Oaktree1: tapering from Remeron while dealing with Cymbalta withdrawal

[Oaktree1]

On 7/21/2023 at 9:55 PM, arbor said:

Glad to hear from you @Oaktree1  I hear in your rage a lot of my own.  To look truthfully often means having to stand alone--which is very difficult to do, and then harder still when we're dealing with neuro-emotions.  (Right now I can find it hard to register good feelings, and nearly impossible not to feel the terrible.)  Please know that for whatever it's worth, I am with you.

 

Hi Arbor,

 

Thanks for your kindness in commenting on my thread and I am sorry that you are back in a wave now after doing better for quite a while.  I hope that it passes soon and that you can feel the peace of reading a goodish book again.  I hope the neighbour from hell has given up her enthusiasm for bashing a piano - perhaps hand arthritis will catch up with her efforts - a rare instance of karma.

 

I wish I could differentiate neuro from normal emotions but it is all mixed up together.  I read Martha Stout's book 'The Sociopath next Door'.  Apparently according to 'studies' although I do wonder about the legitimacy increasingly of these 'studies', in every 100 people there are only four whistle blowers.  The rest will go along with whatever is accepted truth.  Although the postmodernists believe that there are infinite 'truths'. 

 

Anyway I am complicating things.  I'll simplify it - I was banjaxed emotionally and drugs just numbed me out and made my issues 10 times worse because they masked the symptoms that had resulted from maladaptive behaviour that resulted from trying to survive a bad /unsuitable environment.  The drugs I took brought mania, and terrors, and akathisia, and eczema, and lipid level rises and so on.  Was it worth taking them?  No they made things much worse and increased chronicity and none of them dealt with the 'why'.  If the decision to take a drug is done on a cost/benefit analysis then the costs far outweighed the benefits in my opinion.  I won't convince any of the 'people who matter' about that but I can put it on here at least.   

 

I know I have written something similar nearly a thousand times on my own thread but I am writing it to fortify myself because once I sign off here I have to deal with people who if they knew I was coming off my drugs would try to guilt trip me into going back on them.  They all believe in the drugs and the system although they don't want to know much about it.  They just want things tied up and put away.  They want to get on with their indifference and their holidays and  their rugby matches and whatever object they are buying next whether it's a car or an insurance policy.  If there was an asylum in operation today I would have been tidied away into it years ago.

 

One of the scariest bought the psychiatrist's book I referred to.  When I saw it coming into the house, I wondered - I hope this is not brought in to bone up about me - although this person does a lot of world for an organisation that regularly ropes in shrinks and the like so I hope it's that.   I don't communicate with them other than the basics anyway - keep well out of their way.

 

Anyway rambling/journaling on here.  Keeps me going but I am trying to do the daily practice in crappy childhood fairy later on to try to stop rambling on in this manner.  

 

I hope things continue to improve for you Arbor.

 

Oaktree1

[arbor]

On 7/25/2023 at 9:19 AM, Oaktree1 said:

I hope things continue to improve for you Arbor.

Thank you, @Oaktree1  In spite of Waves, I'm getting better.  I wish none of us had to go through this to reclaim our health.

Thinking of you,

Arbor

[Erell]

Dear @Oaktree1
I wish we could have a place where we could make decisions about our tapers without living in fear of paying the consequences if the manifestations of our bodies do not please those around us.

The way in which our culture legitimises the brutality and coercion of anything it perceives as deviant is mind-boggling. 

And the strength with which the psychiatric paradigm has infiltrated every dimension of our culture is terrible.
You may feel like you're rambling, but your indignation and your fear are perfectly understandable.

I'd like to have the strength to fight publicly for our rights. 
For now, it feels like we are reduced to doing the best we can with individual survival strategies.

I can't do much better than to assure you that you're not completely alone and that there are people who support you and are committed to your right to self-determination, and your right to express yourself. I know I do ❤️ 

 

[Oaktree1]

Update: - 

 

Erell,

Thank you so much for your kind reply on my thread.  You have a way with words even in a language which is not your first language.  I was doing a big reply on Word and it got bigger and bigger as I was full of invective sparked by what you wrote so eloquently. 

 

In the intervening days however my beloved cat (having had a long period of remission from kidney failure) sickened  suddenly last week and died on Friday evening at 4.30pm.  So the person I loved most in the whole world (I know it was only a cat) is now gone.  One of siblings who is staying at the moment accompanied me to the vet for the formal diagnosis of death and was very kind to me.  I was glad to have someone drive me as I was in no fit state to drive there or back.   At the moment I am just stunned.  I saw a reddish rock in the garden last night and thought for a moment that it was my dead cat as he was ginger.  I cannot believe that he is no longer there and that I will never hold him close to me and stroke the soft white fur of his barrel chest or that he will never again push through the side door into the kitchen in the morning as he was wont to do and demand his morning pet before breakfast.  The only positive is that I knew that this cat loved me and I knew what it was like to love someone without any conditionality or anger.  At least the best thing that can be said of my failed life is that this wonderful and commanding bruiser of a cat and I had a good relationship.  In that sense it was not a total failure.  So I didn't bother posting the other thing.  

 

I am itchy this evening - I don't know if it's a delayed reaction to the last reduction or a reaction to the eggs (which I hardly ever eat) that I had for tea.  Otherwise I am sleeping ok except the night before my cat died.  The night he died I was offered wine which I drank and like clockwork I had a migraine the following day.  Normally now I never drink.   Every time I have  any alcohol now I get a migraine the following day.  This started happening in 2021.   A month ago I had one of the worst migraines I ever had having drunk wine because I had to sit through a stressful meal the previous evening.  I had several vomiting bouts until eventually I vomited bile.  I had stopped taking the Quercetin which I think made a difference to the itch so started it again yesterday although perhaps it's a delayed reaction to the cat dying.  

 

One parent is severely depressed at the moment.  She has been in varying degrees of depression all her life really but it's gotten progressively worse in the past few years.  She has never dealt with the reasons for it - I don't think she was ever able to.  It is also quite worrying.

 

I sign off anyway having detailed some symptoms above.  I am now down to 2.88mg.  Hope the itchiness subsides.  As I have gotten lower the bottle of liquidised Mirt (having dissolved 2 15 mg tablets in 15 ml water and 15 ml Maple syrup the Mason jar) looks half full after the requisite five days of usage.  I tried using it a sixth day running - don't think it was a good idea.   Five days in the fridge is the max it can be kept for I think.  I will stay on this dose until hopefully the itchiness subsides.

[Oaktree1]

Update:  itchyiness (pruritis) disappeared around 4 days ago.  I had not been taking my supplements but within a few days of going back on them things improved - my guess it's the quercetin and the lutein, zinc and vitamins c and e I take in the same tablet.  I was able to use the same shampoo and conditioner with no ill effects.

 

Sleep is quite poor generally but I am not going to bed until 1 or 2am in the morning so it figures I suppose and am doing little exercise other than riding the stationary bike

[Oaktree1]

Update:

 

Ok so it's not the supplements as yesterday three days after the last drop the itchy sensitive skin started up again and I am back taking the supplements.  The skin on my hands and feet is burning and sensitive and itchy - hope this is not the start of it all over again.  I will post here again if they calm down. 

 

I groomed the remaining cat last night  - my hands were bad before but they were really bad afterwards.  Over the last few years I had been grooming the cats with no issues.  My sleep is also bad - I go to sleep quickly but wake up and I am having nightmares.  I never look at the clock - ever - because that makes me feel worse.  I just lie there and rest if I wake up and eventually sleep comes again.

Muscle tension is pretty constant.  I now do tai chi daily which helps.  I have to take into account the life stressors to which I have been subject also - don't know which is which.

 

Will update again if skin improves.  i hope I am not going to get a repeat of what I went through between May 2018 and June 2020 (severe eczema) because that was not fun.  

[Oaktree1]

Update: - pruritis (skin sensitivity) subsided two days ago so my hands are not sore and sensitive along with the other parts of my body that were sore. 

 

However anxiety was severe in the last two days; breathing was very shaky and jerky.

[composter]

I'm so sorry to hear about your cat! And your ongoing histamine and pruritis sounds unpleasant. I agree it can be hard to sometimes tell the difference between symptoms from tapering/withdrawal and other life stressors and their physical manifestations. The tai chi sounds very soothing!

 

I hope your sleep and anxiety improves soon.

 

Just a gentle suggestion: Have you tried magnesium? I know that's a calming supplement that moderators will recommend on here. Magnesium could potentially help with both your sleep and anxiety. I like to take Mg in the form of an Epsom salt bath or powder that I dissolve in water (I use "Calm" brand).

[Oaktree1]

Thanks very much Composter for your condolences about my cat and for your advice about magnesium.  Unfortunately magnesium taken orally seems to agitate me.  I do take an epsom salt bath once a week which is helpful but I can't manage any more than one bath per week due to eczema.

 

I will be updating on my symptoms here more regularly as I am lower down in the dose:- today I have a bad migraine with nausea again.  I think it was due to eating raspberry jam which I made yesterday - full of histamine I think.  My neck shoulders and back are in a rictus which nothing even lying and moving on my foam roller seems to shift.  Skin sensitivity has abated.

 

10 hours ago, composter said:

I agree it can be hard to sometimes tell the difference between symptoms from tapering/withdrawal and other life stressors and their physical manifestations.

It's impossible for me to tell the difference to be honest other than that I never had eczema or migraines EVER before I was put on Cymbalta and Mirtazapine in my mid 40's and now they are a regular occurrence so I think drug related. 

 

My deepest condolences on the death of ShiningLight again - what a terrible thing.  It is too much to hope that the mainstream of our species will ever see the light about these drugs.  I saw a documentary about Marilyn Monroe recently -I believe that many of the problems of her later life were due to barbiturate addiction and the cold turkeying of those drugs that she was subjected to in the years before she died.  People who have never taken these drugs have no idea what a bullet they have dodged. 

 

Oaktree1

[Carmie]

Hi @Oaktree1, thanks for all your messages on my thread. I’m so sorry to hear about your cat, it’s hard when you lose a beloved pet. Your description of missing him made me so sad. 
 

That’s awful about your burning skin all the time too, especially if it’s on your hands as that would make it so hard to do anything. Do you think that extra stress flares it up too, or is there no rhyme or reason to it? 
 

I had the same problem with magnesium, it ramped up my WDs. I was reluctant to try it again, but then my integrative doctor put me on a liquid one and I’ve been okay with that. We are all so different. I’m on millions of supplements, but I have to be careful with fish oil as well. I tolerate one a day. Maybe one day I’ll try two again. I put all my supplements into pill dividers, but I keep forgetting the fish oil because it’s in the fridge. Maybe I should put a tiny note in the pill dividers? I eat lots of oily fish though, I love Portuguese sardines, not too fussed on any other sardines.

I hope your nausea and migraine dissipates soon🧡

[JanCarol]

Hey Oaktree - 

 

I was luxuriating in my magnesium bath, thinking about your post, here.  Fiery skin and magnesium.   

Inspiration struck - add coconut oil to the bath.  1/4 - 1/2 cup should be plenty.  See if that helps!

Agree with Carmie - those liquid & refrigerated vitamins are hard to remember - they don't fit in my weekly trays!  Probiotics are another one. . . even if it's just a spoonful of yogurt = hard to remember!

I hope you are breathing deeply, and that you see the sun today.  

 

[Greatful]

@Oaktree1  Sorry to hear of the loss of you beloved cat.  I lost my beloved dog in March and I still look for her.  I do some doggy sitting for our kids, so at least I get a little fix from that.  The loss from them is truly felt when the connection is gone.   

Oaktree you are a beautiful person with deep emotions and a big heart.  Hold on to that.  You have more courage and SISU then me,  one day you will come to see that in yourself.🌞

Edited September 1, 2023 by Greatful

[Oaktree1]

Hi Carmie, JanCarol and Greatful,

 

Many thanks for your comments on my thread.  I agree Carmie about trying to remember to take all one's supplements - I put mine in a pill box too.  It's good that you can tolerate the liquid one - I used to take a liquid magnesium citrate powder but it was in a lemon drink with saccharin so pretty yucky and I stopped taking it.  I don't know to be honest if it flares up with additional stress or not.  I definitely get a flare up around three days after a drop.  I am noticing a pattern now - that is why I am updating the symptoms more frequently.  I agree with you about Portuguese sardines.  They are delicious. I visited Portugal quite a bit when I used to take sun holidays - fresh or tinned - delicious - and I love Portuguese tuna fish too.  Absolutely used to love the place (Portugal)- had my last sun holiday there over 10 years ago - haha - haven't been on one since.

 

Thanks JanCarol for the advice re coconut oil _ i may try it but if it results in excess oil so that I have to clean the bath it would be a no no.  I'm not wild about the smell of coconut either.  Trying to limit some housework as things getting really out of hand here at present.  I probably could take more than one bath a week in the Epsom salts if I kept the water lukewarm - I suppose but I hate having full on body washes.  This was something that started to become difficult after I withdrew from Cymbalta - Erell recounted a similar problem. And I used to love taking baths BE (before eczema) so I could use all these perfumed oils and soaps but then I couldn't use anything and it took the luxury out of it.

 

As I have gotten older and more obsessed about energy and that...I only do a full wash when essential really.  I'd be quite Virgo-ey so I tend towards frugality - more and more the older I get - wearing very old clothes, mending stuff or having it mended rather than buying new stuff.  Taking daily baths would use a lot of heating oil and it's way too expensive where I am as money issues are really beginning to bite in the last few months. 

 

The only thing I spend money on now is books, physiotherapy, health insurance and the remaining cat.  Keeping pets in this country is expensive - it is really awful how many pets are being handed into shelters now because their  owners are being turfed out of their rentals - the housing situation here is dire.  People (like the Ukrainians) must be desperate to have to come here.   This country is dire.  So many young people are leaving to go to Australia and reports come back regularly about the great quality of life there.   They can't recruit police officers, nursing staff, doctors or teachers here because they are mostly leaving - the teachers and police officers can't get on the housing ladder and the medical system is so bad that the doctors won't work in it and are choosing to go abroad.  There are areas of the country now with no GP service at all and yet the vote gathering government just keeps loading the overworked GP's with obligations to provide 'free' GP care to more and more categories of people so yet more of them retire or leave.   It has never been as bad as it is now in my lifetime. 

 

This country was always horrible - it just looks pretty but it's a horrible place and it's worse than it ever was now- wish I had left when young -  if I had not had mental health issues I would have done.  You need to be strong mentally to emigrate and I never was really.  I wish I had.  I deeply regret not getting out of it.  

 

Thanks for the comments about my pet.  I am very sorry about your dog Greatful - I can understand that you still look for her.  At least you have still some contact with your children's dog.  Thanks very much for your comments about SISU (had to look that one up) very kind of you.  I think anyone who undertakes the withdrawal journey has SISU because it is mostly a lonely road.  Sometimes I think of Harriet Tubman and the spirituals with messages about going in the water when she ran the underground railway.  Most of us withdrawing are going underground - most of us - we can try being open with our doctors or with the people around us but I have seen on here over and over again with a few exceptions like your husband that when people try to be open they are dismissed or disbelieved.  Then of course there are the terrible tragedies like that of ShiningLight who was not only disbelieved but grossly mistreated by the medical system.  It is rare to find a medical professional that has the humility to apologise or to even accept the reality  of withdrawal.  It was interesting to read Purple's (a medical professional) thread.  It elucidated for me quite a bit the blinkered quality that so many doctors and other medical staff have .  I saw someone I knew who entered medical training years ago undergo a personality transformation for the worst - something about the training seems to harden people. It’s hard to retain much humanity in it.

 

Am three weeks into my last drop - very shaky in general. 

 

Made the mistake of reading Claire Keegan's novel 'Small things like this' about a man who rescues a girl from the local magdalen laundry which badly upset me.  It sent me off on a research hunt to the greatest Irish journalist that ever lived - the late Mary Raftery.  She broke all the stories about the residential institutions for impoverished or difficult children, the magdalen laundries and as she was dying from ovarian cancer her final documentary on the mistreatment of thousands of people since the foundation of our state in our psychiatric institutions.  Once I read something like that I can't stop - I have to read everything and look at everything and ultimately I became extremely distressed because I feel so powerless because something similar happened to me. 

 

I was in St Vincents Hospital in the early 90's and one of the biggest Magdalen laundries was not too far away and they used to send young girls from there to the hospital I was in.  I was mistreated in that hospital - not as bad as what happened to the slaves in the Magdalen system but I became institutionalised.  And once that stain - the stain of mental illness - goes on your record - you can't get away from it.  Mary Raftery said 'I don't think we realised how vicious a society we created in this country'.  The documentary was called 'Behind the Wall's and there were two parts to it.  People were committed for the most banal of reasons.  One woman had her brother committed because her fiance would not marry her if she did not have clear title to the farm.  And most stayed there for their whole lives.  You can drive all around Ireland and you can see the ruins of some of these huge monolithic structures.  Some towns like Sligo owed their whole economy to the psychiatric hospital.  The conditions were appalling.  We had more people in locked up in this country than Soviet Russia and it was and still is alarmingly easy to deprive people of their liberty here. 

 

It really annoys me when I hear foreigners talk about the huge welcome you get in Ireland and how beautiful it is or how they enjoyed a great night in such and such a pub or had a great whiskey but all they are getting is a version of Irish flannel delivered solely to get money off them.  There isn't one good thing about Irish society IMO- not one good thing about it. 

 

I hate this country - I hate the narrowness of it; the total lack of social justice; the total lack of basic services that should be paid for by the state in any country that calls itself civilised - a properly funded police force, education and health system;  there are huge numbers of people living here (40%) who without welfare top ups would be in living in severe poverty while the other half live liked fatted cows on their salaries and pensions.  It's a narrow shoddy little place but it's the huge injustice against the most vulnerable of our society that really makes me hate it.  The State made all the victims of the residential schools sign waivers so they could not take legal action against the religious orders and the religious orders have paid very little of the sums that were decided upon to the people they enslaved and abused.  The tax payer paid for most of it while the religious orders got their big time lawyers to stall and quibble.  The remaining nuns and priests are having comfortable retirements now and my psychiatrist relative ministers to many of them - the people who brutalised young women who got pregnant through rape or abuse or just common recklessness.  None of these nuns were put in jail - not one of them  - these are the nuns that buried these women in unmarked graves  when they died after a lifetime of slavery in a laundry six days a week.  These are the nuns who did a deal with a development company that wanted to buy the laundry and develop flats on it that they would pay half the cost to dig up the bodies of these dead and unknown women, cremate them and dump them in Glasnevin cemetery - over 25 of these women were not even identified.  None of these nuns was ever charged with a crime - not one of them for what they did.  No one who does evil in this country is ever charged with a crime if they are powerful. 

 

It was the same with our financial crash.  The two men behind the greatest bank fail - Anglo Irish Bank - Sean Fitzpatrick and David Drumm - our judiciary exonerated the CEO Sean Fitzpatrick even though he moved contentious monies out of relevant accounts before the audit every year to hide what was going on - our judiciary gave him the all clear.  they all know each other - these men - they meet on our numerous golf courses.  David Drumm got locked up in the States for his crimes so he sought to serve the rest of his sentence in Ireland because it was a cushy number compared to the States and he got out in jig time here.    No one powerful is ever held to account - EVER.  I hate this country - I hate the Irish - I hate Ireland.  I wish the English had stayed - the 20th century in this country was just a large gulag of forced emigration for most Irish people except the golden circle - I hate Ireland - I feel so powerless here.  Maybe Putin will blow it up and blow it off the face of the earth.

 

Oaktree1

[Oaktree1]

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsandculture/arid-40819980.html?fbclid=IwAR2X8UU1qvXvsTtAiGfGhBOSlaDzM83jJ-Uhxux9nTreNdk7bYYnEkyLQvc

 

Article on the laundries -  I was stuck in a psychiatric hospital instead.  Didn't have to labour in it like those women in the laundries and I got out relatively quickly but was kept in the system for a few more years getting weaker and weaker from the drugging and labelling and complete social ostracisation that resulted from Irish society.  

 

There was genuine kindness in the hospital from all the nursing staff I encountered and real humanity.  However the psychiatrists and psychologists were shocking individuals utterly devoid of those qualities  - most of them.  What I remember most from them was their certainty, their coldness and their arrogance.  I went in as a greenhorn thinking I'd be 'helped' - some joke  - and discovered inside that that it was about coercion and labeling ultimately.  

 

I am coming off these drugs as my own silent protest.  My eventual hope is a place of my own and a voice of my own where I don't have to live in constant fear of being psychiatrised again.  I'll never be as safe as someone who never had contact with psychiatric services - it's unlikely I'll ever get a life insurance or a mortgage, probably I won't be able to emigrate because of my medical file and employment seems a distant possibility.  I'll have to see if there is a way out some way - ideally I would like to leave this country.

 

I came down again in my dose three days ago and I am going to go as quickly as I can.  Anxiety is sky high but do manage to get some sleep and I just try to float and ignore it and keep moving.  Claire Weeks was so right about housework - it encourages rumination; I find if I get outside it seems to calm down a lot.

[Erell]

Hello Oaktree 🌿
How can we live with the constant fear of others after being involuntarily treated or incarcerated by psychiatry, that's a question I ask myself often.
How nice it must be to live ignorant of these experiences!
Do we still have a right to get angry or sad? Will we ever feel safe?
I don't have the answers, and the loneliness is deeply felt.

I am making a silent protest by your side. I might have less choices than others, but I will still make choices. 

I am glad to know you exist. ❤️

[Carmie]

How are you doing @Oaktree1?🧡

[Oaktree1]

Hi Erell and Carmie

On 10/26/2023 at 8:34 PM, Erell said:

Do we still have a right to get angry or sad? Will we ever feel safe?
I don't have the answers, and the loneliness is deeply felt.

I am making a silent protest by your side. I might have less choices than others, but I will still make choices.

These are good questions.   I don't have answers to them either and it is lonely not to be accepted or acknowledged.  However I have lived that way for most of my life.  I am kind of 'used to it' if you can put it like that.  No one knows that I am tapering and I have to negotiate with people that I know bar one person are not exactly brimful of compassion or empathy.

 

Carmie, I lost my other cat around a month ago  He died on the operating table - he had a four inch tumour in his stomach.  He was never really right after my first cat died in August.   I didn't feel like posting it here at the time.  I feel kind of stunned after the loss of both of them within a two month period.  To try and cope I visited a cat show.  I wanted to see cats again or maybe meet a breeder as my first cat had a lot of British shorthair in him.  I also did a day's volunteering at an animal welfare center but they had me cleaning out the dog's kennels.  It was hard work with a lot of bending and swabbing and to be honest a bit beyond me as my back problems reappeared in the last two months thanks to doing yoga in addition to the hip problems.  You do not really get time with the dogs as it's a very rushed operation and you have to try and shut them and keep them away from each other.  Dogs are loud.  Afterwards I asked if I see could the cattery - it was like going from a dirty hell to a zen paradise.  The dogs bark and some of them jumped all over me.  It is only affection and play but I am so much more of a cat person.  The cats lay on the cat beds in their cubicles and slow blinked at me.  They don't need help with the cats.  Sure why would they?  Cats are the cleanest animals.  The amount of dog wee and poo I cleaned up in two short hours filled a very large bucket.  I suppose I was trying to get access to cats again.  I have now decided however not to get another cat.  The only thing that was kind of keeping me in the place where I live currently was the cats.  Now that they are gone I need to begin to move on.

 

I don't have good friends like yourself.  I only really had the cats and my mother.  They had become a huge part of my life...well that's life.  I don't know how long the grief will last.  I am coping by binge eating and have put on a large tummy.  I need to stop it now because I am getting my bloods done in two wees time having put it off for a year.  I think the carbohydrate cravings are related to the Mirt which I know from other sites also causes cravings at low doses.

 

Otherwise I just reduce every two weeks and every time I reduce it affects my sleep more but the thing is it is hard to tell the difference between life circumstances and the drug reduction affecting it - I will fess up - I can't tell the difference at this stage.

 

Symptoms  - I have developed numbness and shooting pains in my left lower leg.  I am told it is a back issue by the physio - loads of visits to physios and a few to masseurs in the last two months.  Lots of migraines.  The physio I have is fantastic - old school - really checks how you stand and notices muscle imbalances.  The tai chi is helping me with the migraines but it is so difficult...I find it frustrating.

 

I can't see an end in sight to getting off this drug.  I am at 2.5mg currently.  It took me two years and 3 months to get here from 7.5mg.  I know it gets harder the lower you get.  I will just chip away but I accept also that with every drop there is a chance that the symptoms will become unbearable and I may have to accept that I can't reduce further.  I don't know how much damage the other drugs I was on did to my CNS and other parts of my body and none of us really know as there's no research on the longterm effects of being on these drugs.  If I chipped away reducing by .1 twice a month with some holds I think I am still looking at conservatively another two years.   Who knows?  I just go from day to day and try to do my best.  Trying to get out a bit more and joined some social occasions - have to engage up to a point so that I don't become 'the mad woman in the attic'.  I do actually live in the attic hahaha currently - the very top of the house.  I am very wary of people but I have to learn how to do the 'basic' social niceties.  As Erell put it above -

On 10/26/2023 at 8:34 PM, Erell said:

How can we live with the constant fear of others after being involuntarily treated or incarcerated by psychiatry, that's a question I ask myself often.

I never felt the same about people after that happened.  I think one needs to tread a fine line . If you don't engage at all that puts you in danger also.  You literally become 'the odd one' and can be exposed to further psychiatrisation.  I read a book once called 'The 48 Laws of power' That was one of the tenets - isolation exposes you.  One has to engage with people up to a point but don't depend on them and be very very careful of who you trust -as the saying goes 'trust few and always paddle your own canoe'. 

 

I watched the cats interact when my first cat was dying - the other cat showed him such kindness.  He groomed him and lay practically one top of him and sniffed him and communicated with him.  I rarely saw that from any human being.  If one wants that often as a human it's generally transactional - ie. you pay for it.

 

One very compassionate psychologist - (joke) - compared me to Miss Havisham from Great Expectations once.  I sometimes wonder how and why these people go into the jobs where they are meant to 'help' or 'cure' distressed people.  I think mainly it's because they like having power.  I disconnected from the Drop the Disorder group.  It was largely staffed by psychologists and therapists touting their own brand of therapy as a cure all and they deleted a comment I made about an experience I had had with a particular type of therapy that had been very damaging - Human Givens and did not respond when I asked them why they had done so.  They seem to have made an alliance with practitioners of Human Givens therapy on the basis that it rejects the DSM.  However just because you attend a therapy which rejects biomedical psychiatry does not mean that you will not end up being hurt or damaged as therapy is based on a very unequal relationship and people that tend to be attracted to therapy can be quite psychologically damaged themselves and are seeking to resolve their own issues through vulnerable people.  Ultimately it's all just the 'mental health industry' where things that should be free in any healthy society - friendship, kindness, empathy - are merchandised.  Anyway - better get off my hobby horse.

 

Oaktree1

[Carmie]

Dear @Oaktree1, I’m so very sorry to hear that your other cat died. It’s absolutely heartbreaking when we lose our cats. I had to take my cat to the vet recently because she was constantly vomiting and regurgitating. I found out she had megaoesophagus. She’s been okay since she’s been put on medication, but it’s sad we outlive our animals. With the way my lungs are, maybe my cat will outlive me😄

 

Why did the psych compare you to Miss Havisham? That’s not a nice mental picture. I think they need to change jobs. 
 

I’ll be tapering forever too, probably another decade, even though I’m at 3.30mg. I can only drop by teeny tiny amounts and have to hold each drop a long time. 
 

Sending you big hugs🤗🧡

[Hanna72]

Dear @Oaktree1

Dropping by to tell you I appreciate you and the times you have dropped by my thread with kind words and thoughtfulness. I see you and hear you, and there is no right way to live in this world. You are a kind beautiful soul and that is the most valuable asset anyone can have. 
I am deeply sorry for your loss of your cats💕

[Greatful]

@Oaktree1  Thinking of you and sending you encouragement.

[Oaktree1]

Thanks Greatful - you're very kind to think of me.  I wish you lots of encouragement = youre a great mentor to people on here.

Oaktree1

[Oaktree1]

Trigger Warning: do not read if upset - rant - will end will rant over

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Not interested in upsetting people on here so please don't read if prone to upset.  Of course the human brain is so contrary that adding a warning sometimes causes humans to do the opposite of what they are told (eating from the wrong apple tree in Genesis etc) but I think people here are very sensible in general.  I don't want to journal on Word (I hate Word) since Microsoft synched it to OneDrive and made it has hard as possible to save your own drive so that you'd save OneDrive and then they could make even more money off you.  Data centres all over this place - global warming and data centres - where they can harvest your data.  Civilisation is turning full circle now to the end - they say the start of civilisation was in Mesopotamia where they built large towers to store grain and staffed them with cats to keep out the rodents.  I wonder if there are cats wandering around the data centres keeping the rodents from chewing the wires but probably not in the horrible world we have now - it's probably all infra red sensors and rentokil kits. 

 

I don't know if there is anything that is salvageable from our species. 

 

Look at this site - volunteers providing help as best as they can to people who are suffering and some of whom are dying directly because of the actions of the medical profession and the pharmaceutical companies.  The best that can be offered to these people are these online support sites currently and the odd doctor (like a needle in the haystack) that will offer tapering help often with no clue how to do so.   Mark Horowitz has set up a site which offers tapering support for a fee.  I think he's a brave man and is trying to clear up some of the damage and the damage that was done to him personally by these drugs but how many others are out there like him?  I think he's the only one online currently that I know of.  How many thousands of psychiatrists are out there in the world who are right now poly drugging thousands of vulnerable people whose central nervous systems may been seriously damaged by these drugs and are now being damaged further?  How many medical schools are still ignoring withdrawal?  

 

What of the lives that have been broken and damaged by the drugs - whose stories will never be believed because withdrawal is conflated with existing 'mental illness'?   It is believed that benzos and barbiturates are dangerous now - I can't get them from my local day hospital - you can get all the other toxic rubbish though - the newer generation anti psychotics.

 

I tried to re-engage with employment services- so far deeply depressing.  More of what I engaged in the last time I had cold turkeyed off Tripramine and started on Cymbalta resulting in a severe crisis.  I know it was the drugs as I was fine before I cold turkeyed of Trimipramine - three days later - severe akathisia, panic attacks - sheer hell for six weeks.  Then when I stablised I had four years of going through the window dressing of employment support agencies attached to the welfare office - four years of attending cv preparation courses and retail courses that led nowhere - four years of job rejections.  I re engaged before Christmas.  I was advised of yet another government quango where I could attend an employer preparation course lasting 24 months - another two years of my dwindling time attending something that will lead nowhere at my age.  People on this site who are lucky enough to have a job - I know it might not be great but if it gives you any satisfaction at all and a take home wage - all I can say to you is that from where I stand I envy you deeply.    The woman on the employment support site said that I might consider attending it i.e sitting in traffic for 2 hours to attend a course from 9am to 3pm every day along with school leavers who left without a qualification - because it might be beneficial for 'wellness'.  I don't know if I will bother attending for any more sessions.  She says all this with the smugness of the regularly waged  - someone who makes a living off the suffering of others.  If I don't attend though what do I do then?  Just live on my disability payment?  It is hard to socialise when you are on disability - it is hard to see people's faces when you say you're on a payment but that's what I do now because I'm tired of lying.

 

I have been following the post office scandal in the UK - thousands of ordinary sub post master's lives ruined by the malign actions of a corporation Fujitsu backed up by an indifferent judicial system and by the senior management of the post office.   Amazingly the head of the post office was also one of the arch deacons in the Church of England and was in the running to be appointed the 'head' whatever they call it in Anglicanism of that church.   She handed back her CBE (honour) but it is clear that she feels little remorse.   These people's lives were ruined most of them - accused of stealing; imprisoned; their livelihoods wrecked; their savings swallowed up by the Post Office to pay for sums that they never owed.   Some of them suicided themselves; some of them lost their homes and all their savings.  None have not received any financial compensation to date.  The saga ran on for years and was only taken notice of when a TV production company commissioned a drama that was broadcast in the last few weeks.  Ordinary people in similarly powerless positions saw the drama and became enraged.

 

But what will happen?   Probably very little - Fujitsu provide a huge number of the IT systems in the UK particularly in government.  I'd say they will get away with paying a pittance if anything.  They'll get away like all the pharma companies have gotten away from liability from the damage they caused by psychotropic drugs because of expired patents.  It's the moral equivalent of economies of scale - if you're large enough - you can absorb and glide away from anything. 

 

All around the world despotic narcissists are in charge in powerful nations to terrible effect. 

 

Our own daily lives (the lives of little people) are more and more subscribed by the dictates (entirely in the interest of power and profit) of the tech oligarchs.  How did it suddenly become acceptable to have no choice but to agree to a litany of waivers in order to download the licence for a software that you have no choice but to use?  Or that it has become accepted that there is largely no customer support available on the phone or in person for the tech that we have to use - that instead we are told to 'ask the community' when something goes wrong.  Or that exhausted parents have to constantly check their child monitoring apps to see what horrors their child might be exposed to on their device while the broadband providers have never been held criminally responsible for hosting any content no matter how damaging to a vulnerable young mind.

 

Or that when something goes wrong with your broadband or your phone line goes down, the telecommunications companies (is that word even obsolete now?) make it as hard as possible for you to contact them and when you do you are outsourced to a country thousands of miles away to speak to someone for whom generally your language is not their first language and both of you struggle to understand each other - both of you annoyed and desperate - because some multinational corporation has decided that they can make more profit by relocating customer service to somewhere they can pay low wages and that we can just 'suck it up'.  I worked in customer service so I know that it is specifically designed to frustrate people so that they will stop phoning.   Or that it's not just the telecommunications companies who are particularly egregious.  It's expensive home appliances - a German home applicance manufacturer that prides itself on its quality - they relocated their call centre back to Germany a cost saving for them but the customer service which used to be wonderful is now appalling.  It is hard to get through and when you do their agents speak poor English, could not care less and give a turnaround time for the technician to call to your home to fix your appliance that is never communicated to the repair man.  

 

The banks (where I live) are doing that too : - I had to wait an hour to get through to credit card services recently and last year one bank sneakily tried to close down all its serviced counter branches and nearly succeeded until public protest became overwhelming.  They don't want to pay wages and want to automate everything so they can ...make even more money.  Where does it end?  And now there is AI - and that will make everything so much worse.  I wouldn't like to work in Humanities now in the university.  How will a lecturer/teacher differentiate what is AI and what is original work?  I don't think it is possible.  What is the point of learning a language now - an algorithm can translate everything in 'real time' -  horrible tech speak.  

 

Social media seems to have brought a conformism in the way the young dress - all swathed in the neutral pastel tones of 'athleisure' variations on track suits and trainers.  As an old biddy growing up in the 70's and 80's it was all about experimentation - second hand shops, inventing your own outfits - looking as outrageous as possible.  Now young people nearly all look identical to me - the girls with plumped up lips, false eyelashes, ironed hair and fake tan.  Everyone except the extremely poor has a perfect set or straight white teeth or veneers.  The bookshops near where I used to live have all closed down and every other week a cosmetic clinic doing fillers takes its place.  I don't see any joy anywhere - stressed out people driving pumped up cars at high speed.  Every second ad on the TV shows some car speeding along on a clear road when in reality the roads are clogged with traffic.

 

The pharmaceutical companies have walked away paying negligible amounts on the steps of courthouses for the damage they caused with drugs like risperidone- chump change.  Now there's more money in biotech and in recreational drugs that they can now market legally again with the cooperation of the medical profession and obviously of governments.  Corporate money buys a lot of politicians.  

 

Where is the decency in the world?  I don't really see any of it.  The things that matter - that keep people alive - community, support, empathy.  Maybe those are just imaginary things now or things that once existed but are becoming extinct.

___

Rant  over 

___________________________________________________________________

UPDATE: 

 

My taper is not going great and I am stuck 5.50mg since the 10th December last.  I didn't post since the end of October and wish I had better news to report - sleep is very poor unfortunately, eczema (still mostly in abeyance), crying fits, nightmares; I wake up tight around my shoulders and bruxism even with a mouth guard has led to chipped teeth; I garden as best as I can with my physical limitations and am sorting out a personal trainer to try and get some fitness back. 

 

 I joined a walking club but even one social 10 km walk was too much for me and I was in serious discomfort for several days after it.  I posted several months ago about my upcoming hip replacement.  Well I saw another consultant and he said that I had a normal hip and that he could not condone a replacement.  So I presume the pain that I was feeling was mainly from soft tissue issues.  Anyway over the last few months the tai chi has been helping.  I do think that the muscle spasms and stiffness are particular to Mirtazapine because I have been getting them on and off and they are unpleasant particularly around my neck and shoulders

 

 I am very socially isolated but in the last few years have become almost phobic about other people and quite angry with them.  However I am learning and this is one positive thing to keep my anger in check.  I have worked very hard on that.  If you can't control your own emotions that is very dangerous for you because you'll be out of control and more liable to a committal.  For a woman I think in particular, you can weep safely enough but if you show anger openly that makes you a target.  It's largely for that reason that I re engaged with employment services.  Having no engagement with society marks you out as a recluse and once that happens once again you are more vulnerable to getting either locked up or put on a drug order.

 

I did not realise also how much I would miss my cats who died in the last few months and that is hard to cope with also - the grief is extremely painful.  I used to look at cats on video but found that that made the grief worse.  My personal situation is so unstable that I can't get another one.  In another world I would have six cats.

 

The family set up is the same (dire) only now even though I still live in the large family home I am kind of disengaging from it.  One psychotherapist said to me once after treating me for a few years: 'you don't have a family' and for once I think a therapist hit the nail on the head.  I expect a death probably within the year and I will have to go on the autopilot for the farce that the funeral will be.  I am polite but not too polite and that's it except for one member with whom I cut contact completely and I will not be in the same room with that person if at all possible.  This person pushed me back into psychiatric care and described me to the psychiatrist in extremely negative terms.  I know it was this person because the psychiatrist subsequently did up a report on me after a one hour meeting that described my 'pattern of anger and hostility' 'undoubtedly need psychiatric attention'.  I was very polite to the psychiatrist and neither angry nor hostile as i was scared of him and I gave him all my medical notes.  I was very distressed at that point and wanted help even though the hospital in which that psychiatrist practiced had in my 20's abandoned me in a suicidal state for four months after discharging me (they returned none of my mother's phone calls for four months when I was self harming and suicidal - this is one of the so called top psychiatric facilities in the country - what a joke).    Anger and hostility were not mentioned anywhere in notes so there is only one other person (the family member) from whom he could have formed that view.   I stay well away from this person but unfortunately the impending death of one or both parents will mean some engagement is necessary unfortunately.  If that happens the main thing is not to be in the same room alone with them.  The good thing is that his person doesn't want to have anything to do with me either.  I once loved this person a lot but people change - unfortunately some of them including myself for the worse I think (hahaha).   

 

In honour of Carmie whom I have a lot of time for I am doing a gratitude list:-

 

I have a roof over my head and I was able to light a fire this evening

 

I have a massage booked tomorrow which should help with a lot of the  muscle spasms which are really bad at the moment

 

It was sunny today and I was able to do some digging and get some compost ready to transfer some camelias to a new bed

 

Thanks to the gardener who messed up the garden two years ago I developed an interest in gardening - it is good to have a new distraction.

 

I was able to chuck out lots of food to the birds - I love feeding the birds.  I love seeing the rooks every morning.  When I go out with food one rook will fly over and call out to the others - I love looking at them.  I like little birds too but rooks are my favourite birds of all.

 

I slept well last night

 

My constipation is not bad as I am making a lot of bean soups 

 

I am not in Gaza, Israel, the Ukraine, Sudan, homeless anywhere in the world, living in a hotel, or in Afghanistan, Syria, Ecuador.  I am sure that list could be added to in spades - I live in a country where there is no civil war or war (yet).

 

Well I am tired now - end of list

 

Oaktree1

[redkite]

You Oaktree are a superstar... you have taken the words from my mouth!! I identify with so much of what you say.  My own little best friend, top cat, died a while ago  and the grief is horrendous.  As it sit in front of my own fire I feel the soothing power of the flame. I have OA and understand the limits of what sort of exercise is bearable..... and as an old punk am with you on the faces!!!!! If you ever, ever want to rant, rave or swear let me know. I am going to print of what you put and show it to people!!!! I have just shouted at the neighbour for cutting my trees.... on my side that is leaning in..... but you can bet your bottom dollar it will be all my fault!!!!! To loud, opinionated, socialist ,feminist..... never learnt to shut up to the patriarch or capitalism. Light your fire if you can later and know you made my day better. Take care redkite

[Oaktree1]

20 hours ago, redkite said:

My own little best friend, top cat, died a while ago  and the grief is horrendous.  As it sit in front of my own fire I feel the soothing power of the flame. I have OA and understand the limits of what sort of exercise is bearable..... and as an old punk am with you on the faces!!!!!

Hi Redkite,

 

I am glad that my rant gave you a bit of comfort if that's even an applicable word.  I am very sorry to hear that your best friend - top cat - died.  I agree the grief is absolutely horrendous.  I did not expect it - it has floored me.  The  hinges on the door to my bedroom squeaked yesterday when I closed it and the noise was so similar to the noise my ginger cat used to make that it startled me with a jolt of pain.  Everywhere I look I see the places that he and my other cat used to occupy.  Another cat lover on this site recommended to me that the best medicine for the loss of a cat is another cat and in an ideal world I would get another.  Perhaps when a bit of time has passed that  could be an option for you -  I know your own cat is irreplaceable but another warm furry being - it would sooth the grief. 

 

When my ginger guy was diagnosed with kidney failure I came back here and said to one parent - 'my only friend is dying' and he was my only real friend - always pleased to see, never rejected me no matter how angry or upset I was.  On the few occasions I tried to push him away to try and protect myself against his impending death he would not have it and advanced on me again and again meowing aggressively for attention.  The week before his health worsened I was sitting outside in the garden and (as he was feral did not like being picked up) he suddenly jumped up on my lap and stared me in the face for what seemed like hours.   I had him over 10 years and that was the only time he ever did that.  I think he wanted to communicate to me that he loved me but perhaps that was a delusion on my part.  I had one other human being in my whole life that I had a similar relationship with. 

 

I know I post on this site and that but that's really as far as it goes for me with human beings as a whole - my own species really scare me.  

 

That stuff I put on there yesterday was born out of a sense of anger and powerlessness and occasionally I put out a rant on the site here and I did that with a trigger warning so that others would not read it but part of me wants to communicate.  I know there are topics on the site about how to deal with rage and thought spirals and I have read them a few times but there are different degrees of desperation amongst the stories of the members on this site and some are more powerless than others. 

 

This is not a mental health support site and I am not looking for support from overworked mods.  I am just putting my stuff here because it is a living document - just bearing witness.  

 

OA is crap and I am glad that you have a fire to sit beside.  I was always in awe of punks - was too much of a good girl to ever go down that road and too scared.  I was a big Gary Numan (more new wave than punk I suppose) fan though among others.  I was brought up in a family where a physically appealing appearance was paramount so I was gymbody (Jane Fonda) addict in the 80's.  I looked on in sheer awe at one of the 'bad girl's' in my school - she would abseil off to London and buy clothes in Camden Market - all tie dyed, back comb her hair,  put henna in it and use corpse pink lipstick; kept a bottle of vodka under her bed for when she needed it and got pregnant at 18; told the father (who wasn't up to much) to get lost and brought up the child herself.  All in holy Catholic whatever and managed not to get locked up in Mother and Baby Home.  There were quite a few female rebels like that back in the 80's.  Never had the courage myself - but I did dress in men's clothes (my parents' extensive wardrobes from the 60's and 70's proved very useful), Sasperilla drain pipe jeans with men's shirts and jackets - it was quite easy to dress as a bit of a mod.  Then i'd try to conform and go all girly wearing ribbed sweater dresses.  Then I had a Brideshead Revisited period because I loved the argyle waist coats and Oxford bags.  The only act of rebellion I ever made was smoking.  I only ever attended one rave - the first one actually in the place I live in which was raided by the police when I was college.  Mostly I've been socially isolated because I couldn't form long term relationships with people.  You seem to have had a fine old time in the rave scene - it's good to have happy memories the ones you can remember (haha). 

 

Your neighbour - people are amazing really - really amazing.  I understand the rage - I don't know if it's really effective though - I suppose that's what I was trying to say in the post...if you're a woman that is.  Last week I gave the employment support person a piece of my mind after about the two year employment skills course having spent four years doing course similar which led nowhere- and I just looked at her smug face and I could see pretty much what she thought of me.  If you don't have power and you're a supplicant/beggar rage makes you look a fool and people don't respect you I find.  The rage was isn't the same league as it was before because I am getting more control over it and I was able to put my point across and rein myself in a bit more.  It's still a long way from how I wish to convey anger - with cold controlled reason.  My mother is good at that - I have seen how her cold disgust makes people shrivel and cower down.  It has to be controlled - rage. That's why I just put the excess stuff on my thread here sometimes - it's like throwing out the garbage.  I can't be doing with all the kumbaya stuff - the world is too damn awful.  If I had a job and social engagement I wouldn't be coming on here with all this.  

 

I am glad that you have a roof over your head and I really hope you get a new fridge sorted soon.  I am glad that you have good access to nature.  I am very far away from a superstar - I'm a socially isolated middle aged woman with longterm mental health issues and no place in the world but it's good if the old rant gave you a bit of lift.   

 

Oaktree1

[redkite]

Evening thanks for lovely long post back. Yes I do have another little rescue cat " mini" who is the complete opposite to top cat, who was very rough  and ready!! Mini is a shocking princess and even has to have her claws trimmed by me!!!! If you could get another cat it would help you massively, and yes  to had a moment with top cat, who also had kidney disease. He had been ill for a couple of years and was dyeing, we were lying on the bed together and he hadn't purred for a couple of days and looked at me.... its time mummy is what I heard, I loved him SOOOO much. He was 17 years when he died  and until he got ill he was out every night without fail and would give me chapter and verse about his adventures when he came in in the mornings!!!!! He even used to play in the snow! The anger thing is tricky cause I had been putting up with toxic masculinity from the wanker next door for about five years and know they now I am really pissed of they will stop trespassing.. I hope!!!!  Sadly it did help, I think, that I had full makeup, a mental funky skirt with  parrots on and a mentally stylish long wool coat that looks like a Vivian Westwood  with big red snow boots, so at least I looked put together even if I sounded deranged!!!!!!!  Yes I miss the rave days like mad, maybee when I have had my other hip done I can dance again which would be great as I love the current mix of old rave samples in with new sounds....reminds me so much of the good old days..... and yes I cant remember lots!!!!!  But I also remember lots to, lots of little adventures in the night time economy!!!! I have read lots of your tag and will be reading more later. I understand that anger can be corrosive but Ant middleton, SAS. who is a bit of a d*ck but he said hate is a very strong emotion and can be used to our advantage... so use it if its helpful. Love fires, need to as i have no heating in my place, properly hardcore!!!!!! Been out getting wood today!!! Beg, steel, borrow!!!!! Today scrounged of my mum and Dad and later in the dark will be nicking a bit from outside morrisons!!!!! Its going to snow next week and I need to keep me and my little princess warm!!!! She has a bed in front of the fire, and sometimes I do a few spells!!!!!! Lots of candles and incense really helps the sole I think, I don't know if you ever listen to the radio but Lisa Tarbut is on radio 2 at 6 o'clock tonight and she is very funny I think. Sat by fire now debating food prep but kitchen is very cold......no need for a fridge for a while!!!!  Take care and let me know more rants soon!!!!! Love people who rant!!!

[Oaktree1]

On 1/13/2024 at 5:51 PM, redkite said:

Yes I do have another little rescue cat " mini" who is the complete opposite to top cat, who was very rough  and ready!! Mini is a shocking princess and even has to have her claws trimmed by me!!!! If you could get another cat it would help you massively, and yes  to had a moment with top cat, who also had kidney disease. He had been ill for a couple of years and was dyeing, we were lying on the bed together and he hadn't purred for a couple of days and looked at me.... its time mummy is what I heard, I loved him SOOOO much. He was 17 years when he died  and until he got ill he was out every night without fail and would give me chapter and verse about his adventures when he came in in the mornings!!!!! He even used to play in the snow!

Hi Redkite

 

I shed a few tears (but I'm always crying anyway) when I read about TopCat - you describe him brilliantly.  I could almost see him.  I used to have long chats with my guy too - he would listen in to conversations and if I got upset or had the occasionally shouting match with someone he would get up from his bed;  come over and station himself beside me and meow up at me as to say 'what's up?  Please calm down'.  I love to hear about cats.  Mini must be a real change after him.   I would love another one - eight or nine but my housing situation is unstable now and I don't know where I'll be living in the next few years if the world is ever still there (haha).  I hope your neighbour (what a creep) was suitably chastened by the Vivienne Westwood style coat and your demeanour and will back off.  Unbelievable - some people.  Either that or you can cast some spell on him and I hope it works. 

 

I hope you got lucky with the foraging and have a decent stack of firewood - I don't listen to radio much but thanks for the heads up on Lisa Tarbut. 

 

I 

On 1/13/2024 at 5:51 PM, redkite said:

I understand that anger can be corrosive but Ant middleton, SAS. who is a bit of a d*ck but he said hate is a very strong emotion and can be used to our advantage... so use it if its helpfu

 I tried using 'love' and trying to bond over the last 12 years and I was just used as a door mat so I gave up.  Love means different things to different people and many just use it as a weapon.  'I love you' covers up a thousand crimes.  But I have to say uncontrolled anger hasn't served me well at all and as a psychiatric patient uncontrolled anger expressed in public is positively dangerous.  It's very easy to get locked up/drugged like that.  That happened to me back in 2018 and 2019 so I am working on calmness now - don't get mad/get even - that sort of thing.

 

Every now and then now a rant will slip out - my mother said I was always a ranter even as toddler so I suppose the family member's description of my pattern of anger and hostility has a point.  The joke of it is though is that his anger is worse than mine and he is very unregulated but he's male so it's acceptable and was the preferred child so it was accepted too.  It's awful being female - I always hated it.  

 

I hope you get your other hip done soon and can go dancing again.  I know someone else who had the other one done and it's made a huge difference to her.

 

Anyroad signing off now

 

Oaktree1

[redkite]

Hi, lovely to hear back of you. Cats and kittens!!!!!! Just been offered a free kitten that's half mainecoon!!!!!! Very very tempted!!!!!! Obviously my other cat wont like it, but I have introduced cats before and if done buy the book it does work. Just waiting for the pic of the kitten!!!! OMG!!!! And yes I put a spell in the tree to protect it from him!!!!  The neighbour that is!! And yes men are allowed to be loud, where as us......no not really especially our age group. I cry all the time too.....another thing society doesn't feel able to deal with!!!! I know you housing may change but I am sure if you looked at the RSPCA web site in your area there would be a kitty who would love you. I know its scary and you want to do the best for it but sometimes its worth the risk......just have a little look, sometimes they have pairs, they even had a mum with two grown up kittens who could not be separated as they had come from such an awful home ( 40 animals) they were offer attached to each other. I hope your warm enough its sooooooo cold here I have had to light two fires as I was expecting the plumber. But guess what  no show!!!! Never mind I will try to fix it myself!!!!  Have Had no hot water since November but its surprising what you can do with three kettles!!!!! I can get a decent bath in 20 minutes!!!!!

I thought of you on Saturday because I saw some primroses coming up in my garden and wandered if you have any in your garden and also the first snow drops are here too. Which I love, I absolutely love snowdrops. Wild black mustard and wild onions are available to forage at the moment to which is worth looking for.

With regard ranting I was ranting about the neighbour to my mum on Saturday and she didn't tell me to calm down!!!! just let me vent which was ******* great!!!! and makes a change!!!

The westward coat gets so many compliment's its great and always boosts me. Its called "outlaw" ( looks a bit decensian) and was made by" High" and was meant to be a fortune but my mate worked in a designer sale shop so I got it at about 75 % off but it was still way to much for someone on sickness benefits but it was for my B day pre covid and still looks amazing.  Apologies for any spelling mistakes but my lap top was second hand 10 years ago and is virtually steam powered!!! I like making Tec last as not only am I skint but I pretend to be an environmentalist so the less I consume tec wise the better!! I don't have a smart phone just a dody old flip top, no TV but have just rigged up a DVD system so at least I can watch films now!!!! Hence my use of the radio!!!!!  Watched 'Ted '   which is brilliant stupid and makes me laugh lots, even though i have seen it a hundred times. Reminds me of when me and my brother were young and were stoned all day long!!!!!   Ah the good old days!!!  Jacket spuds for lunch... cheep and cheerfull....like me!!!!!! Try to watch some comedy on TV if you can or "The good life" on U tube is lovely and nostalgic and very funny I have been watching that a bit too. Hope your able to enjoy a fire, look at the early spring flowers coming up and maybee just maybee have a look at the RSAPA website for cats. Take care of yourself and look at the stars tonight if its clear, I will too.  Redkite.

 

[Greatful]

@Oaktree1  I am coming on your thread, Thank you for your kind word on mine... You and I have been traveling this road together for along time....You have endured a lot.  I hope that we can continue to support each other all the way to our success stories....I wish I could reach out and give you a big, well deserved hug.

 

 

[Oaktree1]

Hi Redkite

 

Thanks for your vivid post.  I know that brand - 'High'.  Have a dress from there I got in the sales years ago when I got a windfall from a Will.  Quirky and asymmetric stuff (I like).

 

I hope that spell works for the tree.  I admire the way you can manage with three kettles for a bath.  It is freezing here too but one of the benefits of living here is that I can put the heat on for a few hours.  Longterm re the cat situation though - it's not great.  I know that cats can live up the 20 years and probably next year or so I might end up unhoused.  Who knows? So it's just too scary for me to be responsible for something that I might have to try and rehome and not be able to.  The feral cats association near me were really horrible whenever I needed help with my two feral cats when I was alive so I wouldn't go near them again.  It's a big problem here now - people becoming homeless and having to hand in their animals to rescue centres.

On 1/16/2024 at 1:58 PM, redkite said:

I thought of you on Saturday because I saw some primroses coming up in my garden and wandered if you have any in your garden and also the first snow drops are here too. Which I love, I absolutely love snowdrops. Wild black mustard and wild onions are available to forage at the moment to which is worth looking for.

trying to get the hang of this quote stuff - I have precisely one primrose that came up two months ago by itself - right in the bed outside the kitchen window.  The place where I live is beautiful (I consider that a compensation for everything else).  There are snowdrops coming up in the front of the house.  It's the first sign of a new year to me (onward to death haha). 

I love seeing buds come up - I  love crocuses best because they're so colourful.  I planted a few in December - hope they make it.  The climate is so weird though that the bluebells shoots came up over a month ago (they're in the back - loads of them).   I have never seen wild black mustard (going to look that one up).  I've only seen wild garlic and wild chives.  I have garlic coming up now from old garlic bulbs I put down I love seeing them come up.

 

On 1/16/2024 at 1:58 PM, redkite said:

Apologies for any spelling mistakes but my lap top was second hand 10 years ago and is virtually steam powered!!! I like making Tec last as not only am I skint but I pretend to be an environmentalist so the less I consume tec wise the better!! I don't have a smart phone just a dody old flip top, no TV but have just rigged up a DVD system so at least I can watch films now!!!! Hence my use of the radio!!!!!

Fair dues to you!  Most people now are such tech slaves - A flip top is a giant f-you to all that rubbish.  I got my laptop back in 2011 and put a solid state drive myself into a few years ago.  I want to put a new processor in it but no tech person will help me to do and say I have to upgrade.  Will have to eventually I suppose.   

 

I succumbed to an iphone though (a hand me down basic 7) as it was just too hard dealing with stuff without one.  I regret it though.  I hate everything and everyone to do with tech now - it's the worst thing that happened to our world apart from pharma in the last 50 years.  I miss analogue nearly all the time.  Keep an old Olivetti typewriter on top of my cupboard.  I would love to see a rotary phone going 'brrh brrh' again.....  'The good life' - saw it there a while back - different world completely.  I just watch dvd re-runs of Columbo - makes me feel better.  

 

On 1/16/2024 at 1:58 PM, redkite said:

Reminds me of when me and my brother were young and were stoned all day long!!!!!   Ah the good old days!!!  Jacket spuds for lunch... cheep and cheerfull....like me!!!!!! 

It's good to have some happy memories.

 

The maine coone kitten sounds very tempting - cats are funny creations about getting on - sure you'll make the right decision anyway

 

Oaktree1

[Oaktree1]

On 1/17/2024 at 11:28 PM, Greatful said:

@Oaktree1  I am coming on your thread, Thank you for your kind word on mine... You and I have been traveling this road together for along time....You have endured a lot.  I hope that we can continue to support each other all the way to our success stories....I wish I could reach out and give you a big, well deserved hug.

 

 

Thanks Greatful,

 

I feel your 'hug' through your words anyway - means a lot.

 

Oaktree1

[redkite]

Morning Oaktree, hope you have not been to buffeted by the winds? Yes The Maine coon never happened  to be honest when I saw its picture it just wasn't what I thought it would be, and the Mum looked a bit like a womble!!!! It looked just like my other black and white, the house was freezing and my other cat had developed a bad stomach so I bailed. I had ridiculously thought it would look like the Maine coon kittens on the internet!!!!! Silly. Yes I have blue bells to, Spanish imposters but still nice, it will be good to get outside to have a bit of a sort out as soon as the weather gets a bit warmer....which it is, hurrah!!  Yes tec....making people second class citizens if they don't conform its  so out of order, and of course the pernicious prescribing of antidepressants for   well everything including of script pain relief as was my experience, indeed as was many peoples experience. My hideous neighbours are away on both sides so I feel like I can breath. I did not understand how constricted I was till the bullying was gone!! Looks like you did another cut recently how has that effected you? I will be waiting until the spring to cut " the bit" its so ******* hard sometimes it feels impossible. One good thing about the internet though is this site and talking to others in the same pain and maybe offering up support when needed. You said about watching Colombo, I have been watching Porridge which is indeed another world, a world that felt safer, kinder, softer and more innocent. Obviously rose tinted but still!!!! I am trying to remedy the water situation by getting a little 45 litre water heater that will run of a plug... maybe needs to be 20 litres we will see. Hope your last cat has not been to evil to absorb and you can enjoy the early spring flowers. I am going to try to paint the bathroom, well finish it!!!!! Half done and just stopped, I think once the light is better it will encourage me and I need to get on and renovate the kitchen which looks like a squat!!!!!! The dust and webs are disgusting, it all needs painting, fixing, washing and new curtains!!!! Anyway enough ramblings from me, take care. Redkite

[Oaktree1]

On 1/22/2024 at 11:18 AM, redkite said:

Yes The Maine coon never happened  to be honest when I saw its picture it just wasn't what I thought it would be, and the Mum looked a bit like a womble!!!! It looked just like my other black and white, the house was freezing and my other cat had developed a bad stomach so I bailed.

Hi Redkite

 

Sounds like you made the right choice on the Maine coon - loved the Wombles though _ I had the annual - thrown out unfortunately.  I hope your other cat is on the mend.  The vet bills for my own cats in the last few years scared me off getting other cats too.

 

On 1/22/2024 at 11:18 AM, redkite said:

Silly. Yes I have blue bells to, Spanish imposters but still nice, it will be good to get outside to have a bit of a sort out as soon as the weather gets a bit warmer....which it is, hurrah!! 

I never realised that Spanish bluebells were a thing - looked it up just now.

 

I think the woman that lived in this house before might have been a bit witchy as she had bluebells (can be used for spells apparently and they're not at all common in this country - you have to plant them), mugwort, aconite and foxgloves.  I am putting the garden back as much as I can as she might have wanted before I leave this place is gone for good and added a few more herbs for good measure which are in a small bed that my mum put together when her health was better.

On 1/22/2024 at 11:18 AM, redkite said:

My hideous neighbours are away on both sides so I feel like I can breath. I did not understand how constricted I was till the bullying was gone!!

That's the awful thing about having neighbours - mostly they're awful.  I hope they leave for parts of the day so you can get some peace.

 

On 1/22/2024 at 11:18 AM, redkite said:

You said about watching Colombo, I have been watching Porridge which is indeed another world, a world that felt safer, kinder, softer and more innocent. Obviously rose tinted but still!!!!

I never watched Porridge for some reason but I use to love the Two Ronnies.  My favourite was Rising Damp with Leonard Rossiter and 'Are you being Served'.  Yeh - happier times 'rose tinted specs maybe -  maybe that's because I was a kid back then.   Anything that makes one feel a bit better is good.

 

On 1/22/2024 at 11:18 AM, redkite said:

I am trying to remedy the water situation by getting a little 45 litre water heater that will run of a plug... maybe needs to be 20 litres we will see

That sounds like a great idea - I hope it worked.

On 1/22/2024 at 11:18 AM, redkite said:

I will be waiting until the spring to cut " the bit" its so ******* hard sometimes it feels impossible.

Yes - I relate to that completely.  You're wise to wait.  I don't think I will ever get off the stuff I am on in my lifetime but chipping away super slowly at it makes it seem like a small little victory and a up-yours to all the pharma and medical scumbags.  Pharma and the medical profession  helped destroy my mum's health - those consultants who stuck her on barbiturates and benzos 30 years ago and then added a mood stabiliser 10 years ago after which her health rapidly declined - disinterested arrogant scumbags - both sets of them.  Of course they won't pay any price at all because people in power rarely do.  I don't mind surgeons because they actually 'help' people by giving them new limbs or taking out cancerous growths but the rest of them - preserve me!  My GP is a good woman though.

 

On 1/22/2024 at 11:18 AM, redkite said:

am going to try to paint the bathroom, well finish it!!!!! Half done and just stopped, I think once the light is better it will encourage me and I need to get on and renovate the kitchen which looks like a squat!!!!!! The dust and webs are disgusting, it all needs painting, fixing, washing and new curtains!!!!

The weather improved a bit the last few days - Hope your painting went well - i am sick of housework but sometimes things have to get done.  My curtains could do with a clean but it's mind numbing taking them off the pegs so I ignore them

 

Anyway  I get on with my little cuts.  Got vertigo from the last one I think but it's hard to know.

Onwards anyway.

Oaktree1    

[Oaktree1]

Update:-

 

Unfortunately this needs to be done to add to the data on Mirtazapine.

 

Painful muscle spasms have increased.  Last week I got vertigo three days into my cut which was frightening.

 

This week three days after my cut, I got a vicious neck (migraine) I call it.  It is always in the same place.  I sleep on my left side even though I try to sleep on my back and when I wake up the left side of my neck and shoulders are all scrunched up.  I can sense the migraine coming on.  I got it yesterday afternoon and had it all night last night and it is still there this evening.  I have taken paracetomol (the green one for sensitive stomachs is good).  At 4am in the morning I took an anti spasmodic Buscopan which helps - I also took a .05 clonazapam.  The pain was really unbearable and I had already tried 5 hot water bottles and rolling on my massage balls and using my Occipivot - nothing helped. 

 

My life circumstances (already detailed here in my history) are not great and I am scared a lot of the time but I think a lot of the spasms (migraines) are drug related.  On Monday I had an appointment with an orthodontist.  Basically my bruxism is so bad that I have moved my teeth and am now chipping away at them even with a mouth guard.  I was offered braces and two years of eating no raw veg or anything crunchy (thanks I'll take the chipped teeth instead of not being able to eat ready salted crisps or all the other crunchy things I like (like apples) for two years).

 

Last week the old style physio (having had a recurrence of severe hip pain following a workout on my exercise bike to try and improve my cardio fitness which is after years of not being able to do cardio absolute rubbish) put me in front of mirror, checked everything out and looked at my MRI and x rays - She told me I've no hip issues; it is coming from my back.  My anterior spine is twisted at the pelvis causing my right hip to outflare and this means that in movement the forward movement causes it to move irregularly in the joint causing hip pain.  Several of the thoracic joints are out on the right hand side.  She has manipulated it and after two days - no more hip pain.  Why in the name of (whoever) did I have to wait seven years to hear this????  Three orthopaedic surgeons (the last one was brilliant and said it wasn't the hip; the other two said it was).   This physio is one of the last of the old guard.  So cautiously maybe a bit of good news...maybe I can go walking again if this gets sorted (I hope) because that would help with the neck issues.  

 

I do go on but the point of this thread is that these headaches (pains vertigo) regularly occur three days into a cut.  That's the point of this update.  It is a good thing I am not working because I could not work in this state.

 

 

 

[Greatful]

@Oaktree1  Do I understand this right?  You were told all your pain was coming from your hip and that you may need surgery...Now a new Doctor has said that it was not in your hips and found away to relieve your pain?  If that's so what wonderful news.. You  deserve a brake from something.  Let's hope that this will make all the difference for you and you can get, do some nice walks and enjoy working in your garden.

 

Way to go with keeping your eyes on the prize, slowly decreasing your MIrt.  I am sorry that you are scared a lot of the time.  Is it more to do with your living arrangement?  You are stronger than you think O.  You have weathered a lot and you are still standing.   

[Oaktree1]

Hi @Greatful

Thanks for commenting.

Re this hip - that's about the size of it (I hope so anyway).  

 

14 minutes ago, Greatful said:

I am sorry that you are scared a lot of the time.  Is it more to do with your living arrangement?

Yes - it's not great.  I just focus on disconnecting and trying to keep calm.  Hard to do.  Jam making and Columbo help.  I have decided to speed up the taper as I averaged only 2.8% reduction per month over the last few years.

 

I hope you are getting through ok.  You are making way faster progress than me - off the Lamictal and Trazadone and only on 0.03mg of the Lexapro and a small bit of Xanax - huge respect.  Anyway we are trudging along.  It makes a difference to have this site as I've no one else to say it to apart from here.  I hope that some day I can put a zero in my signature below.

Lots of hope and good luck to you and your lovely hubby.

 

Oaktree1

[arbor]

Thank you @Oaktree1 for the update.  You were smart to get another opinion.  Glad to read that you're getting some relief.  It takes strength to do what you're doing.  I send you best wishes.

Arbor♥️