Claudia Rankine. Source: Wikipedia

 

 

This book is wonderful...it's the only thing I've been able to put my mind on this week that wasn't related to work. It's half prose, half poetry and all terrific.

It's not necessarily traditional wonderful, it's actually quite painful to read at times, but I use "wonderful" because this book's stark and real and sometimes all too relatable.

I need to post the section on insomnia which is both heartbreaking and funny, but here are some highlights:

IMH: The Inability To Maintain Hope

 

 

 

There comes a point during the night when your clock seems to mock you. Do you keep hoping you'll fall asleep or finally get up and do something? Here's what Web MD says:

www.m.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/cant-sleep-when-to-get-out-of-bed

 

 

Two things helping to calm me today are Carola Dibbell's debut novel The Only Ones (a really good read so far) and Billie Holiday. Though, obviously, I don't want the apocalypse to ever happen, I find fiction dealing with that theme is something I'm especially drawn to when I am going through odd times. And Billie Holiday's voice is one of the few I want to hear musically when I'm like this...

 

 

from Baltimore magazine, April 2015. Billie Holiday was born on April 7, 1915
 

There was a time in my 20s I loved food and had absolutely no issues with it. It was after I left home and before I hit my 30s and started noticing how easy it was to gain weight if I didn't watch my intake carefully.

Food has never been so trying as lately, when my anxiety has been so high I can hardly keep anything down unless I eat very small portions. But ever since I've been experiencing anxiety I just cannot eat that much. My stomach and my heart just are not into it.

I have been researching ways to get past this because I know part of me still likes food. I love, when I have time, to read cooking magazines, but lately it's in a more clinical way, less passionate.

There is a lot online about anxiety and appetite...

Anxiety and Appetite Problems

"Stress and appetite have an unusual connection. Each person responds to anxiety differently, but many people find that their anxieties cause them to develop appetite problems that affect not only the way they eat, but also the way they enjoy food.
Appetite problems from anxiety may not seem like a serious symptom, but often the way people change their diets as a response to anxiety ends up having a significantly negative effect on their long term anxiety outlook. If you have anxiety related appetite issues, you need to solve them." more here>>>
http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/symptoms/appetite-problems

Other helpful articles:

http://www.mindpub.com/art456.htm

http://www.patient.co.uk/forums/discuss/zero-appetite-and-chronic-anxiety-145014

Sometimes, I think, there are two kinds of sadness, the kind that numbs you to the point of nothingness and the kind that digs so painfully deep you could only wish you felt nothing. I can never listen to music when I'm the first kind of sad. Nothing helps that.

The second of sad, though, the sadder the music I find, the better. Usually, Bread helps. The sooner I start crying listening to "If," the less emotionally strong I know I am. So I keep listening until I almost feel cleansed and come full circle.

I also like to research things when I'm grasping for straws in a sea of unrest. So I look up more about the things I feel I know have a factual base...if only everything we felt was based on fact or we solve all our emotional problems with fact checks.

Anyway, these two articles are rather interesting and talk more sad music and healing broken hearts.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/depression/can-sad-music-heal-your-broken-heart.aspx

http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/05/15/sad-music-can-help-mend-broken-heart/54857.html