Bullets

Little update:

• Possibly going home at weekend. 
• Have chest infection - not tuberculosis as my hyperchondriac side suggested when the blood coughing started.
• Met some lovely people in here. 
• Psychiatrist looking into accommodation options for me.
• New antidepressant seems to be working. 
• Mogadon (sleeping pill) was probably invented by God himself. 
• Been binge eating and learnt tonight I've gained 8kg.
• Uni deferred for semester.
• I know I've had many hospital admissions over the last three years so no one sees them as a big deal now, but I'm feeling pretty uncared for. I've been told off for feeling like this because you all have your own problems and work etc too, I'm just saying it's how I feel. 
• Weirdest dreams of my life in the last fortnight. 
• Knitting lots
• Candy crush is evil
• Still want to die but I don't think I could do that to my mum and I hate her for that. 
• Mogadon kicking in, time to go. 

Dream in a Dream in Limbo in Dream

Sometimes I dream the future, not often and never anything of consequence. But it can get a bit spooky. Today in a drug induced sleep I had a dream within a dream within a dream in which I was in limbo for killing myself in a dream and to escape I had to find my body in a hospital and wake it up. I found the body and tried to wake it up, then I awoke in reality to find myself in my hospital bed absolutely terrified.
All this after being drugged because I'm pretty bent on killing myself at the moment, lesson from dream: limbo is frightening.
That's only a fraction of the dream. I wrote the whole thing for my own memory and it was epic, so I won't be posting that.

I Have to Bake a Cake Tonight - I Wonder if I Can do it Drunk?

Language warning for my more sensitive readers.

11:02 – Phone call from mum: Wake up your brother, he has a driving lesson soon. Roll over.

11:04 – Call brother from mobile phone lying conveniently next to head to wake brother up. No answer. Shit. The heating isn’t on and it’s nice and warm in bed.

11:12 – After debating pros and cons of leaving him there and hoping that as a 19 year-old he’s responsible enough to get himself up for a 12pm driving lesson choosing to get out of bed to wake brother up.

11:12:20 – Turn heating on so house is warm when I eventually decide to make my second exit from bed.

11:20:40 – Back in bed with sheet over my head because my eyes and ears are cold.

Dream about being a passenger on a bus heading up a high mountain with no trees whilst trying to escape a tornado. I scream at the bus driver to go faster so we’re not eaten up by the swiftly approaching tornado. There’s an explosion to our left outside a farmhouse. Me and my two fellow passengers command the bus driver to go back to offer assistance to whoever was involved. We find an upside-down truck with the driver lying unconscious a few meters away. He has a hole in his chest and something is wrong with his hands. We call 000 and try to help him to the best of our ability, he’s still alive. I find a yellow hand gun in the truck, it seems he shot himself in the chest. I move it further away from the man incase he wakes up and wants to shoot himself again because he didn’t die the first time. The paramedics arrive, look at him and decide that before taking him to the hospital they’ve got time for a coffee from the café which has just emerged from nowhere with lots of customers and a long queue. I show one of the paramedics the gun and we find a rifle in the back of the truck. I don’t know what happened to the tornado.

01:34 – Second emergence from the land of warm and soft.

01:34:40 - Mouthful of water followed by a rather large antidepressant capsule and more water.

01:36 - First ever attempt at using mum’s Nespresso machine – “Why the hell are you flashing that red circle at me, just do your job. Fine I’ll turn you off and start again” Machine off, disassembled and reassembled. Take two. “Stop that fucking flashing and froth my damn milk you piece of shit lazy person’s excuse for a coffee machine.” Milk down the drain and find that the froth-maker-bit-of-magnetic-metal-cone isn’t exactly where it should be. Take 8000. Coffee!

01:I don’t know what – The Age, The Guardian, The Conversation and Facebook catch up. Nothing really exciting. New X-Box revealed overnight, brother stayed up to watch it live.

3:55 – Clean the kitchen so it looks like I’ve done something when mum gets home.

4:10 – Get dressed and groomed, hair up for the first time since cut, it’s still long enough for a pony-tale, thankfully.

4:30 – Start reading “The End of Your Life Book Club” – I like it.

5:20 – Mother comes home and tells me off for leaving her coffee machine on all day. Continue reading.

7:10 – Trip to supermarket to buy the butter I forgot yesterday along with several impulse purchases

7:35 – Eat dinner and drink scotch

8: something – Write a stupid list of day’s lack of activities to bore people in the over-share world we live in with.

Thanks for reading, I’ll write interesting things when they next happen to me. In the meantime I just feel like writing sometimes so I’m writing this shit. Sorry.

Too Many Pets

I had the best dream last night; Rico, although he’s sterilised had a puppy, we never saw the mother, but it was his puppy. My brother came to visit me in hospital and brought heaps of stuff like he was running away, little of it was in suitcases, just mounds. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something in this mountainous pile move; I went over to inspect and found a very very young kitten, it was identical to my parents (also de-sexed) cat, Fiz (I bought her, I didn’t name her), I held the little thing in my hand, one hand was ample size and then I saw more movement. It appeared Fiz had had a huge litter and like any wise mother of 20 decided to abandon them in my brother’s clothes, but not without providing food, for there were many, many mice in there too and just to add to the fun a single guinea pig and Rico’s puppy. Rico had clearly not mated with a fellow cocker spaniel, but it was a cute and happy thing just like him.

That’s the mildest and most fuzzy dream I’ve had in ages, I probably had it because I really miss Rico and I found out yesterday that I’m going to be away from him longer than expected... I’m being transferred to the hospital my last admission was in so they can supervise my Abilify increase, and also keep an eye on some colourful thoughts

I’ve been having. I hope it’s not a long admission.

Doctor Whore

I can’t start writing a blog post until I have  a title; often I go back and change the title, there just has to be something there before I can write. Today’s starter title is Hgjhgjgh – the first few letters my hands pummelled blindly on the keyboard. This will be the last post I advertise on Facebook for a while, a friend and I are having a Facebook rest together, so if you want to keep reading this you’ll have to follow or check it every so often.

Two years ago I started having dreams and a few days later something from one of the dreams would happen; A few examples: I went to my old chiropractor in a dream and it had turned into a huge super clinic, in reality I dropped in a week or so later to pick up some x-rays and it had changed significantly. In another dream Krispy Kreme was going out of business, the next day The Age documented their economic downfall and multiple store closures. Dad smoking an electronic cigarette, the next day an article about battery powered cigarettes to help people quit.  And this beauty two nights ago; attending a seminar in a very large auditorium, I took my seat but didn’t realise until it was too late to move that my chair was a good 60cm higher than all the others. Luckily the people either side of me were quite tall, so I didn’t stand out too much, but then they left and everyone else was down by my waist, I felt awkward. Last night in church I was wearing boots with a little heel, usually that’s not a problem because I’m not exactly a giant, but short people sat either side of me, no problem when were seated, but when we stood I was the tallest in the row and didn’t like it. I don’t believe I can dream the future, but I think my subconscious gleans little bits of information and gives them to me in dream form, scary at first, now amusing.

GP again today, as I expected all the scans and x-rays were fine; I’d prefer something to be wrong so it can be fixed rather than niggling problems that won’t go away. While it is possible, maybe even probable that the tingling down my left side is somatic (basically anxiety caused) GP insists I see a neurologist to rule out MS and a couple of other things I didn’t remember because I’ve never heard of them. I’m completely un-worried, even if I had a massive inoperable brain tumour, I wouldn’t give a damn because it would bring death closer. MS would suck, it shortens your life anywhere from a bit to a lot, but in the mean time it destroys you. My Grandad’s first wife had MS, it caused her to choke on her food and that’s how she died. GP is still trying to get me a private admission, she’s making four calls tonight and if they fail there is the option of going public, but that’s really only for crisis containment, they don’t do anything to make you better, just protect you from yourself. I might need to do that, it’s getting tiring constantly fighting the urges, it’s only a matter of time before I give up.

Gangsta Broom

I had between 5 – 10 really weird dreams last night. In one of them I was driving to my parents’ late at night and the freeway had an exit I didn’t recognise, I passed it because you don’t normally hop off somewhere unknown, but that was the last exit. The freeway ended about 100m after that, it didn’t turn into another rd as they normally do, instead it was a rocky and muddy cliff which had been the end of many a car. I crashed into one of the others which had met their demise there, then my car changed into what would have been a beautiful sports car in its day, but it was now old and decrepit – I stayed in the car whilst it transformed. I then tried to drive back up the cliff but only one wheel at a time was making contact with the ground, so I had to push it up the cliff – it was surprisingly light. Then I continued driving to my parents’ I had no idea where I was, my brother appeared in the passenger seat and navigated me through the industrial wasteland which is on the way. We never got home.

In another dream I was at L’s house and her dad got home from work in an open top black gangster looking Mercedes – it kind of looked like this but with no roof.

Her dad got to bring a ridiculous car home from work each day just for the fun of it. I wanted to take it for a drive; that was the end of the dream.  There were a few of those annoying realistic dreams which take me a while to work out are dreams – I had to check one of them!

My body is having a hard time with all the drug changes, I can’t stop moving. I only have one oxazepam left, my other sedatives are sleepers – hardly ideal for day time calm and there’s zero chance of my GP giving me more benzodiazepines, I think I’ve got no choice by to pilfer daddy’s.

Saturday is one year since M left me, thankfully I’m going to a party that night and I can probably find someone to keep me company during the day – R, I’m looking at you. It will hurt, but it means it’s time to move on. Snog fest starts Saturday!

This Is Not A Diary

I got some sleep last night! As per the recent pattern I woke up after only three hours, but this time I got back to sleep within one hour and I stayed there for about five hours. I don’t feel amazing, but definitely better than I have all week, hopefully tonight goes well too; I’ve had no caffeine at all today – very hard for me.

  

I called the hospital my possible new psychiatrist consults at and it sounds like she is taking new patients, so hopefully my referral is interesting enough for her, I’ll find out on Monday or Tuesday. I’ve realised this blog is taking on too much of a diary tone, that was never my intention; I’ve just been too messy to write properly in the last few months. I have some creative writing I could publish but I think I’d rather keep it to myself for now. A few months ago I said I was writing an analytical piece on some Croakey articles, that’s about half done, my brain turned to mush and I stopped. So to make up for the diary-ness of late, here’s a dream from last night. My new drug is making dreams more realistic and intense.

A maze like shopping centre, with an adults only food court – despite few of the shops being licensed. My dad knew which of the guards checked ID and took my brother to the door with the lazy guard, they got through but within a minute a middle aged Asian woman approached him and asked for ID, he showed her something on his wrist and she smiled and said not to worry. Dad was gone and Mum, brother and I were in a huge car exiting the labyrinthine car park, presumably of the same shopping centre. Mum caught a glance at my wrist, my sleeve had crept up a little; she was furious and wanted me to cut her nose five times to show me the pain I’m causing her. Shocked, I refused, we argued loudly, after a while I said I’d rather put a big gash in her cheek than five little ones on her nose – she was happy to let me do it but I refused. We argued more and eventually I said I couldn’t hurt the one person who is trying to help me ( a note to my friends, this is a dream, you are all great), I felt embarrassed that I’d told her I need her. End of Dream.

I hope this isn’t’ an insight to my soul, I don’t hold any violent thoughts towards other people. My own self harm urges are becoming increasingly violent, but I’ve never considered hurting anyone else. It’s interesting that I revealed I need my mum, I would never say this aloud, but unlike the violence part I think this might be true... I’m at their house at the moment because I can’t look after myself and it’s been great, I got some sleep in a bed with fresh sheets (I can’t be bothered changing mine), I’ve been able to cuddle Lester, I got fed, I may not love the quality of conversation but there are people to talk to.

No Answer

The answer to my desperate search for knowledge of my unconsciousness was “not much”. I was in the hospital for 20 hours, unconscious for at least 15, it would be weird to go back and ask wouldn’t it? My GP didn’t get any discharge papers, that’s odd, maybe they’re a little slow getting them out, I just want to know! I’ve continued to feel lethargic, dizzy, nauseous and headachy; this wasn’t helped by having a wisdom tooth removed this morning. I hope the tooth is responsible for me feeling worse today, it’s so hard to tell what is responsible for what; last night was my first dose of Seroquel post O.D, so that could be a contributor, I also had to take two Yaz on Sunday night because I’d missed one, they cause all of the above symptoms too. I missed uni again today, there’s no way I could have gone feeling like this, I had a short but severe dizzy spell whilst driving home from my psychologist appointment, I thought I was going to faint – and I was at a major intersection! I’ve spent the afternoon either in or on bed, currently on! I’ve been having even more bizarre dreams and nightmares this week. I just wrote one in here but deleted it because it’s too messy to read, suffice to say that within one dream I was a hospitality worker, a rescuer, a wannabe celebrity, a child and an adult traveller in America looking across an ocean at a huge ski resort with no lifts but it was in one of the southern states where they don’t get snow.

This post has taken about six hours to write – on and off – interrupted by naps, reading, stressing about missed uni classes, eating, feeling sorry for myself and that’s about it. It’s 9pm and I think I’m going to go to sleep, I can’t do uni work in this state, maybe if I get up early I can avoid looking like a fool in class tomorrow. 

Alcoholic Flowers

I wanted to drown my sorrows so a couple of friends and I went to a local liquor store, it’s just a quiet, dingy stand alone shop in Monbulk. I went in alone whilst my friends went to get some bits and pieces from another shop, we left our circa 1985 blue van parked outside the liquor store. I wandered over to the red wine section and helped myself to a lovely bottle of shiraz which I proceeded to drink from the bottle as I searched for something appropriate to share with my friends. Over the course of about half an hour I wandered through the shop completely alone, the attendant was ducked behind the counter using the phone and there were no other customers. I finally chose a bottle of scotch and decided not to bother with another wine for my friends. I placed the wine - which I had been drinking - and the scotch on the counter, as the attendant went to bag them we realised that I had already drunk all of the wine so I only needed to take the scotch with me. It occurred to me that I had consumed an entire bottle of wine in no longer than 30 minutes, I was filled with the undoubtable knowledge that I would never again feel the effects of alcohol, there would be no drowning of sorrows for I had become immune to the effects of alcohol. My attention was drawn back to the task at hand, I had to pay for the items before I could indulge in self pity. I worried that I may not have enough cash but my fears were allayed when I saw the eftpos machine. The total for the wine and scotch came in at exactly the amount of cash I had in my purse, but I thought it would be good to keep the cash so I paid with my card instead. My card was swiped through the machine, but it didn’t work. The attendant called to one of the other staff members, she came over but didn’t know what the problem was. Out of the corner of my eye I saw some movement to the left of the counter, an intoxicated, unkempt man stood up and walked to the back of the shop to use the lavatory, he was apparently another staff member. Considering how quiet the shop, and indeed the town is, there really is no need for three people to be rostered on at the same time. It would seem the man read my mind, for when he emerged from the lavatory he announced he was going home and walked out the front door. After a few more attempts at paying with my card it was clear that the eftpos machine was not going to work and I paid in cash, feeling very lucky to have the correct amount. Disappointed I left the shop with a light purse and a bottle of scotch. As I approached the van I saw that something was wrong, just in the half hour I’d been in the shop the van had been painted with childish looking flowers and trees, dismayed I walked around the van surveying the damage. I reached the back and found the culprits sitting inside the boot, they were three girls dressed in worn out loosely fitting clothes, their ages I could not guess. There was no anger in me, despite the damage they had caused to the van. I got in the van through the side door and sat with them to chat. They were local girls who lived at the end of the road which ran beside the liquor store, that road is very steep, so steep that a person can’t walk up or down it unaided, but somehow it is fine to drive on... The girls are from a very large family, there ere in excess of 15 children, I don’t know the exact number because the girls didn’t tell me, they just pointed to the big red van a few meters away and said the people in it were all their siblings, they were mostly young children, but there were a few teenagers too, they were all dressed alike, in worn out loosely fitted, light coloured clothes. The girls explained that the drunken man in the liquor store is their father and they had been sitting in the big red van waiting for him to finish work. They normally don’t leave their home, their parents prefer to keep them isolated, but this day they all went to work with dad. Despite leaving the shop, their father hadn’t yet returned to the van to take them home. I assumed that the girls would be very naive about the world, they had been home schooled and hardly left their home up on the steep, un-climbable hill. My assumption was wrong, despite their isolation they were very informed and held good conversation. The older of the girls, whose age I still don’t know had just returned from studying in the UK, it seems the enforced isolation has its limits, she was expecting some friends from uni to arrive in Australia later that day and was excited about them coming to stay with her family up the big steep hill. As we were getting into the conversation and starting to enjoy one another’s company their father returned and they had to go. I was saddened by the prospect of never seeing them again – I was not game to drive up that hill – but the older girl told me I’d see her the next day because our brothers are on the same football team, I just had to go and watch his game. I didn’t even know that my brother played football but I agreed to meet her there. The big red van full of children departed just as my friends got back from their shopping. My friends loved the floral additions to our old blue van. One of my friends went into the liquor store to use the lavatory while we waited for her in the van.

One of my milder dreams.

Mystery Man

As I walked from my car to the hospital today a young man approached me from the direction I was headed. I could tell as he approached that he was going to talk to me - I just hoped that he wouldn’t - sure enough as we got closer he opened his mouth and the following spewed forth:
Young Man: I’m going to Burwood
K: Oh
YM: It was a fake
K: looks confused
YM: Iron, my sisters iron but the plug... It was not a real plug, it was a fake, a fake plug.
K: Oh,  that sucks, ummm see ya
YM: Bye

Given the proximity to the hospital I assumed he was an inpatient going for a walk to the shops, just like I did nearly every day when I was there. The most troubling this about this scenario, though, is that I turned around only a couple of seconds after we’d finished talking and he was gone, he either ducked behind a fence really quickly or I imagined the whole thing. What sucks is that I doubt myself, I should be sure of what is real and what is not. Whilst I am quite sure the young man and the conversation were real, I am also aware that my dreams do tend to invade reality, I wonder if this was a micro sleep or something. I’m so sure it was real, it had to be.

Grip of Fire

I wish I had a good scanner it would make doing this so much easier... When I was still an inpatient I made this out of some cut up postcards during a therapy session. It was one of my first few days in hospital; I was still a little scared of the place.

Things That Go Drip In The Night

Oh how I loathe this house of my parents, I think in order to make a noisier house one would have to put in a significant amount of effort. At 5am this morning I was woken by mice eating the muesli bars I have on my bedside table, they rustled around in the packaging and I wondered how they hadn’t knocked the box over. I listened and listened, afraid to turn on the light in-case I was confronted by a giant rat rather than a nice little mouse. After this prolonged listening I discerned that the noise wasn’t coming from the direction of my bed side table, but there’s nothing else in here mice would be interested in and the room is spotless... It was not mice at all but the hot water heater, which is located outside this bedroom. Dad had woken very early for work and the sound I was hearing was the heater doing its job after it had been in use. I guess in the quiet of the night a noise I don’t normally hear is very confusing, what’s worse though is once the unit has been re-filled it drips for a while – very, very annoying.

So that was last night, the night before I was woken at around the same time by a gang of intruders opening and closing all the doors in the house and then repeating the process. I wasn’t scared, possibly still a little too drugged to feel fear. I thought about getting up and confronting the gang but I was warm in my bed and it felt cold out. I then thought, maybe it wasn’t a gang of intruders but that my brother or/and his girlfriend were up to no good, playing tag throughout the house maybe? Eventually I drifted off to sleep again. I later asked mum if she knew what had happened during the night, and she’d heard nothing but informed me that my brother had his window open and often when it’s windy - as it was that morning - the doors rattle, even when closed.

The first night I spent here was better though, no mice or gangs, just my brother and his girlfriend listening to music and talking all night in the next room. Day times are great too with the television up very loud whenever dad is home, I’m genuinely wondering if he has a hearing problem. Maybe I should develop one.

The Red Heeler

Written on 03.06.2010

On my first night here I had the most horrific dream I can recall – and I’ve had some doozies! It wasn’t the subject matter that frightened me, but the fact that as part of the dream I woke from the dream, only to find that it was all true.

It was 3:34am when I went back to sleep after being woken by thirst, I had a sip of water and promptly went back into my drug induced sleep. I fell into a dream about a dystopian version of this hospital. Tina, my elderly temporary room-mate and I spoke about the disgusting state of the place and made note of the vermin creeping around the adjoining room. We were joined by my cat Lester, Lester chased after the said vermin and Tina and I followed him outside. It was night time and the garden was eerily landscaped, the deciduous trees were thick trunked and bare, the grass appeared black, but it was mostly dirt. There was not any other hint of life to be seen. By time we caught up to Lester he had caught the rat but he had turned into a red heeler (dog) and started talking to me about the poor state of the hospital. Terrified by the fact that my cat had turned into a dog and was now talking to me I concluded that this was a dream and I woke up in my hospital bed. The time was 3:35am – only one minute after I had last seen the time! I looked around but I was still in this dystopian hospital, the cat-dog was nearby speaking with Tina. Terrified that I was truly mad I asked Tina if she really could hear the cat-dog or if we were both mad. She could hear him just fine and everything was normal. I couldn’t figure out if I had lost my mind completely and this was my new reality, or if I had somehow been trapped in a frightening world where cats turn into talking dogs and one minute feels like 20 at least.

I was woken at 7:30am - for real this time - by the nurse informing me that breakfast was ready. There were no rats, talking dogs or dreary trees. I don’t love this hospital and I look forward to Saturday when lots of people are being discharged and I will get my own room, but at least I’m not mad enough to be talking to red heelers who used to be cats!

Chocolate Myki

I dreamt last night that I needed to catch a train from one very busy station to another; they resembled two stations I frequented in my youth, but much busier and sinister looking (if you can imagine Melbourne train stations looking any worse). I was using Myki for the first time, but it was called something else and was shaped like a star. A young boy was screaming at station attendees because his star wouldn’t scan and he was about to miss his train. I eventually found a train that was heading in the right direction and boarded, only to find that everyone onboard was drunk, drugged or really smelly. People were fighting. I sat opposite one man and felt uncomfortable, so I moved. My next seat was across the aisle from another man who kept staring at me. A beer can rolled down the aisle. I ate my Myki star because it was made of chocolate. I worried how I would scan off the train.