It was drizzly and grey all day yesterday. Very bad for me. Just didn't care about anything and wanted it to go away. So far today, it's just grey out. The sun's supposed to come out and I can't wait. At least, I was able to bundle up about 10 years' of Geograpics for the yards. 10 more years to go. Putting them in the trunk of my car along with several boxes of unwanted books to get them out of the house and keep them clean. It's very dusty outside from the horses.

Didn't get much sleep last night. A searing pain shot through my arm at 4AM so just got up and made coffee. I might try hypnosis to break the cig habit. The hospital said I have emphsema and that scares me to death. I don't want to be on oxygen later and eventually smother. All other smoke quitting aids have failed.

r2, I take Risperdal for mania and psychotic episodes. It must be working as I've had no big episodes for a long time and it really helps with sleep. I'm hearing strange things in the house. I hope it's just Murphy and not another rat. If it's neither, time to call the PNP. She'll probably raise the Risperdol dose to stop the sounds.

Got to get motivated to keep working on getting more junk out of the house.
SW

(((((((Sheepy)))))))



Hypnosis sounds good, but isn't it expensive? Have you looked at the websites of Nicorette or Nicotinell? Nicorette has a lot of advice to give in addition to the gum. Nicotinell will keep contact by mobile (SMS) if you want them to do so?

I did quit by the help of Nicotinell (the gum + advice) years ago. I almost smoked every time I draw my breath. I'm so happy I made the stop-smoking-journey.

I used the gum for one year (that is more then recommended, but I had to take care of my depression at the same time). To get off the gum I made a written plan were I wrote the exactly time of the day were i allowed myself to use the gum. (It took some weeks to be able to do that). When I trusted the "gum-clock-habit" I cut away a part of all the nicotine-gums for the day and replaced it with ordinary gum. After two weeks I cut a lager part of the nicotine-gum and replaced it with ordinary gum. I continued this practice until I was chewing ordinary gums at , ... you won't believe it...., at FIXED times. Even if it sounds silly, the ordinary gums chewed at the same time as the nicotine-gum, was very helpful. When I felt that I could trust that I was over the nicotine hunger, I slowly without any plans just dropped the ordinary gums, one by one , happily knowing that I had done one of the hardest things in my life.

Rosegirl

((((Sheepy))))

Rose, I'm really proud of your story - thats a really positive story. Managing to quit is HARD - I'm lucky in that I've never smoked, which I mainly attribute to the fact that my parents are awesome. Without them I know I'd be alot worse off than I am at the moment.

Hi all. I'm still kind of messed up, but more or less functioning. It's kind of like racing in the fog, if that makes sense. My attention span isn't right. Either I'm jumping from one thing to another or I get all hyperfocused on something for hours. At least I don't feel so angry, more just kind of anxious and awkward and feeling like I'm doing something stupid or wrong except I don't know what, but someone is going to notice whatever it is and yell at me for it. My husband is worried. He told me that my eyes looked red and asked if I had been smoking pot. I'm not really sure how to handle his mistrust- it's justified, and I don't really have any credibility...so I don't know why he asks me stuff if he only half believes me. I think maybe he's looking for me to slip, or have the wrong look on my face, or that maybe I'll just somehow "look" like I'm being dishonest. Some of the anxiety is from that, no doubt, but its other stuff too. Every little noise seems to startle the heck out of me, which isn't like me at all. Oh, and I haven't been smoking pot.

Anyway, the upstairs is much better. Our room is clean, but there's a lot of boxes and electronics stored in two of the "roomlets" I call them that because they are so small and odd. One is 3' X 7'. There's enough room for someone to sack out in a sleeping bag, barely. Another of the roomlets is kind of crammed into the eves of the roof, so you can only stand up straight on one side. The ceiling slopes down on the other. My son's room is sort of normal, but really small. A twin bed, small chest of drawers is about all that fit in there. You have to crawl across the bed to get to the drawers. Oh, and it doesn't have a proper door, just a shower curtain someone nailed up for privacy. Our room is actually pretty good size, and not as weird, except for the door leading to a two story fall. That's how you get furniture upstairs, because the staircase is too narrow. Imagine taking furniture up a ladder to the second story of your house. That's how we did it. At least it has a door. (besides the outside door.)

I spent a good portion of the afternoon futzing around with an old PC. Finally got it running, but the CD drive isn't working. So I pulled the cover off and checked the connections. Seemed OK. Started it back up. Still doesn't work. I'd just replace it, but to get it out I'd have to pull the hard drive out, which is just too much bother, and I'm not too confident about that. I'm going to try to find a USB CD drive instead. (Guess I'd better make sure the USB works...) I don't really need the PC, since I have this laptop and my Vista desktop, but it's a challenge, and I can kind of lose myself in it instead of thinking about other stuff.

I've been thinking of quiting smoking too, and found a free hypnosis mp3 for that. If any of you would like the link, pm me and I'll be happy to send it to you. They've got some other mp3's too, some that are free, and some you pay for. I paid and never received the password to get the paid ones, so I don't recommend getting those. I also have some of that Chanwhatever, but I'm afraid to take it too. Get this: I smoke and chew nicotine gum. How pathetic is that?

I was going to try to say something in response to each of you individually, but I can't seem to remember who said what while I'm typing. I did read all the posts though.

Calling PsyNP in the morning. I think I'm supposed to be sleeping more than what I'm managing.

Not doing very good day today, my ankle and lower back killing me. I don't feel like chatting today. And not happy at all.