Oh Lord, now it’s turning into a foodie blog! NOT

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Chronic Fatigue, Functionality, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Personal Journal

In my last post I wrote about ‘Mini Mental Me’s’ apparent addiction with ‘Thought Jenga’ and how it impacts my life.  But I also wrote about the steps that I am taking to try and counter these effects and to get and keep my life on track.  And one of those steps was to eat healthy and regularly.

So in this post I thought I would share something that I cooked up for myself 🙂

The evening before last I decided to cook myself a bacon and mushroom Carbonara.

And I have to tell you that it rally was so very tasty.  And also far healthier than a lot of food that I usually eat – containing fresh ingredients instead of processed stuff.

Although the picture doesn’t show it very well, as well as the bacon it contained mushrooms and scallions. (Spring onions to those from the uk)

And I was delighted with the result and the minor achievement.

So much so that I determined that the following day I would cook myself a Beef Casserole!

Getting up nice and early I had my normal cup of coffee, took my morning meds, checked my emails and updated my blog comments and then went to prepare the meal for that evening.  I was determined that I would do this and that I would get it write – despite any efforts to sabotage my plans on behalf of Mini Mental Me.

Also determined that this casserole would contain fresh vegetables – something I am not renowned for eating.  I took three large carrots, two medium to large potatoes and a parsnip. And I stood and washed and then peeled them.

I then went and sat down for a while as standing for any length of time is not easy for me.  That is something else that I am learning to do.  Pace myself properly.  As one of the difficulties is that often I don’t know that I have done too much until it is too late.

Once I had sufficiently rested I then returned to the kitchen and diced the vegetables into (roughly) equal sizes.

I decided to sliced some of the parsnip in order to roast them separately.

I had also decided that I would be cooking this Casserole in my slow cooker and so the need to ensure that all of the vegetables were about the same size was greatly reduced.

And so – having diced the vegetables – I put them in my slow cooker and turned my attention to the sauce for my Casserole.

I had decided that I would cheat a little when it came to the sauce/cooking liquid and so had bought a packet of Beef Casserole Mix and I already had a packet of Oxtail Soup mix in the cupboard (Or press as the Irish like to call them).  And having mixed them I added these to my slow cooker also.

I then turned my attention to the meat.  400 grms of prime Irish beef and I seared this in order to give it a little bit of colour.

And I then also added that to my slow cooker.

I have to be honest and admit that beef is not something that I often eat and so I thought that it would make a pleasant change.  Which, of course is why I went for a Beef Casserole instead of a Lamb Casserole.

Once all this was added into my slow cooker I stirred and seasoned it and then placing the lid on it left it to cook away slowly.

And it was about 20 minutes of doing this when I decided that actually I also fancied having some onion in the Casserole.

And so I took a fairly large onion peeled and sliced it.  Whilst at the same time crying a little – obviously lamenting the loss of such a proud  specimen  from my newly acquired vegetable provisions.  And added that to the mix.

And having done so I then stirred the mix one last time, replaced the lid on the slow cooker and then went back to my study to get on with some other stuff as it slowly cooked away.

And I have to tell you that whilst to most folk this would all seem like so much of a nothingness and such a normal everyday activity.  As I sat there in my office enjoying the fragrant cooking smells coming from my kitchen, I could not help but feel very pleased at the fact that I had actually gone through with my decision to cook a fresh healthy meal for myself for that evening.

And more importantly I was delighted at the fact that nothing had gone wrong and that Mini Mental Me had not managed to cause me to forget to add something, or caused me to burn the meat – or even to forget to buy the stuff that I needed for this meal.

And it was at this point when my mind (and Mini Mental Me) through out the realisation that actually this was the day when I was going out to eat at friends before prayer meeting!  Curse you Mini Mental  Me!

So up I got and I went and turned the slow cooker off, resolving that actually I would not be dissuaded by this minor revelation and that I would simply have Beef Casserole for dinner today instead.

And that is exactly what I did.  And to add to the dish I decided that I would even make myself dumplings to go into the Casserole.

8 dumplings to be precise.  (But only because that is how many the recipe that I had would make and I really didn’t feel brave enough to stand there and give Mini Mental Me another chance to sabotage the meal as I tried to divide quantities of flour and suet and such.

So this morning I made said dumplings and placed them in the fridge until this afternoon when – having earlier remembered to turn the slow cooker back on i order to finish of the cooking of my Casserole – I added then this afternoon just 20 minutes before the end of the cooking time.

And there you have it.  My Beef Casserole which I not only had for dinner this evening but will also have for lunch tomorrow.

Oh and this morning I also added some baby new potatoes into the mix.

I have to tell you that this was soooo good and probably the best Beef Casserole that I have had for a good couple of years now.

It is also the only Beef Casserole that I have had for a good couple of years now.  But even so, I was delighted with it.  And I really enjoyed it!

 

And the really good part is that not only do I have enough left over for some for lunch tomorrow but I also have enough to freeze for reheating on one of those inevitable days when my physical health is too bad for me to stand an d cook.

Which of course means one less take out or microwave meal and thus again helps with my plain to eat more healthily.

And so, as I said, whilst I know that to many this would seem like an everyday thing and nothing special, I am claiming it as a victory and am delighted with having done this.

Next step in my healthy eating plans – Healthy Homemade Soups! Something else I can cook up a batch of and then freeze and reheat when I am not well enough to actually prepare and cook myself a meal 🙂

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Mini Mental Me’s Apparent Addiction to ‘Thought Jenga’

Tags

Bipolar Disorder, Christianity, Christianity and Mental Health, Functionality, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Paranoid Schizophrenia

I have, over the years used many metaphors in order to try to describe or explain my mental illness and the way in which it impacts my life.  Some have been dark and sinister by nature and some (I hope) humorous and light hearted.

My favourite way of describing or explaining my frequently struggling mental health is ‘Mini Mental Me’.

For the uninitiated or unfamiliar with ‘Mini Mental Me’ he is the little man who lives in my brain and who is charged with the responsibility of ensuring it’s correct and efficient functioning.  But who – for a myriad of reasons – constantly fails at this task – often to varying degrees of spectacular.

One reason his frequent inadequacy at the role which which he is charged is – or so it seems to me – appears to be his addiction to ‘Thought Jenga’.

‘Thought Jenga’ appears to be a game which he plays where he takes all my different thoughts and thought processes (represented above by the different coloured bricks) and instead of organising and stacking them neatly and correctly – as my OCD requires and as any normal mind would – decides to see just how much fun he can have by stacking them all higgledy-piggledy in order to (I can only assume) watch them (and of course my peace of mind and sometimes my life) wobble and shake and subsequently tumble.  A past-time which is obviously a a spectator sport egged on by both the internal dialogue and those pesky  destructive (seemingly) external voices.

[Of course it is entirely possible that I do not have mental illness at all and it is Mini Mental Me who has mental illness.  But don’t tell my psychiatrist that as it would no doubt instantly be recorded on my file as me being delusional in some way LOL.]

So where does Mental Mini Me’s apparent addiction to ‘Thought Jenga’ leave me and what is the prognosis for it’s impact on my life.

Well I guess a lot of that – whilst part of it is of course outside of my control – is down to how I approach it, I think.

So what I have decided  to try to do for the rest of this year – the beginning of year already being fairly spectacular in it’s madness and mayhem – is to try to take control of the things that are important and which I can take control of.  And I am doing so in full awareness that they will at sometime go awry and will therefore need repairing.

But my thought process (hopefully this one isn’t flawed or foolish) is that the more control I take of things that can and often to wrong, and the more I maintain control of them the less damage that can be done and thus the less repairing required when things inevitably do mess up (Or should that be when I or Mental Mini Me inevitably messes up?)

And to do this I have been identifying weak spots, stressors and areas of need.  These are the areas where the most damage is often done and which often cause a downward spiral in my physical or mental health.  Of course living alone makes controlling – heck often even recognizing – these glitches all the more difficult.

But I have at least identified the key areas.  Which are as follows…

Keeping my home neat, tidy, clean and orderly.  My environment has, I have learned, a direct impact on my mental health and one sign that things are not good – either with my mental health or my physical health is a decline in the general good order of my home.  And this in turn then adds to the problems.    I am determined to try to keep my home a lot cleaner and tidier this year.  Not that it is usually that bad but can get quite bad when my physical or mental health declines.

Eating Healthily and Regularly.  I tend to forget to eat and I certainly don’t eat regularly or healthily enough.  In truth I can not only go hours without even thinking about food, but even a couple of days without thinking about food.  Additionally, other factors play into this.  Financial difficulties, physical health, memory issues, focus issues, to name but a few.

For example, if I screw up my finances – something I tend to do a lot – I often don’t have enough to buy food, let alone healthy food  And this can last for some time as often when I screw up my finances I am left desperately paying all my money to bills instead of buying essential food.

Likewise, if my physical health is bad, and (as regular readers will know) I have a number of physical health issues, I can find myself unable to stand long enough to cook a healthy meal and so resort to microwave meals, take outs or fast food deliveries. Something which I am determined to change this year.

Actively fighting the compulsion to isolate.  Whilst isolation or at very least limited socialization appears on face value to be my most comfortable approach and certainly reduces the ammunition available to the  negative internal dialogues and paranoid and destruction external voices, it is probably true that it is in the long wrong not healthy for me.  So I am going to try to socialize more this year and at very least leave my house more.  At the moment, apart from going out for a coffee and a little shopping twice a week with my carer Sinéad (something which only began last year) I tend only go out to church on Sundays, sometimes a bible study once a week, and if necessary essential doctor, hospital or psychiatrist visits (and even them I tend to avoid if possible). Although thanks to Sinéad’s encouraging and efforts I did get out much more last year.

Also being more active (when I am able) will no doubt help with my weight and health.

Having a regular and recognisable routine.  This is another area which really helps with my mental health and indeed my physical health.  The more I have a routine the better I am.  And at times when my mental health starts to slip into a decline or a crash, having and keeping to a routine can delay or slow this decline or even prevent a crash.

Keeping my mind active and healthily focused.  This is a big one for me,  As often when my mental health suffers (and Mental Mini Me plays ‘Thought Jenga’ my focus, memory and comprehension suffer.  Which means even the simplest of things like reading becomes difficult. (Sometimes I can’t even remember the start of the paragraph by the time I am two lines into it.  And so writing is therefore even harder and often impossible.  Posts which I would normally write fairly speedily can take me numerous hours to complete.  And I get frustrated with the situation (and thus myself) and lose interest.

Additionally – as part of the ‘Thought Jenga’ games that Mental Mini Me plays, and the resultant increased internal and external dialogues, I can slip into harmful or unhealthy thought patterns and processes,

But I am convinced that the more I engage in healthy mental activity the less this will happen.  At least that’s the theory.  (Just as long as I watch for signs of compulsive thought patterns)

Taking my meds regularly.  Is another huge one for me.  But thank fully there are some improvements on this score.  Because I struggle so much with my finances I often forgo buying my meds and pay off my bills instead.  Additionally because of my frequent memory and focus issues I have often (actually frequently) forgotten my meds.   And then of course there are the fairly common ‘do I really need these’ or ‘can I actually be bothered to take these’ syndromes when it comes to meds, which a lot of us seem to experience.

If I go for a while without remembering to take my meds and am not cognitive of any slipping in my mental or physical health (which of course are often there but I just haven’t seen the signs) I question if I really need them at all.  Which of course I do.

And if I am totally honest.  To add to all this I simply don’t trust and don’t like the effects of my psychiatric meds.

But, as I said, there have been huge improvements on this score.  I am (thanks to the support and encouragement of a couple of dear friends – you know who you are) at least taking my physical health related meds pretty much as I am meant to.  And so that is a good sign at least.

Managing my finances properly.  Is perhaps the biggest of all of the weak spots, stressors and areas of need.  There is a recognisable cycle here.  My mental health (or even my physical health) declines and my memory, focus and comprehension decline along with it.  I forget to pay bills and spend my money on other things or simply spend it on other people.

What happens next is that either a) I then get angry letters telling me I haven’t paid bills – which alert me to the fact that my mental health has slipped somewhere along the way and I haven’t noticed or b) my mental health improves and I myself realise that I have messed up again.  And I then of course, go into a lengthy phase of trying to repair the damage already done.

And this long pattern of financial mismanagement has often taken its toll and often leaves me feeling like a failure and both demoralized and defeated.  Which of course then only provides ammunition to those internal and external harmful and negative dialogues.  Which then in turn complicate matter further and induce a further decline in my mental health.

And those, amongst a plethora of other stressors, weak spots and areas of need are (I think) the main ones.  They can be so destructive, can’t they?

But I am convinced that there is hope – even with Mini Mental Me and his apparent ‘Thought Jenga’ addiction.  Not only for me, but for all of us suffering with poor mental health or with mental illness.  And yes even those of us who suffer from paranoid or non paranoid schizophrenia or (like me)with schizoaffective disorder.

The fact is that I have seen an improvement in almost every one of the key areas that I have mentioned above.  But, of course, the biggest one – my finances – is a huge challenge and the one I seem to struggle with the most.

And of course if I could just cure Mini Mental Me’s Apparent Addiction to ‘Thought Jenga’ life would be soooooo much better.

 

 

Mind The Gap! – Of Undergrounds, Couches and Functionality

Tags

Bipolar Disorder, CFIDS, CFS, Chronic Fatigue, Depression, Functionality, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Paranoid Schizophrenia

Gaps are important, aren’t they?

They are all over the place, if you really think about it.  But whilst we are aware of them on some level or another perhaps we all too often ignore them.

Of course sometimes they come with warnings…

Although I now live in Ireland, and have done so for several years, I grew in England and spent many a holiday up in London holidaying with family.  So dashing to and fro on the London Underground was a very common thing for me.

Although I have very few specific childhood memories and indeed could not for the life of me remember even one of the many journeys I must have taken on the tube (the London Underground).  I do still recall the yellow line and writing painted on the edge of the platforms of each Tube Station that read ‘MIND THE GAP’.  Actually I also remember the loud public address system announcement that very clearly warned everyone to ‘MIND THE GAP’ each and every time a tube pulled into a station and the doors opened.

Of course some gaps can bring both bad and good fortune…

I think we have probably all lost things down in the gaps of the cushions of our couches/sofas and by the same token I imagine we have probably all found things down there that we never knew were there.

I can remember a time when the gaps between the cushions of the couch and indeed those around the sides and back of the couch were my son’s go to place for lost coins whenever he asked me for money and I had none on me to give him.  🙂  Actually, having just typed that, I am reminded that there have been times when they were my go to place if I had run out of smokes and didn’t have enough cash to buy some.

But some gaps are less obvious and instead of coming with a warning actually are a warning….

Gaps in functionality are I think one example of this.

As someone who suffers from very poor physical and mental health I consider myself very fortunate (or in Christian terms very blessed) to be able to achieve the things that I am able to achieve and to function at the level that I am generally able to function at.  Naturally I have good and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks, sometimes even longer periods, but I am grateful for how I am able to function most of the time.

But even when I am able to function at a high level is everything always ok?

Well, the honest answer has to be no.  Even at my best I may still not be ‘right’ or ‘OK’ and there may still be things in my functionality that are going awry or that might be missed from time to time or even completely overlooked until they become a major issue.

There have been and are, without doubt, times  when on the face of it things seem to be going OK and I seem to be coping well but actually if you look more closely there are gaps in my functionality that might not at first be noticed.  These gaps in functionality are, I think, extremely important and can very often be indicators that something is not right.  And sometimes, I believe, there are specific gaps that repeatedly appear and thus are good indicators, if we were to but notice them.

For example, in my own situation I usually live alone and I like to keep a clean and tidy home. But I suffer from both poor mental health and poor physical health.  Interestingly, because of the conditions and illnesses that I have, both my physical and mental health, whilst never being good, do often cycle into severe episodes.

In terms of my physical health, when it decreases I am not able to maintain the level of cleanliness and tidiness that I would like and normally maintain for my home.

In fact, I remember being told off by one of my friends, when she called to visit me one day.  She told me off for having told her that I was OK when I wasn’t.  “Whose saying I am not OK?”  I asked, still trying to maintain the impression that everything was alright.

“Your house is.”  She answered, with a gentle smile. “Don’t get me wrong, it is still clean and tidy, but not anywhere near as clean and tidy as you usually keep it and that always means you are struggling with your health.”

She was right and no I shouldn’t have said I was alright when I wasn’t.  But of course we are all human – yes even those of us with mental health issues are still human – and yes we all vary in our levels of functionality and very few of us actually like to admit it and thus be a burden to others.

But isn’t it also true that we sometimes choose to ignore those ‘gaps’ in our functionality because we want so badly for everything to be or to seem to be alright?

Just as my home, or it’s level of tidiness, is a gap that can often be an indicator in respect of my level of physical functionality there are gaps that are good indicators as my level of mental functionality.

The inability to; write fluidly, think cohesively, remember things, focus properly, manage my finances correctly, are all gaps in my functionality that appear when my mental health worsens.

These gaps in our normal level of functionality are, I believe extremely, important.  So too is our noticing, acknowledging and responding to them and/or our caretakers or carers noticing, acknowledging and responding to them.

In this article I have mentioned one or two examples of the gaps which appear in my own functionality when my physical or mental health worsen and which are good indicators of their worsening.  As I said above, these do not come with warnings as much as they are indeed warnings themselves.

One of the things that I need to do is, having identified these warning gaps in my functionality  is to let those closest to me know what they are and to then be honest with them when they appear and to ask them to be honest with me if and when they see these gaps appearing.

Perhaps you can think of specific gaps that always or usually seem to appear in your functionality when you are struggling or beginning to struggle and which can be used as effective early warning signs for you and those who care for you?

If so, I hope that like me you will try to make those closest to you aware of them so that they too can help you.