I've a funny feeling that Ruby is going to be my little savior.
I think my medication is finally working, which is brilliant and awful in equal measure.
To be honest, it makes me think of Bevenita. She'd been on something similar for something like three years as they passed her around different docs and waiting lists. Now, she had some seriously impressive problems - I'm just a good ole' melancholic invert, while I gather she had the whole hog of voices and pyromania. Proper problems. She expressed frustration that her emotions were trapped, and she was just drugged up instead of being cured.
At this point, I can't tell whether it's the symptom or cure - depression causes a feeling of detachment and unenthusiasm; but the drugs are designed to numb everything down and limit extreme emotion. I feel like I'm trapped in a glass bubble about 2 metre in diameter, and because the sensation is new I'm guessing it's the dopey pills.
Depression saps your motivation and leaves you unable to do anything. The drugs have a similar effect. A good example would be eating. I eat pretty well, but on bad days I simply cannot be bothered to make food happen. If I'm sitting somewhere well, it'll have to wait - it's a very negative, rather petty bit of braincode that loops until I really am very hungry. Whereas the drugs are a bit more like pax or bliss (from Serenity and Doctor Who respectively), inducing a general feeling of wellbeing and contentment in which food is a rather academic possibility. Depression kills your memory and attention span. But I'm pretty sure it's the drugs which make other things seem so far away that attention is difficult, and so lacking in definition that they fall out of my brain.
I'm not complaining. Or at least, I am because it's an awful sensation, but only in a logical sense. I know that I am wrong, but I don't feel wrong. I am indifferent to people. I'm not really feeling enjoyment, or guilt, or anything much. My Cleggface has improved, because I can no longer effectively link up words and feelings. I've observed a beautiful ice-cold unthrillability - whether that to be to my sister swerving the car, or ridiculously huge stressful situations which I could put to one side as I might ignore the last few peas on a plate. For example, my flight back to Sarnia on Wednesday was scuppered by fog - we got all the way there, but couldn't land, and went all the way back. At Gatwick, we hung around for 20 minutes for our luggage, then some 45 for hotels to be booked, then at least another hour in the cold for a taxi, and then at 5am the next day we did it all again. Wasn't really bothered at any point. I know I'm customarily unflappable, but I also know that being stranded away from home and trying to do public transport are two of my big triggers, and all this with an inimicus scholarum as my only companion.
I've a lifetime of morality which is aware that this renders me effectively inhuman.
I feel OK. Not happy, but OK. Nice. All the adjectival thrust that the metatron of the English Tongue can conjure with the majestic word: nice. For example, today was mother's day and I didn't get a card.I forgot. Or rather, I had a marvellous idea for something at the beginning of the week, but time lapsed. Oceanic got her two bunches of flowers and a massive card in a box. I knew I felt awful, and I knew that I had hurt people's feelings and that this too made me feel awful - but a soap half glimpsed would have yanked my heartstrings more, and the only thing that really bothered me was the fact it wasn't really bothering me. It's still on my mind. But I'd be lying if I said I actually "felt" bad, in the strictest sense of the verb. I can still be sad, but it's a sadness inside the bubble - it condenses then drips back around my feet. I'm worried to overstate it as the effect of the happy pills, because I recognise this as similar to Mortimer's mental state and modus operandi. It feels different, though, to his, and I've not got the enthusiasm or his characteristic directness of purpose. I also feel like my reaction times have slowed. Or more strictly, my perception times - once I've percieved, my reactions are fine.
One good thing is that my imagination is still around. It takes a bit of serious concentration, and I'm even less likely to be producing anything concrete than usual. But I can still delve down to my clubhouse, and I've just written some very exciting scenes. Another interesting side effect is that my dreams make far more sense - more cause-and-effect. My dreams used to be notorious for starting an interesting plot, and then getting sidetracked.
As little as I like it, it's a really helpful support. I am fairly sure I'm safe now, which I haven't been for a while. That is good. But I know I'm not better. Like Bevenita did, I know I've just been put into hibernate mode. And while this gives me a very high-walled sandbox to throw my toys around in, it's almost like using that sandbox to figure out glass-blowing in. I feel like I'm cut off from the pain and misery which I'm actually going to need to be able to access. Which is why sportsmen shun painkillers.
Still, I'm not complaining too much for now. I'm cultivating patience instead. And learning Ruby which, as I said, may turn out to be my little savior.
Ruby is a programming language, chiefly popular for building web-things but it's also possible to build proper program-things in it as well. The learning curve is simultaneously shallow and steep. On the one hand, programming is pretty darn simple at it's most basic level. However, the amount of assumed knowledge is immense - for example, I downloaded the language then floundered for a few hours until I pieced together how you did anything with it. Now I can make it do very simple things, I'm floundering at finding a program which lets me create a pretty user interface. I am sure I am ultimately going to flounder a third time when I try to turn my code into an actual program. The information is out there, but not in one place. And I'm still using phrases like "web-things" and "program-things".
By some luck, I happen to have picked upon a programming language which is universally lauded as fun, clear, even beautiful. One of the most vocal proponants of the language is a mad genius, who created zine-style instruction leaflets filled with cartoon foxes, before mysteriously disappearing. Even better, the syntax seems to me very much like Latin in places - subjects, objects, verbs. Just the way you identify the parts of the sentence, and read what they are doing. Ruby, like Latin, has immense periods filled with innumerable parenthesis and subclauses. Cicero would be proud.
Why? Oh, I'm easily amused by learning random new skills I'll never follow through on. But it's making me happier than I expected. Like, smiling and everything. More than once! It's worse than Avon in series four. I'm having difficulty moving, motivating. I enjoyed not having the web because the web is the perfect outlet for what "I" crave - numb, vaguely involving nothingness. The internet is much like dreaming - pictures you don't have to focus on, and the dreamlike logic of links which chains one to TVTropes for hour upon hour. Programming is sedentry and fairly repetitive, so it actually performs the same task pretty well.
But unlike the web, it helps as well as hinders. What I need is my mind to be constantly stimulated. I find myself dozing and drifting during nonchallenging conversation. People have got to be asking questions, disagreeing, debating - if they're just conveying information then I find it hard to pay attention. Yeah I know, I always do that. But I'm trying extra hard to right now, and it still won't stick. Same goes with dull movies, music, whatever. And programming needs sharp thinkining as well as persistance. A perfect combination! It suckers my time lazily, while feeding my brain with pintacs. Plus, it's also really satisfying, because I'm smart and it's easy (at present) so it's nice getting the gratification. But not under pressure. It's different to the gratification of a good mark: the success is mine and mine alone, and for it's own sake.
What I've done so far is very minor. I'm able to program 1970s level computer games and that's it. I designed one based on the story of Echo and Narcissus, which I'm regarding more as art than anything else. You are Echo. And another one with the Prisoner startup spiel. Where am I? In the village! Basic nonsense, it's quite fun.
while Emily !=recovered
Ruby.learn
end
Recovery can wait.
I think my medication is finally working, which is brilliant and awful in equal measure.
To be honest, it makes me think of Bevenita. She'd been on something similar for something like three years as they passed her around different docs and waiting lists. Now, she had some seriously impressive problems - I'm just a good ole' melancholic invert, while I gather she had the whole hog of voices and pyromania. Proper problems. She expressed frustration that her emotions were trapped, and she was just drugged up instead of being cured.
At this point, I can't tell whether it's the symptom or cure - depression causes a feeling of detachment and unenthusiasm; but the drugs are designed to numb everything down and limit extreme emotion. I feel like I'm trapped in a glass bubble about 2 metre in diameter, and because the sensation is new I'm guessing it's the dopey pills.
Depression saps your motivation and leaves you unable to do anything. The drugs have a similar effect. A good example would be eating. I eat pretty well, but on bad days I simply cannot be bothered to make food happen. If I'm sitting somewhere well, it'll have to wait - it's a very negative, rather petty bit of braincode that loops until I really am very hungry. Whereas the drugs are a bit more like pax or bliss (from Serenity and Doctor Who respectively), inducing a general feeling of wellbeing and contentment in which food is a rather academic possibility. Depression kills your memory and attention span. But I'm pretty sure it's the drugs which make other things seem so far away that attention is difficult, and so lacking in definition that they fall out of my brain.
I'm not complaining. Or at least, I am because it's an awful sensation, but only in a logical sense. I know that I am wrong, but I don't feel wrong. I am indifferent to people. I'm not really feeling enjoyment, or guilt, or anything much. My Cleggface has improved, because I can no longer effectively link up words and feelings. I've observed a beautiful ice-cold unthrillability - whether that to be to my sister swerving the car, or ridiculously huge stressful situations which I could put to one side as I might ignore the last few peas on a plate. For example, my flight back to Sarnia on Wednesday was scuppered by fog - we got all the way there, but couldn't land, and went all the way back. At Gatwick, we hung around for 20 minutes for our luggage, then some 45 for hotels to be booked, then at least another hour in the cold for a taxi, and then at 5am the next day we did it all again. Wasn't really bothered at any point. I know I'm customarily unflappable, but I also know that being stranded away from home and trying to do public transport are two of my big triggers, and all this with an inimicus scholarum as my only companion.
I've a lifetime of morality which is aware that this renders me effectively inhuman.
I feel OK. Not happy, but OK. Nice. All the adjectival thrust that the metatron of the English Tongue can conjure with the majestic word: nice. For example, today was mother's day and I didn't get a card.I forgot. Or rather, I had a marvellous idea for something at the beginning of the week, but time lapsed. Oceanic got her two bunches of flowers and a massive card in a box. I knew I felt awful, and I knew that I had hurt people's feelings and that this too made me feel awful - but a soap half glimpsed would have yanked my heartstrings more, and the only thing that really bothered me was the fact it wasn't really bothering me. It's still on my mind. But I'd be lying if I said I actually "felt" bad, in the strictest sense of the verb. I can still be sad, but it's a sadness inside the bubble - it condenses then drips back around my feet. I'm worried to overstate it as the effect of the happy pills, because I recognise this as similar to Mortimer's mental state and modus operandi. It feels different, though, to his, and I've not got the enthusiasm or his characteristic directness of purpose. I also feel like my reaction times have slowed. Or more strictly, my perception times - once I've percieved, my reactions are fine.
One good thing is that my imagination is still around. It takes a bit of serious concentration, and I'm even less likely to be producing anything concrete than usual. But I can still delve down to my clubhouse, and I've just written some very exciting scenes. Another interesting side effect is that my dreams make far more sense - more cause-and-effect. My dreams used to be notorious for starting an interesting plot, and then getting sidetracked.
As little as I like it, it's a really helpful support. I am fairly sure I'm safe now, which I haven't been for a while. That is good. But I know I'm not better. Like Bevenita did, I know I've just been put into hibernate mode. And while this gives me a very high-walled sandbox to throw my toys around in, it's almost like using that sandbox to figure out glass-blowing in. I feel like I'm cut off from the pain and misery which I'm actually going to need to be able to access. Which is why sportsmen shun painkillers.
Still, I'm not complaining too much for now. I'm cultivating patience instead. And learning Ruby which, as I said, may turn out to be my little savior.
Ruby is a programming language, chiefly popular for building web-things but it's also possible to build proper program-things in it as well. The learning curve is simultaneously shallow and steep. On the one hand, programming is pretty darn simple at it's most basic level. However, the amount of assumed knowledge is immense - for example, I downloaded the language then floundered for a few hours until I pieced together how you did anything with it. Now I can make it do very simple things, I'm floundering at finding a program which lets me create a pretty user interface. I am sure I am ultimately going to flounder a third time when I try to turn my code into an actual program. The information is out there, but not in one place. And I'm still using phrases like "web-things" and "program-things".
By some luck, I happen to have picked upon a programming language which is universally lauded as fun, clear, even beautiful. One of the most vocal proponants of the language is a mad genius, who created zine-style instruction leaflets filled with cartoon foxes, before mysteriously disappearing. Even better, the syntax seems to me very much like Latin in places - subjects, objects, verbs. Just the way you identify the parts of the sentence, and read what they are doing. Ruby, like Latin, has immense periods filled with innumerable parenthesis and subclauses. Cicero would be proud.
Why? Oh, I'm easily amused by learning random new skills I'll never follow through on. But it's making me happier than I expected. Like, smiling and everything. More than once! It's worse than Avon in series four. I'm having difficulty moving, motivating. I enjoyed not having the web because the web is the perfect outlet for what "I" crave - numb, vaguely involving nothingness. The internet is much like dreaming - pictures you don't have to focus on, and the dreamlike logic of links which chains one to TVTropes for hour upon hour. Programming is sedentry and fairly repetitive, so it actually performs the same task pretty well.
But unlike the web, it helps as well as hinders. What I need is my mind to be constantly stimulated. I find myself dozing and drifting during nonchallenging conversation. People have got to be asking questions, disagreeing, debating - if they're just conveying information then I find it hard to pay attention. Yeah I know, I always do that. But I'm trying extra hard to right now, and it still won't stick. Same goes with dull movies, music, whatever. And programming needs sharp thinkining as well as persistance. A perfect combination! It suckers my time lazily, while feeding my brain with pintacs. Plus, it's also really satisfying, because I'm smart and it's easy (at present) so it's nice getting the gratification. But not under pressure. It's different to the gratification of a good mark: the success is mine and mine alone, and for it's own sake.
What I've done so far is very minor. I'm able to program 1970s level computer games and that's it. I designed one based on the story of Echo and Narcissus, which I'm regarding more as art than anything else. You are Echo. And another one with the Prisoner startup spiel. Where am I? In the village! Basic nonsense, it's quite fun.
while Emily !=recovered
Ruby.learn
end
Recovery can wait.
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