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| Home | About | Contact | Vitamins for Schizophrenia |
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One of the staff at the self help group called today and accepted that I could not attend the conference. We had some agreement on definitions of recovery. We also chatted about radios and other security gadgets and also Linux. The self help groups web site was down recently and we chatted about that too. He and I have both worked for the same security company. I would recommend this work to others with schizophrenia as many of the consumers I know have done this work. It allows one a formal involvement and law enforcement service which is a political and civil right by the UN convenant.
Some people do not like to be with other's with mental illness. They lack solidairty. I find at least by knowing others with schizophrenia I am assured that I am not alone with my weird experiences. Also I know what family members go through. I can tell by E's constantly calling me what it is like for my brother to constantly get calls from me.
I know that people like to have solid friendships and spend a lot time with others. But E calls me more than other people so I often brush him off. Since he has schizophrenia he needs to know why I do this and finds it unjust and is hurt. I told him it was because he called so often. I have a busy life and quite a few friends. In days past I had fewer friends and did the same thing E is doing to me. I used to do this to N when I was in high school. As recently as 1992 I accepted this level/type of friendship with people. Now I need time alone and my wife must take priority over male friends.
So you give sugar for both insulin coma and insulin shock. I reviewed this in the First on the Scene book by the St. John's Ambulance organisation.
My paper due today is done. I am just printing out a final copy. This means the term is over in this course after tonight's class. I don't need to bring my laptop to school tonight.
Somebody asked about the derma medication our cat got for fleas. Here is Our vet's web site www.westboro.infovet.ca. You can look it up there I hope.
I have set aside today and Monday to complete my end of term paper for my legal research methods course. This is not like typical end of term papers because we have done the research and fact finding all term. Basically I only need to write now. Even the papers bibliography was completed weeks ago.
I am enjoying today.
I will take my final of three doses of vitamins in a couple of hours with my 6 mg of risperadol. My wife burned her tummy on the stove again. I gave her some ozonal. Life is full of wounds and pressures, thus there are treatments.
I have an eight page essay due Monday and have only one page done. Oh well it is only worth 8% of my final grade. This will be the difference between an A grade and an A-. This means the difference between a B+ average and a possible A- some time down the road. Oh well electronic personal health information is my topic.
I did some good old volunteering today. I also attended a talk about PERL and understand its usefulness more now and am going to try it right now on my Linux computer.
I think it was a misplaced jealous rage. It was long in coming. E was again looking at our redial numbers on our phone. I knew these phones lacked security. I told him off as usual, but then something unusual as Kafka might say, I then grabed him by the scruff of his jacket. He grabed me by the neck. Then I said let's not fight and we were both joking and he took me out to buy a muffin for my wife and some hot chocolate. Again we leave on peaceful terms. This is only the third time we have been physical with each other. He has always eaten chicken with me when this happens. We order pizza and chicken wings tonight. He went home. My wife was watching the Price is Right, Million Dollar give away.
I just took my meds and I am chilling out at the computer comunicating before sleeping at 4PM. Tomorrow new volunteer gig in the Linux community for one day.
I was sleeping from 2 pm to 9 pm. E came over and went in my office and would not get out even though my wife told him too. Again E has invaded my privacy.
I called him and then got chatty and we iorned out our differences once again.
I missed the Brave New Minds conference today. I was registered through the self help group to go to this peer to peer conference where there are no doctors or psychologists just lots of consumer/survivors. Although I have worked using my computer skills recently and been paid by a consumer survivor group I don't want to become a psychologist or doctor anymore. I want to have a life outside of my disability.
I am up from 9:30 yesterday morning. I needed to stay up to get the quiet night time hours to complete my marking of math tests. I got one course all marked and recorded the grades. I am so happy to have this job as a teacher's assistant
I am fairly wired on coffee this morning with diarea and all. My wife woke up about an hour ago and I was just reading some of the methodology section in the book about schizophrenia recovery from a phenomenological view. The book helped me conceptualise my wife's recovery. She is almost out of hospital for a full year now and that's a new record for her. I gently but talkitively pushed her on recovery when she woke up. Then I gave her some solitude while I recorded the marks. E called in the middle of that and we talked a bit about the conference and joked a bit. I helped my wife to take her own blood sugar reading and it was a low 4.1 but she had not eaten anything yet and had only junk sugar cerial last night for dinner. I encouraged her to have some toast before cleaning the floors today. That's what she wants to do today. But first she will meet with her assertive community treatment team.
We are broke and waiting for the mail. There are two checks in the mail this week for us. I guess everyone knows that feeling of obsessively checking for the mail. Oh well that's part of the emotional pain of being in a rigid behaviour.
I attended class in Internet law yesterday and the formal part of the course is over. I talked in front of the class about jurisdiction in a mock court case. One more class and that course is done. I finished reading the casebook for the course this week. I have to return Michael's Geist's Internet Law in Canada to the school library tomorow
I am also borrowing books on computers this week.
My final assignment is due on Monday then April is almost a month off school. I have no classes in April.
I managed to mass email about 70 other math teaching assistanst about union business. It was tough copying and pasting emails for 70 addresses.
I am working hard but may not get the exam study done. I need to mark tests tonight. I also have a short paper due next Monday.
I am looking forward to Thursday and the Brave New Minds conference where I will show off the web site I am getting paid to build.
On Saturday it is volunteering for the Open Source Weekend.
J likes to drink. She attracts people like S and L to drink with her. S is a solid drunk, very demanding and mixed up in his forties. He rides a mountain bike and has been kicked out of numerous places including the major psych hospital near by. He is here tonight. First he wants music, then a movie and then music again. I must cater to his needs. At least S is timid and not violent. But he gives J beer.
I am studying for a Linux certification this week. I will have an opporunity to write an exam for 50$ this weekend. It is the LPI level 1 exam 101.
I did two hours of web mastering work today. I got word today that a check has been mailed for this work. This will just saving us from a zero money situation. Our tax return is also in the mail this week.
It looks like I have found a supervisor and project for the summer term, July-August this summer. I might be working with Fran Klodawski a geography professor. Her project concerns homelessness. I will be using SPSS to do this research.
In the spring term I have applied to study at a workshop on statistics at York University in Toronto. I will stay in a spartan resisdence room there and they might cover a great deal of the costs of the room. It is a two week workshop and will give me a chance to visit family in early June.
i am taking 1 g of C and 1 g of niacin after an early dinner of fish sticks and potatoes with brussel sprouts and carrots.
I hooked up R's stereo in his new place. I met his worker from the housing program. He gave me back about six books he was borrowing but was not going to read. I also hooked up his computer. The cable guy came by so now he is on-line and has TV. He still doesn't have a phone. He doens't want E to know where he now lives. They are former roommates and they don't get along anymore. We are inviting R over for supper tomorrow night.
I am helping T and V tomorrow with thier computer and digital camera. They are supposedly sane although V gets depressed and his depression is contagious. I am starting to not appreciate his negativity and critisism. I used to think this was just about him being controlling. Now I see it as negative.
I am taking 1 g of vitamin C and 1 g of niacin along with my 6 mg of risperadol and hitting the sack at 5 am.
We moved R to his new place near by. I controlled him verbally while I helped him justifying this controling behaviour as safety on the stairs.
J did not want to get up early to help him. W also did not show up to help. His family helped him though. Also M helped who apparently is working and owns a vehicle and his health may be fine. R does not smoke now for 16 months. I have not had a drink in 2 years and 10 months.
The author, Larry Davidson in his book uses two quotes for recovery. These are:
"Recovery refers to the lived or real life experience of persons as they accept and overcome the challenges of the disability" (Deegan, 1988, p. 15) and "Recovery is a process by which people with psychiatric disabilites rebuild and further develop important personal, social, environmental, and spiritual connections, and confront the devastating effects of discrimination through...empowerment" ( Anthony, quoted in Spaniol and Koehler, 1994, p. 1) Emphasis added.
Davidson basically reviews the literature briefly on schizophrenia in his first chapter. He dismisses the Kraepelinian model as lacking hope and not allowing recovery and this "not allowing" affecting methodology in observing recovery. He has been noting a number of times in his introduction and his first chapter that the outcome in schizophrenia is heterogenous that is there is not a stereotypical course to the illness. Recovery can and does happen quite often in fact his recovery figure ranges from 27% t0 67% and is higher in less developed countries. Via la madness.
I am relaxing reading this book after completing the reading of a casebook for a law course. This means the required reading for this course is done. The course ends in two weeks with the final exam still a month away.
I was also working on a presentation for my other law course due on Monday. I have been working around perfection on this course and frustrating details of printing handouts for my brother and sister classmates. My brother gave me an old photo printer. I will now sleep on this home work and review it tomorrow. I will also have to go to school tomorrow to test the school computers at displaying my presentation slides. I did not use power point but instead Open Office to do this school work.
I am being a volunteer medic for a protest today. I have three various sizes of first aid bags and two cell phones to help do this as well as a reflective vest. I also have a gas mask I hope I don't have to use. There are protests today all over the world for the occupation of Iraq. I find protesting a good way to meet people. There have been some studies that say being politically active like protesting is good for your mental health.
We are also helping R move today.
I have been learning XML through self study for about a year now.
I am also reading Larry Davidson's Living Outside Mental Illness (New York: New York University Press, 2003). The book Living Outside Mental Illness by Larry Davidson (New York: New York University Press, 2003) is subtitled Qualitative studies of recovery in schizophrenia and uses Phenomenology. This is sort of post decade of the brain research. Decade of the brain he points out tried to get no-fault and fair insurance coverage, offer hope, and destigimatize. What can we learn from the person who has schizophrenia? His estimates of costs 66$ billion annually in emergency room and criminal justice contacts 273$ billion annually in lost productivity for the USA. Phenomenology was founded by philosopher and mathematician Edmund Husserl and means we only know reality by "experiences". I will post more as I read this book.
Our new kitten had her first shot today and a derma medication against fleas. I need to wash her a little with a warm cloth in about three hours.
I am just about to take my morning vitamin dose. I woke up at noon today.
E drove us the animal hospital. I gave him ten dollars. He started to read all this stuff into my behaviour and then verbally abused me again. Perhaps I insult him but he is very tempermental. He has schizophrenia.
I am volunteering this coming weekend at our cities Open Source Weekend www.osw.ca. I think volunteering is a great way of gettting back to work and meeting people.
Certainly keeping records of medication is not easy. I have been accounting when I take vitamins and also risperadol. So far it is not 100% but it does seem to be working well enough.
We were phoned by the parents of our baby. We heard our baby talking and vocalising. It was fun and our next visit in this open adoption is in late spring.
We got the 17" monitor for R. I helped set it up for his Win98 computer and also his Linux computer. We have started to chat in the wee hours of morning on yahoo. he is getting much better at typing these days.
I completed the assignment due tonight for my legal research course. This means the course is 72% completed. I have passed already. I have consistently scored A in this course so far. But it is a low A and might end up being an A minus. Oh well I am very lucky to be able to study law without being in a law school.
I am going to file our tax return in the next hour. This is the first year but not the last that I will report professional income. I will also be reporting two jobs income. Our government disability support is tax free and is less this year than last year.
We gave our daughter up for an open adoption. We got a call from her family tonight. We heard her talking and her news. We visit again in June. We have a calendar with photos of her for every month. We are so happy and so is she.
Here is the latest on the government and accessibility http://www.gov.on.ca/citizenship/accessibility/index.html.
enjoy
I got a B on my mid-term paper in ecommerce. I included some scholars who were not on the topic so was a little tangential as my schizophrenic mind likes to be. Oh well a B is still pretty good and good enough for the degree.
I had a busy Wednesday with sitting at a table distributing literature for one union, the IWW, and then a union CUPE4600 had its AGM in the evening. I got a union pay check for helping out. I also got elected to the union executive for next year. This second union is for my teaching assistant work.
I am working at my security guard job this Saturday night.
I got one test marked for Friday and will be staying up late until the other test is marked.
My wife has her effexor and is ok now. I am getting some test strips and lancets for Thursday delivery. The tests strips are covered by the government but the lancets are 10$/100. This is for her gluco-meter. She was reading high this weekend and had a high temperature. She taught me how to use an electronic thermometer that goes in the ear.
I spent four hours working as a security guard today. I am home for a couple of hours and then it is off to school to learn to use an American legal database. We students at law get free access.
I finished a medical sociology book called What's Wrong with Addiction? by Helen Keane, an Australian scholar. It took me about 4 months to finish it. She basically questions and suggests resistance to the widening definition or label of addiction. She points to the lack of asserting recovery literature as a moral and value filled enterprise that basically supports the liberal democratic society. Addiction and recovery discourse ignores difference.
I am just working on a legal research skills assignment due on the 15th. I am making bibliographic entries from legal journals for Canadian law concerning safeguarding electronic health information. The library entries for these articles stores the information and presents it in a web search in almost the same format as needed for a bibliography. This is an example of school becoming easier because of computers.
Our usual Friday night get together. C and I talked about depression and feeling energyless and like sack of wet rags and dry matter. J wanted to know about intelliegnce courses at the University. J doesn't take medications and is as usual into paranoia and deception. E was just plain hard to deal with and he drank three beers.
I took 6 mg risperadol and 1 g of C and 1 g of niacin. Good night now.
I am going to sleep at 5 am, with 10 dollars cash from helping with the Saturday newspaper. I read some more Internet law and domain name disputes. I have been up since 6 am Friday when I went into school. I complained to the visiting union official about the conditions of work.
I don't put my wife's effexor in her weekly pill box so I don't notice when she runs out of it. With her other meds I order them by phone and they deliver. I just put the call in and hopefully we will get her effexor tomorrow at noon. She has missed two days now and feels poorly but she also drank way too much beer last night. We can't blame everything on the pills.
I have been volunteering in my teaching union doing a lot of envelope stuffing this week. I also attended a peace rally protest organizing meeting last night.
I am working as a security guard again next week but just for a short shift of four hours.
I will only need to do at most three hours paid work this weekend marking. I do though have some homework for my legal studies courses and that could hopefully take hours of reading.
I will also help the local paper carrier on Saturday morning. So as of now I won't sleep until 6 am or so Saturday.
I gave two tests today. It is good work because I can pace up and down the ailse and that is working. It also helpes me to be suspicous of the students cheating even though they don't do that much at all. Each test was one hour long. I now have to mark these tests by next Friday when I will also be paid for this work as per the school's pay rolll schedule.
I haven't posted in a few days. I have been having a cold and busy with my teaching work. Tonight others with mental illness are coming over to watch TV and possibly play a role playing game.
Doing art seems to improve the lives of most of us with schizophrenia. My wife writes poems and we are publishing her first book soon. I write sci-fi and web pages and will be published in a second edition of an anthology which I am editting. I was also published in the first edition. My wife and I play music together and we were on a program called Sound Minds at our college station CKCU-FM( www.ckcufm.com) with a song she wrote. We also draw and paint although my wife won't draw anymore. I have done some theatre too over the years mostly as a stage hand including paid work at our National Arts Centre. I am proud to have been a member of the fastest local in IATSE.
The only way I can do paid work is to do only a little compared to some people who work 36 hours a week all the time. I can work comparable hours but some of that has to be school work and some volunteer work.
I am doing a little of my teaching assistant work today but really I don't do this work until Friday I am just staying in touch with bosses this week and picking up material for work this Friday.
I have been awake now for 18 hours.
I attended a law research lab in using an on-line law database last night.