triptans (medication for migrane). But then I finally found a triptan which helped very well and now I don't have this problem anymore, even though I have headach quite often. I'm also taking a medication to prevent it.

Then since autumn 2010 I have the back/bud-pain I already wrote about. I also have a lot of stress of work and worry a lot, I'm sometimes really depressed have sometimes the strong urge to cut (but don't want to) and miss so many things (sometimes).

So if I look at this history I think that things didn't improve for me so far (of course a lot is missing but this is already sooo long - sorry for that). One trouble was just exchanged against another one. I really wonder if I could be free of trouble of thouse kinds as described abouve - and I doubt that.

I never felt really good/happy. There were always troubles, and I hoped and hoped and hoped they would not happen again. Of course they happened again. And again, and again, and again. And again the day after that. And so forth. And if I finally god rid of something - I can see now form the few backwards - something else occurded which caused other problems. (So at the moment I am hoping that my back/butt-pain magically disappears, but I know that it is very unlikely to happen... magically and anyways... and I wonder what comes next.)


Edit Dec/12th:

I read some stuff I wrote when I was younger. 12/13 to ~22. I already felt really desperate at 12. I remember I wrote about suicide in a journal at age 7/8/9 (don't have it here now, so I didn't read it). But nevertheless, I think the probability to become a happy person if you have never been, decreases with age. The negative things just add up. If it are too many, the positive things don't get the change to add up, because you are not able to experience them (or expierence them as deep) in the first place (because of psychological problems like anxiety or depression).

(Edited angain on December, 16th.)

Acute stress releases chronic stress

I somehow like acute stress (even though to me other things are an acute stressor than for other people, I guess). Because when I'm stressed I don't have time to think about all these thinks that worry me. When I'm stressed I'm in the moment. Not worrying about the future and other stuff going on. This is why I like data-collection. I know exacty what I have to do; yet it is very stressful because I have a lot of things to do at nearly the same time. Today wasn't exactly stressful, because I hadn't had a strait/tight schedule, but it felt even more stressful because I didn't know where to start and what to do at first and when I tried to do one thing it came to my mind that other things would probably be more urgend, so I break off my task and started a new one and so on... I couldn't concentrate on one thing for two minutes... So, I'm looking forward to the next period of acute stress. Then I will worry, but at least I will worry about less things.

Picture

Hi,

I just want to post a picture today. I took this last autumn (I haven't had a DSLR at that time, just a compact camera). I like it because it looks so quite/calm.

Klick on it to enlarge.

(It would have been better if I had taken the picture from a point a bit more one the right sight. (Hope you know what I mean?) But I can't change this now...).

About Suicide

Today I feel almost dead. No, probably this is false, but I feel bad and tired and disconnected from the world. I don't know how to describe... tired without the ability to sleep is probably the only way to explain.

Anyway, recently I have heard a talk about suicide at the faculty where I work. The professor holding the talk said most suicides are done because of little reasons, like there is not enough milk in the fridge anymore and there is no possibility to get some (at that time)*. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but I can somehow understand how little thinks can disturb you - if you are already very emotionally unbalanced/aroused. Of course ppl who attempt to kill themselves cos of "little" reasons might be happy afterwards if they are saved. But something has to be wrong in their lives, that they get disturbed so easily. The professor further mentioned that in his opinion every suicide is irrational, even if a very ill person who has serve pain and will die a painful death in near future anyway kills him/herself. I don't think so. I think suicide is rational if your chance to be happy is to low to carry on with live. For my perspective suicide would be rational in my case. I'm just not brave enough or I may have some irrational hopes or something, I don't know why I am still alive. I have thought about suicide ever since I know that humans are dying. Most of the time I'm thinking about it rationally. Sometimes more emotionally, like getting the urge to do it. But the strange think is, when I feel the worst I don't think about it because then I don't have any capacity in my head to notice that life is finite. Maybe that is the reason why I am still alive. I don't know what to think about that.

*or a friend breaking up. But I think there everybody thinks different whether this is a "little" reason or not. The "milk"-reason might seem more little to the most ppl.

Thank you for reading (sorry for depressing content).

continue

All I can do is continue. Simple continuing. Without any improvement.
This is so tiring. All I can do is keeping my eyes open, not to fall asleep, to keep walking, not to fall down. To keep working, learning, battling against pain. Keep the current status - without any improvement.

I think I'm pretty good at continuing (no matter what). And even though this may keep me alive, it keeps me away from living.

I think I don't have this little lever/signal in my head which tells me when something is enough. So I will carry on... and on. E.G. In 2004 I basically stopped eating until I ended in intensive-care in hospital. Even though it is a bad idea to start to stop eating in the first place, I totally missed the point when to stop or when to visit a doctor and ask for help. E.G. I drove 200km in one day with my bike several times (and I'm not trained at all) just because I didn't get the point when to stop. E.G. I basically didn't sleep for a lots of month (of course I did sleep but just very weak and only a couple of minutes at a time) because I was so scared, something bad would happen. E.G. I went to school for 13 years, every day, no matter what happened. E.G. I went to our neighbors house*, for years, every couple days, no matter what happened.

And now I have this really serve pain, but it doesn't stop me from continuing. I wish I could stop. But changing my live feels like stopping the world from rotating - I can't do that. I wish I could go to a doctor and ask for help, but that is not what I do every day, and thus it takes so much more effort than just continuing (no matter what).

Sometime the only escape from continuing to me seems to be the jump of a building or the jump in front of a train - because it takes only of few seconds. Only a few seconds for which I have to break the continuation.

Thank you for reading (sorry for maybe depressing content).

*house in near neighborhood to be more precise.