I ... I just can't anymore. The last few days have been nothing but an endless struggle against tiredness. Either I forced myself out of bed early and felt like crap all day or I overslept until noon and also felt like crap all day. Then at night I either went to bed early and couldn't sleep yet (on the days when I'd overslept) or I did sleep but in the next morning I still didn't feel like I'd slept enough. Sometimes I also stayed up a little too late, which meant that by the time I finally got ready for bed, I felt so terrible that the thought of setting an alarm made me want to cry.

I'm pretty sure that this is only a side-effect of my meds rather than an unexpected depressive phase or anything. At the hospital it was less noticeable because I often went to bed extremely early out of boredom or because my roommate wanted to sleep, but it was still a problem. We were woken up at seven every morning and for several weeks I never managed to actually get out of bed until a quarter past eight, when a nurse made the rounds again to remind us that it was time for the first "event" of the day - a sort of quick little ... gathering ... where they informed us of changes in the day's schedule and such. It was quite an accomplishment if I so much as managed to brush my teeth before this! >.<

Near the end I had advanced so far that I could brush my teeth and do my hair, without even needing to hurry. Breakfast was still not an option, but I'd made progress.

Why can't I at least get back to that now? I suppose I'd have to go to bed at 8:45 for it to work, or something. That's ridiculous. I mean, I could also decide that 9 am is an acceptable time to set my alarm to, but then what if I get a doctor's appointment at 7:30? I'd have trouble falling asleep early enough for that because I wouldn't be used to it anymore. And the therapist I am currently trying to ask if she's taking new patients only accepts phone calls between 7 and 8 in the morning on Mondays and Wednesdays. This week I already missed both opportunities. I need to get up early ...

ARGH.

Hello. I have a lot of things to tell you. I do not, currently, remember any of them. >.<; All I can say is that I will likely only return to the hospital for a single night after this weekend. I'm not even going to take a change of clothes with me, that's how determined I am to go home on Monday.

Unrelatedly, I bought shoes today. My mother drove me to a place where there's a large number of shoe shops within a small radius, then we started searching. I hate that process. My feet are weirdly shaped or something, so to find a pair that looks good and fits at the same time is nearly impossible. I tried on quite a number of shoes that I liked the looks of, but the ones that I picked in the end were merely acceptable. I had to choose, though, because my old ones were falling apart. And what's worse is that I don't have any winter boots, either, so I will have to repeat this ordeal relatively soon. >_<

Then I ate an extremely late lunch at my mother's and played two rounds of a card game with her and my sisters before I returned home.

It's been an overall nice, but also exhausting and confusing day. I never managed to do the dishes and now I'm way too tired.

My mood has been wavering between nervous and ecstatic for a few hours, which may or may not be a sign that I'm not actually feeling better. I don't care, though. The hospital turned out to be nothing but a place for me to sit out my crisis until it subsided on its own, so staying would be pointless.

Bed. BED.

As if to make up for the fact that I don't need to pack (much) today, my brain decided to come up with a different problem: I forgot to buy enough food for three days instead of two. >.<; If I want to be back when I said I'd be back, I have to leave in little more than an hour - which means I can't really go food shopping a second time anymore. That alone often takes me an hour. So either I think of a way to make what I've got last three days ... or I could always decide to return late on purpose. But. I don't want to walk through swarms of mosquitoes in the dark. And take my pill too late. And find that my roommate has turned on the light without closing the window first. Being late is stressful! =.=

Well. A can of beans, some cheese, two sausages, half an onion, a tiny rest of lentils ... I could make two more warm meals. Somehow. I'd just have to eat a lot of rice crackers and peanut butter between those. And possibly polenta? I don't have milk, but the instructions say it can also be made with water. A little boring, that ... but I'll live. It's a challenge!

I don't know why my paragraphs all end on an exclamation mark today. Look! This one doesn't. XD

So I'm going to leave soon, but I'll be back tomorrow. I may or may not decide to visit my family tomorrow afternoon, which would require even more unexpected train tickets. IDK. Part of me is thinking, "Be sensible! You're already spending more money on transportation than usual this week, don't do it!", but then there is also that other part that's thinking, "Be sensible! You need to spend more time with your family - in fact you need to spend more time with people in general; what's a little money compared to that?!" See, this is what I mean when I say that I often try to be reasonable but can't figure out which is the reasonable course of action. :|

Either way you'll probably hear from me in the morning.

Five and a half weeks, yo. Will I ever get out of there?! For the time being I'm only back for the weekend, as usual, although it's been discussed that I should start going home more often in the near future. From what I gathered, I'll be asked to keep a mood journal during those times then, but I don't quite see how that's supposed to help. What, are they hoping to chance upon a diagnosis that way? From information such as "I'm happy because I just talked to my friend" or "I'm worried that I might miss the train"?? Half the time I don't even know where my mood changes come from, so there will likely be a lot of "SUDDEN GIDDINESS LOL", too.

Speaking of which. I was kinda-sorta depressed for a couple of days at the start of the week, unable to talk myself into doing things other than reading or sleeping. Then on Wednesday that suddenly changed - from one moment to the next I was extraordinarily happy, the only explanation I could think of being that I'd been able to concentrate even on complicated matters pretty well for several hours, which only brings up the question where that came from. Honestly, sometimes I'm as much of a mystery to myself as to the doctors.

Today I am very tired because my sleep was disturbed quite spectacularly; late at night a doctor and a nurse suddenly came in to tell us that they were very sorry but a third patient would have to spend the night in our room, and said patient turned out to be ... well, how do I put this? She didn't seem to know what she was doing; for the first few hours she frequently jumped out of bed just to leave the room and immediately come back in, left the door wide open and lay back down as if nothing had happened. Once she went to the toilet without closing that door, sometimes she turned on the light ... I have no idea how much I slept in the end, but it certainly can't have been enough.

I'm still thinking pretty clearly though, considering the circumstances. I hope that will help me get everything important done before I collapse into bed tonight.

I haven't been very happy with my treatment at the hospital lately. While at first I got the impression that I would have at least one longer conversation with my doctor each week, now it sometimes seems like all I can expect is to be asked how I'm doing once or twice. Since he appeared to be so fascinated with my case in the beginning, I'm starting to suspect that this is actually his boss's doing. I don't like that guy.

Whatever the cause, I've been getting more and more frustrated because how I happen to feel on Mondays and Wednesdays is not exactly enough information to draw any conclusions from, right? How are they supposed to come up with a diagnosis like this? Additionally they are also frustrated with me because I often have trouble answering the question (I get nervous when I have to talk to them, but I can't just answer "I'm feeling nervous" every single time), and apparently my job is to spend the rest of the week thinking really hard until I figure out what's wrong by myself ...?

I'm sure there is some kind of misunderstanding going on here, but shouldn't these people be more experienced at preventing those? Shouldn't they be the ones asking me questions until they understand me better, instead of periodically being surprised when I force another piece of interesting information down their throats by way of saying "but" a lot and persistently changing the topic until they listen??

It's almost funny. That is to say, it would be funny if I were better at determining what it is that they need to know. These moments of surprise that I just mentioned are merely the result of so much desperate babbling on my part that I eventually hit on something useful by accident. All of which could be avoided if they asked me the right questions, so ... WTF?!

And they keep concentrating on my current living situation, as if that were to blame for everything. They even suggested that what I'm going through right now, a.k.a. my biggest recurring problem ever, might only be a distraction that my mind had conjured up to avoid the "real" issue at hand. Excuse me?! If you'd let me talk for long enough to get that far, I would have long since informed you that actually WHAT YOU'RE WRITING OFF AS AN UNIMPORTANT DISTRACTION IS THE REASON WHY I'M HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. ARGH.

However, I've had an idea now. I know exactly what I'm going to tell them tomorrow and I won't let them deter me until I'm done speaking. Maybe I'll write it down and practise a little just in case.

Seriously though, why is that necessary??

I spent the afternoon with Daniel, talking and listening to music. It was nice ... really nice. I love that I don't have to explain my problems to him anymore because he already knows what I mean when I say things like, "You know, that thing that always happens when I'm surrounded by new people." He knows almost everything. Sometimes I think we're much better off being friends instead of a couple.

Now I'm in the process of packing and it's going better than last time. I think. Unless I'm just unaware of the fact that I'm forgetting something important. I still have a lot of trouble trying to be a normal person during weekends; I'm afraid the only reason why I keep surviving them is that weekends are so short. >.<

It's really weird. Whenever I need to plan something, be it grocery shopping or packing or any random chore, my brain kind of freezes like an overburdened computer. There must be a fear of some kind hidden behind that, but of what? Thankfully my doctor's vacation is over now and tomorrow I get to talk to him again. I need to figure this out.

In any case I'll be gone soon, whether I catch the right train this time or not. See you next week, unless you're on Twitter, in which case you'll hear from me often enough due to how bored I always get. :P

I'm home for the weekend again. Meanwhile the weather has spontaneously decided that it is now autumn, which I strongly disapprove of because I don't have enough warm clothes yet. Yikes. I really could have used a little warning. Also, I've been losing weight for unknown reasons and neither know if that's still happening nor if my medication will reverse the process, so basically if I buy any clothes now, there's a chance that only two weeks later they might be either too big or too small. How am I supposed to handle this, keep freezing until I see an obvious trend?!

Well. If there's anything you can count on, it's that I will always worry about clothes for one reason or another. XD

Last week I forgot to mention that I had downloaded the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, I'm With You, and that I like it more than I expected I would. I'm definitely going to buy the physical CD sooner or later, but right now I'm not entirely sure how much money I do or do not have because Mrs D has hopefully been paying some things in my stead. Now I'm trying to get my hands on a download of the new Kasabian album as well, but I'm sad that I won't be able to listen to it "properly" because my current headphones aren't very good. :(

Unless ... I was planning to visit Daniel tomorrow, in part to use his stereo to listen to my favourites from I'm With You out loud for a change (and to see what he thinks of them). He doesn't like Kasabian much, but maaaybe ... if I ask nicely ...? It can't be much longer than half an hour, right?

Apparently when I don't have the option to watch tv shows, my entire life starts to revolve around music. ;)

Just like last time, I slept terribly. This time there is a perfectly non-psychological explanation though: my bed creaks. And I don't mean when I move, I mean it creaks on its own. No idea why. It's not the first time that this happened, either - I remember the first time well because it took me a while to identify the source of the sound. I thought it might be coming from behind the wall or below the floor until I tested the bed theory by moving around in it to make it creak, and it sounded exactly the same.

So my bed creaks for no good reason. I don't even have to be in it, by the way. It just merrily continues creaking no matter where I am, at almost regular intervals. But only at night, that's the thing!! It has stopped by now. Maybe "creaking" isn't exactly the right word - it's more of a short crack, but "my bed cracks" sounds mildly alarming. LOL.

Maybe it's a humidity thing? That during the day the room gets a little damp because I usually let my laundry dry in there and the window is often open (it's rather humid outside at the moment)? Then at night I carry the clotheshorse into the living room, let some more air in and close the window. So maybe the bed starts to dry then and that causes the sound? I don't know, man.

I don't really have another place to let the laundry dry, though. The living room gets awfully cramped when I carry it in here, hence why I only do it before I go to bed. Of course, that could be solved by rearranging some things and making smarter piles (I still don't have enough storage options to put everything away), but I don't want to sit in a damp room all day, either! And what if this is not even the correct explanation?

My problems sometimes, guys. *shakes head*

Another weekend, another night at home. Yay! I think this one's going to be more fun because I don't really get nervous/anxious/restless anymore, I'm not quite as tired as last time and I have money again. My concentration has not improved much, though.

AAAAAHHH!! Sudden crane fly alarm! I HATE THESE THINGS SO MUCH UGHUGHUGH. Don't tell me they're harmless, I know that ... I just really don't want one to fly in my face and they're big enough that it seems likely no matter where they currently are. kjashdjkhgkhf

Relatively certain now that I got it with the vacuum cleaner, but it happened so fast that I'm not sure it actually went in. NOTE TO SELF: PUT UP THE REMAINING MOSQUITO NETS ALREADY.

Ahem. Where was I?

So ... another reason why I've been looking forward to this day is that with every time I'm here, I get to drop off some clothes (or other things) that Daniel brought me unnecessarily and to wash some of the rest, so my wardrobe at the hospital is gradually becoming more and more organised. Which is good because I need a system of some kind to ensure that I don't run out of clothes before I get to do laundry again.

In other news, I've had a chat with Mrs D and she is hopefully going to sort out a bunch of things I can't do by myself right now. Finally.

Ugh. I thought I was going to sleep so much better here at home, but instead the exact opposite happened. I'm guessing that's supposed to tell me something? Like maybe that this being alone thing bothers me after all or even scares me ... if only I weren't so bad with feelings. Have I mentioned that the doctor compared me to Spock? He seriously did. Another reason to start watching Star Trek ...

Apropos of nothing, I have been reading The Three Musketeers - in short bursts, of course, and I can't believe I'm not further along yet. The hospital has this small library for patients, which is basically a tiny, narrow room filled with way too many books for its size, so it's a good thing that it's usually only visited by one person at a time because more would make it crowded. XD (It also doesn't open more often than twice a week for a small number of hours.) I went in, took half a minute to find the adventure and fantasy sections, grabbed two books and checked them out. The nurse who was playing librarian then was quite surprised by my speed, but it all made sense - I'd been meaning to reread The Three Musketeers anyway and there it was, right before my eyes; then I discovered a Wolfgang Hohlbein book I didn't know yet. One quick look at the summary and yup, decision made.

The last time I read The Three Musketeers, I must have been around ten years old, so now it's almost new to me again ...