Putting together a puzzle...

...with less than all of the pieces. Its a strange life, but always entertaining.

[Written, but not proof-read.]

Things continue to go well. Very well, I should say. There have been several great opportunities for my mood to leave the tracks over the last week or so, and I have managed to keep things moving in the right direction.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, one thing I notice when I’m not well is that I have this very repetitive conversation with myself all of the time that I’m alone. What I mean is, I will state a phrase, maybe just in my head, maybe out loud, as if I’m conversing with someone (aka talking to myself), and then repeat the phrase over and over and over. Usually probably 6 or 8 times. Then, I move on to another phrase in the same or a different conversation. The subsequent phrase will be concerning something I thought of while repeating the first phrase. I notice this “habit” most often while driving and while doing any kind of work when I’m alone. I realized this week that I DON’T practice this habit when I’m feeling well. I asked my therapist about the habit. He says it is a very prevalent practice among OCD or manic people. Some, he says, do it to the extent that it is debilitating (i.e. it is so rampant that it prevents them from focusing on doing anything else.) I guess I should consider myself lucky that it just seems to be something my mind does to prevent boredom.

Anyway, as I said, I notice that I don’t do it when I am well. I take a Risperdal in the morning with my meds which is targeted at preventing OCD/mania. I noticed that, on a couple of days this week, I began repeating phrases to myself mid-day. On those days, I could actually feel my mind beginning to speed up, my anxiety level creeping up, and my tendency to overload my day and set irrational expectations of myself taking over. On those days, I took a mid-day Risperdal (I’m dosed at three times/day as needed.) This mid-day hit, on all occasions, was successful at reversing the OCD/manic slide, slowing my head down, and putting me back on a reasonable path. YEA! PROGRESS! I think, which will be borne out as I continue to keep an eye on this repetition habit and handle it with Risperdal, that I am recognizing the repetition as a red flag for OCD/mania. A flag which I have never recognized before. It seems that OCD/mania and trouble dealing with my mentally ill son are by far the two most pronounced triggers for my depressive slides (the only two, in fact, to which I can point.) It makes me very happy to discover things about my condition and find ways, within myself, to battle and win against mood shifts. There is this clearly circular pattern appearing: I find that the better I am mentally, the more I am able to identify little red flags and triggers to my mood shifts, and the more red flags and triggers I identify, the stronger mentally I am able to become. Fingers crossed for a continuance of the cycle.

There’s something I have not written about before, and which I thought might just be a passing thing or an anomaly. I didn’t understand it the first time it occurred and now that its arisen twice, I still don’t understand it. There have been two times, once lasting about 2 days and once lasting only a day, when I have been unable to swallow. Not like swallow food or liquid (liquid to some degree, but minimal), but, rather, ability to just generally swallow like you might to rid yourself of excess saliva in your mouth. (Is this making any sense?) Its just sort of that reflexive swallowing that goes on pretty much without you noticing it. On both occasions, I have just been unable to voluntarily swallow. My throat just wouldn’t do it without significant effort, and then it was sort of a forced, half-hearted swallow. Both times, the problem has subsided on its own 9in fact, both times I just noticed afterwards that the problem was gone.) Has anyone ever had this problem or does anyone know what might cause it?

**Warning: following is a story that is divergent from the main topic of this BLOG, written entirely for my own purposes so I don’t mentally misplace (aka forget) what I learned.** Monday I attended a wonderful seminar presented by the leader of the “Crisis Management Group” at the facility where my son goes to school. Dan leads the group that intervenes when a child is losing control and escalating into an irrational outburst. A child’s crisis cycle moves from baseline (all is good) to triggering (child is feeling bad about something, and looking for ways to deal, which often involves causing a problem so that he/she can act out against the bad feelings) to escalating (child’s frustrations and feelings are reaching a level beyond the child’s ability to cope) to outburst (an entirely irrational state of mind during which the child is beyond reason and out of control and unable to learn from the situation and develop new means of coping) to recovery (during which the child is calming, might be embarrassed by his/her behavior and is trying to make sense of what has happened. One of my triggers, causing my mood to slide from good to bad, from happy to manic or depressed (depending on the situation), is dealings with my son. I have a very hard time with his irrationality, disrespect, and antagonistic behavior when he is moving through this cycle of crisis. Just as learning to recognize my mind moving from stable toward OCD/mania is imperative to stabilizing my mood, learning ways to deal with my son is equally important. If I took nothing else from the seminar, there is a very simple lesson that was well worth the time: Remember that its all about the FEELINGS, not the behaviors caused by those feelings. My getting upset and responding to the behaviors is merely a continuance of the crisis cycle. I am the only person able, in most cases, to break the cycle by dealing on better ways with Mic during his crises. Solving the circumstances causing the bad feelings shortcuts the cycle and avoids the behaviors. Interestingly (to me anyway) is that the Chinese symbol for CRISIS is a combination of the Chinese symbols for DANGER and OPPORTUNITY. During crisis, the situation can become dangerous as the child escalates into an irrational state and possibly (depending on the child) becoming physically violent to him/herself or others. A crisis is also a great opportunity, handled correctly, for education, planting the seeds for coping tools to be developed, teaching life skills and building relationships.

Finally, Monday, I was running on my treadmill (over the last couple months, I have brought my racquetball game back toward its once tournament level proficiency and revived my running routine) and watching the Today show. I caught this segment with The Naked Chef (don’t ask why they call him that, he was clothed) for this oven fried chicken that looked great. I decided, mid-run, that I was going to fix it for my family. Understand, I don’t cook often. But when I cook, I cook big. So, this whole cut apart chicken was roasted/fried in the oven with olive oil, cherry tomatoes, white kidney beans, new potatoes, a diced red chili, basil and a clove of garlic separated into whatever parts of a garlic clove are called. I decided to up the ante a bit by adding asparagus tops (the rest of the asparagus stalk sucks), sliced mushrooms and an extra red chili. Mixed all together in a wok, it cooked for 90 minutes at 350 degrees. Then, you squeeze the meat out of the roasted garlic and dice is, and serve the whole thing with pasta. If I do say so myself, it was f**king awesome! My family hated me for the garlic, but that was the best part of the whole recipe. Roasted garlic is wonderfully flavorful, and horribly offensive. Anyway, me in the kitchen is a sure sign that things are going well.

Until I can think of more to say…