Starker on 24/5/2019 at 05:01
Sounds like it went really well, all things considered.
Btw, here's a game I just heard about the other day. I haven't played it yet, but it's supposed to be about dealing with grief and the difficulty of moving on:
Quote:
(
https://agaitcheson.itch.io/the-book-ritual)
An interactive art-piece played using a real-world book of your choice.
Write in your book to tell it about yourself. Deface its pages in creativity exercises, so that your book can understand you. Tear out pages to keep the conversation going, as it reveals to you how it came to be and why it wants to know you.
The Book Ritual is about dealing with loss and accepting change. It is about coming to terms with decisions that can't be undone, and the souvenirs which will lose their meaning to time.
[video=youtube;MZ3qGdS_8Q8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ3qGdS_8Q8[/video]
What you use to dispose of pages is up to you, the player:
* Play with a standard office shredder
* Play with your own waste-paper bin
* Build your own USB-connected shredder with the instructions included
The Book Ritual can be played at home on your own, or set up at an exhibition, with visitors collaboratively transforming a book, each shred being a souvenir of a stranger's personal experience.
Gray on 2/6/2019 at 04:03
I'm not sure if I've turned a corner, but something is different. After we did the ashes, I don't know, perhaps not closure, I'll probably never get that, but it did feel as if a great weight was lifted off my shoulders. For once, I can focus on myself a bit. I know, to you that probably sounds laughable, because all I ever talk about is myself, but that's not what's my life has been until now. The last few years have just been about dealing with my wife's illness, helping her as best I could, then her slow decline and death. I've never really had the time to deal with my own illness.
This week I've been doing new things. I found a CBT app called (
www.sleepio.com/) Sleepio that I've started to use (recommended by the NHS). I did some proper CBT with a therapist some 12-15 years ago, so I know what it's about, but it's a long time ago, I've probably forgotten a lot of it, and I've not been able to keep up the things I did know over the last very turbulent 10 years. Now, sticking with the program requires some discipline. This past year I've been drinking more than I should, knowing full and well I should cut down. If I'm gonna stick with the CBT thingy, it's pointless if I drink too much, because alcohol is the enemy of discipline, and also sleep. Then, logically, it makes perfect sense to do both at once. It may sound as if that's making it harder, but no, they support each other, making it easier. But there's a third thing. The Sleepio app will happily import sleep data from a Fitbit. So I bought one. I generally hate the idea of a Fitbit, but then again, as a computer science nerd, I do love numbers and graphs. Point being, these three things now converge in a way I didn't actually plan: CBT sleep management, reduce alcohol consumption, and the physical activity I was already doing but now have new shiny numbers for, perhaps I can at last make some SMALL progress with my sleep disorder. As some of you might remember, I'm a bitter grumpy cynic, and I'm very sceptical about most things, but in this particular case perhaps it might actually be vaguely helpful. Maybe.
So yeah, the perpetual pessimist is somewhat optimistic. Vaguely.
Marecki on 4/6/2019 at 09:53
Good luck!
BTW. I don't suppose there is a way of getting Sleepio to import data from an alternative Fitbit app which does not upload band data to the mothership, is there? Assuming there *are* such apps available, of course - I use Gadgetbridge with my Mi Band (I absolutely hate the idea of letting this kind of data out of my grasp, regardless of whether it goes to China, the US or Zimbabwe; the app being free software is nice too) but to the best of my knowledge it doesn't support Fitbits.
Gray on 4/6/2019 at 12:07
The Sleepio app specifically mentions two devices, Fitbit and something called UP, which I don't know anything about. But really, any device that will log your sleep details, you can just paste that into the app if it's not supported itself.
bjack on 4/6/2019 at 21:19
Gray, keep on keeping on dude! You are not being silly. You love(d) your wife. She’s gone though, so direct that love where it counts in the land of the living. She would be OK with that, at least I hope she would. You’ve been through so much. Caring for a sick loved one is draining on the soul and body. You did your best and now it is time for you to be you and let yourself fly. It’s your time now. Of course don’t over do it, but be free. You have been a saint. Enjoy life and what it has to offer. Be nice though! :)
Gray on 4/6/2019 at 22:41
Thank you.
Yes, you're right, but I'd rather still be wiping up her vomit and diarrhoea than not have her here with me anymore. It was almost two years of chemotherapy. A very unpleasant process. I hated to see her get weaker and weaker, and slowly fade into nothing. If it was my choice, I'd rather sit by her bed, holding her hand, just talking, than be with any supermodel alive. Nobody yet has matched her clever brains. I'll never stop missing her. But I'll focus on the good things. Her smile. Her sparkling eyes. Like a beam of pure happiness.
But yes, I should move on, let go of the past, I know. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm moving towards it.
Gray on 4/6/2019 at 23:32
Quote Posted by Tocky
It might even help you sleep.
So I've been told. I live in Scotland now, and almost every single person I know have smoked it or still do. They all tell me it'll be good to help me sleep, and I don't doubt them. Thing is, I never want to do anything illegal, I just don't have the street smarts, I'm too thick, if it turns out I like it I wouldn't know where to go or who to buy it from. If it was made legal, sure, I'd give it a go, but low on the THC and higher on the CBD. We even got some for my wife to help kill the pain, so I've rolled a few joints for her, but never actually used it myself. So I have handled it, just never used it. She mocked my poor joint rolling skills, they came out quite wonky, I guess I just didn't have the talent for it, but she was too weak to do it herself at that point. Her sister later got her a vape thingy that I loaded with weed, and it seemed to do her some good, or at least ease the pain a bit.
[Edit]
Point being, I'm not claiming some moral high ground here. I'd be quite happy to try it and see if it helps me sleep, I just do NOT want to do anything illegal. My slow brain just can't work itself around doing anything vaguely duplicitous, I can't remember all the nonsense I say, so I'm very strictly only speaking the truth to everybody. If I was making shit up I'd never remember what lies I told and to whom. This makes me a terrible liar and an awful weed buyer. Even if I could figure out where and how to get it, if I was asked by street cops I couldn't lie my way out of it, I'm too thick for that now.
PigLick on 5/6/2019 at 00:10
Keep in mind that it does affect people differently. In my case, it helps manage pain, but certainly doesnt help me sleep.
Tocky on 5/6/2019 at 04:53
Cops are like everybody else in that most of them see the hypocrisy in illegal weed and legal booze. They just have to do their jobs they are sworn to. They are pretty lax over small amounts in most cases. I remember one finding a roach in my cars ash tray but he laughed when I said damn I would have smoked that if I knew it was in there and just let me go. Told me not to smoke and drive is all, which is sensible advice. I'm not real duplicitous either but it works out I don't have to be since I'm friendly and unassuming. I guess I could have run into a real asshole in all these years but somehow I never have.
Lawyers are right about not volunteering information though. Of course that might not jibe with the paranoia you sometimes get from a "head high" herb. You might want a "body high" sort. I've never much cared for the heavy sleepy feel of those but it might be just the thing you need. I guess I've never much cared for what others thought should be legal or illegal either. Speaking of that, I did recently buy my first legal weed just last week. My wife and I went to Colorado for my grandsons graduation and we dropped into a dispensary. An interesting experience.
First you enter a wide narrow room with a flip up chuck wagon style window where you present your drivers license. I didn't like that. I don't like being on anyone's list. The guy said not to worry and that they never shared information with any other place but I never trust that shit. But I wanted the experience so I had to. Next we were told to go into a door to a waiting room. Lot's of normal folks just like you sitting on couches watching a TV or chatting. One couple had a dog with them. Nobody was saying "far out man" or anything. You were given a number and told to wait.
Next to this room was the buy room. It was all space age clear glass and chrome spotless. The wall between was glass with a single glass door that a guy would walk to and call a number when it was your turn. Meanwhile you could watch as others chose this or that out of clear glass cases waited on by friendly ordinary folks you wouldn't think twice about if you met them in the park. They knew their shit though. When our number came up we had to let the guy know we knew jack about the legal stuff and he would have to lead us a bit. Since he was around my age we struck up a conversation about the old days and got on right off. He even brought over some Lebanese type blonde hash for me to smell. I love that smell. However we didn't have but a little over a week in the state so we couldn't buy much. I got some tangerine candy and a quarter ounce of buds at a really decent price. It wasn't the name brand Willie Nelson or Snoop Dog stuff which ran a little more but this new stuff is WAY potent. The buds were only 25 bucks and the candy, some twenty of the lozenges, a mere 20. The array of choices were stunning but with all those waiting on the other side of the glass for their turn at one of the three or four sales people we figured not to waste his time.
We spent the first few days with the kids so didn't partake as we explored Estes park and the mountains and fun parks and old Stanley hotel where Stephen King had a nightmare that became The Shining. After we were on our own I bought a glass pipe at a head shop and sat on a porch off the back of a little cottage we had rented next to a mountain stream and got Rocky Mountain high. Two puffs. Don't do five. Five is really too many. Just a little pinch off one of the buds was all we used. The rest we gave away. There was just too much to do during the day and we had to soak in as much of that beautiful country as we could. I don't puff and drive anymore. Besides, there are no guard rails on those mountain switchbacks.
The candy I thought was a wash. At the end of the day after all our train rides through canyons and highest suspension bridge this and tallest mountain that we would take some candy before bed. I never felt anything out of it though. I would stay up a couple of hours watching it hail or sleet or snow as it often did at night only to be a mild spring day in the morning with elk or ram walking about and hardly paying you any attention and the roads hardly damp and ready for travel. Anyway, after the smoke, which was just way too too kick ass, the candy was a let down. I didn't feel one. I didn't feel two. I didn't feel four. Only... at about three in the morn I woke up to go piss and looked at myself in the mirror realizing I was fucked up as a goose. It took four or five hours to hit and about four of them to do it. Who has time to plan hours ahead for a high?
I wish I could have taken some of the buds back but you just can't risk it. Likely they wouldn't have given a shit at Denver International. It's legal there. But Memphis might if there had been anyone who didn't just want to get done with their shift. BTW Denver is the biggest airport I've ever seen. Denver itself is bigger than Chicago or Dallas or LA even. That surprised me.
Daxim on 5/6/2019 at 15:03
Quote Posted by Gray
Fitbit […] I do love numbers and graphs
I was annoyed that you outright dismissed my suggestion of (
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/E4cKD9iTWHaE7f3AJ/melatonin-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know) drastically reducing the melatonin dose, but I didn't show it out of politeness.
Now that you have measuring equipment, do the science, I will not allow any excuses. What do you have to lose by experimenting?
PS: Went into a sleep lab this year with my problem and the prescribed treatment provided immediate and full relief of all symptoms.