Journal Entries
One other strange dream last night: growing potatoes in apartments 190-200
Posted Jun 11, 2020
The ski patrol kept unearthing potatoes along the ski runs. That might nt seem like a bad thing in real life, but in this dream they were sick and tired of it. Maybe the snow wasn't very deep, this being June.
Anyway, I organized people to take the potatoes and grow more potatoes form them. For some reason, a long, narrow apartment building grew along the ski run. It would be possible to gather potatoes and take them into the nearest apartments without difficulty. That is what I did. The ski patrol tried to find out where I had taken the potatoes, without luck.
As it turned out, the patrol only checked apartments one through 100. I had given the potatoes to people in apartments 190 through 200.
I went from apartment to apartment, checking to see how people were doing with their potato-growing. It was quite an interesting set of tenants.
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Latest reply: Jun 11, 2020
Astrange gathering, riding there with someone, then forgetting what her car looked like
Posted Jun 11, 2020
his dream didn't seem so much different from my real life. The woman I rode with is named Karen, and she has enough opinions for five people. She also gets easily stressed.
After the meeting was over, Karen headed for her car, and for some reason I didn't.
So, did I wander the parking lot, looking for a car with Karen in it? No. Instead, I went down into an underground place and peered up at the various cars. I seemed to remember that Karen had a dark green station wagon. Did I see any? No.
I think the dream ended before I found Karen, but not to worry. The real Karen lived near me, and I know where her place is. 
t.
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Latest reply: Jun 11, 2020
Spain, but not the one we're familiar with
Posted Jun 11, 2020
One of my meds lists under side effects: strange dreams. They aren't kidding!
The night before last, I dreamed about the troubles in Spain. People would gather in a park near the border and protest the fact that they had a government. In every other country, a government of some kind is assumed. Not in Spain.
But to be fair, the place was only *called* Spain. Its territory was limited. In addition to the park (which probably covered two or three acres, the only other territory consisted of some highlands, which I estimate covered a few square miles at most.
At the end of the dream, a repressive government showed up nd gave me some trouble. Now, *that* sounds more like the real Spain.
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Latest reply: Jun 11, 2020
Further adventures n the land of antidepressant medication
Posted Jun 6, 2020
Those of you who have no interest in this topic may be forgiven for not bothering with this thread.
I may even be violating my own privacy by posting these things, but I'm thinking about the things that a journal can/should be used for, and this seems to be such a use.
For twenty or thirty years, I was taking Doxepin and Citalopram, and was happy as clam doing so.
Then things got more and more stressful for me,expecially after an october meeting t which the Park's attorney asked if a board member would be willing to visit the new manager (10 to 2 o Tuesdays and Thursdays) in order to train him properly. I was and am an unpaid volunteer secretary for the Board, and I could at least keep him from doing things that were and are in conflict with how the park is run. None of the other Board officers had schedules that would permit them to train him when he was in the Park. Without having sounded me lout about this in advance, the president asked me to do it. All eyes were on me. I would lost face by saying no. Thus began a very stressful few months. I spent forty hours training the manager, writing a report for each session. I shared copies of the reports with the other officers so they could view the manager's progress.
Alas, he liked dealing with me so well, that he refused to talk much with the president, who really wanted to be the one he talked to. (texts and emails and phone calls would have worked, but the this manager rarely sent them to the president.
Alas, a very important report was to be written and presented to the Bank that granted us $200,000, and the manager came within two days of failing to file it properly.
By then I felt as if I were about to die. This was a stress reaction. Anxiety, depression.
Two weeks later, Coronavirus came along, and it was in the news night and day. Twice I called 911 because my chest was seizing up so I could hardly breathe. At the hospital, it was found that the Citalopram which has been ramped up, was pushing down sodium levels to dangerous levelsi n my body. It had to go. The hospital psychiatrist put me on Mirtazapine, to be phased in while Citalopram was phased out. (The Doxepine was jettisoned immediately.
Scroll forward to this week. I've been an 15 mg. of Mirtazapine for about four weeks. My HMO has no available psychiatric clinicians to officially tell me when to jettison the remaining little bit of Citalopram. I spnt lots f work finding an available clinician, who could not see me until yesterday (by video, of course). He was cheerful and very nice. he said: drop the Citalopram and double the Mirtazapine. I did this last night, with some trepidation (what idf the side effects were terrible?).
Well, I seem to be all right today. Not feeling too much different, in fact, though I seem to be calmer and more coherent and less stressed.
I still need to be unaddictd to the Ativan that they gave me at the hospital (IO liked it so well that I started taking it every night).
Te clinician I saw yesterday had some ideas for dealing with that as well. But I will wait to start dealing with that next week.
I survived a night of 30 m.g.Mirtazapine!
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Latest reply: Jun 6, 2020
Sime issues that I'm trying to work on
Posted May 25, 2020
There's a nasty part of my personality that is competitive beyond what is reasonable. I dove my younger brother around the bend when we were growing up, and he has paid me back. I am sometimes not a good person. I blame my great-grandmother for this. She drove my grandmother to a nervous breakdown. My generation never met her, but my father and his brother grew up with the image of her as a perfectly normal family icon. My father was nine when the Great depression started. All around him, people were miserable, including his mother, but he had such a close bond with his brother that he remembers a wonderful childhood.
Last Thursday I had my first session (by phone) with a clinician to try and get me some behavioral health counseling. Medication is involved, but I need someone receptive that I can talk with, a lot.
My primary care physician is well-meaning, but when he tells me that all my lab results are fantastic, it does me no help. If I'm s healthy, why do I have anxiety attacks and digestive problems? I ruminate endlessly, a sign o depression. If there's anything I could worry about, I worry about it.
I should be writing these things in a journal in my personal space. i will schlep most of this over there right nw
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Latest reply: May 25, 2020
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