Jewelry, Flu, Doctors, Drugs & Fear

Anqa Jewelry Http://www.AnqaJewelry.Etsy.com

October 8, 2014

First Part

My apologies for not writing sooner. I have been sick. Flu, pneumonia. Fever with rattling lungs, hot flashes, Robitussin DM hallucinations of bunnies and other furry creatures. At least they are cute. Today, I was able to get up and shower and go to my PTSD/psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. I was so disappointed when I left. She stopped my Klonopin today. Its like the one thing that calms down my surface anxiety. When that is calm I can function well, the deeper Problems may come up but I can deal with them more productively. 

I always come to this impasse with about 90 percent of my practitioners. They do not want to accept the fact, that in many ways I DO know what is best for me. I have had Anxiety and Issues with Trauma all of my life. I am a grown woman. I cannot fix my broken parts with out help from more knowledgeable people but I do know how I need to live in order to function through the day to day monotonous activities. Without some kind of benzodiazepine I will end up within a little bit of time in a full Derealization State and all it has to offer me.

I told her I would trust her and so far I have 100 percent. I am taking the newer Antidepressant. I am taking her Gabapentin. I took the Vitamin D supplements. I try not to think to far into the future, I try to stay away from what ifs/ However, this is a big one. What if I am right in this, and after a week or so I go into a full DR (Derealization) State. My life will become paralyzed. I will not be making Jewelry. I will not be going to cub scout meetings with my sons. When the Panic and DR takes over, I become a prisoner inside my head. Only concerned with how to stop it. How to make it stop. I will be in a permanently terrified state of being. Terrified of nothing yet everything. Mostly that it will not go away. I do know myself. I know what is at stake. I hope she is right. I hope that this time I am wrong.

I have had this flu or whatever for about a week. So, I have not posted any jewelry nor have I made anything. Today it seems like it is wanting to leave my body. Aside from a headache, nasty phlegmonous coughing and constant sweating, I am okay. I think I should try to make something soon, meaning today or at the latest tomorrow because if I am going to check out for a while, I should have done something to get my Etsy store through with new pieces before I cannot do it.

Interesting fact: Synonyms for Phlegm are:

affectlessness, emotionlessness, impassiveness, impassivity, insensibility, numbness, apathy

Yeah thats about what I feel when I am sick with this productive coughing, Interesting that apathy is there. 

Second Part

I made a video a few years ago, just toward the end of one of my DP/DR episodes. I am sure it was either just after the episode which lasted from 2007 til late 2008/early 2009 I wonder if I can post it here.  Oh that was easy. When you watch it, notice the way I try to explain the verbally unexplainable "features" of the way DR/DP make me experience life. It feels like I am just a set of eyes.  Eyes stuck in a mass of fear, not fear but a terrifying state and inexplicable sensations and mental feelings. Its no surprise I cannot produce or create during that time. 

However, Drugs did help me, but they are illegal and not good for long term. They take your money and make you need them more than you even need life. In all candor,  I fear that if the Doctors, even with good intentions, are putting me at risk for using again. If I go into an episode, I am afraid I will go back and use if I am not given what I know that I need to get out of it again.

On that happy note, I am thinking about deep pine greens and white. Like winter snow in the mountains. Perhaps a little gray for the sky.  Grey will be good to blend the two other colors, but it might pop more with a clear sunny blue sky.  Now that is two ideas. 

Would like to go for three. The first word that popped into my head was caterpillar. I will look at some caterpillar photos. Try to get some inspiration...I am always, I mean ALWAYS, hungry for inspiration. If you have a photo on line that has good colors and interesting color combinations, it could be nature or architecture or anything else..Please comment or send it to me. I am always open to ideas, critiques (good and bad), advice and anything that will motivate me in jewelry designing and also in life. I hope this blog to be wide open that everyone is involved. I shudder at the idea I am just writing to space. But then again, space is pretty amazing too.

Until Next time.....

As a good friend used a sign off whenever he ended his transmissions from Gaza to Italy, and the world, I would so like to use his sign off without crediting him.

Vik, My Brother, My friend

Vittorio Arrigoni, will never be forgotten. At least by me. He wrote a book and I recommend it. Its a first person account from the the Siege on Gaza 2008/09  Vik's Book Gaza Stay Human

It was a very good book. Its a quick read but I read it very slowly trying to hear his voice as I read his words, his description of the Palestine is the Palestine that still exists within me. The people as he saw them, I see them still. Even today, after all these years away from that small piece of land in the brutality of being neighbor and Oppressed of "I". Cannot even bring myself to say the name any more. 

I have made many pieces of Jewelry inspired by Palestine. I will talk about that in my next blog. Which I hope it will be about my process. How I find my inspiration. How I choose the style and colors and how I get about making my pieces. I  am excited to write that blog. Lets hope I can keep my anxiety low and motivation up, or better yet higher. I need a boost. 

Well, As I was saying. Vittorio A. used to end his communiques  with it and I should like to borrow it for this blog at times, when I am feeling as I do today.

Stay Human,

Calista