Being Mentally Normal: The Theory and The Actuality

[Mitchy1nge]

we must be on part 11 or something by now?

Sorry, not trying to make it me me me, just trying to explain why I am so anti jumping off a bridge or building!

You can end up with horrible damage no matter what you do - liver and kidney damage, compartment syndrome, anoxic brain damage, etc.

It's certainly something I considered a lot too when I was low and suicidal.

I'm dressed, fed and ready to face John Lewis. I have been successfully bribed with the promise of stopping for coffee and cake in the cafe. I'm so easily pleased.

I'm now dressed, and weighing up JL or ikea. I think ikea will win...

Also dressed, eating lunch and contemplating going out for a jog.

I hate ikea but love the meatballs. Sadly we live miles from one.

The food is one of the main reasons I'm going. They just need to sell wool and I would move in.

I just gave myself an electric shock from the open light switch in my room. Maybe in ikea I will Buy More Lamps.

I think it would take over an hour by car for me to get to any Ikea.

I love the food in ikea, it's so...random
And I get free hot drinks, as I have an ankle biter. Result.

Knowing that I now have all day every day to go to ikea, why have I gone now?!

You think IKEA on a Saturday is hard work? I've somehow promised I'll teach Mavis how to play cribbage

As if seven-card whist and patience weren't hard enough.

(The way I explain to myself our difficulties communicating with each other is to believe that Mavis has a symbolic-inference thinking style which is very difficult for me to interface with as I have more of a classification-induction thinking style, which means when we explain things to each other, we're often talking at cross-purposes. She learns things like new card games really quickly and seems to intuitively develop successful strategies, but it's hard for me to understand how to explain a card game to her when she frequently refuses to listen to an explanation for something she's complaining that she doesn't understand. But then it clicks, while she's doing something that seems to me to be completely unrelated, like writing down which suit has been trumps on each hand (it's random, different each hand, on the game we were playing last week). And it's equally frustrating for her when she's explaining something to me about how she understands, for example, her relationship with her mother through symbolic parallels she draws from her everyday life, films/TV, and/or books she reads, and I'm there trying to classify and systematise the whole thing instead of understanding the symbolic meaning.)

Hope you're enjoying IKEA

Wow. I bow to your superiority in difficult situations! Have you known her long?

I don't know how to play cribbage. Am I missing out?

I don't think my explanation there is terribly helpful, unforunately. I'm not sure I mean "inference". Also not sure I mean "induction" either. The trouble is I'm using those words in a conversational sense but they also have proper meanings in systems like classical logic, which I'm woefully unaware of. All I know is we think very differently - it's like we're using different mental languages or something, and I'm struggling for the right words to explain it.

I've known Mavis for over a decade, but we lose touch for long periods of time sometimes. I got back in touch with her a few months ago - I had her phone number from when I bumped into her in town a few months before that, when she was shopping for a wedding dress for when she marries Boris (who doesn't know they're going to get married).

Cribbage is fun - its a card game where you keep score with pegs on a board. I think for some bizarre reason it became very popular in the US navy, so if you play online there are hundreds of shit-hot American players ready to thrash poor unsuspecting people like me who were taught by their grandmothers

That's ok I get the gist re Mavis, and also that this stuff is hard to explain.

We had a cribbage set when I grew up, maybe step father could play? I'm not sure.

Off to somewhere which isn't ikea. Anywhere will do.

Am going round Mavis's later - last time I was there she was taking all the words (affirmations, linked/themed groups of pictures, things like leaflets she's found that have a symbolic meaning different from what you'd think from looking at them, meaningful pictures etc.) down off her walls and ceilings but I don't know what she's planning to put there instead. I think the unborn-baby wall will be staying, though. Every surface in the flat was covered in words or pictures, so it's going to be odd without them.

Yes, sorry about the bad explanation. It's hard to understand why she and I get on, but we do

There are some lovely crib boards about.

Yes, IKEA is probably hellish today.

I can't remember how to play cribbage, it was one of those games I learnt as a child.

Fuck. Have gone up two, possibly three jeans sizes. Live in skirts so first jeans shopping for a while, and obviously not a problem as was v. thin beforehand except obviously it is a problem and a big deal and may actually finish me off.

(Obviously am being dramatic before anyone reports me for saying unmentionable things).

((( caulk )))

One griddle pan purchased (her), one very large slice of cake eaten (me). Now feel guilty about all the crap I've eaten today.

Hugs, Caulk
I refuse to wear jeans most of the time, as I really don't want to know what size I am

I only wear jeans that have a bit of stretch in them. Very forgiving of weight fluctuations.

I'm the size of a house after Christmas. The no carb diet starts on Monday.

Email worked, CPN is dropping meds round later (they've switched to 7 day working, 8-8).

I don't wear jeans. Need to fix my scales so I can actually see if I'm losing weight, I'm using MFP.