Bang bang vegetables and noodles

I’m really quite impressed by the antidepressants mum’s taking¹. Tbh I don’t know if it is the tablets or if it’s a placebo effect, but after less than a week mum’s mood is lighter and her thinking less disordered: a couple of times today she responded “yes, I know, you’ve already said that” to something I’ve said, and I gave rarely been happier to be corrected.

She is still having moments of sheer panic, but mostly she recognises them for what they are and can dismiss them rather than carrying the cause of the anxiety with her, which is a skill it took me years of therapy to even partially master. All of which is to say: it’s been a good day here.

I felt like I had been quite productive today and, in the chronic illness space I now inhabit, I guess I have been: three phone calls made, multiple text messages sent, my head banged lightly against the iron carapace of the DWP (they sent me a form to fill in, then decided I didn’t need to do it after all. Then they asked why I hadn’t filled it in. Then they confirmed I didn’t need to do it. Now they’ve asked why I haven’t filled it in, and told me they won’t consider my application for benefits until I do. I’m so glad I don’t need to pay for food or the roof over my head, even if it does come at the cost of being woken multiple times in the night sometimes).

Dinner was another Simply Cook recipe: bang bang chicken, but made with vegetables as we don’t have any chicken. Mum quite enjoyed it until the noodles caused a flare of anxiety that could only be soothed by the generous application of coffee ice cream. (She was well aware that noodles shouldn’t cause anxiety, which is a step forward, I suppose.)

I thought it was a bit claggy, but the flavour was nice, and the leftover portion I put aside for lunch tomorrow should be all the better for a night for the flavours to get to know each other. Or it will be worse and I’ll throw it in the food waste bin and have a peanut butter sandwich instead.

So there we go: another day done. I hope for another night of not being wakened stupidly early and, as a bonus, of not knocking over my bedside lamp when my sleeping brain translates the weird chronic pain signals from my hands as being caused by poisonous / venomous critters, causing me to wave my hands around desperately trying to dislodge the critters and instead sending the lamp crashing to the floor. (It’s a glass lampshade, so one of these days the crash may be literal as well as onomatopoeiac. 😬)

1. As I should be, really, given that they’re the same type I take, and have done for a number of years. ↩︎