The concept of ‘mood food’ is something I have been well aware of for while, but haven’t always indulged in, but the key point being that the mind needs nourishment just as much as the body. I’ve already got my work pretty well cut out over the next few weeks, so to fit in half an hour of reading would initially seem like a luxury, until it is broken down into three quick chunks of 10 minutes at the start of each day, over lunch and in the evening.

But even if you don’t like reading, good music can elevate the mood even quicker than text, and any music has to be better than the constant stream of bad news which so many news stations like to broadcast.

A lot of people come to the weekend, and ask this question because they’ve been so busy, and time has just flown by.  I really can’t say this, in fact, this just feels like another week that has been wasted, even if it all started with hopes of making a fresh start at the beginning of the month.

Where did it all go wrong?

The week before was a bit of a mixed bag, having had a really good run of things for most of the week before that.  Last Saturday was generally a good day out at the cricket, even if England lost, and even if I turned up so late.  On Sunday, I was making some very good progress through various household chores, but suddenly seemed to lose all energy and about 9 p.m. and slumped to bed.  It seems that any hopes of getting this week off to a good start faded after the night of pointlessly disrupted sleep which followed on from this, after I got up at about 1 a.m.

TV – Help or Hindrance?

It feels like Monday soon blurred into Tuesday, and after that, the rest of the week, just went by, with far too much time spent either in bed or watching TV as a way of passing the time and avoiding doing anything which actually required some effort.  One of the bipolar disorder management books  I was scanning through last night actually suggested cancelling the TV subscription, but I guess I’d also have to get rid of all of my DVDs (especially the ones I haven’t watched yet) if I wanted to cut out the TV altogether.  I’m not sure this would really be so wise anyway - TV in moderation is a good way to relax, and if I think back to when I’m usual self, I’m not really that much of the TV watcher anyway, except for occasional fixations to truly addictive drama such as Prison Break. Also, if the TV serves as some kind of numbing during low periods, isn’t that better than having nothing? 

What I really need to do is get back on a decent daily routine, which allows me to do some useful work at the same time that everyone else does, so I can reclaim my evenings for social activities.  This really shouldn’t be that hard, and the more times I say it, the closer I should get to actually doing it. 

This time, it’s all going down here in the blog, so there’s documentation as well as idle promises!

A bit of food poisoning never helps, but..

To add to this week’s general malaise, I was sick on Wednesday, and again yesterday.  I don’t know what caused this, but I’m sure I could find a few suspects in the kitchen if I scratched just below the surface.  However, I really don’t want to dwell on this — this kind of thing happens from time to time, but actually, in all honesty, not that often.  Trying to research a bit more into this, and then work out if there was a particular ingredient that caused this upset, could take several hours, and this time has got to be better spent elsewhere, especially now that I feel like I’m functioning again and returning to a more even keel*.

*At the time of writing.

My immune system can’t be helped by states of lethargy and depression, and I’d really rather fix the latter than worry about a bug, which I hope has now passed through.

Away next week

After weeks of dithering, I have finally decided to join my brother, his wife, her mother and partner in the South of France for a few days, and after that, to finally get to visit Paris, the city which I’ve somehow managed to avoid visiting, despite having travelled to so many other different places around the world. 

I’m hoping that this will give me a chance to refresh myself, although as with last time I went away, I’m not exactly feeling like a holiday is what I need.  A decent outine is what I need, and I am desperate for a break from lethargy, rather than from work, of which I have been doing very little of late. 

Having said that, I should get the chance to visit some really exciting places, and hopefully this will make me feel much more energised when I get back. 

I might also take with me a couple of the books I have recently acquired, and see if I can get some useful advice from them.  In all probability, they will just repackage what I already know, but I’ve always tended to find that if the message is hammered enough times, it will finally get through.

Time to move on?

I’ll have to admit that I’m still struggling to come to terms with the ferocity of the manic episode which I went through late last year.  As someone who had talked so much about the mantra of prevention rather than cure (that is after all what my dad has spent a lifetime devoted himself to), it really was humiliating to end up in hospital, the very place I had put in so much effort to avoid. 

Despite what happened then, the last six months have perhaps been even worse, characterised by lethargy and depression.  This just is not the usual me — although I’ve always struggled to get started in the morning, I’ve usually spend the rest of the day being pretty full of energy and drive.  It just doesn’t seem right that I could have gone from being so highly productive to doing next to nothing, and this still seems too hard to explain to most of people I know. Considering that I am supposed to be a highly resourceful internet entrepreneur just makes this even worse!

Over the last few weeks I have gone through several cycles of feeling some encouraging signs of getting things back in order again, only to find myself rapidly returning to a state of despair and hopelessness.  Of course, I want to move on — nobody really wants to live in a state of permanent malaise, unless they want to sell themselves out as ‘Johnny Yen’, the tortured artist* – and that’s certainly not for me.

*As mentioned by Iggy Pop in “Lust for Life” and the James song of the same name.

I still have a few excuses I like to make to myself, or people I’d like to blame for my current situation, and I guess I’ll elaborate more on that later.  For now, I think I’ve had enough blogging for one evening, and bed might just be calling.

[c-v]