Update Time

So my sleep schedule is still a little borked but overall, I've been feeling a lot better. I even wrote something new for 'Outlast: Whistleblower', and it's been a while since I've written anything for my writing blog.

[Tags and comments on said piece include: 'ow fucking ow' 'damn your headcanon for giving me these feels - I didn't sign up for this', 'LAYS THE FUCK DOWN' 'THIS ENTIRE THING IS JUST PAIN TO ME' 'EVERYONE READ THIS', 'This is great, thanks for posting it! 'new headcanon accepted', and of course the flawless comment: 'i feel like my soul just collapsed in o n itself'.]

Aside from that, I've just been hanging out and painting/watching people paint my room. The fumes are giving me a headache but it's not that bad. I've got the window cracked and a fan running and that's helping.

Also... have you ever heard The Kimberly Story? The audio isn't that great but it was told by a teacher to his students and... A) it gives me a lot of ideas because, hey, writer and B) it's just kinda freaking creepy.

It's stupidly early and... yeah, I'm awake for some dumbass reason, and causing a lot of shared emotional pain over fictional people in the Skype group. So, yeah, pretty good day so far.

I think I'm gonna lie back down pretty soon and just rest for a while. I've been very tired lately since I'm not used to doing so much physical work.

It's a Dissociative Disorder

Or at least that's what it looks like. On the mild end of the spectrum, at least. It might even be sub-threshold. That's something to be thankful for.

BUT. It's still an issue for me. It's like watching my life through a fog... like how you feel when you're watching a movie. You might feel for the people in it, even very strongly, but it doesn't last in quite the same way. You have to actively think about it to feel that way again - it's usually not in your head as a conscious memory like it would be if you'd actually experienced or witnessed it first hand.

So...

I'm on 'meds' for that.

And I say 'meds' with the quotation marks because I'm running an experiment.

See, the placebo effect is actually very strong, even when the person in question is well aware that they're being given a sugar pill. (There have been several studies done about this, actually.) So, it would stand to reason that (within reason, of course), if you give someone a medication, or anything, that they expect to work - it will work.

Given that, I'm running a little experiment: I've taken a few little hard plastic bottles, like the one shown below, washed them out really well, and filled them with different colours of tic-tacs - light green, light blue, and white. (They look a little like the pill bottles used in a story of mine so that's cool too.)

These are my 'meds'.

"If you ever get into trouble, Agent..."

I stitched together some names I thought sounded realistic enough, pulled some mg values and side-effects off of a few sites, mentally wrote up what they were and why, and tried them out today.

It worked so well that I'm actually optimistic. I literally cannot remember the last time I felt optimistic about something. (Long story short: The mind is an amazing thing, yo.)

Zyperidone (anti-dissociative - pictured) Once Daily/250mg

• Zyperidone was originally conceived as a general hard anti-psychotic, however once it was shown to increase retained memory, improve focus, and strengthen neural pathways in the brain, it was pulled and retooled into what has been called an 'anti-dissociative' medication. Known side-effects are comparatively mild and include muscle and joint aches typically lasting no more than two hours, drowsiness, dizziness, and loss of appetite. In rare cases, Zyperidone can cause tremors and trouble balancing but the risk is small.

Distralimine (anti-depressant) Once Daily/50mg/Dosage can be increased if needed.

• Distralimine is a commonly-found anti-depressant with minimal side-effects including interruptions in sleep schedule for the first two weeks of treatment, mild headache, and muscle weakness which fades with use.

Selazivan (called also: Saradol, Selivan) (anti-anxiety) Once Daily/10mg/Dosage can be increased if needed.

• Selazivan (more commonly known as Saradol or Selivan) is a mid-grade anti-anxiety medication with minimal side-effects which include sleep disruptions for the first month of treatment, numbness or tingling in the hands, blurred vision which clears quickly, and drowsiness.

I do realise that's it's only been a day and all that but just to catch you up to speed: My focus has improved, I'm less anxious overall - hell, I even think it's improving my fiction writing. I just read back through something I'd written a little earlier and it's actually good.

I don't know, man, this might just work out.

When I mentioned what I was going through in the Outlast Skype group chat-thing we do, a friend of mine spent a good five minutes cheering me up with really dumb-ass puns. My friends are the best friends <3

Oh, and I was thanked by my math teacher for taking his class. You're welcome, Over-Worked College Math Teacher. You're welcome.

So that's where that's at. I'll be sure to keep you all up to speed as things go along. For now though, I think I might actually sleep. I have a paper I should work on tomorrow and some math reviews to do so, yeah, sleeping might be a good idea.

Bye for now, everyone. Bye for now~

It's Actually a Reasonable Hour.

And this happened. 

And then we got into an RP and I started a new ship. I feel so accomplished. [EDIT: A wonderful friend of mine mADE A FREAKING FAN MIX] Also, I actually did get the third chapter done. That took me WAY too long to do and I know that, I'm just... having a lot of issues that I'm not sure how to express. They seem to be evening out a little though, so... something to be thankful for.

I have so many ideas for things to write now and just... *muffled scream*

It's after ten and I have a Kindle and a second monitor now so that's pretty awesome. Don't get me wrong, I still prefer physical books - it's just that they're not as easy to carry around. The extra monitor was because I am a geek and tend to research while I write (or possibly watch YouTube videos).

Anyway... I'm going to check my schedule and probably try to work a little. I have things to get done and in order before DashCon so... yeah.

Until later, everyone~

Insomnia Game Too Strong

This is not good for me. This sleep schedule is not good for my blood pressure.

This, however, makes me feel slightly better about me:

We all had a selfie party. This was the reaction the link to mine got (it was the tumblr page, so it started with the ones in the mask but still). We're a fab fandom; everyone in it (read: everyone playing a lunatic) is cute.

So far I've gotten a little math done, written a bit, talked to amazing people, and then my internet died (somewhere around 2:30 - and I was in a conversation at the time so yeah, annoying) but it usually does that around this time of night so I'm just waiting for it to come back up now. Listening to music, reading for accounting since I have a test on Friday.

I could probably go rest the modem but I know nothing about it so... yeah.

Back up at about 3:20, down again at 3:32, back up at somewhere around 4:30. It does that pretty much every night for some reason.

Also, this came up in conversation with another Trager blogger:

"I see how yours is written so canon and beautifully while mine's just…not that and possibly never will be. So I'd get knots in my stomach when I'd see your responses sometimes [...] [b]ecause I was painfully intimidated by you."

So that was amazing and yet another pop tab in the 'You're Not A Terrible Writer' jar. (Although I do have far too many things saved in draft that I need to reply to. Also, ghostwriting. Ghostwriting first.)

It is just now 5:00 in the morning and I... wow... why? Why do I do this to myself? I wondered earlier if it was a kind of self-punishment for something I felt like I'd done and the problem with that is that's kind of a too-plausible an explanation. I mean, it would make sense. A lot of things are changing (slowly, but still changing) and that's bound to cause some temporary issues.

Anyway. It's early and I need to sleep for at least a few hours. This up all night thing was fun for a while but it's getting annoying now so I'm really going to try to straighten my schedule around to more 'normal' hours.

Wish me luck on that, if you're so inclined, and I will see you all again soon.

I REALLY need to quit with the cosplay stuff

But I also REALLY want to do something for which I only require a decent lab coat (which, let's face it, I would probably also just wear anyway because lab coats are awesome - they're like toned-down straitjackets) and a small bottle of rigid collodion (because scar makeup). I can find a bottle for like five bucks total on Amazon and the coat is usually anywhere between 15 and 20 bucks so this is like, the cheapest one on the list. Like, 'I can pay for it on my own' cheap - also known as 'the really good kind of cheap'.

Also, 'Adventures in Insomnia'.

Ya know, there's an upside to insomnia - I tend to get a lot of work done. Like quizzes and required journals and crap like that.

All in all, astronomy is by far the most 'involved' class I'm in this quarter. They ask a lot of questions. Not sure if I like it. Not very charismatic. Makes the whole thing kind of an intrusive, underfoot figure. Oh, well.

So, yeah...

Upside: I'm getting a lot done.
Downside: No sleep is happening. None. I have been up all night about every other night now.

BUT. That at least means I can work ahead. Besides I'm just young enough to handle it still.

So... I'm actually going to try to sleep because it's after four in the morning right now and I've been trying to get a slightly more normal sleep schedule out of all this and... that's just not been happening.

I need to get back on writing too, since I only have two more chapters to get done before it all goes back to the client. It's getting to the point where I really want to work on it just because I really want to see it done, you know?

So that's probably gonna be tomorrow. Accounting and writing. Yeah. Sure.

Good night, everyone~ Wish me luck with sleeping when normal humans do.