The crazy lady strikes again

Before I went to bed last night, I became very afraid of developing severe hallucinations or other severe psychiatric symptoms overnight. Yes, my husband did want me to tell him of such severe hallucinations, because we talked about my fears. However, ethically, I was forced to consider the possibility that I would not realize that I was hallucinating wildly - in other words, what if I genuinely believed the content of the hallucination and acted on that belief? I would then not be able to say... Sign in to see full entry.

Apparently, I scared Garfield today. (See her blog The Secret Life of Cats for her perspective on what I am about to describe.) Allow me to tell you how I scared her. Early this morning, I'd say about 12:30 or 12:45 or so, I became suddenly wide-awake. Now, normally, I'd attribute such a sudden wide-awake state to taking a sip of iced tea two hours before in order to wash down my bedtime meds, castigate myself briefly for being stupid enough to drink something with caffeine in it at that hour,... Sign in to see full entry.

I goofed unintentionally in an earlier post. I'd forgotten about the many child-abuse convictions of the 1980s. Perhaps the most famous court case - at least I think so - is the McMartin preschool case. As I remember this case, the children making the accusations eventually told investigators about such things as molestations, Satanic rituals, secret tunnels, and other distressing events and places. I do know that three McMartin relatives (one of whom was Virginia McMartin, the preschool's... Sign in to see full entry.

My last post dealt with the reason why former Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene was forced to resign in disgrace at the end of his journalism career. I recommend reading that post so you can understand just why I'm making my remarks here. In thinking about the content of that last entry, I suddenly realized that an observation made by Patrick Carnes on a tape set I once had of his is absolutely an accurate one. (Maybe it was in one of his books on sex addiction. My memory is very fuzzy. Rest... Sign in to see full entry.

This morning, while lying in bed attempting to relax (I had a very rough night last night), I ended up listening to a few minutes' worth of Rick Kogan's WGN-AM radio program The Sunday Papers. Normally, I can't stand this program. Kogan doesn't accept phone calls anymore - that's because he used to get so many abusive and nonsensical phone calls from listeners who had been (ahem) overserved the night before - and his voice just drives me crazy. Well, he got my attention this morning. He... Sign in to see full entry.

Today, I read a story containing information that disturbed me. A boy in his late teens (I believe he's 17; I know that he is legally considered a minor in his state) refused chemotherapy and other provider-recommended treatments when he learned that he was out of remission - in other words, that his cancer had returned. (I remember that he had been diagnosed with lymphoma, although I could be wrong about just which form of cancer he had.) Although this boy was successfully able to achieve... Sign in to see full entry.

My husband called our bank's customer service department (which my husband learned to call the Help Desk when he was first hired by that bank) and was apparently able to get a stop order issued on that phone-company debit when it shows up on the bank's computers. The question then becomes this: What will the phone company do when they formally fail to receive the money because we put a stop order on the payment before it actually had cleared the bank according to bank records? I remain... Sign in to see full entry.

I am so tense right now. When I wrote most of yesterday's entries, I was fine. The handymen had finished the bathroom early, so they weren't constantly running in and out of the apartment, driving me nuts because I was scared Garfield would run into the parking lot. I was then able to calm down and write effectively. After all, I wasn't seemingly being interrupted every time I tried to type one letter. Then, my husband got an email about the payment arrangements for the second installment on... Sign in to see full entry.

This morning, my husband actually told me, in so many words, that I didn't know what it was like out there in Real World Land and, therefore, in the white-collar work world. I beg to differ. We who are chronically ill, disabled, or both are often more aware of what it's like in Real World Land than the healthy and able-bodied. We have to learn (at least from the experiences of others) about things that the healthy and able-bodied are either unable or unwilling to acknowledge and/or confront in... Sign in to see full entry.

Many years ago, Wayne Dyer was an excellent popular author. He was able to quit being a school and clinical psychologist because he started earning massive royalties from books such as Your Erroneous Zones and Pulling Your Own Strings. I don't like any of his later books; they're way too off-the-wall and New Age. (He has admitted that the approach he took for writing Inspiration, one of his latest books, is to sit in front of his computer with his word-processing program open and just write. He... Sign in to see full entry.