Coping Mechanisms, Getting Lost and Yuckie, Disgusting Insects... in Life as I know it...

It's been a relatively interesting day, compared to the last several days. I had my monthly appointment with my psychiatrist today and I'm going to see my psychologist on Wednesday. I really like my psychiatrist, she's the first one I've ever had that genuinely cares and asks me questions about how things are going instead of just handing me a prescription. She's even given me her cellphone number and said that I can contact her anytime I needed to. When I decided that I really needed to go to the clinic last time, I phoned her and she organized a spot for me within 30 minutes. The waiting list is usually about a week long. After I attempted suicide last time she came through to the hospital the very next day, even though I couldn't put a proper sentence together.

Today we spoke about the usual stuff, such as how my social and general anxiety is, how my mood is, if I'm feeling stable and other stuff. I told her that I have started to obsess a lot about my training and eating again as well as how seeing how much my stepsister is enjoying her life at university is making me beat myself up about my time in university and has been bringing up all kinds of shitty memories and thoughts that I am struggling to get rid of. I also spoke about how lonely I am and that it feels like I'm in some sort of limbo, waiting for work to start and not really having anything to occupy my mind until then. She said she definitely thinks that all the obsessing over my body image, the exercise and the eating is some sort of coping mechanism that my mind is using in order to occupy itself while in this state of limbo. It might be my subconscious trying to be fully in control of one aspect of my life, where as the others are mostly out of my hand.

I mentioned the crazily excessive sweating that I've been experiencing pretty much over the last couple of years and how that causes me anxiety as well. For instance, when I was at the pharmacist last week to go collect my medication I was really sweating a lot and feeling very strange, as if on the border of experiencing a panic attack. I explained to her that, the more I became aware of my sweating, the more anxious I became, because there was a slight queue and I just kept thinking that everybody can see how much I am sweating which would make them think that I'm weird or gross or some kind of junkie trying to get his next fix. I've never really mentioned this to her, because I know excessive sweating is a side effect of 3 of the medications that I am on and there isn't really a whole lot I can do about it. She said she would check into it for me and seemed to be a bit concerned. She briefly flipped through my file and saw that I haven't gone for full blood tests or anything in about 2 years and she gave me a form on which she wrote and ticked a few things and told me that I needed to go get full blood tests done as well as my cholesterol levels tested, which made me a bit nervous. I think she also wants to check how my liver and central nervous system is doing after my overdose. I remember her telling me that they were pretty much fucked afterwards. The different medications are already very taxing on my liver as it is, so I think she might be concerned about it, which has made me slightly worried. I think I'll go get it done the day after tomorrow (I've always found it annoying that there is no term or single word for "the day after tomorrow" in English. It's such a faff to write out. In Afrikaans we just say "oormore", which can be directly translated as over tomorrow.). I was going to go get it done tomorrow, but I had a brutal hike today and seeing as I have to fast for 12 hours before I go for all the tests, I'll rather do it once my energy has been replenished.

The heat hasn't subsided yet. It was only slightly better than yesterday. I decided that I wanted to go for a hike and waited until 16:00 to go so that the sun isn't as powerful anymore, but it was still hot as hell. I took two water bottles with me and decided that, no matter where I am, once the first one is finished I will immediately turn around. I'm not going to be caught dehydrated in the middle of nowhere while being pelted with the sun's brutal rays. After about an hour my first bottle was finished so I decided to turn around. I've only done this particular route once before and at one stage there is a steep, rocky side path that you have to take to join up with the main path. On my way back, I kept checking for this path, seeing as it is quite small, but I ended up missing it. I kept thinking that my surroundings weren't looking very familiar, but seeing as how I've only done the route once, I might just be paranoid. It took me quite a while before I decided to turn around and look for the route. I had overshot it big time. It took me about 30 minutes to get back to where it was. I got back home over 2 hours after starting my hike and had quite a bad sunburn and was just absolutely kaput. I flopped into the pool and stayed there until I started to feel myself cool down. So that was quite interesting. There were quite a few locusts along the path, but luckily they were quite small. I HATE all bugs, creepy crawlies, flying things, insects and beetles and I kept getting the shivers and grossed out as they would fly away from me walking towards them. Blegh.

Right now I am in bed, having taken my evening medication and watching some Yu Yu Hakusho before I fall asleep. Tomorrow morning the new episode of WWE Monday Night Raw will be out :) I'm looking forward to seeing the plots unfold and hoping that the WWE Creative Team has removed their thumbs from their asses.

Have a lovely day everyone.

Adriaan.