Unfortunate side-effects

We were at my inlaws cabin by the sea again for four days this weekend. "Oh, we thought in advance, we'll finally resurrect our extinct sex-life!" Until I woke up on Thursday morning sniffling like an allergic bloodhound, and sneezing over anyone I came in to contact with.

Mistress claims she doesn't find virus infections sexy. Imagine that.

For once I didn't either, actually. My body seems to be a bit strange that way at other times - whenever I get a cold or a hangover, I get desperately horny. Unfortunately my prospective partner in any horny-related activities doesn't share my feelings, and have a more sensible idea that I should drink lots of water and rest. I want her to boink my skull off, she wants me to shut up and rest 'til I'm healtny again. Spoil sport.

Any way, we had a good long week end but without much excitement. Except for Sunday night when I finally managed to convince Mistress that we should sneak away in the car to the nearest gas station and get us some chips and beer. After two days at the same place, I was having cabin fever (literary, very funny), and was dying for some diversion (since I wasn't going to get to go to the movies nor get whipped and fucked, I at least wanted a beer to our Harry Potter-movie on the laptop...).

Do you know what happens when someone, say for example me, take anti-depressants, metylphenidate (that's ADHD-medication, like ritalin for example) and combines it with even a very small amount of alcohol? Bad things. Very bad things.

I mean, it does say so on the package. It says "don't combine with alcohol". But... somethings I just have to try by myself. What happened was that I was starting to feel queasy, went to bed and woke up a couple of hours later and had to run outside to... yeah. Hurl. Gross gross gross.

Also, no running water at our small (tiny, really, just a cupboard) cabin down by the pier, and no water closet or shower at the whole place.

And the whole of next day I had a hangover, with head ache and nausea, without even getting the benefit of a) having been drunk or b) drunk anything good or noteworthy. So, yeah. I guess I'm going to be a rather involuntary teetotaler in the future. And I don't want to!

The anti-depressants are a temporary thing, I hope, though my mother eats something similar permanently and has done that for the last ten years or so, so I might be in for the same fate (rather medication than recurring depressions, any day). The metylphenidate however helps with my ADHD-symptoms, and I have no reason to believe they will ever lessen or that I at some point wont benefit from the medication.

The next experiment will be to see what happens with me if I skip the ADHD-meds for two days, and drink on the night in between. I like the meds, they make me get through my days much easier and with much less effort, but it would be nice to know that I have a choice, that I could have alcohol at special occasions. Both me and Mistress are a bit of whisky-aficionados, and I would grieve if our beautiful bottles of Caol Ila and Laphroaig and Glenfiddich would be out of my reach for the rest of my life. And I got a bottle of real champagne at my graduation party, and I would like to be able to drink it one day, perhaps at our six-year anniversary in August. It's not about the amount in any way, but to not be able to have even one glass without puking feels a little sad.

Ah well. If my problems aren't bigger than this, I guess life is pretty okay right now. 

All deep thought postponed until further notice

I was going to write something insightful and astounding today. Possibly something about the pony play-experience, or my angst over not being in school or employed or even home with the kid and what does that make me? (Oh My God! I'm useless! What am I good for? I'm a lazy good-for-nothing! and so on and so forth.) Or maybe about... something else important.

However, I got a migraine yesterday afternoon, and now my brain is mush. I still have a headache and I'm nauseas and I don't want to do anything but sit perfectly still. Or possibly sleep, except I'm not sleepy. So no profound thoughts today.

We're leaving for my in-laws cabin by the sea tomorrow, celebrating Midsummer and having a mini-vacation. I'm supposed to be packing. All I've done so far is putting little S's life jacket on the comfy chair, together with her bathing suit and four squirt guns. I'm not sure that really constitutes packing. At all, actually. Oh well. 

Easter breakdown

We're on vacation at my in-laws place. Four days without school nor job, with actual free time together, and not the least, with mother-in-law taking care of the kid from the time she wakes up at six until the time we venture downstairs, around nine thirty.

This morning we used the morning in bed to have glorious sex. It took us a couple of days before we had slept enough and spent enough time together before we got around to it, but it was definitely worth the wait.

And then, this morning, we had planted a surprise for little S. We bought her a bike last week, and hid it in the basement yesterday, with a string going from it and out in the yard. The plan was for her to play outside after breakfast, discovering the string, follow it and get the bike as a surprise. I had planned this for months and was looking forward to it with great excitment.

There turned out to be a snag, though. I pretty big one as far as I was concerned. Mistress and  me had completely different time tables in mind, and had failed to communicate about it. Mostly, I think, because we both thought our own was so completely logical, it didn't dawn on either of us that the other one might have a different view.

Mistress wanted to spare the surprise to last. She appreciated the time spent outside, she was working on a project freeing the garage door from ice (it's still wintery around here) and was happy that little S was playing nicely with her doll and the snow and the gravel. She was oblivious to the fact that I was anxiously waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

At first it was okay. I was enjoying the sun and playing with the dog and everything was okay. But then I started to realise that things didn't go the way I had planned them. Why wasn't Mistress leading the kid towards the string? Why didn't she act?

Time went on, I got more and more fidgety and tried to ask Mistress about it, but it was hard to communicate about something that was a secret and a surprise when the kid was right next to us. Eventually little S got tired and started whining, and then I was a little bit more insistent, asking again about "when?". But I still don't think Mistress got how I was feeling or that we had strayed very far from the scenario I had envisioned.

At long last, Mistress signalled that okay, I might lead her to it, but I didn't want to lead her. I wanted her to find it, and the only way to do that was to make her play in that general area of the yard. But Mistress was busy with her project, and little S was playing by her, and when I tried to stir up some interest around the string-area, nothing happened. I asked Mistress to join me, and she answered me with a flat "no". And that was when I broke down.

I couldn't stand it anymore. My brain melted. I was overcome with despair and the only thing I could think of doing was fleeing, which I promptly did. I just left everything and walked away out on the street, and walked a 100 metres to where the postboxes were.

Eventually I calmed down, went back, Mistress and little S played around the string by then, she found it, and eventually the bicycle and everything happened as I'd planned it to. Except for me biting back sobs and blinking away tears, refusing to look at Mistress and talking to little S in a false cheerful tone of voice.

We managed to clear it up later, mostly by text. I don't think either one of us had known before how hard it is for me to wait for something. Or well, I know of course, but I'm so skilled by now at not putting myself in situations where I have to wait that it's rarely a problem. But this time I was powerless to prevent it, and what happens is total break down of my brain.

This is one of the aspects of ADHD for me. This is one of the things that makes me exhausted, why it is a disability. I can deal up to a point, like a damn filling with water, but past that point the damn brakes and there is a flood of rage and despair. I tried to hint at Mistress that I found it difficult, but I wasn't very clear, and she wasn't all that perceptive.

Now I'm more or less okay, a couple of hours later, but the tears are still about to well up every now and then and I feel exhausted and anxious. I don't know if I should take one of my anxiety-pills or if I should just hope it will pass on it's own. It's very apparent it wasn't a very beneficial exercise for my brain, that's for sure.

I wish I had a more normal brain. I wish I could wait, like most people. I wish normal everyday interaction wouldn't cause a nuclear breakdown in my head. But this is me, and this is how I function, and we'll just have to work around.

And little S loved her bike, and that makes it all a little better.

At medieval week

We're on one of the most beuatiful places I know, the town of Visby on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. It's Medieval Week, a yearly event that gathers thousands of people, including most of my and Mistress' friends. I haven't been here for five years, and it's still magical.

The old part of town is surrounded by a city wall, built around the thirtenth century, and the surrounded area has countless ruins, churches and medieval buildings, and the streets have the same crazy layouts that all medieval cities had - the go in every direction, and are very narrow.

We haven't been all that much in medieval garb ourselves, it's been raining and we've been doing other stuff too. But tonight me and Mistress are going to a show, dressed up, and tomorrow we'll be at the market place and other event-related things all day. It's not the same to be here with a little kid, not to mention sharing a flat with my mother, but it's still good.

And it's been a great way to handle the depression. I haven't been this active in ages, and the somber thoughts are all but gone. They're there when I wake up, but then I get thrown into such a lot of fun activities that I get distracted. The city wall, the ocean, the smells and sounds, the people, and my family - it all makes me happy.

And two days ago we went to an ale-house in a medieval cellar after little S hade fallen asleep, and had some beer with a couple of friends, and listened to live musicians playing scabrous music, and I haven't laughed like that in a year or so. The day after I had a hangover, but I was still actually happier and less tired than I've been all summer. A hangover is apparently nothing compared to the continous dreariness of depression and fatigue.

With mother in the same apartment, everything kinky or remotely sexual or looking like power excange is kept to a minimum. But I'm hers as much as always, and I feel that in my heart every day.

The standard treatment

It's good to be away, and it's good to come home, We went to my inlaws cabin by the sea again, and it was exactly what I needed. A lot of sleep, and a lot of sea and trees and blueberrypicking. When I needed a rest, I could take it, but when I got bored, there were my family, just outside the door, doing something silly and inviting me to join in. We bathed in the sea, we went out in the canoe, we went to a sandy beach, we went to a fair, and we walked the dogs a lot. I think I fell a little back in love with both of them, both the two-year-old and the forty-two-year-old. I have amazing darlings!

And when we left home five days ago the depression was... depressing. Opressing. I was weighed down, and most prominent was the obvious lack of joy. I had no happy. No happy feelings, nothing was fun, nothing was enjoyable. I did a lot of things that I usually like doing, and it did nothing for me.

But I kept on doing them. And today, I actually felt happy for a moment. I think maybe I did yesterday too. The trick is to keep bombarding my stagnant brain with things it has to react to, and keep doing things that usually brings joy, even if I don't feel any, and eventually, it will come back to me. I know it will. My textbooks says so... And I've decided to believe that I will function like most people, and that the standard treatment of depression will work on me too.

Behavioural activation, it's called. That, and Citalopram. I'm doing both.

And everytime I get snappy with Mistress, she says it's the meds. She might very well be right, too.

Edinburgh!

Being without Mistress for two days makes me realise, for the gazillionth time, how much I depend on her. How I miss her when she's gone. Her being away makes my world slightly off kilter, as if everything could begin rolling away as on a sloping floor at any time. It's just wrong.

Especially at bedtimes. It's kind of sad, and very symbolic of our current parenting-centered life, that the highlight of each day is cuddling up together in our bed, going to sleep. Putting on my own dog collar, cuddling a mere stuffed toy, is not an ok substitute.

But then I did something incredibly brave. Brave, because I was deadly afraid of doing it, and did it anyway. I flew from our town in Sweden to Edinburgh, Scotland, all by myself, with a transfer at Heathrow. I left home for the bus in to town by 8.30, and then followed train to the airport, airplane to Heathrow, airplane to Edinburgh and finally bus to meet Mistress in City Centre. We met in a very cold and rainy street surrounded by construction sites at around 17.30 local time, which ment 18.30 for my internal clock. It was a long, long day.

I mean, apart for me worrying about stuff, running around in circles, and hurrying through everything everywhere for fear of being late, ending up sitting at airport gates waiting forever to board the plane, everything went fine. I got through every security check, including having my photo taken at two different locations at Heathrow, having my bag swiped for explosives, getting frisked after beeping in the metal detector (even though I've taken off not only my belt but also my shoes), and showing my passport no less than four times total at the Swedish airport.

At none of those checks was I declared a terrorist. Which is reasonable, because I'm not, but I'm thinking that the more checks you do, the higher the risk for a false positive - if you do enough checks, eventually everyone will be busted for something, by chance or technical malfunction, purely for statistical reasons. 

Actually, the only trouble that directly concerned me (there was a man who fell ill because of low blood pressure on the flight to Heathrow, but he quickly recovered) happened after landing. Mistress' phone didn't receive my texts, so when I arrived at City Centre, she wasn't waiting for me, and instead I ended up in the drizzling rain, hiding out in a roofed doorway without a cap or an umbrella, while we tried to connect and find each other. But the mere fact that we were on the same soil, that there weren't any oceans or hundreds of miles between us, made me calm. I knew she would come, I knew she would find me in this strange, rainy city, and she did.

We went to her hotel, checked me in, had a hot shower, and eventually simply went downstairs and ate what the receptionist found in their freezer (we think). I had a lovely chicken tikka masala, Mistress had spinach cannelloni, and we got complimentary garlic bread. Then we went upstairs, crawled in to bed, tried to watch a stupid movie on the flat screen tv (it is a flat screen. It is also very narrow, and short. One might simply call it petite all around...), and fell asleep.

But in the morning we woke up to a whole new day, and the slow morning cuddle turned in to her fucking me, until we've orgasmed twice and lay panting on the bed. It was so so good to be together again. I can barely stand it when we're apart.

She's working now, holding a lecture at the conference she's attending, but when she's done we'll go out for lunch. I've been shopping in the morning and had my third shower since I arrived. It's freezing outside, the hotel hasn't got double glazed windows, and everything is damp. Showers are a good way to get warm after being chilled.

I'm in love with the city of Edinburgh. I'm starting to think that one of my life goals is to move here, sometime, even for only a short period. I've visited Scotland three times, and every time when the plane descend at the airport, it is the same feeling - of coming home. I can't explain it, but I do feel it, and somehow I love that there is more than one place on earth that can give me that feeling. Even if the other one is a rainy peninsula that I've only ever visited for short periods as a tourist.