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Trying to shift to a softer perspective.
Jun. 18th, 2025 09:39 amWoke up feeling terrible, I really hope the depression isn't coming back, doing everything I can to shift back to... not that lol.
I woke up to the camper's dog crying pitifully and slowly getting more and more distant. The structure he was living in is still there and I'm just really worried, I get so distressed when animals are upset :( I hope they are okay.
One of my long-term transient folks who is often outside of the grocery coop I belong to looked really, really bad the other day, and it just broke my heart. He is maybe 60 and I've known him for probably ten years now. He is mostly non-verbal but very gentle and shy. He always says "I'm sorry" every time I give him cash. I only know his name because the other store employees told me. I have never seen him like he was the other day. He was twitching really badly, and looked so uncomfortable. It is scary because I've seen this sort of decline before. When it started happening to Mario, he only lived another year or so after. Mario was also very sweet, he suffered from schizophrenia and would sometimes have enough clarity to talk about his experience, and it was heartbreaking. Gregory has never seemed schizophrenic, to me, but his symptoms looked like those of someone given too many anti-psychotics. I don't know anything about this stuff other than observation, this is all just conjecture, but from my very limited experience, Gregory has never seemed psychotic to me, just someone with low verbal skills, something else is going on with him, some other sort of disability. But not psychosis. He has always been stable and his demeanor is always the same, quiet and gentle and deferential, whereas Mario would have wild swings. He'd go from grinning and asking for hugs to desperate begging, ugh it is just so wrong. Our society has the resources to help but they are diverted elsewhere and it drives me crazy. Anyway. Maybe my worry about Gregory is just me trying to distract myself from my own worries. I am just sad that he is declining and we will probably lose another community member, in another year or so, through no fault of his own.
My brother suffers from cataplexy, it was diagnosed as drug-induced in his mid-20s (he did a LOT of cocaine as a youngster). At one point he was given anti-psychotics, and it gave him permanent facial twitches. It's just so messed up. Cataplexy causes hallucinations but he was never psychotic. It's so frustrating when things are unnecessarily treated with these really powerful, damaging drugs. It's so sad. The descriptions of cataplexy go into great depth of the way the hallucinations feel so real to those experiencing them. It is intensely uncomfortable for my brother. He cannot really believe that they are not somehow real. So he believes in ghosts and malicious "spirits" trying to attack him at night. But it's a documented feature of his disease - everyone with cataplexy experiences this. And they all hold firm to the realness of it. It doesn't mean they are crazy. It's a function of the brain's interpretation of what is happening when paralysis malfunctions. In Chinese medicine, the name for this condition is "broken spirit," and my poor brother has clung to this, this idea that he is profoundly flawed and deserving of some sort of spiritual attack by demons or something, it's awful. But psychosis is not the correct diagnosis.
Anyway. More distracting.
It is such a beautiful day. Why am I so sad? erf.
I took Friday off, since no one had booked any appointments anyway and Liz texted me that, literally, "You have to go to Silver Star RIGHT NOW." It's a bumper year for bear grass and I have been looking for it since the last time this happened. Sigh. I feel soooooo guilty giving up on house hunting and walking away from money to go hike on solstice, but I do think it will be worth it. Even if I get drizzled on. It will keep the crowds down, and that hike can get very hot and exposed, it might be nicer on a drizzly day actually. there will be no less bear grass. And I've already seen the view from the top of that mountain. We'll see. I might open that day back up actually. I prefer working in the rain. But in my experience, very few people book sparkles 2 days before an appointment day. I dunno. I could also use the time to work on the website, which needs some TLC for sure. I could also do silks and give my body some much needed TLC, also.
...
Today! I would love to put laundry away, wash Avalanche's futon blanket, sweep the floors, clean the kitchen and cook lunch and dinner, maybe even henna my hair? Let's see how far I can get.
I woke up to the camper's dog crying pitifully and slowly getting more and more distant. The structure he was living in is still there and I'm just really worried, I get so distressed when animals are upset :( I hope they are okay.
One of my long-term transient folks who is often outside of the grocery coop I belong to looked really, really bad the other day, and it just broke my heart. He is maybe 60 and I've known him for probably ten years now. He is mostly non-verbal but very gentle and shy. He always says "I'm sorry" every time I give him cash. I only know his name because the other store employees told me. I have never seen him like he was the other day. He was twitching really badly, and looked so uncomfortable. It is scary because I've seen this sort of decline before. When it started happening to Mario, he only lived another year or so after. Mario was also very sweet, he suffered from schizophrenia and would sometimes have enough clarity to talk about his experience, and it was heartbreaking. Gregory has never seemed schizophrenic, to me, but his symptoms looked like those of someone given too many anti-psychotics. I don't know anything about this stuff other than observation, this is all just conjecture, but from my very limited experience, Gregory has never seemed psychotic to me, just someone with low verbal skills, something else is going on with him, some other sort of disability. But not psychosis. He has always been stable and his demeanor is always the same, quiet and gentle and deferential, whereas Mario would have wild swings. He'd go from grinning and asking for hugs to desperate begging, ugh it is just so wrong. Our society has the resources to help but they are diverted elsewhere and it drives me crazy. Anyway. Maybe my worry about Gregory is just me trying to distract myself from my own worries. I am just sad that he is declining and we will probably lose another community member, in another year or so, through no fault of his own.
My brother suffers from cataplexy, it was diagnosed as drug-induced in his mid-20s (he did a LOT of cocaine as a youngster). At one point he was given anti-psychotics, and it gave him permanent facial twitches. It's just so messed up. Cataplexy causes hallucinations but he was never psychotic. It's so frustrating when things are unnecessarily treated with these really powerful, damaging drugs. It's so sad. The descriptions of cataplexy go into great depth of the way the hallucinations feel so real to those experiencing them. It is intensely uncomfortable for my brother. He cannot really believe that they are not somehow real. So he believes in ghosts and malicious "spirits" trying to attack him at night. But it's a documented feature of his disease - everyone with cataplexy experiences this. And they all hold firm to the realness of it. It doesn't mean they are crazy. It's a function of the brain's interpretation of what is happening when paralysis malfunctions. In Chinese medicine, the name for this condition is "broken spirit," and my poor brother has clung to this, this idea that he is profoundly flawed and deserving of some sort of spiritual attack by demons or something, it's awful. But psychosis is not the correct diagnosis.
Anyway. More distracting.
It is such a beautiful day. Why am I so sad? erf.
I took Friday off, since no one had booked any appointments anyway and Liz texted me that, literally, "You have to go to Silver Star RIGHT NOW." It's a bumper year for bear grass and I have been looking for it since the last time this happened. Sigh. I feel soooooo guilty giving up on house hunting and walking away from money to go hike on solstice, but I do think it will be worth it. Even if I get drizzled on. It will keep the crowds down, and that hike can get very hot and exposed, it might be nicer on a drizzly day actually. there will be no less bear grass. And I've already seen the view from the top of that mountain. We'll see. I might open that day back up actually. I prefer working in the rain. But in my experience, very few people book sparkles 2 days before an appointment day. I dunno. I could also use the time to work on the website, which needs some TLC for sure. I could also do silks and give my body some much needed TLC, also.
...
Today! I would love to put laundry away, wash Avalanche's futon blanket, sweep the floors, clean the kitchen and cook lunch and dinner, maybe even henna my hair? Let's see how far I can get.
