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How Are You Feeling Right Now?

crowgarden

Well-Known Member
really tired. the dosage for my sleep meds was supposed to be increased months ago, but nobody can figure out where the prescription went and my caretakers would run into a ton of legal trouble if they gave me that higher dose without some document proving that I need it.

I'm in this phase again where I don't sleep for days on end until my body gives out and I fall unconscious. It's so draining.

I might actually get brain damage if I don't get that damn prescription soon.
 

AvidFan

Retired Cat Staff
SF Supporter
Freaking out. I was at the kitchen counter when something ran from under the stove to the laundry room. I caught it out of the corner of my eye. It was a mouse. Im scared that where there's one there's more. Mycat won't budge and is staring at the stove.
I hope you get it sorted. I had mice once. The first one I saw was just sitting there next to the fridge looking cute and looking at me. I naively tried to get a live trap to catch it and release it, but eventually educated myself and it was a long war of attrition. The first night they used my cutlery drawer as a toilet and there were times when I was on my sofa and a mouse would appear, skulk along the walls, walk around traps, and then jump on the counters. There was an empty house next door and I think they first got access by the rafters.

Currently I'm dealing with ants. I'm with @LumberJack I don't want to kill anything but when they're literally infesting the house - they're currently using my house as a dumping ground, they dig their ant tunnels then come up through any crack they can find and dump their crap - to keep THEIR nest clean and tidy, so it's also a morgue as they're depositing ant crap and dead ants.... My bait traps seem to keep them at bay!

Good luck with the mice!!
 

LumberJack

Huggy Bear 🐻 u r warned!
SF Supporter
Currently I'm dealing with ants. I'm with @LumberJack I don't want to kill anything but when they're literally infesting the house - they're currently using my house as a dumping ground, they dig their ant tunnels then come up through any crack they can find and dump their crap - to keep THEIR nest clean and tidy, so it's also a morgue as they're depositing ant crap and dead ants.... My bait traps seem to keep them at bay!
Good luck with the mice!!
I have dealt with ants a couple times and I found (quite accidentally) that if they come as a swarm, then I kill every single one of them, no survivors, and the bodies get flushed down the toilet. Didn't need any bait or poison, as the baits were doing nothing, anyway! After I found out that this worked, I googled around and I guess I'm not the first one to try it. The theory is that when a huge mass doesn't make it back to the colony, the colony as a whole will mark that entry route as a predator danger and not come back. They happened to invade the bathroom, likely because they were hurting for water more than for food, so a broom and dustpan to sweep them all up and dump in the toilet, flush, and repeat until no more are left. The little buggers are difficult to stomp, and even then it tends to only stun them and they walk away shortly after. So - drowning it is! :mad: Flushing them down the toilet was just to make sure they didn't scramble back out of the toilet before I could get them all in one place.

It may sound cruel to engage in wholesale killing, but the way I see it is that: I didn't use poison to kill the entire colony, and since they didn't come back it was less death for them in the long run. Further, I do not see individual ants as multiple organisms. The colony as a whole is the individual here, and I can explain the rationale if needed. So what I did was to metaphorically bruise the finger of the single organism to train it to leave me alone.

These were the tiny little black sugar ants though, which are about 1.5 MM in length. I believe the ants in England are larger and I do not know if they behave similarly. But if they are tunneling into the dwelling place, I would turn to digging up all the tunnels that they dig in, and if that didn't work find the nest outdoors and dump petrol in there. This is the folk cure for fire ants in Arizona. Who, by the way, are nasty little beasts. Aggressive as wasps, and what they lack in size they more than compensate for in quantity. They crawl up on anything warm, and when enough are assembled, the signal goes out for them to attack at once. Which means you can be minding your own business but standing in the wrong spot, and suddenly your entire leg is in a special kind of pain. This happened to me once. Only once, as there are some lessons I don't have to repeat too many times to figure it out.

Now that I think of it, though, petrol on the ground is probably pretty irresponsible stewardship of the ground water. There might be something equally irritating that is less toxic?
 
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1964dodge

Has a monkey as a friend
Safety & Support
SF Supporter
Hollow. Hopeless. Sitting transfixed by anguish and loneliness. I’d rather drown in darkness and silence right now, but I don’t have time to wallow. That’s a first. I suppose I could be grateful for that, but my fatigue and emotions are a distraction and an encumbrance. Before, I had the luxury of withdrawing from my classes and hiding from the world, but there’s still no escaping my sadness. Escape is no longer an option. It never was.
*hug*shake
 

LumberJack

Huggy Bear 🐻 u r warned!
SF Supporter
Well, I don’t know what to do. I was doing well for a while, taking care of business, making calls that I dread but also need to manage, appreciating the things that work well as much as being frustrated with the ones that don’t, and doing my best with self care.

I just hit a wall, though. Suddenly the world turned gray and I feel like I’m deeply underwater based on the feeling of physical pressure. Even jotting this very post down is a stretch. I feel like doing nothing more than lying or sitting down and staring vacantly into space. Maybe that’s exactly what I need to do, though. I will try it out. It’s not like I have any other ideas anyway. 😐
 
the dosage for my sleep meds was supposed to be increased months ago, but nobody can figure out where the prescription went and my caretakers would run into a ton of legal trouble if they gave me that higher dose without some document proving that I need it.
While it's understandable that mistakes happen every now and then, they can't just drop the ball. They have a duty to follow up on this.

I'm not sure what is the best resource in Germany for this, but my guess that this organization might be good:

Website: kinderschutzbund.de
email: [email protected]
phone: 0049 30 214809 0.

You might want to call rather than send email to make sure someone is on this ASAP. My hope is that they can get you some help before the weekend comes.
 
@cinnnamonflakez
There may also be some things you can do on your own to improve your sleep. This link (to a page on SF) has some info:

Specific Info for Insomnia

About info in the link: I think most pharmacies have Epsom salts and they are pretty cheap. The long acupressure self-massage takes some effort, but I think it can be worth it.

Some other helpful things might be:

Avoiding alcohol, tobacco, coffee, energy drinks, soda, candy/sugar/sweets, fried foods. Also processed foods in general.

Avoiding stress, high levels of emotion, too much thinking, too much sensory input, too much screen time (especially near bed time).

Between 11pm and 1am especially, if you can't sleep, it's still good to lie down and try to relax.

A meditation practice could be really helpful. One simple meditation is to sit in a chair, or lie down, and think of the sound "Ma" as you inhale deeply (yet gently) and slowly through your nose, and then think of the sound "Om" as you slowly exhale, also through your nose. There are lots of different kinds of meditations though. The websites "Insight Timer" and "Headspace" have some guided meditations, but there might also be some on yt.

Exposure to a lot of light can undermine sleep, so dimming lights close to bedtime and not looking at screens late at night can help.

I hope things will get better soon.
 

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