I dont know what to do

[ClockFace]

Its 2:30am, Ive woken from a few more hours sleep. I feel better than I did earlier, not as down. Im not exactly sure what I feel at the moment. My mind is predominately occupied with the desire to do a poo. If I eat anything I feel pretty horrible, I bloat up and I end up in pain, my stomach becomes huge and hard, so Im not eating much. The bit thats concerning me though is Im having a hard time drinking now. Which means that taking laxatives is an issue as well. My GP wants me to take a laxative but my stomach turns at the thought of it. Im going to try, Im desperate to do something about the constipation but at the same time Ive got to be able to get it and keep it down.

I went and laid down again, I didnt really sleep, I tossed and turned, I feel really sick, like Ive been drinking overly sweet drinks all night, along with with massive amounts of heavy food, food that finds the bottom of your stomach and then digs in even deeper and just sits there. I couldnt get comfortable, I felt so close to actually going to the loo but I was so far from anything happening. I gave up around 4:15ish, its going to be interesting how things go with both being exceptionally tired and too uncomfortable and painful to sleep.

The list of things that is wrong with me, the issues I face, my symptoms is really long and I forget that I am have an issue when I talk about things later. I have a list of my medical issues that I keep because if I didnt Id forget what illnesses I have. When Im coming up to seeing a new specialist about something I create a list of symptoms so I remember what to pass onto the specialist. I have to try and distinguish what is a symptom of the issue Im there about and what symptoms are of other issues. Of course there are some that might be symptoms of multiple issues, for example feeling sick. This will fit with a heap of my issues, including medication side affects and interactions. Thats potentially a rather big issue, one my Doctor thinks is a big issue, medication side affects and interactions, Im currently on 22 different medications daily so the potential that the concoction Im on doesnt play well together is probably high.

There is also the mixture of general medical issues and mental health issues and the interactions on both. Some mental health issues cause physical issues. Some physical issues impact my mental health.

Ive finally managed to start getting some movement, the relief is amazing. Im still not great, Im still uncomfortable and there is a bit of pain in my stomach. Overal I still feel lousy but it is early days.

On a positive note my back pain has suddenly reduced a huge amount, Im still in pain but nothing like what I was. I havent taken additional pain killers today. Which I think Im feeling the results of, I have a headache that I cant seem to get rid of, I am sleeping way more than I have been and I wouldnt have thought that was actually possible. Eating really hasnt happened today, I cant tell you if its feeling sick from the constipation or from not taking the pain meds.

I went and had a shower, when I walked into Mums room I immediately noted that the chair now is piled high with stuff so there is no where for me to sit. Firstly it makes me feel like Im not welcome to stay, if they arent aware by now I cant stand for a long time so Im not sticking around if there is no chair to sit in. Secondly if its not that im not welcome to stay, my needs were not considered at all. I dont think that I should keep having to ask for the stuff on the chair to be moved elsewhere, its not the first time crap has been put on the chair. There is only so many times that it needs to happen before I realise that its more than just not thinking of my needs, its more along the lines of not caring or using them against me.

Before I laid down a couple hours ago I took some pain killers, not that I needed them so much for pain but to stop the effects of not having them. My GP also gave me some anti-nausea medication which I took as well, they are really good and they havent caused serotonin syndrome, as yet anyhow. I say that because typical anti-nausea medication will.

Ive been trying to get into the habbit of recording what I eat, trying to keep an eye on what I eat, but in particular making sure it meets with a diabetic diet. Today, I havent done any of it. I havent eaten much of anything and mainly Ive drunk water, I dont think I have made any terrible choices, though my protein would be well down.

I went back to bed for a while and woke up about 3:30am, the pain killers I had taken had had plenty of time to wear off but I still wasnt in pain, I even bent over and opened the doggie door rather than open the entire door and it didnt hurt, it didnt bother me at all. I havent pushed at all, like I havent walked far which is what would cause it to hurt. There is plenty that cause it to hurt, walking for more than a few minutes would generally cause it to start to hurt.

The whole giving up smoking thing isnt working out, Ive cut back but I think thats partly because Im asleep so much. Im finding it hard to stop with everything going on, with how unwell I am at the momment, I dunno having a smoke just gives you a break, a moment where you disconnect from being sick, from being in pain etc.

I went to get the keys for the car and Mum still had them. Kinda really bugs me, I took them down to her to make it easier for her but she stashes them in her handbag so I cant find them when I need them. She was still awake, well partially and I asked for the keys and got grilled as to why, when I said it was for smokes she said something about this being ridiculous. Im not sure what was ridiculous but she was then on at me about getting her a coffee, which I did. I brought it down to her when I got home and she was pretty well asleep again, I gave her the coffee and said she could come down to the kitchen if she wanted. My sister is asleep next to her and she is apparently unable to sleep so I thought she could come down with me if she wanted for a bit. Its been a while, Im assuming she isnt coming down.

My back arked up again, I did a bit of walking, just around the house and out the back, getting the dogs, who had got themselves into the veggie patch area. After all that it was pretty unhappy, then I drove into town and back and it didnt really get any better. My stomach is also pretty upset with me, I am really uncomfortable. I feel all blown up again, driving the car reiterated how much larger I am currently than normal, my stomach was kinda on the steering wheel. I really feel like I need to go to the loo, but there is no action.

Its just past 5:30 and Im starting to get that oh so fun feeling in my head. Ive taken some anti-nausea meds. Once those kick in Im gonna go back to bed, I cant deal with having the feeling in my head this morning. I say it more and more but some days its just overwhelming, there is always something not right, something physically wrong and/or something psychologically out of balance. At least with the sleeping thing I am sleeping through most of the bullshit which is my existance. If Im getting dizzy, I can go to bed and there is a good chance Ill sleep through a great deal of it, Ill at least sleep through until its nearly time for my medication, which not long after taking I tend to stop having the feeling. Also, if Im asleep I dont have to hear my family complain or judge me for being unwell and not being able to manage. Sometimes it would be good if they understood that they are part of the problem. That sitting in high judgement over me, determining if indeed I am sick enough to be acting the way I am, to be doing as little as I am, to be in the pain Im in. Putting yourself in that position over me or at least trying to doesnt help me feel better, it doesnt help me get better and it doesnt help me do better. After all these years of doing this to me, of contradicting doctors, demanding that you know better or you just know the answer and I dont need to go to see a doctor or a specialist or I simply just need to ignore it. All the times where they say just do this or that and I already am. The amount of times they have spoken to me like I have never been sick before and have no idea how to deal with an illness or have sufficent knowledge to determine that my form of the illness is different to other forms. Ie I have Opiod induced constipation, not constipation, while they are similar there are differences and some are important, such as treatments that are applicable. Try getting through to my sister that I cant just use any treatment method and some she was suggesting I knew I wasnt able to use. I dont know if it makes it worse, if it causes issues with bowel movement or what but if a doctor says not to use something because its OIC not constipation, when you get home and say the same thing, it shouldnt really be an argument but my sister believes herself to be the queen of constipation and therefore knows all. Again, I wasnt able to get through to her that OIC is different to consitpation, I wish I understood better, well I dont, I shouldnt need to. But I know it has to do with how opiods affect the bowel etc. they slow them down, which leads to constipation. In more typical constipation the stool becomes hard due to lack of moisture making it difficult for it to pass. Turns out opiods (I ended up looking it up) slow down the whole GI tract. That means medication is not properly absorbed, probably because medication needs to go through different parts of GI tract to be digested. I wonder if this is part of my issues with the feelings in my head and so forth. That my medications arent being absorbed properly because my GI tract is all messed up. The other thing is stuff sits in the GI tract longer so more moisure is absorbed meaning once it gets to the lower end of the world its too dry, so along with the GI tract not moving properly, its not got sufficeient moisture to move and it gets stuck. The idea with the laxatives, like most laxatives, is to get moisture into that region to help things move along. I am confused with my GP who has said not to use laxatives with a stimulant side, from what I have read it would make sense that I would have the stimulant side of things given my tract doesnt move properly. Maybe because there is so much trying to keep moving it would compact whats there not neccessarily get things to move out. Thats much more about those functions and why it doesnt work in constipation vs OIC than I really wanted to know. What does get me though is my sister gets constipated quite a lot, she has issues in that region but she, like the rest of the family, doesnt really drink much in the way of actual water. I never have either, we were'nt really brough up to just drink water, Mum drank massive amounts of coffee (international roast lol) and I cant think much else. Dad, I know he liked his Coke, but I dont remember him drinking heaps of it. We always had cordial available. But just straight plain water, that didnt wasnt a thing. For what ever reason, be it my bodies natural response to being this constipated and the amount of laxatives Ive been taking has been craving just straight old water, something I keep trying to drink more of anyhow. Even drinking Powerade and Pump Berry Storm hasnt interested me, though I still like my iced coffee, I also drink ginger beer. Two fold reasons, one it helps calm my stomach, ginger is good for all that kinda thing, nausea etc. I eat ginger lollie things as well for the same reason. The other reason is the same as why I take Pro-biotics, its fermented so therefore good for your gut biome. With everything that happened with the cellulitis and all the antibiotics I was on as a result, I got onto trying to invest in my gut biome, at the encouragement of my GP I started with Probiotics. Another GP said about just eating yogurt, but doing that adds heavily to cals and sugars, which with the diabeties thing isnt cool. The meal replacement shake I am now using has probiotics included, along with vitamins and minerals etc. Im going to stop taking my multivitamins once I start using the meal replacement shake regularly. Its something I want to look into more, something I want to understand and maybe impliment more in my life. I have a lot of stomach/digestive issues, probably has a lot to do with all the medications I take. Ive also had reflux for as long as I remember, I had a gastric sleeve in 2017 which had its own issues with my gut health. Given the things that have and are going on with my gut health, the antibiotics, the diarrhoea and constipation its quite likely all kinds of screwed up and needs some TLC.

The anti-nausea meds work really well and pretty quickly, I was going to go to bed. This is probably the longest Ive been up for in a fortnight. I kinda got onto something for a bit there. They really calmed my stomach down, I got a heap of wind, which is almost as hard to move as anything else. For some reason, it too gets trapped and its pretty painful, even a small amount. The anti-nausea medication my GP prescribed me, I knew the name of. I was certain I had, had it before. For what though I had no idea, but I just looked it up and it can be used to treat a range of conditions, one being migranes, which is what I was given it for when I was young. But along with migranes it treats all these gut issues, its an interesting thing that this medication treats both gut and brain issues when they say there is a corrolation between brain and stomach.

[ClockFace]

I went to bed and got a bit of sleep, I woke up in a world of trouble, my head was really bad, is really bad. Walking is troublematic, the wall and I have met a couple of times. I really dont like the feeling that I have in my head, I dont like walking around with it, its not even pleasant to sit with it. It has calmed down a bit, which is nice. But my stomach is doing its thing and my back is pretty painful this morning. Im feeling pretty swollen in the apron, inner thigh region again, I have no idea why. The way it swells puts pressure on my stomach, which isnt helpful when your stomach feels full to overflowing, feels like there is pounds of sand in the bottom of it. I can only have 3 anti-nausea tablets every 24hrs, I had my past lot at midnight last night, so as much as I want to take some more I need to hold off preferably until like 4 this afternoon. If I could get some actual movement this morning I might have a chance. I just realised I havent had my morning laxatives, though Ive been having my morning coffee and some water. I havent really had my head on straight this morning. The really annoying thing is, with my guts, as much as they are carrying on etc. its all probably fart, not anything that I would like it to be. I really want to put a big plunger on my but and kinda pump it all out.

I hate it when other people decide that something doesnt or shouldnt bother you. You know when something is clearly irritating the absolute shit out of you and they say that it doesnt bother you to someone else or when they know something gets on your nerves and they tell you it shouldnt bother you. I dont know why other people and its typically those who are closest to you, do this, why they even think they can do this, like what makes them think they have the right and its almost exclusively selfserving, they want to do what bothers you or they dont want to do the thing so they are trying to dump you in it. Mum regularly doesnt want to accept that different, a lot, of things bother me and tries to force me to do them regardless. It is a really big source of issue between us. The whole coffee thing is a prime example, I made it clear, time and again that I didnt want to be making Mum my coffees, that it was deminishing how they made me feel. She pushed and caused huge fights until I stopped making them for myself because she had ruined what it did for me. Still, I had to make them for her, until Dad lost a part which brought everything to a halt. Mum had decided that it shouldnt bother me to make her a cup of coffee when the act of doing so was destroying the reason for me making coffee for myself. She could never understand or appreciate that it wasnt so much about the actual coffee but the act of making the coffee, the method used, the ratios and other variable and how that affected the coffee. But it was even more than that, it was a time of peace, a time where I felt like I had something of my own, something that made me feel special, even if it was briefly. It not just that she wouldnt see that, all that she could see was her desires but my Dad and sister were on her side, no matter what I said, how I explained it, they didnt care or they were sick of hearing about it from Mum but they would argue about me making Mum a coffee. Because according to Mum and well them, it should bother me, it shouldnt bother me to give up the one thing holding me together just so Mum can continue to lay in bed, do nothing but command the actions of the rest of us from her room.

I went to bed a number of hours ago and woke up really needing to pee, this was a couple hours ago. I tried to stay up but I didnt last long and ended up going back to bed. I just couldnt stay awake, I kept nodding off, only for a moment or two. I went back to bed and slept for around another hour and a half. Im still having trouble keeping my eyes open, Im not nodding off but I am still really tired. Its not  the same as feeling as exhusted, but going to bed is really a desireable outcome. I just cant seem to wake up and get going. I dont know whats going on, but I dont like it. Im going to make something to eat shortly, I cant really tell if im hungry  or not but I have had anything to eat since a bit after midnight last night, I also want to taste a meal I have in the frezer before I put through another food order.

I havent taken any additional pain killers since when ever I noted this morning, its quarter past 5 in the evening. Pain wise Ive been pretty good regardless, Ive been in bed a lot and the amount Ive been in bed it should of irritated my back but no, its good. I mean not 100% but to drop 40% of my pain killers somethings going in the right direction.

Ive had something to eat, its upset the apple cart. I feel really off, its not nausea, its not reflux, but something isnt sitting well. I dont think it will be that long before Im back in bed. Im starting to wear out, Ive managed a few things, took rubbish out, did my meds for the week, etc. Ive just made a coffee, Im sitting down having that, then my nightly Movicol and Ill be ready for bed. I did just learn, after all this time, that you can add cordial to Movicol. The unflavoured one isnt bad, its almost like drinking water but it would be a fair amount more palatable with some flavour. I dont mind NU water, but when its been tainted, its not so good. The dizzy/wonky shit feeling is back, as I said Ive done a bit, so Ive been up a bit more than typical, my backs sore but not OMG I need pain killers sore. It should calm down on its own soon enough.

I just looked at the bottle of cordial and it says about per 250ml serve, then it gives the mixing directions of 1 part cordial to 7 parts water. My first thought was, I dont think I have ever had a glass of water, being 250ml. Honestly, before I started being more concious about my health some years ago (its been a journey) I didnt realise there was even a standard size to a glass. I figured a glass of water was whatever glass you got out the cupboard, not 250ml. Which I suppose is where the 8 cups of water a day thing comes from, thats 2 litres. I can be a bright guy sometimes, then others, the most simplest of things take a lot to sink in. I always struggled with the whole 8 cups thing, it always seemed like so much water, but Im thinking about the cups we have in the cupboard and for some reason 2 litres seems like a huge amount too, given that I drink between 4-5 litres a day, its really not.

Im not bothering with having a shower today, I dont really have the energy for it. Its not like its a big effort, I mean I have a shower chair so Im sitting most the time, I only have to stand to scrub some areas but I pretty much sit for 20-30min letting water, as hot as I can stand it, run over me. I really enjoy having a really hot shower but I just cant do it today. Maybe after a little sleep I will be up for it but its probably going to be too late by then.

My legs are hating me, they really wont settle. They are achy, figity and just all round irritable. I dont know where to put them, but I know when I lay down they will calm down. They seem to be getting this way the more tired I get. I was going to have my Movicol before I went to bed this time but I think Ill have it when I wake up. Im not just tired, Im becoming very weak, like I have no energy. Its like being tired like when you have the flu, I dont have any other symptoms, like I dont have a fever or anything. I am just overwhelmingly exhusted, without energy and weak, really weak.

The health journey has been going on and off, for many years. Mum keeps pushing weight loss, but I think she would be kind of reckless in the pursuit of my weight loss. I know she has been down that path for herself. I have been keen to try a medication which had some potentially intense side affects however my sister decided to look into it, presumably for herself to use, and was scared away by the potential side affects which meant that regardless of how ok I was with taking the risks, I wasnt permitted to. I havent decided if that was a good thing or a bad thing. My sister had a gastric bypass and my Mum had a sleeve, after which my Mum didnt give up trying to get me to have a sleeve too. Eventually, I did. Again it was all about weight loss and while it did help for a while, long term I stalled and no matter how little I ate, how much I worked out, how well I did at the program or thought that I did, I kept the same weight for a really long time and by the time I went ahead with my surgery Mum and my sister were well ahead of me, you might think that would mean they would be helpful getting my head around the nutrition etc. but no. Even when I asked for help, I really didnt get any and more often than not the help I got did actually contradict what the dieticians were saying. I have changed tact on it however, weight loss will happen as a byproduct but not as the driving force. I am mainly interested in improving my health where I can. Things like improving my diet, I have been doing this over time however very slowly, theres been now real push for me to do so until I was diagnosed with diabetes. While not severe, I have taken it seriously and I am doing my best to keep up with an applicable diet and one that I can maintain long term. Ofcourse finances are an issue, there is few foods I can eat meal wise that I suit from Wollies and not many from Coles either but there are a couple of meal delivery services that do suitable meals and deliver to where I live. Im going to use them however I have to wait until I talk to Dad about money for the upcoming week. I should get paid this week which will make things a lot easier.

As I said yesterday, gut health is something I am just starting to get interested in. I want to understand more about probiotics and their role and how best to get them to the entire gut. I have been told different stories about that. I also want to learn about prebiotics and how they are different and benefitial. I want to understand more about the brain - stomach connection, I wonder if because my brain isnt exactly right if that causes my gut issues or vice versa.

Exercise is not really an option for me due to my back issues. I agree that its important part of healthy living, but when you can barely walk most the time, going for a bike ride isnt realy an option. I am hoping that once they have finished having their fun with my back and I start my rehab again that they are able to develop an exercise routine for me that doesnt cause me additional pain.

Well that pretty much sucks, Ive been using my sisters thermometer, it hasnt mattered with her being in hospital etc. however she is home. She is down with my Mum, who has a thermometer to best of my knowledge but my sister has now got my Dad to take her thermometer down to her, which sucks. I have no way at the moment to determine if I have developed a fever and am therefore getting sick. Im gonna have to get a new one soon.

I dont get my Dad at the moment, he seems even more desperate to be outside doing stuff. At the moment he has been preparing to and painting different parts of the house and the carport. His spray painter died and he didnt want to go in and get a new one, he is going to do that tomorrow. Instead of taking the opportunity to have a bit of a rest for rest of the afternoon, he said he had plenty to do and went to find something else to do. I have no idea what, I went back to bed. The house has my sister in bed recovering from surgery, my Mum is typicially unwell and Im really sick, as is he. So, knowing that there's shit to be done etc. but I promise it can actually wait, its ok.

[ClockFace]

I woke up at 3 am, it took minutes though for me to be overwhelmed by tiredness and I went back to bed. I went back to bed and I woke up with that crap feeling in my head.  Its having its moments where its bad and not so bad.

We do live in a large house, we are on a large property but 3 very large dogs and a medium dog is too much. The dogs spend most their time inside, we winge because they lay in the way a lot, door ways, down the hall, in the kitchen etc. but they dont really have anywhere else inside to lay. Because there is so much crap in the house, like there is a path through the lounge from the dinning room to the entry. But we are forever tripping over dogs. Heres the thing about it that ticks me off, 2 of the very large dogs are Mums and she lives in her room and doesnt come out. She rarely has either of them with her and if she does it doesnt take long for her to complain about it, even though they just sit with her. The other very large dog and and the medium dog are my sisters, she has been in and out of hospital for about a year and has just been approved for another 10 week stint away. Its not her fault but what it boils down too is that there really is no need or room for all these dogs. Its made harder because I struggle to walk so often as does my Dad and we are the ones contending with Dogs all day. Dad is the one feeding them, we do their water, we make sure they get time outside etc. But they are not our dogs nor do we really want to keep them.

I couldnt do it, my body will freak out completely if we did, but Id love to go off all my medications and let them all get out of my system and then redo all the tests and determine what medications I actually need to go back on. Then go back on them systematically, add one and determine its effectiveness and side affects, not rule out anything out of the ordinary because its not a known side affect of the medication, take into account the potential and as more are added, increasingly greater potential that there will be medication interactions, not just side affects. I feel like there was too often that this happened, that how I felt didnt conform to the potential side affects of the medication so therefore it was dismissed. The MACS thing does sound like there is a fair bit to do with medication so Im hopeful that they can do something like the above. My GP and I are aware that there are interactions or side affects of my very long list of medications, but what is an interaction or side affect and what is a condition is a bit hard to tell. The shitty thing is that I have to live with these issues and attend specialist appointments to ensure its not something more serious like tumors, sleep disorders and other issues. Ive had so many scans, MRI, CAT, Xray, some with contrast, nucular medicine, sadly I think most have actually yielded results, thankfully most not has bad as it could have been. In many cases, that is because I dont prescribe to my Dad's philosophy of just pushing through. He brought up the feeling sick thing with his GP a number of times and it was only because he saw a walk in doctor that he found out about his cancer, that said, I dont think much of his doctor, who he sees only because Mum sees him and they have for 15 or 20 years. He was once really good but his time has passed, thats not a reflection of him as person, but he has significant illnesses in his own life, prostate cancer, which makes him unreliable as he has to have time off for his treatments and his illness. I dont think he has the energy or the passion for his career, he would be doing the basics of what is needed to stay certified. Some of his calls that he has made recently and some of the things that he does with my Mum are really off putting. He will spend extra time with Mum and not bill it, Mum will book the last appointment of his day and then they can sit and talk. He doesnt bill Mum for all this time, which is exceptionally nice and generour of him but Mum needs a real psychologist and she really needs to see a psychiatrist, I dont think he should be trying to council her, especially given her state of mind a lot of the time. Anyhow, there Dad especially has a push through it mentality and that has resulted in him ending up sicker than he needed to be. I do see there being a large drive of that being from Mum because she does the same thing to me. Its ok to be sick, its ok to be disabled, etc. its just not ok to let any of that get in the way of doing the things Mum wants you to do. The only reason Im getting away with things so well at the moment is that Mum is in her room, my sister has been in hospital so she isnt continually reporting down to Mum, she is having surgery again in a few weeks, so there is likely time where she will be down here more, but then she will be gone again. Who knows, once shes healed up from that, she will go to this other hospital. So, I have a chance where I will be left alone enough to get my way through the circus I am living at the moment, at least until I have some answers and maybe no new questions. Thats something that has perplexed me why all the sudden is there so many questions, why I have had so many issues arise in such a short period of time. How I can go from one set of problems, be investigating them and not even be treating them and a whole new range of issues arrise. Seriously, how can I go from being unwell to really unwell, like incapacitated unwell so quickly. Not to mention the rapid increase in severity of pain in my back. The shoulder involvement, I mean really who saw that coming, and its a rare condition, like how could it not be rare.

I went back to bed, I dont know that I was exactly tired but the dizzy/wonky feeling was really starting to bug me and I just wanted to sleep until it passed. It took a while to get to sleep, something was off with my right leg when I laid down and it didnt want to settle. I got up and came down to the kitchen, I would have sworn I was pretty well awake but I just woke up, at the table. I wasnt a little bit asleep, I was completely out of it. Im still struggling to be awake, my sister came down for a while but I had to go back to bed not long after.

I woke up several hours later and I was dizzy and wonky as shit. A few minutes later my sister asks if Im going into town, I said I cant and she said if I change my mind let her know, like its an optional thing, the way Im feeling. If I could go into town I would, I suppose if later tonight it has worn off I might.

The real lower part of my lower back is really sore, but that happens if I have been laying down too long. Im going to have to have some extra pain killers soon to help manage it.

I just screwed up, my sister is going into town and I asked her to get me some smokes but I have been living off Dads money from his account and I gave her the card for that, which means its going to be an issue that goes to Mum because Dad is helping me. Mum seems to be very against doing that, any kind of financial assistance, like Im the one who made off with a bunch of their money. I know Im 43 and the dependance on my parents is, lets say unusual, being disabled, etc. kinda makes things difficult in that regard. With how things are now, its not possible for me to make it to all my medical appointments without Dads help. $2500 a month in medical costs only leaves like $800 for me for bills and being alive. I get that being sick, going to as many doctors, having as many scans etc. is going to cost money and its got a real good chance of making you depressed. I think I handle the depressive side of things pretty well, Im not saying that Im not depressed, I am, Ive been diagnosed as having depression and I am fully aware if anything is going to make my depression worse, its the shit storm Im facing medically. Tack on the stuff with my Mum, my sister and now my Dads attitude which makes approaching him about anything just about impossible. Yet when it comes to appointment costs, I have to talk to him, I have to ask him to pay once my income runs out. This month, I would hate to know how much I have spent this month on medical costs, after rebates, both medicare and private health. All I do know is that at the end of this, no matter how things turn out, if I am capable of working or not, I am going to be left owing my Dad a butt load of money. He has taken a bank loan for what I did owe at a set point and then there is all the new debt that I have accumulated. I have no idea how much extra I owe him, it kinda scares me to think how much more I owe him, then even more so how much I owe them in total. But what do I do, the income I was getting when I worked fulltime I only just managed on, then they reduced my income quite a lot when I went onto income protection payments and then the increase in medical costs, how the hell am I expected to make ends meet without the increased medical costs, I cant pay for everything. I have no money behind me, if I did I wouldnt any more, it would definately be gone. I get that my parents cant pay for everything either, I do understand that. Ive done the comparrison between how my sister is treated and how I am enough, but Mum makes sure my sister gets a good deal out of my Dad. Where as I am left without that protection. The thing is I dont have enough income to pay for everything, I dont earn enough to pay for life and for all the medical costs. I go to my parents out of desperation, Im out of options that I can come up with alone to pay for the medical expenses and life. By life I mean bills, food and now my only vice which is smoking. I do smoke a lot, though I have cut down. Ive been trying a smoking cessation medication, which helped me cut down but hasnt helped me stop. When I see my GP on Tuesday Im going to talk to her about ceasing the medication, as the desired outcome hasnt been achieved. If I dont need to be on a medication then Id rather not be on it. Its money I dont have to spend and potentially why Im having certain symptoms. I want to just stop the medication but like many of them that I take it might not be safe to do so, I might have to taper off, probably have to taper off.

I dont know what to do, Im stuck. I cant just push through and ignore the medical issues Im facing. They are real and not delusional fantasies and Im not exaggerating how bad they are. I know this is how they think, how they feel. They may not come out and say it straight to my face but if they really understood the pain I am in with my back they would be much more  supportive and understanding. You know simple things like offering to do my shopping when I get to the point that I can no longer do it and start using delivery services. I wouldnt accept, I wouldnt add to the workload, but having the offer would make me think that they understood, that they could appreciate the pain I am in. I get they dont experience the pain so they can never truly understand, but they have all fractured a bone, they all know what that feels like. Its painful, especially if its in an area you put load on, to me it shouldnt be that big of a stretch to relate that to multiple fractures T7-T10 in my SPINE! For years I have complained about the pain in my back, for 22 years. Then they do some procedures and make things worse, I dont understand how they have but it has. For all those years, they treated me like they are now, like Im lazy, like Im not worth their time, like I dont matter, as if I havent given up enough to deserve their help. I really feel like they think that I am lying about how bad I feel or even that I have the problems Im saying I do themselves. I mean Mum says to me to stop Googling after this round of diagnosises. Like Im Googling symptoms to tell the Doctor or something, I really didnt understand. I rarely Google my symptoms, it doesnt help, if I do its because we are at a bit of a stand still, like the Doctor or there is little traction. I Google my diagnosed conditions so I can learn how best to manage the conditions. I tell my doctor of my symptoms and for the very most part, I leave it to her to determine whats wrong or who we should go to for more help. I dont know what it is, but Mum doesnt really trust my Doctors, though she does like my current doctor because she has seen her a number of times, though Im not sure if she has really put two and two together and realised that it is one and the same doctor. Actually that might not be so correct, its not the Doctor she doesnt trust. Im relaying the information from the Doctor to her, its me that she doesnt trust. I could be, in her mind I am, making it worse than what the Doctor made it out to be. Anytime I tell her about a condition or situation affecting my health it is down played, same with my sister. I said something about the dizzy wonky feeling and my sister responded saying that she thought it was something to do with my medication, which it completely could be, but how does that make it better? Im still having the issue, my life is still impacted and has to effectively cease in many ways. But ok, its determined that its likely a medication issue, which one? How do we go about determining which one and how do I cope with the side affects of that, is that some time in hospital? It could be a medication thats behind the issue, it could have caused a physical issue to arise. The thing is, while I dont typically Google symptoms, I am really having some issues with staying awake and ofcourse the feeling in my head. So, ofcourse I am going to seek out what help I can find, if there are ways to help me stay awake, if there are ways to reduce the feeling in my head. Ive tried different things, like increasing my carbs and sugar for a little bit to see if that helps, because of my dietry changes recently. From what I can tell they arent the cause. But if I could find something to make it stop then why wouldnt I look, why would I leave it to a Doctor who would have assumed I had done all that anyhow. The other thing it could be, that is likely contributing through out my many issues, but it could be the cause of undiagnosed ones, is stress. See, if you dont believe that my health issues are as bad as I say, if I am having to borrow money to pay for medical costs and know that this is an issue, simply having the issues, seeing my sister get treated so differently, being given assistance seemingly without the issues I experience and despite the financial stuff she has done, despite the fact that I have repaid everything I have borrowed in the past. The only thing I can think of there is that they dont think Ill be able to repay it within their lifetime, which is more and more likely to be true. If your parents treat each other the way mine do, that one minute they are fighting, then they are ignoring each other and then they are spending time together like everything is ok. Its different to how they were as when I was younger, it was more yelling and screaming back then. But its the same root issue, Mum wants to be in control of everything, she wants to command everyones life, she wants to "understand" why people are doing this and that, but she doesnt, so they shouldnt. My sister is much the same. Generally speaking Mum directs towards Dad and my sister towards me predominately but there is a fair bit of cross over. Dad, most of the time now just gives in to them and he expects me to because when I dont it causes problems for him. I generally dont give in, I do what I believe is right, for me first and for them. Im not being selfish but I dont feel that I am a priority in their lives very often or at all, so if Im not a priority in my own life who is going to make me a priority in theirs.

Before I went to bed Dad and I talked, turns out that I have accumulated $25k, that would be on top of the $20k I already owed for earlier medical costs and for helping look after my sister. He said he cant keep going, he cant keep lending me money to help which I understand, though and without being entitled, I know how much money he has access to with their super and I also get that this is for their (Mum and Dads) retirement but I would have thought that my health, my ability to have a life would outweigh that. In that I mean, I need to work out whats wrong with my head and whats wrong with the sleep. If I cant stay awake, I cant work. If I have the wonky/dizzy feeling in the morning and at night then how do I get to work, even if I work from home, how do I maintain that, especially given that its getting worse. Much of the other issues I have had to deal with prior to this have also been similar, in that they impeed my life significantly, cause great deals of pain, would get much worse and in some cases be life threatening if left untreated. I said to Dad that I dont know what to do, like how do I keep just going, with all my issues, just keep going without attending the issues. He said he didnt know either, that he didnt have answers. I said to him that if it were just one issue then I could have probably managed, I might have come to him occassionally for help but for the most part I would have managed but like 8 or 10 significant medical issues to deal with, its just too much. What gets me is, take away my thoughts on the treatment differences between my sister and I, but just in general, no matter how old they are, I would think that if your child comes to you in extreme pain, extremely ill, needing medical attention that regardless of the cost you would be there but apparently it has its limits for my Dad and its still a cost that he is only willing to shoulder temporarily, I still have to repay the cost of it all. Its not even a matter of sharing the load etc. At some point I will be healthy enough that I will then wear the financial burden of this debt and will have to repay it, regardless of how it impacts my financial future. Dad goes on about his and Mums retirement, at this point in the game Im not convinced Ill make it to see retirement age, let alone have the financial backing for a decent retirement myself, but I am to blame for that, thats my responsibility. But Im the one who is selfish, Im just trying to keep what little life I have, Im not trying to prolong it, I dont want to prolong it, Im trying to survive. Mum and Dad are worried about keeping their lifestyle as best they can. I get that. But thats put more important than my well being, which if Im exaggerating or full of shit they wont feel quite so bad about ignoring.

I have been really itchy on the side of my stomach on the right side, after a few days I asked Mum to look when I got out of the shower. For her to look I had to put my towel around my waist and below my stomach. The look of disgust that came upon her face so suddenly and intensily and she didnt even try to hide it, not immediatly anyhow. The face she made was one more of absolute repulsion more than disgust. I ignored what I saw on her face and asked her to look anyhow. She said that there was a rash or something there. I had a rash in my inner elbow recently, which turned out to be Eczema but rashes are not normal for me. Im going to have to talk to my GP tomorrow or Tuesday, it could be nothing but it could point to something else, I mean we have had Cellulitis, then Eczema and now a random rash.

Ive been up for a couple hours now, unsuprisingly Im feeling really quite tired, despite how I feel emotionally. How I feel so hurt and discarded, there shouldnt be so many occassions through my life where that is the end result, that I feel hurt, I feel discarded, I feel my sister has been prioritised over me, that they feel like Im some kind of lier, that I am worthless. To feel like this so regularly there has to be something going on, I cant just randomly feel like this. Im not making it up and if I am feeling like this and have done for most my life and its not correct, maybe your way of interacting with me isnt working and you could maybe try something different, not double down on the same shit. Not tell me Im wrong. Not ignore me and shut me out, especially now that my sister is back in your room.

Well I am now very confident that the last round of injections into my back didnt make things any better, they havent made the situation worse. They did for a while but now thats over its back to how it was before I had them. Im happy that they didnt make things worse but quite disappointed that they didnt improve things, at least a little bit. From my understanding that was very likely my last hope, that was it, Ive made a bit of a last ditch effort and asked about a spinal stimulator, but you know I have my doubts or they would have suggested it previously. I cant think that with multiple fractures that they would be too keen on the idea either.

I told Dad about things, about how I felt pretty shit. You know this is a pretty MASSIVE thing, this is the rest of my life dealing with high does pain medication, Im going to have days where its worse, periods back on even more pain medication and as I get older its likely that my spine and the pain will increase. All I got from him was that he didnt know what to say. He couldnt show the slightest bit of empathy, the slightest bit of compassion, he didnt know what to say and that was it. He couldnt even muster up something like being sorry I am going through this. I cant imagine a conversation with my Mum would go any better, she would likely tell me how I was wrong and there would be more that they could do, that I was being dramatic or something.

Seriously frustrated. Im tired again but at the same time Im somthing, Im wound up, Im irritated, Im miserable, that ones for certain, Im kinda numb, Im tired, Im always tired, Im scared, thats kinda hard to admit but I think understandable, Im frustrated, so frustrated. I went and laid down because I was tired and was feeling like I was just gonna fall asleep, I put on my mask and got into bed. I couldnt get my mask to feel like it was on properly, it kept feeling like I couldnt get enough air. I kept trying to get it to be on my head right, I kept tossing and turning in the bed not being able to get comfortable. My back isnt overly painful, its sore, sore enough but not so much that I need extra pain killers. It wasnt what was causing me to be uncomfortable though, it was more an overall body tenseness, a fidgetyness, my mind wouldnt settle but neither would my body. In the end I gave up, took my mask off, tossing it aside and put my left hand under my head for like seconds before the pain from my shoulder hit me. Then the frustration really hit me, I then felt somewhat mad. I have all the stuff with my back, I talk to Dad about it and get like nothing, I have a raging headache, again, but Ive already had all the painkillers I can for headaches, Im tired, ready to fall asleep where I am, tired, randomly I cant get my mask to sit right on my head, my body and mind are reacting to the anxiety I feel, to top it off I cant even put my damn hand behind my head because it hurts too much. That was all in like 30min and all too often do things like that actually occur, I have a run on of my issues being issues one after the other in a short period of time. It happens a lot because, well there are lots of issues. I mean, I didnt mention that the whole time thats happening I have the stupid wonky, dizzy, shit feeling in the background because why the hell not.

What I dont understand is how my familt dont seem to appreciate how much stress Im actually under. I get each one of us are under stress, there is no shortage of a ridiculous overload of stress for all of us. I dont really want to say that Im exeriencing more stress than anyone else but you would have to agree that medical stress is something else. Im not dealing with little concerns, Im having issues with life long impacts, some with the potential to be life long and others that are just unknown what the cause is altogether. Then there is the financial implications, Im spending my entire income trying to support myself, food, fuel, bills and then what I can spend on medical costs, from there I have been borrowing money from my Dad to cover the remaining costs for the month, until I am paid next, this can be hard because in the first part of the month I have used all my money on the mix of things so when I borrow money from Dad its also pretty much for a mix of things.

I went to my GP appointment, then I had to go to Services SA and then it was off to the chemist for yet more prescription medication. I had to make a few phone calls when I got home and then I went to bed. I just got woken by one of the places returning my call, I want a copy of a report from a psychiatrist I have seen however, they will not release it until they get permission from the psychiatrist and she isnt with that business until Thursday. My appointment is Wednesday, apparently its not possible to send her a txt or an email and ask, apparently one day a week this psychiatris is alive. Im still really tired, Im going to go back to bed in a minute.

Well scratch that, my sister needed to be picked up. Dad had been organised to do it however wasnt answering his phone so she rang me and I went and picked her up. I helped her back to her bed and as I walked back to the car and as I did I was wacked in the face by when wonky/dizzy feeling, so that was pretty much perfect timing. I am now, however very ready for some more sleep. Ive actually been up a fair bit today but now Im getting really tired.

I went and laid down for a while but I just dozed on and off. I couldnt just fall off to sleep. My head is clearly off on one tangent after the other, though all amoungst a similar theme. Dad is also preparing the houses woodwork for repainting and he was sanding while I was laying down, the entire time I was laying all I could hear was the low burr of the sander and it just got inside my head and I couldnt escape the rythmic humm it made which wasnt like overwhelmingly loud but it was so constant, so endless and so persistant. It drove me nuts. I eventually gave up with it all and got out of bed, shortly after which the continual whirr ceased. I had a message from my sister asking if I was ok, I responded and after a few messages found out that Mum was grumpy and that was because her and Dad had talked, which they just cant do. It, to me at least seems to be a fundemental failure for them and again from my view point the primary failure is that Dad, and when talking to others, dont just agree and accept that Mum knows everything, there need not be any engagement, any consultation, talking with Mum generally means you are being informed of your new opinion. If you do put forward your own opinion, you happen to contradict the view Mum has taken, then things are not going to go well. Mum and I butt heads with this a lot because unlike Dad, I dont just accept Mums position on everything, actually there is little that I do. She doesnt leave her room very often, generally its just to go to the doctors and very rarely if people come over. She watches home shows a lot, she has one really good friend who she speaks to pretty well daily and another when she decides she wants to. If you show her any kind of disrespect, regardless of the circumstances, she throws a fit. She decides that she is either gonna get super angry or depressed over it but she wont just accept that she pushed to hard, that others are on edge etc. She pushes what she wants, what she believes happened repeatedly. Even when you think its dealt with randomly it comes out of the blue and your on again. She decides that she saw something on one of her home shows and she wants to do it here. Which means she wants Dad to do it. He is not at all confident he can do it or it will work. In fact sometimes he is quite positive it wont work. Any which way there is a whole team of people behind the scenes helping the presenters, testing, training, etc. People just dont do these amazing decorating feats in front of cameras, week after week, in different houses and different locations, without practice and a lot of expertise. Neither of which Dad has or has the time to obtain.

Last week or so, when the wonky/dizzy feeling started to start happening earlier and I got an appointment with the ENT, I asked my Dad if he would take me to the appointment. I have been stuck and had to drive while the feeling was happening and it was daunting, it was scary as hell and not something I ever want to have to attempt again and that was a short drive from town to home. This would be driving into the city, into a very busy area with roads that were not overly wide. So, having someone else drive me made sense. Dad said he would, but what he meant to say was, I will IF your sister doesnt decide at a later date that she needs me to do something for her. Which, as it so happened became a real possability, my sister made an appointment which would potentially need Dad to take her to and it clashed with when I needed Dad to help me. Instead of telling my sister/Mum that he was already committed to taking me he agreed and let me know that he might not be available. So that kinda left me in a massive bind, I need to get this resolved, I need to work out why Im having this feeling if I want to have any kinda normal life. Like a mate wants to catch up, Im gonna have to organise it to be at like 11am and Ill have to be gone by 2pm because of the issue. How about work, sure Id be able to work from home, its not exactly simple to deal with this and type and concentrate etc. but from their perspective, I should just push through. But what happens when I need to come into the office for some reason, which happens often enough. I cant really say that there is a time limit when I can drive because I havent attended to a medical condition. Would I even continue to keep my license? So, I determined that Id have to just deal with it and hope to God that it was a late onset day, a day where Im lucky enough that the feeling etc doesnt start until later in the day or the first hour or 2 are somewhat manageable. Turns out, at this stage at least, my sister is able to take herself and Dad is taking me. I get my sisters appointment is important, its about organising her time in a mental health facility where they will help her learn to deal with her condition, there is however no entrance date for her. She could, in fact, postpone the appointment as there is no immediate urgency for it in favour of me keeping my appointment, which if I were to reschedual would likely be a couple months before I would get in, as it was before I managed to get in sooner due to my situation. But, in true parental fashion, my sister, be it that she asks for it or not, will be the priority in pretty much all things. I get what is left over which isnt even certain, which is why I have become in so many ways so self sufficient, the only way that they can control me, to impose their will over me is with me owing them money. Im sure that why when I was brought to live in a house that was owned by them, that was more than I could afford and I told them that, then I was left long enough with minimal interation with them, the interaction I do remember was Dad coming and telling me that I needed to pay rent and Mum was mad that I wasnt. But I was left, without any offer of actual help in managing my finances, no help from either Mum or Dad to make sure my rent and bills were paid and that I had enough left to cover medical costs and food, with the understanding that I couldnt at the time, cook for myself. That said, the idea being Mum was going to provide meals because the rent was so much higher to help me out, which she never once did. I would say that I would have been lucky to get a single visit from her. Now to put this in perspective, she didnt work at this point by memory and the humongous obstacle of a drive she would overcome, less that a few minutes, litterally she followed the road out the front of their house and you would end up going past my place. In fact and this is a massive, huge sticking point, when she went to the grocery store, the couple of times a week she would have, she would have driven past my place to get there, unless she deliberatly went a longer way to avoid that. I was home alone, off my face on anti-psychotic medication, she could have chosen to a) stop in and at least say hello, but she was worried she would find me having ended it. My Mum and sister, who lived around the corner, choosing not to visit or help like they said they would, to continue to be there to support me after I left hospital, after the public display of care and affection was over. The time where Mum was to be seen being a good Mum. She was there every day pretty much, but that good Mum up and pissed off the moment I was dumped in the house around the corner. Dad wasnt any better than Mum, he only really visited me to tell me how I wasnt living up to expectations, typically at the behest of Mum. Yeah, Mum would be sitting at my sisters place determining how I was failing, the guy who had just had a brief psychotic episode and was being pumped full of medication was not living up to the standards set for a normal and healthy person. She would then tell Dad, who either having no back bone or agreed with Mum, given it was generally to do with money he would, come round and very rapidly it would turn to how I needed to pay them the money I owed. Particularly for the past 12 years that has been the theme of many discussions, I owe them. Mum loves to put the blame onto Dad for me ending up with that debt, but she has just as much to do with it as him. She has on more than one occassion ensured that debts my sister had disappeared or were at least minimised. She would have also pushed Dad to put through an insurance claim no matter what if the debt were to be incurred by my sister. Just in this short couple of year period I see the true face of my parents, this is before Mums heart issues, before being hit in the head and ending up with a brain injury, its before Dad got cancer and his stomach issues, this is before they got sick and before they can claim that as an excuse for the way Im treated now. There are many other examples, many other big events and every day crap, a life time of them in fact. My Mum wonders why I have mental health issues, which she simultaneously denies, dismisses and diminishes. This is the shit behind so many of my issues. Wow, I never realised or thought of this. I spent muchof my childhood being teased, bullied, abused, beaten, you get the point. I told my parents, I told the school and no one did shit. Even when the opportunity presented itself and my interlect gave good cause for it, my parents still chose not to send me to another school. My Mum goes on about how she was unhappy where we grew up and wanted to move back to the city etc. but I was getting the shit kicked out of me and still it wasnt an option. There was options available, difficult options but 10 or 11 years of worsening abuse at school wasnt enough to get them to do sweet FA. Dad had a job, a house, he liked the town and he believed God had called him there. So, God called him somewhere to sit with his thumb up his arse while he watched his son slowly shrivel into a corn husk, believing no one cared for him, not even his parents. Turns out, maybe I wasnt so far from the truth. If my child was being beaten at school, I would first wonder how the hell I let it get that bad but secondly the principals desks would likely be upturned during out quiet and civil, heated and explosive discussion. I wouldnt rest until they were safe. If I had to give up my job and meet them at the door of class and bring them to the next one I probably would. Schools now days are so violent, so scary, even if your not a victim of being bullied you could find yourself in a dangerous situation without trying. Am I sounding probably over protective and I might well be if I did have kids, given my past. I would do anything I can to protect my kid(s) from being the victim of violence against them in anyway. Ive had enough of it in my life, that to experience more for the sake of anyone I love, probably anyone I have any close affiliation or happen to stumble across being assulted, I would take more. This is the difference between me and the rest of my family, I dont even warrant protection as a child. Talk about it now and My Dad will agree it was bad, Mum doesnt fn remember and asks why I didnt tell her and my sister says it wasnt as bad as I recon. If I give that a little bit of consideration, maybe I wasnt smacked about as often as I recollect, but there again how often is often enough to be the cause of a mental health condition later in life. How often is acceptable, like is it ok if it was just a weekly bashing and my sister has decided that because it wasnt that often it shouldnt have any lasting affect? Heres the thing, if it were only once a year or every recess, lunch and twice after school that I found myself at the brutal end of the kids at school, it has had a long lasting affect on my mental health, on my view of people and the world. So, my sister can believe that it didnt happen as often as I recollect but the outcome is the same. I do know that I would spend my breaks hiding in the library, it was the only time when I was at school when I actually felt safe as the kids couldnt come in and harrass or beat me, it was quiet so they would be found out by the librarian pretty quickly. In class, I tried to sit next to safe kids, they were neutral, no one was my friend but some were neither friend or foe and would only get involved in anyway if they were pressured so sufficiently that they had no other choice. I also remember being at church and being prayed for, something to do with being bullied and the pain etc. and crying for a really really long time, thats also the last time I actually remember crying. It was about that time I decided that they wouldnt see the emotional pain they inflicted, there wasnt much I could do about how my body reacted in the moment but at that point I became much harder, not tougher just harder.

The look that Mum gave me last night when I came out of the shower really got to me. Its played on my mind over night and all day. I cant think that I have ever been looked out with so much repulsion, as if the very sight of me offended someone. At the time I ignored it and continued like nothing happened, I didnt acknowledge it in anyway. However, it hurt a lot. Thats something Mum has been doing a huge amount of late. She claims the same, that I have hurt her. As I anticipated as well, she and I havent spoken just her and I since my sister came home. I was making all the effort and its clear to me that its not reciprocated, if it were Mum would have not allowed a day to go by without dedicating some time to me and well she hasnt. Mum has been on about my weight regularly for a while, the frequency and insensitivity, outright rudeness in many cases have increased. There is some stuff you can chose to just keep to yourself, simply because you thought it doesnt mean you have to share it, even at a later date. I was going to say you can consider if telling someone something that has no bearing on any outcome, if it is benefitial or harmful. But my train of thought stopped there. Mum would have to give a shit to make that consideration. I dont know if she purposefully set out to be harmful, I dont think she cared, she wanted to say something regardless of how it made me feel. She was scared because everyday I went to have a shower I looked fatter. Now, she was aware of this, at the time I was unwell and it was causing me to swell and to bloat so much so that I have been unable to wear underwear for about 6 weeks I suppose because I still have swelling issues, occasional bloating. It would mean that I would be one size and a few hours later I felt like my stomach started just below my chin. More than a couple of times it looked like it was at a right angle just below my man boobs. If it wasnt all that, I was also retaining fluid, like I could gain or lose around 4kg or more in a 24hr period. And here she was getting scared about my weight because I looked like I was getting fatter everyday. Its not just about the weight that bugs me, she was more worried about me putting on more weight, daily, which she would have to have known was in her head because that doesnt really happen, than me being seriously, seriously unwell. Its something she couldnt grasp, I was at home, but I was in hospital at the time, I was in MyHome Hospital. I was on IV antibiotics, which were also making me really sick, I have cellulitis and they couldnt get it to stop coming back. I spent a month on antibiotics, I was in so many ways physically destroyed and what was scarring her was me putting on imaginary weight.

It wasnt the first time she had said something hurtful about my weight, having no idea what I was doing with my life and my diet she would carry on about it. Meanwhile I had started to see a dietician, I had been diagnosed with diabetes and it has been a trigger for me to make significant changes. Im not hitting my targets yet, its not like I can just go from the diet I have had to a much more conscientious diet. As much as it is a learning process as to what, how much, etc I can eat, even the targets themselves, I had some and then had to consider others. Ive had to make a lot of changes, but its not like I just threw away what I had already, I couldnt afford too, I just had to pace it out a bit more. Then I learnt more and I had to do it again and again. The other aspect is if I went from the diet I had to the diet I want overnight, the massive change would be too much for my body to handle and I would likely not do so well. So its a process. Im making changes, Im not disputing that I am more than a big person. Mum may never have reached my milestone, but she too has been more than big, she knows what its like to get the looks etc of strangers. That I dont care about, they upset Mum but never bothered me. The look of my mother, that I cared about. But she has experience with her Mum going on about her weight when she was young, I know what the reaction was like from her if you even hinted at her having put on weight or being concerned when I was young. But now, she thinks its ok that on a rather regular basis to do it too me and I should be thankful? That for her sake I should do something? I dont know. Somehow, its about her, more than its about me, I just have to change for her, I think. Its also only gotten worse since she started taking a diabetes medication offlabel for weightloss and lost some weight. Amazingly, at the same time she stopped piling shit down her throat continuously, so its less about the medication and more about diet change I would think. I always found that entertaining, she is going on about my weight with a half eaten bag of chips next to her bed after consuming Hungry Jacks for tea again.

Anyhow, I have decided a few things. Firstly, Im sick of the comments about my weight, but even more so that look on her face. I have spoken on a number of occassions to her that what she was saying was hurtful. It might be true, but there are ways to discuss things and there are times, weekly or fortnightly arent the times. Im not going to lose a stack of weight in incredibly short periods of time and Im also not going to hear you attack me for being fat and see the error of my ways and change my entire life overnight. Do something that in over 60 years of life, she hasnt been able to do herself. So, I have tried talking, the next recourse is for her not to see me on the way to and from having a shower. There is another shower in the house, my shower chair doesnt fit in it, so I am going to have to start having much shorter and likely much more painful showers going forward. I dont see that I would get a different, smaller shower chair and me in the shower either. Secondly, its clear that the talks that I have been pushing with Mum arent panning out. I wanted to have an opportunity to get to really know my Mum, to have a special relationship with her, despite all the pain, angst and issues she has caused me over my life. She is really sick, its likely that she only has less than a decade to live. I didnt want her to die and her and I to have the relationship we did. Sadly, its sad but good for me in some ways, but lets say sadly, its only been made worse, Ive made a number of realisations, some spurred by our discussions, the stuff Ive discussed and will likey continue to discuss and the overall realisation is that I dont think Mum is capable or willing to meet me where I am, to understand who I am, especially within all the pain and illness, to put herself aside and really get to know me more than her assumptions of who I am and what I feel. To actually care about me, like truely and properly, selflessly care about me. I dont want to say that she doesnt love me, maybe she just doesnt know how to show her love to me in a way I can understand. Loving me out of the equasion, I really wish she liked me, that she trusted me and that she wanted to make time for me. She goes on about my sister and my Dad making time for her, thats what she wants. Mum spends time with my sister, she likes her. Neither Mum or Dad make any time for me. I am very clearly a disappointment for both of them and as a side note, Im pretty confident that Dad has no respect for me as a man. My sister goes on about what Dad thinks of her etc. But as a guy, to feel like your father doesnt respect you as a man and never has, not once, that, well its something.

If I was able to I would move out again in a heart beat, especially if I was able to get onto the NDIS. Dad cleans the house general but apart from that most other things I manage myself. Dad does help a bit, Mum doesnt. Financially, however it is just not possible. Dad was going on about how he wants me to be able to move out of home etc. I had to set him straight last time how it was just a dream, practically it wasnt possible. That financially with my medical issues the costs were too high for me to be able to do it. Not to mention that now I have a massive debt to repay, so even if the health issues all the sudden became a non-issue, repaying the money owed will take its place. Im trapped here, while I didnt say it to him, much of the cause of this rests at his feet.

[ClockFace]

I went to bed around 10:30pm, I didnt sleep much yesterday, especially in comparrison to what has become the norm. I think the emotional pain I was feeling yesterday was a pretty big factor. I slept quite soundly until 2:30ish the next morning which is a pretty massive sleep for me. I  woke up with a pretty decent headache, which has gotten better since waking. My back feels pretty sore, Im on the edge, do I take pain killers or dont I. My neck is in bad shape and my shoulder is sore but also very sensitive. My acne has improved a lot since starting the antibiotice, as has the frequency and the severity of the boils however. I do get new ones on a semi-regular basis and I woke up with a bad one behind my leg that was really painful when sitting down. I went to see if I could pop it and it either took very little or had already done so, it was a lot of relief however. Thats the thing with getting a boil to pop, the relief you feel. Im really tired again but also hungry. Im not really sure what I should do for food for breakfast, the majority of options are really high carb wise or require cooking, I tend up eating the same as I would for tea. Its a bit after 3am, Ive had something to eat now Im going to have something to drink and go to bed. My back is pretty painful, so I think some pain killers are in definately in order. Im funny I think, I dont tend to like to take my pain killers before I go to bed, I feel like I am wasting the reduced pain that happens as a result on sleep.

Before I do go to bed, Dad mentioned to me that Mum was wanting to get a caravan, again. This time so that I could have my office out there. I can only assume this is was another attempt at getting me out of where I am so that my sister can have that area as well, I suppose Im assuming she was talking about my work from home station. The noise that would happen from wind, rain and hail would mean taking calls would be impossible. Also, it would ne really an event when the wind tuned on like it does from time to time. Im not thinking that she is talking about an awesome one like you see how, it would a cheap one, so it would be one that is essentially made from a few rolls of aluminium foil and, I would be lucky to fit through the door of. She did then go on to say Dad could use it for his office, which of course he doesnt want to do. She was on about my sister having one not long ago, I have no idea what her obsession is about getting a caravan for extra space. As Dad said to me, with the size of the house there is no reason why we cant all live inside together. I would imagine that part of it was to get me out of where I was, so my sister can have it along with the second lounge for her "space". Either that or Mum wants to have an office space again, she has a massive room, that she never leaves, there is no reason she needs an office. If they went through all their shit they have around the place, and got rid of what they didnt want we would have more than enough room for all of us.

I dont really get this concept of pushing through pain and illness, like I do to the degree of needing to get the essentials done, life has to be had and done. But, some things are just optional. Dad repainted the car port because Mum decided she didnt like the color she chose. He is repainting the timber work and fixing woodrot. Now the woodrot I understand however, he has left it for years and now its really bad. Im sure there has been times where he could have worked on it earlier but anyhow. He is sick, he is barely functional for the most part, so why are we adding the job of repainting the carport. So much that Mum tells him to do is for one reason, to improve the sale price of the house because of couse Mum still wants to leave and they have to get the best price they can, apparently even if it kills Dad. Other than providing instuction she isnt helping at all, however she will want half if they sell and split, when he put the labour in and provided the financial backing to make the improvements. I say he provided the financial backing because she wont access her super and only receives a small pension, which other than "buying her own smokes" she really doesnt use to help support the family but it is expected that anything and everything Dad can get money wise goes on everyone else. Dad pushes through for the same reason though, he will put his health on the line seeking a few more dollars. I didnt realise when I was young but he would cash in his holidays and keep working to pay for the credit card because Mum had yet again maxed it out. He did the same to buy supplies when they were renovating houses etc. He just worked and now later in life he is in shit for it but thats a different story. They both value money over their health, then Mum has changed tune, Dads health doesnt matter, but it wasnt her driving Dad so much as Dad drove himself and she the same. Now its her on his back pushing him to push through. They have both done the same to me over the years. Pushed and pushed for me to work through pain, illness, etc. If I didnt push through and as hard as I did maybe I wouldnt have injured myself at work, maybe I wouldnt have tried to earn another couple dollars an hour on a "promotion" to a very physically demanding role. After I was injured, I went through a lot of medical crap which at the end I was told there was nothing more that could be done, so I went through rehab, which included a month long stint in a pain management facility. Here I learnt ways to manage and mitigate the pain without pain killers. Before this, I was more  likely to pull back if injured or sick than my parents would have liked, even as children we had to push through. There is a story where my sister hurt her toe really badly and my Mum sent her to school regardless with a couple paracetamol. Mums curall, turned out she had broken her toe. This was pretty typical of Mum though and still is. For years I was expected to push through the pain I was in with my back, then we find out that I have all these fractures. I mean I had said that I had fractures because they had said I had some before, just not to the severity that I actually have.

After my injury at work my priorities changed, they had been kinda changing since year 12. Part way through year 12 it all got too much and I just bailed on it, oddly I dont think my parents ever really noticed but I dont really remember a huge amount from part way through that year on other than the occassion belting at school and of course being knocked out on the final day. There is all this pressure through school to do the right subjects, to chose from a list that meets the right requirements for the outcome you want, not the education you desire. By that I mean, do you want to go to Uni, etc then you have to or had to meet a score card. Then ofcourse there was compulsary subjects, regardless of what I wanted or what was best for my chances for getting into Uni. Mum in her infinate wisdom believed I had to do English all the way through school and Music, hell it took a lot of convincing for Mum to realise that continuing to push me in a musical direction was a really bad decision. But when I was injured it was matter of realising that health is so fickle and can be taken from you so quickly. So while my parents and many other people my age seemed to think that it was like a video game and you just need to eat a magic fn apple and your health points are restored, I appreciate that this is not actually the case. There are illnesses that you get over, you get a cold and a bit of rest and a few days later your back to your normal self. But there are plenty of things that this isnt the case. Also, I understand that if you get a cold and you dont rest, that cold and you are going to become friends for longer than had you rested. For someone like me a cold, if I dont rest and deal with it can and very well likely become something more serious like a chest infection. Something that seems to allude my parents everytime until I end up with a chest infection and then Im told, this always happens when you get a cold. Which I know, which is why I when I get a cold, despite them carrying on about it I take a step back, I rest and I try and recover from that before it turns out to be something more.

I may be a little more cautious about my health than others, Im not washing my body in Aqium every 20min cautious but if I have had something before and I know its coming on again, I will take the same steps I took last time to recover, if I require prescription medication, Ill see my doctor normally a bit early to get ahead of things. If I start with something I am unfamiliar with then I will see my doctor once I know its an actual issue. If I get new pain, sensation loss or change, etc Ill see my GP pretty quickly. I dont simply cough and run to the doctor, if I did that, Id be there everyday, 1 to 2 times a week is more than sufficient. But I also know when things are beyond what I need to deal with, like I wont sit and suffer simply to push through because thats dumb. By the nature of having multiple chronic issues, I am at my doctor quite regularly, the more issues that arise the more often I am at the doctors. For some reason, it seems too difficult for people closest to me to grasp this. I dont happen to go to the doctor because it seems to be an entertaining outing. Im not sitting at the computer researching weird and hard to diagnose illnesses or something like that. The simple and very depressing truth is that I have multiple issues, some diagnosed some being investigated and that requires me to spend time with my GP to look into, treat and manage my issues. Simply because I or others think that I am at the doctors more than is typical even for a very sick person or its desired that I return to work soon or what ever you want to think, just because you think that doesnt mean shit. My Mum would have me put my head in the sand when it comes to new symptoms, just deal with whats on my plate now and go back to work. I dont think ignoring potential health issues, large or small, should ever be ignored. They might not need to be centre stage but they should never be ignored. I would think in my case this is even more so true given the number of issues I already have. They have become centre stage in my life, because there is so many of them, so many appointments, scans, tests, etc. It takes up a large part of my existance trying to investigate, manage and treat my issues. I also had to stop working due to my spinal issues, from there my other health issues have joined in and are kinda running a muck. The other encouragement I have now that some of my issues are being diagnosed is to learn to live with the issue, apparently this means that regardless of how I feel from now on, I should still go to work. I should still do all the things that I have been told to do, cleaning etc. you know life should go on as if the condition doesnt affect me at all, why? Its simple, I know whats wrong because for my parents thats actually pretty close to being cured. If you get a diagnosis and the end result is that not much is going to change, you are going to be in pain a lot or your going to be sick often, then you just have to learn to deal with that, accept it and push through. Which is what I got with my back, it doesnt work and I dont do it. If I was in a great deal of pain, I didnt work, I didnt do my normal activities, I concentrated on dealing with the pain.

Mum has gone on about returning to work more than once, shes uses the line of being scarred that I will lose my job if I stay away too long. I have previously, in relation to her being mad when I took time off for my back, said/questioned she is more scared that I will lose my job than she has compassion and empathy that I am suffering. She of course said no, but we have come around to the same thing again, however I do realise that she would first have to believe it is as bad as I say and I just dont believe she ever will. She complains that people dont believe that she is as sick as she is, yet she has done that to me for years. Its nicer to say that she doesnt believe me than it is to say she doesnt care if its as bad as I say. Either way the outcome is the same. Either way, it still hurts. Either way, Im still going to do what I believe is the right thing to do. If I lose a job due to illness, thats a company I probably dont want to work for anyhow, however if I have been off for years that would be different. The thing about going back to work at the moment, other than being too sick to do so etc. is spent 10 weeks without being paid before I got onto my salary continuance insurance, now that I am on it I am not going to come off it to satisfy Mum and then find that because I havent addressed everything while I was off that I have to go through an application process again, including the 10 weeks without pay. Financially, as well as medically, it makes a lot more sense for me to address any issue I have, go through all the scans, tests and appointments needed, be diagnosed, get treated and recover. For those issues where treatment and recovery isnt the outcome Im going to get, I should learn to manage my illnesses, if it would impair my working ability should I try and do it while I was also trying to return to work.

There is so much I dont understand in my life, like most children I dont understand my parents, nor do I feel understood by my parent which really isnt unusual. Living with them at 43 is, being as dependant on them financially is, but this is what I and my parents have been allotted in life. I dont understand what could make a person feel so self-important, so arrogant, dare I say it narcissistic that they will put their desires, their wants ahead of the pain and suffering of another and when challenged defends themselves and believe themselves to be justified in their actions. It wont take long, it wont take more than a couple of minutes. Im going to keep talking to you, after you get up and say Im leaving, eventhough you have told me and it would appear that you are in pain. Im going to tell you what I think and I know that you will see it my way, failing that I will restate my thought repeatedly until such time as you see it my way and change your mind, or just give in because your sick of hearing me repeat the same thing over and over again. Im going to make that decision as to what I think based on nothing, Im going to ignore doctors and specialist, experts in the field, your thoughts and feelings, your experiences, the experiences of others, if it doesnt line up with my desired outcome, its wrong and you must agree with me. Its ok for me to lie, to manipulate and to change my mind if it suits my desires. I can claim to have forgotten anything I want, however when challenged on my memories relating to an event where there are two opposing versions, I am correct, I have great memory, I remember exactly what happened. I can sit in my bedroom all day, everyday, listening only to the version of events of one person, someone who has a track record of being untrustworthy and selfserving and based on that persons account decide who is not doing the right thing, who is not doing enough, who was in the right or wrong and how things are to be run, even in her self exile she believe she can command the way things are done while not participating in any way in the running of the house and the well being of its inhabitants. To decide that she would exile herself to her room under the pretense of illness, however she can manage to drag Dad around the shops for hours at a time, buying fruit and veg when she has been told that we dont really use either and they get thrown away every time. To decide that those around you who do not agree and immediately obey, they are arrogant, they are narcissistic, typically they are also male. To claim that everything you do is for the family, while assuming you know the people within the family, their wants, needs and desires. With that assumption in mind you decide, almost exclusively without consulting everyone, never me, what is best for the family. To continue to treat your Son the same way he has already told you causes him to feel hurt, unloved, unwanted and worthless, and you had acknowledged that you can see how it might make him feel that way. Thats the real kicker, narcissistic, illness, what ever it is, if you know what you are doing to your son is causing him pain in any way and you continue to do it, thats abuse, thats cruel and that reinforces the feelings he has, some might say it confirms them.

My Dad I dont understand either, I really dont understand. I dont even have a possible lable I could give him. What do you call a father who sees his wife doing the above to not only him, but his children and not step in to mitigate or stop it. But not just that, he actually supports her at times because, get this, he doesnt want the fight. It amazes me that anyone can witness their son being abused by their wife, they know that how he is being treated is making him feel worthless and unloved, yet they stand by and allow it to continue to happen unchallenged, or as I say support it, in that they tell him not to speak disrespectfully to his mother when he stands up for himself, or something similar. The first time that happened, I was stunned but at the same time not suprised. If he didnt speak up in her defence then he would have been in trouble with her and he will, most the time, do all he can to avoid being in trouble with Mum. He has even complained that when I stand up for myself, which is pretty well everytime she starts with me, he ends up having Mum having a go at him. He complained that he had to deal with Mum when I refused to allow her to treat me so badly.

[ClockFace]

Ive been having issues with going to sleep the last couple of days. Ive been really frustrated and irritable, its caused me to be really angry quite a bit. The stuff with my Mum has been building up for a while but the way she looked at me when I got out of the shower the other day has just pushed me over the edge. Along with that my pain went back to what it was like before the injections, which completely got me down. Im back in pain at the moment, Im not sure whats got it wound up but I rarely do. I was so frustrated and irritated that I couldnt settle in bed, especially during the day.

My shoulders and neck are really painful, Im really stiff, it hurts to even use my arms.

Ive woken up and everything is so painful, I have a screaming headache but Im just in so much pain. Not long after writing that I fell asleep at the table. I still have the headache and things are still pretty painful, sleeping at the table I am sure isnt going to help that.

Im experimenting with alternative milks, I havent tried many but I really didnt need to for the shakes atleast. Oat milk has very little in the way of well, anything. It has little sugar or carbs, much of anything else. Which works well for the diabetes. The really cool thing is that taste wise its pretty good too, Ive been mixing it with normal milk in my shake and its tasted pretty good, but I think it will be ok pure, which Im going to try today. Ive just done soy milk in my coffee and its not to bad. Im using the Vitasoy Milky range, which I assume is different to the stock standard. I am finding the soy milk to taste ok but its a bit I dunno, it sits weird in my stomach. But, I had pretty well decided that the oat milk was the way I was going to go.

I have my psychiatrist now, Im really hoping she rocks up this time. I dont buy the connection issue thing, I was in the room and she wasnt. Its been aroun 2.5 months since Ive seen her and so much has happened in that time medically. It would be really good to get the hallucinations and derealisation sorted out. I imagine its going to be another medication change, which argh Im so sick of medication and medication changes.

The appointment went well, she actually seems like a good psych, she just does things a bit weird with her books. She has increased a medication Im already on, I didnt expect she would cause I was on a really high dose already, but she has moved me to the maximum dose now. She has also added a PRN medication to help me out, Im a little suprised that there was no change to my anti-psychotic. I just got the e-scripts and once my family have left for their stuff for the morning, Im off to get it and happilly be taking it today as, well, Im need it. Its supposed to help with the agitation, irritation, feeling overwhelmed etc and Im pretty well feeling all of the above continually at the moment, so a break would be nice.

I find it interesting that when my sister was in hospital after her suicide attempt Mum was now where to be seen. Now though, now most things have been set up and I've pulled away for the most part she has to be involved in everything to do with my sister going into another facility to learn how to deal with things. She's been diagnosed with ADHD which Mum then decided that I also must also have that. The fact that I have no symptoms of ADHD doesnt deter her from that belief. I dont understand why she is so keen on me being diagnosed with ADHD, I think that she thought that if I had ADHD then I would shed the schizoaffective diagnosis, but I she has stopped pestering me about getting tested since I explained that I can have both, in fact the likelyhood would be that if I was diagnosed with ADHD, I would retain the schitzoaffective because I have the symptoms of schitzoaffective disorder, such as hallucinations, derealisation etc. That doesnt get explained with ADHD. It again, she doesnt get how insensitive it comes across. I can accept you if you had ADHD but your "claiming" to have schitzoaffective disorder, that I dont accept. Its not that she has said that outright, but thats the implication, which is backed by the way she is about my symptoms. I mean your son tells you that he's hallucinating/derealisation and you show no concern, its treated as well yeah thats normal or not of any concern, the result is going to be that he will think you dont care. When you challenge the diagnosis in general, how can a person spend an hour with another person and make such a huge decision about them. I mean, its what their trained to do and I lived with a diagnosis of Bipolar 2 with psychotic features for like 10 years, which is effectively the same as schitzoaffective disorder, just schitzoaffective disorder is a more legit diagnosis. So its not like I havent had a similar, almost exactly the same condition for around a decade or more. She is now trying to be 100% what I would find completely overbearingly involved, yet can barely entertain the idea of listening to me talk about the outcome of appointments, I dont really even bother anymore.

We have a family diary, the idea being that we can know where each other is/is going to be. More importantly if Mum needs the car or not. It would avoid situations that I have now found myself in where without anyone telling me, my sister needs my Dad to take her to town tomorrow at the same time as Dad needs to take Mum to the doctors and no one has considered what I am up to and the expectation is I would just fill in for Dad or Mum would just take the car. The fact that I have appointments pretty much daily, which they are aware of and I am on cancellation lists all over the shop. But my issues arent nearly as bad because of couse I exaggerate my conditions or am actually just full of shit. Mum decides that I dont need a car of my own, she doesnt use hers so I can use it, no problems, just add fuel and Im right to go. However, since the car came back from being repaired thats changed, the new rules are, I keep u with the fuel etc like before the difference is that if Mum wants the car I have to work something else out, pretty much no matter how little notice is given. Keeping in mind, my primary reason for going out is to see a medical person. You say anything and Mum puts on a turn, it becomes all about her. She cant fathom that its me trying live my life, attend appointments and get better so I can go back to work within her rules, which she changes to suit her, whenever she wants. Me using her car, was less about me using her car to save money etc. turns out she had decided that Dad wasnt to spend anymore money on cars or the like for me, it didnt matter that I have always repaid the debt, also didnt matter that my sister effectively bought the new car she has from their share of the money from the sale of her house. I had words with Dad about it all, everything that was running through my head, all the above he just sat there, not moving, not saying anything, not acknowledging anything I had to say. I stopped and he just carried on like I hadnt been talking. I know full well there is equally no point talking to Mum as there is talking to Dad, he isnt going to do anything. Im starting to think that there is actually no point talking about any of it, to anyone, at all. Its not going to change. Mum is going to do what she wants and command other people to do the same. Dads going to do Sweet FA about anything, he doesnt know what to do, he doesnt want the fight or whatever he can come up that allows him to justify to himself that he cant do anything or he isnt responsible for doing anything. My sister, she capitalises on the fact that she has Mum wrapped around her little finger, that she is very much Mums favourite and really, other than Mum the only person who is actually sick. But as often as she seems she can, its at my or Dads expense. There would never be consideration that she change or cancel her appointment, she really needs hers. She will or has gotten away with nicking the money. What really, really shits me is having Mum on side like she does, Dad will support and enforce what Mum decides, even if he agrees completely that its not right and not fair and I just have to wear it, ever fn time. She might not admit it, probably more cause of how it would make her look, but I was a suprise, unexpected and as it turns out, unwanted child. She might have been happy with the novelty at the time but reality not so much.

Tiredness has hit me, its like a ninja comes up from behind and he has caused my death in 6 different fashions before I even realised that I had been attacked. 

Dad did take me down to my appointment, he said I have hearing sensitivity and tinnitus but that the feeling in my head isnt likely due to my ears. He has sent me off for an MRI of my head to be sure. It means, other than my lower legs, pretty much every part of my body has been through an MRI, it does mean that between, MRI, CT and Ultrasound every part of me will have been covered. It does make me feel a little better to have my head scanned so that other symptoms I have can also be ruled out as being associated with my brain, potential brain tumor etc. Ive said it before, but it scares me the idea of having someone poke around in my brain, Ive lost so much intellect already due to my conditions, I dont want to risk more from someone playing tumor miner with my grey matter.

I got back to the car with Dad and he didnt even ask how things went, it wasnt until I was ringing to make the appointment for the MRI that he said anything at all. I asked my sister how she went to day and got a very generic yeah ok, however she didnt bother to ask me and I cant imagine that Mum is going to text, ring and definately not coming down to find out. I said a few things about Mum, Im really trying not to, I know that he doesnt like to talk poorly about Mum in front of us kids, but when it comes to his problems with her he is more than happy. Ive seen him talk about my sisters issues with her but comes to me talking about issues with her, my problems he seems to have a million reasons not to talk to me about it, not to do anything about it and right or wrong, I can only assume its because he agrees with her but he doesnt want to discuss it with me, he doesnt want to come out and either tell me he agrees or be seen to be taking sides. I dont know, I cant figure it out and I dont see the point in asking. I dont see the point in pressing people who have made it clear they dont want to be engaged on a topic. I might get an answer, Im probably not going to like it, in Dads case Id probably get some lame reason or excuse. We will probably argue and Im sick of doing that with my family members. I will probably get some regurgitated Mum crap.

Im kinda done talking to any of them, I mean Ill message my sister but Im not going to Mums room and having to engage with Mum over anything, besides my chair is full of shit, which kinda indicated to me that they didnt want me down there anyhow. You know, if Dad did that to my sister Mum would be all over it, shit would be on, but it being done to me no worries. Again, Im not in as much pain as I say yada yada yada. My sister is on the NDIS, my Mum who has a brain injury and heart condition struggled to get onto the NDIS. By my Dads accounts her doctors were saying she wasnt in that bad of a situation. My Dad said to me today that he doesnt think Ill get it, being the expert medical advisor he is. Given the people that are involved with this sorta stuff have said that they expected that I was already on the NDIS, that there is no argument from my doctors and specialist as to the legitamacy of my limitations. My biggest issue is going to be finalisation of diagnosis and prognosis, Im still kinda in the process of it and that might be an issue. Though I get more info on that tomorrow. The difference between Mum and I is that I cant physically do a lot of stuff, like I cant go and do my own shopping, where as she can spend 45 minutes in an op-shop today. I think that I have a significant impediment to having a full life that affects all aspects of my life.

It seems to me that Mums impediments are kinda pick and chose what she wants to do. She cant walk down the hallway to get some milk or toilet paper, someone else at home has to do that for her but as I say can spend 45 minutes in an op-shop today without any mobility aids or anyone with her. She basically cant do anything at home, other than to order everyone else around. But get taken to the doctors or go to an appointment with my sister etc. she can walk around shops for ages, hours at a time. Ive been with her and she wanders around like shes half out of it but talk to her and she is as on the ball and with it as she ever is. Its the same at home, talk to her about a topic she doesnt or isnt really interested in and you have broken sentances, 10 second thoughts between words etc. Get her talking about a home show and its like rapid fire, all systems go. I dont doubt that she has issues, that she isnt well but I recon we're being taken for a very long ride, that she puts on and exagerates her conditions. Thats way she is so quick to believe that Im doing the same thing, if she is capable of doing then in her mind I must be. It shits me off tho, it really ticks me off that after knowing me for 43 years, this is the end result, this is the outcome of the accumulation of that knowledge is that I would do that shit. That I would lie about my health, for what benefit I have no idea, Im not getting any sympathy, never have, Im accumulating debt like a gambler loses money, I have nothing of my own or to myself, seriously what am I getting out of it, whats the motivation?

[ClockFace]

I went to bed at midnight after waking at 5:30am. I woke up just before 2am. I sat at the kitchen table and have fallen asleep a couple times, it really irritates me, if Im tired enough to be falling asleep at the table, why the hell am I waking up. I must have slept more than I thought because the movie I was watching I couldnt have seen much of the begining and woke up basically to see the ending. I did a few things on Guava but thats about it.

I downloaded this app Guava yesterday, its a very comprehensive medical app and Ive been setting up. Im going to have a play with it and see if its worthwhile having. Im not 100% convinced but it kept me entertained for a few hours.

I started patches for smoking to try and reduce but I downloaded the Nicorette app to try and help as well. I do seem to smoke quite a bit at night when Im all drowsy.

I have a couple boils on the back of my legs again, they are bugging the shit out of me. They are making it really hard to sit. I do find the chair I sit on pretty comfortable but it could be better. Ive been thinking of looking at getting a better chair for the table, something with more padding but pretty much just as firtm.

Its nearly 4am, Im pretty awake, Im in a fair bit of pain, Im going to have to take some pain killers shortly. Im going to try and get some more sleep in a minute too, I dont really think I have a problem going to sleep. My alarm is set for 6:30am though I havent needed to use an alarm in ages.

I woke up again just before 6am with a blistering headache, it felt as intense pain wise as a migrane but no issues with light etc. Once I was up and out of bed the pain immediately settled. They only started since I started I started an ointment for my rash, but other than skin issues there are no other side affects, nothing that has anything to do with headaches and the like. I would have to think that its spine or neck related, I have my Neurosurgeon this morning so Im gonna ask him. I mean reasonable chance one or the other is the problem, seems odd that its come on so suddenly. It could be something short lived or not, best to ask.

Over the past month or so I have felt the need to be super organised again, typically I find that Im like this when I feel like my life is spiralling, I cant get a grip on my life, on my issues, I feel isolated, etc. Basically anytime Im not feeling like I have a hold my life, I organise. It makes me feel like I have some control over things, I dont really and I know it. I always stick to a diary for appoinments, thats not what I mean by organised, its things like building a robust medical file, recording statistics, recording food intake, making meal plans etc. The problem is when I settle down again and I feel like Im not trapped in a hurricane, and I always do the organisational stuff that I have built will fade away. I am hoping that for atleast the medical side of things, I can keep up. I mean there is little likelyhood that my medical side of things are going to settle down sufficiently that I can ever keep my finger off the pulse. Just the diabetes Im gonna have to keep on it, its gonna be with me many, many years, same with my back.

I want to start working on how I feel and my goals etc. I think I need to have some things to focus onto other than Mum and Dad or my medical stuff. Im not sure how I go with goals though, I suppose giving up smoking is one. My diet is another, huh I have a few going already. Water. Ill start with putting into Evernote more so as a jotting tool, I kinda tend to do this, its a really good app for that sorta thing. Ill look at a few apps, but Evernote might even be the best solution in general for me. I use Evernote for heaps, I keep a medical information file on it, as many different apps as Ive tried nothing comes close to being as easy and simple to maintain and transfer data to medical personal. I find a medical information file which contains your basic info, allergies, medical and psychiatric conditions, medications (including dose and regularity, Id also suggest including medication's generic name and reason for use), past medical procedures, list of doctors, specialists, etc and to put it over the top your family history. Just on this, I also recommend that for imaging purposes stick to the one company, it makes it easier to know who did the imaging when asked, it keeps all imaging together for doctors etc. The same with medical testing. It really sucks in Australia that the Doctor is the only one who is provided with access to test results and imaging. Id really like to see the patient have access to these at home, I dont understand why we cant either, what harm would it be? We can request the reports from our doctor, but it would be really cool to be able to import them into Guava like it seems you can in America. I was keeping a record of symptoms and medication start dates but Guava looks like it will take place of that. I have heaps of appointments so the upcoming appointments I have, I keep a list of with notes under it of things to discuss, that way I dont forget anything. Reminders for stuff I need to get, mainly from the pharmacy. My groceries I just keep a shopping cart going in the Woolies site/app. I write my emails in there generally before I cut and paste into my email app, its so much easier. I do keep a list of where I buy certain repeated things from, I typically eat and use the same things week after week, I do experiment and try new things but once I decide its going to be a regular thing it goes on the list. Im trying to get into the NDIS, what I want from the NDIS is listed and I add to it. I keep a to do list as well, its not commonly used as I just do things as I think of it or set reminders but sometimes its helpful. Notes on things like how I pull up from a procedure are really helpful. I have an email that I often send variations of, again a good reason to write emails in it first off. Its amazingly useful, in fact I write all this in it, I can write for a while, leave and do something else and come back and basically keep doing that over the course of a day or more and when Im ready cut and paste and publish. My favourite feature is one I just used, I stopped writing on my tablet and started on my phone because I'm not home anymore.

Saw the Neurosurgeon, due to the medication used to treat the pain from my spinal issues the spine has become hypersensitive which is why I'm having such issues with procedures and needing higher amounts of pain killers. He is sending me to their in-house pain specialists to review pain medication and potentially add in another med to help out. They also going to look into options with spinal cord stimulatory. He thinks it's the way to go but when, I'd have to improve my weight probably but they will look at if it's an option now or in future. He said about the headaches first thing would be ruling out a brain tumor which I have the MRI tomorrow so that will do that. He is also going to do a letter for NDIS. He's gonna be comprehensive and seemed to be right behind my need for it. He understands my limitations, he hasnt even once tried to go down the road of exercise etc because he can tell its just not feasible for me.

The place I go is doing a study thing on the corrolation between diabetes and back pain. Cause I started off with back pain and no diabetes and now have diabetes, Im apparently unique so they asked me to be apart of it. Which I did. I learnt something interesting though, diabetes causes your digestive system to slow down, so does opiods (I knew that), so its a double whammy for someone like me, which would explain why I get constipation so severely now. Im having trouble managing it lately, like I can be on a laxative and still end up constipated. Im probably going to be changing my laxative regime soon. The new laxative that Ill be going to I dont particularly like, so I keep putting it off.

I played with a bunch of apps today and settled on a range. I use FatSecret for managing my diet, it allows me to enter in what Ive consumed and see the stats on it, which helps me make sure Im sticking to my dietry intake maximums, like sugar and carbs. But it also lets me set up a meal planner, so I can set up what I plan to consume each day a month at a time. I consume the same things most days so its kinda easy, the flavour might change or in the case of dinner that changes each day. So now that Ive set that up, I can work out how much carbs, protein, sugar and the evil ones we monitor (Im not so concerned about fat at the moment) Im planning on consuming and make sure its within range and ensure that Im not going to excess. Most days Im under on most catagories, so if I want to I can add an extra coffee or some Cheese and Bacon balls I can.

I played with Guava a lot, having the information in Evernote already made the setup process really painless. I have set up reminders to check blood pressure and tempreture and the like. I also have reminders for all my medications etc. Its a lot better and more comprehensive than what I was using, its got better reporting too. Theres some other features like, prepare for an appointment, which looks awesome. Basically, it gets symptoms, information etc altogether and provides you a report which you can use when you see the doctor/specialist and make sure nothing is missed. It might even be better than what I have been using in Evernote.

Im still playing with Clarify, I can kinda track my mood in Guava but Clarify is more indepth, its got some other features to assist in different things, like guided journal, self esteem test, etc and it changes. Ill play with it more but what Ive seen its promising.

Goals Wizard, I spent a fair bit of time in this app and its really good. I set up a heap of goals, I didnt think I had any but I had an outpouring once I got going. Maybe I have more hope in me than I recognised, though I am feeling a lot better the last couple days than I have for ages. You can add milestones to the goals and set up activities to achieve them. I have a goal of drinking 3 litres of water a day, that sounds like a fair bit, but I drink a fair amount, but it means the majority of what Im drinking is water, then there is protein shakes and meal replacements and the rest is made up of powerade. I only chuck the powerade in for some flavour and despite how much I drink I tend to dehydrate really easily. Im still working out the exact amount of powerade Im going to be drinking, Ill be tracking that and water and working out whats what. Gingerbeer is an occassional thing, I mainly drink it for my stomach when its not great.

The other app that Im using is the Nicorette app, Im using patches at the moment to try and reduce my smoking with the aim of quitting. Ill see how I go with patches but probably Ill cut down and when Im smoking a lot less Ill go on Champix again. My GP thinks I failed on that because my nicotine dependancy is really high. I was smoking like a 40 pack a day. Ive dropped down a bit, Im counting (via the app) how many I am now. The first week thats what you do. It is a bit unfair though, most people sleep 8-10 hours a night. I was sleeping excessively, but Ive swung back to getting only a few hours sleep a night as of the night before last. It really is like that, I went from no sleep, to sleeping too much overnight and same back again. But, instead of only being awake 14-16 hours a day, Im awake like around 20 hours a day. So, it stands to reason that I would smoke more because Im awake more but no one takes that into account. The app is a little finicky with its counting of smokes, it likes to drop one or two pretty regularly. Apart from that I think its good.

I think over the past 6 weeks or so Ive been making some really positive changes in my life. If they go ahead with the spinal cord stimulator then there is a good chance Ill look pretty different when I do go back to work. Ive been attcked by tiredness again, Im going to go and have some sleep.

I got 3 hours sleep and woke up, however I woke up with a headache, similar to what I get early morning, just not as intense. Like the morning headache it was gone not long after I got upright. My neck is pretty sore. I put some Tiger Balm on it before I went to bed, I dont think it made a blind it of difference.

I just woke up again at the table, I think it was only about 30min that I was asleep. Ive woken with my back being really sore, not bad enough for pain killers I dont think. Once I get up and go to bed Ill probably be ok.

I only have the MRI tomorrow which is really good, it hasnt been a huge week but I am really worn out this week. Like, I have a fair bit of go for the stuff Im doing on the tablets, its more Im worn out from dealing with my medical conditions, talking to Doctors and specialists, being confronted with more investigations, what feels like stalling and just sending me down dead end roads just to make me spend time and money. The more time Im spending with medical things the more intently it seems Mum and a lesser extent Dad, are taking issue with me being in the position Im in. It quite regularly comes across that I am or atleast am partly at fault for how things are. I know Im a big guy and I more than regularly I feel like this is what they see first, second is that I smoke. If I wasnt so big, I wouldnt be in so much pain and I wouldnt be so sick. If I didnt smoke or atleast smoke so much then Id have more money to spend on my own health care. This despite my Mum and sister both smoking and knowing how hard it is to reduce/quit. I get logically I should just stop but its not that simple.

The back pain is increasing, pretty quickly actually. Its really crap weather outside, this is after days of pretty nice weather, so I think it would be likely that thats whats agitating my back at the moment. I was going to go back to bed but since I fell asleep at the table, Ive woken up and Im properly awake, so Im gonna stay up. I can always have a nap if I need to. I got up to get some painkillers and the pain really hit me. Its sitting higher than usual, sorta lower mid back, rather than lower, lower back, theres pain radiating up and down the back. My shoulders are both pretty painful to, with the pain radiating into my arms. I should have gotten up much earlier to have my pain killers and got out in front rather than letting it go like I did.

Generally speaking I have felt better overall the last few days. I mean, I have felt happier and more content than I have, despite the pain and resentment I am feeling towards my parents. Its odd, while Ive held resentment towards them for a long time, if not obvious to me, its only recently that Ive been able to quantify and understand why I do. I had spoken to Mum about something to do with it all and she assumed I had been speaking to someone about it, but I havent gotten onto the topic of my childhood, parents etc with any councillor or therapist thus far. It has all come from deep personal reflection. That said, Ive been in and out of therapy enough tounderstand the basics and apply them to my own thought processes. Being self critial, able to evaluate ones self from a third party view point is really helpful and something I seem to be able to do. I dont suggest that there is no bias, as I am sure there is but I think its minimal and at some point I will discuss it with my psychologist, once Im in a rythem with them and basically feel comfortable enough to bring up my family life. There is a considerable amount of shame that I feel for the way we live, like the state of the house, the relationship between Mum and Dad, how Mum behaves and Dad. My sister is a hard one to talk about because the water is so murky, you know whats actually wrong with her disability wise, etc. Im able to easily let people know what I contend with, atleast the major issues, I cant seem to get the same information from my sister and I talk to my Dad etc about it and I cant get the same info from them.

It kinda bugs me that I cop so much flak over my weight. I was injured 22 years ago, which started the whole spinal pain issue, I cant tell you when I fractured my spine like I have but for 22 years, I have not been able to do much in the way of excercise, Ive been very sedentary and in pain. Ive had periods where Ive pushed and been able to excercise and do more, where I believed God had healed me and I was in very little pain but in general thats been the way of it. In addition to that, I have had a really bad diet, I havent understood how to develope a decent diet, to have any variety, etc. What Ive had, is other people making plans for me or providing me information in a way I just didnt understand or was then confused by Mum putting in her 2 cents. I just didnt understand how to get what they were asking in, within the calorie allowance they provided and not feel hungry all the time. My new dietician explained things in terms of meals and snacks, so I can have 30g carbs for meals and 15g for snacks and 3 of each. This is the dietry guidelines, not something she made up. So, when I looked at drinking my iced coffee, I realised just how significant impact it was having. I always knew that it wasnt exactly good for me but not to the extent. I now look at what I consume in terms of meals and snacks and howsatiated Id be from consuming it. The thing with the iced coffee is even though it was so disasterous, you were left hungry, like it didnt fill you up. So, you would your meals and snacks too. Being that I didnt understand any better, the meals I was buying from Coles were well above what I should be having too, which just made things so much worse. I was eating multiple days worth of meals each day and I did not realise. It has been a huge eye opener and it also makes determining what I potentially could eat and shouldnt eat easier to work out. There is more too it obviously, you have to look at the amount of sugar, protein and overall evil statistics in what you want to eat/drink but for that sorta stuff you need to talk to a dietician/nutritionist yourself for your own goals. Its just super amazing to me that no one has ever explained this way to me before. Even when I had my gastric sleeve they didnt, it was super complicated and Mum made it worse, cause she would contradict what they were saying. But, they had a huge focus on protein, while protein is important, understanding it in relation to cals, fats, carbs and sugars makes a huge difference. This is probably my 3rd or 4th dietician Ive seen and the first one that has helped me understand what Im eating, how much I am actually eating by standardising things and more importantly and what I really wanted, is the ability to make healthy, truely healthy choices for what I consume, without the need to engage the dietician for a meal plan each season or something, which is what the last one wanted me to do.

I really dont understand why my family do things they know will irritate me. After 11am I try to avoid driving in town, after 2:30 I really try, Im only driving out of absolute necessity. So, why on earth would you ask me to go into the heart of town and buy you a Coke Food Food (Macca's Coke). Equally, I have just walked down and given the Coke to my sister, why then (Mum) would you text me and say if you are coming down this way bring Zooper Doopers. You know I struggle with walking, you apparently actually dont as you walked around an OpShop the other day for 45min. No I didnt take her them, I had better things to do. I have quite litterally kept myself insanely busy all day. You however have down jack shit, so get off your arse and get them yourself. God it shits me off, it really does. Dad and I dont need to be running around after Mum all the time, she can seriously do far more than she is, she is making it very obvious with all the wondering around shops she does of late. I mean, she spent like 6 or 7 hours screwing around in town. I dont know what she was up to but if you can spend that long out on your own, dealing with your own stuff yourself, you can get up and get your own zooper doopers. It irritates me so much.

I have been busy as. I have been setting up apps again. I set up a finance app, I want to start recording my income and expenses and set up a budget at some point, I want to organise my finances way better than they are. The other one is an inventory app, for the kitchen but Im using it for my medications. I go through so much money on my medications, I want to get a better view of what I am actually spending. But it did mean that I had to count all my meds, the ones in packs was ok but the ones in bottles, OMG. One, an over the counter had over 300 tablets, did my noodle in. I had to have the media off while I was counting, I couldnt keep track.

Its nearly 11:30pm, I have been up since 2:30am yesterday. Im back to not getting much sleep again, I really dont get my sleep, I cant get into any kind of pattern at all. Im gonna go to bed soon.

[deshift]

Whoa, there's a lot here to process. Gonna try to read some more again soon.

Hope you sleep well tonight.

deshift

[ClockFace]

Well, awake again at 3:30am, I went to bed at 12:30. Its the weekend so there is nothing on Today or Tomorrow, I should lay down at some point and have a rest during the day. My back is making itself very well known. It really is pretty painful. My current keyboard isnt really helping I dont think, there is a large space between they keys and the end of the device meaning that the way things are set up, which is impacting the way I sit and interact with the screen and keyboard. I ordered a new keyboard last night, it was only $50 or there abouts but it will do the job.

Im going to get the Nicotine spray stuff today, it seems expensive but its got 4.5days worth at max spray, not that I think Ill actually use that because I am still smoking at the moment. The patches are annoying the hell out of me, they keep unsticking. I get the patches under PBS which helps heaps, I didnt know that was possible.

I want to look at my daily costs today, start working towards a making a budget. Medication being a big cost I need to get that right, so I am going to speak to my pharmacist and see if she can tell me the price of my medications, when I come off the safety limit at the end of the year. I also want to review and enter the test results into Guava.

I bought a mirror for me to do my hair, trim my beard, eyebrows, etc. It was only $40, looks really cool. Im not keen on borrowing my sisters stuff much anymore cause if I break it its like you did it on purpose or you were being vindictive. She also wants to use her stuff, then she puts it out of reach. She isnt exactly great with the sharing thing. Ive been using her thermometer while she was in hospital, she now wants it back and she is in Mums room, which is fair enough, its hers. So Ive been using the one from MyHome Hospital and they will eventually come and pick that up. Dad will probably have an issue with all of the above but they were all bought with good reason. The keyboard also needs to be replaced as I have melted a heap of keys falling asleep with a smoke in hand.

Im starting to noice a few things with the changes, initially I was getting pretty bad reflux but last few days that has really died down. My stomach feels ligher in general, like Im not carrying a sandbag in my guts with me. I still feel off on occassion, but not as much as I did. I have much more energy at the moment than I used to have however, Im not sure if that is diet, medication or if Ive hit a bit of a hypomanic thing, like Im not sleeping much and Im on the go the whole time, that could have ofcourse been triggered by the new anti-psychotic. Im capitalising on it while I can, however I can assure you that Dad is probably seeing this as me being better, feeling better. Im not, Im having a few good days, maybe it will be longer, I dont know, but its not the standard that you can judge all other days by, they dont get this though. Funny thing is, Mum goes on about this too, Dad doing it to her, but she does it to me.

Ive set everything up pretty much I think, Im still waiting on pricing from the pharmacy. I've met my safety net so Im getting my presciption medication at a really reduced price. At the end of the year that resets and Ill go back up to the normal PBS pricing, which is gonna be a big jump in costs, so Im trying to get ahead of that or at least understand how screwed I am. Its the same with appointments and scans, the rebate I get will go back to standard, at the moment cause Ive hit my threshold there too, I get a lot more back. Its great that they have these things, like its awesome but you have to spend close to $5k out of pocket all up to meet the thresholds, then you get more money back and reduced rates. So, if your like me and your on over 20 prescription medications a month you haemorrhage money for about 5 months before you get any assistance. Id really like a better system, something that would smooth the benefits out over the year rather in the later part. I would also like to see Medicare catch up with the times and leverage the private sector and develop a system similar to HICAPs so that you swipe your Medicare card and they pay their portion of the account and then your left to pay just the gap. I really think that it disadvantages low income workers and people with high medical expenses, you have to have the full balance of the account available when you go into the appointment and then you get it back, now overnight in most cases, but still. I have just had to pay $450 for an appointment on the 15th December, you have to pay in advance. So Im short all that money until then, when Ill get the rebate. A lot of families just couldnt do that.

The only other thing I need to set up with the accounting app is I dont understand how I enter in that I have borrowed more money from Dad so that has increased my debt and increased the balance of his card that Im using. Its an account that was set up for a purpose but its never worked, so at the moment its easier to put the money in there, then I have immediate access to the money, rather than transfer it to me which can take days because of the bank he is with. Ive sent the support team an email and asked them, the user guid doesnt have anything that expains what I want to do.

I worked on the health app some more, I downloaded my blood tests from My Health Record via the app, which so much more user friendly that the web, anyhow I can download the PDF and then import that into this app and it can work out the results for each test and then load that in. It then gives you some overall information on what you put in, once Ive loaded a fortnight worth of my observations and tracking medications and symptoms etc it can then make some corrolations and provide indicitive ideas as to this is causing that, as I understand it. Its a lot more automated in America, you can get doctors notes and all sorts automatically. But for us we have to do it manually, but manually is pretty automated. Im also getting all the reports from my scans sent to me, which is super easy from Jones and Partners. They are easy to upload as well. I want to work out, roughly how long these fractures have been around and if they have worsened. The specialist have gone back to 2015, but Im hoping I can get data going back much further. The app is incredibly powerful, even though the pro version has a lot of benefits for Americans, the automation component makes it worthwhile for the rest of us.

I changed over to Outlook, they must have done some work on that because its a lot better than the old version that I remember. I was finally able to regain access to some email addresses that have been problematic on my old app. The focus component doesnt work very well, so Im now looking for an email clean up tool.

I downloaded an app that will track my driving, just how far Ive driven. What I want to do is work out how far Im driving and eventually from that work out how much per week on average it costs me to get around and how many km/ltr the car is getting. The last part is purely out of interest. Its really easy to use, but its going to get easier as i have ordered the device they sell with it that sits in your car and sets it off recording no matter if your phone is in the car or not and does so automatically. If it was definately, just me driving then I wouldnt have bothered, maybe I would have, but Mum still drives the car and sometimes Dad, they are using fuel so if I want accurate information then I need their use recorded too.

Overall I have sorted my life out significantly in the past few days, Im much more organised, at least Im feeling as much. Its only half past 9 and I think I will actually be going to bed at the bedtime I plan too each day. So bed at 10pm up at 6am is the goal, I cant remember when it actually happened. Tomorrow I want to start going throw my wardrobes and be brutal and throw away anything that isnt awesome or I havent worn for ages, which is pretty much everything in them as I havent opened them and taken anything out of them in atleast a year. Figure if I havent used whats in there in that long do I need it? Though stuff thats too small will stay as when I lose weight it will give me something to wear without spending additional money.

Im pretty happy with myself today, Ive done my hair, ate pretty well on target, I styled my hair and I did my mouth wash 3 x today. The goal being, getting back to brushing my teeth morning and night and doing a mouth was 3x a day. I had a shower and even put on deoderant. These are all pretty big things for me, I struggle with this shit.

My back has been giving me a hard time, but its improving a bit. I want to get out and vacuum Mums car tomorrow (maybe), it will hurt like crazy and Ill be out of commission for a while after but its desperate for a vacuum.

Im seriously exhusted, Im ready to crash out, I wonder how long Ill sleep for. Ive had like 9 hours sleep over the last 3 days, so maybe its just caught up with me.

I got a couple of Nicorette quickmist smarttrack sprays today, my patch came off this morning so today wasnt the day for it, but Im going to try and start to reduce my smoking tomorrow. Im down a little on what I was but Id like to be much much more. Ive got goals for every fortnight for the next 8 weeks, where I should be ready to quit, Im not gonna be hard on myself if I dont meet them but mainly for budgetting sake.

I havent been having any delusions, disassociations or hallucinations since I started the new antipsychotic, even my anxiety is heaps better. I feel like Im a lot calmer and Im clearer in my thinking and decsions. I wrote an email at the early part of taking them and said I didnt feel anything, but I guess I just needed a few days on it. If I can get my sleep sorted I think Id be a lot more stable, a lot more even and happier. Im not telling anyone in the family because I figure at some point they wont be enough or the normal ebb and flow of things Ill go into a hole for a bit and then it will be used against me, because they are just uncaring and self centered, its not about me being better, its about me lying etc. There is a normal progression, there are normal ups and downs regardless of medication, we are still human, Im still going to have emotions etc. In fact I think I experiences them far more clearly now, like I understand them more than I have in the past. This all said it is very much early days.

Also, I know my posts tend to be long and sometimes Im just dumping all this information. This is my journal and I post it here, it gives it meaning and life. Without which, I dont see the point in journalling. I really appreaciate those who just read and those who read and respond. The responses do make a difference, thats how my journals breath, thats them having life. @deshift 

[deshift]

Yep. Changing meds can take a while to kick in, but if you're feeling a difference, have conviction in your intuition. Listen to your body.

Mum and Dad and Sister don't sound very supportive, is that fair? Do you have any other support?

Happy to just lurk and read if you like, I find it kinda soothing, and I have been avoiding reading my new Martha Wells novel, so reading something that's lengthy is actually helpful.

Maybe check in if you still don't get enough sleep. Yeah? @ClockFace 

[ClockFace]

@deshift 

Yeah family isnt supportive at all. I have a team of councillors, pychologists, docs, psych, specialists galore and I am really fortunate that they all are really good, most are the leads for the mob they work for and many are amongst the top 3 or in the state. They are all super supportive and willing to go the extra mile. Like my councillor, its suppose to be an hour session, Ive had more than one thats been over 2, because I was opening up or whatever, so she just lets me go. I realised the other day that she actually books me in, or tries too with extra time up her sleeve for me before her next appointment. My GP does a fair bit of research as to the best specialist to send me too. She also allows me to go over time limit for appointments so we address as much as we can. 

I have a couple of friends but I havent seen them for about a year due to my illnesses 

I have an appointment with a sleep doctor on Tuesday, I have sleep apnea and restless legs, my GP thinks I might have another sleep disorder, which we are hoping the sleep doc can Identify and treat. Ive been having issues maintaining a good sleep regime for years, day time sleepyness regardless of how much sleep I get etc. so Im really hoping she can figure something out. 

You can lurk as much as you like. Thats why I post. Feel free to post anything you want, questions, comments etc. Ill try and respond.