I used to think most things were endless and unobtainable.

Chaotic and confusing.

Like the amount, or types, of birds in the air.

There are too many to even start counting or naming.

The fruits at the grocery store – there are so many I can’t keep up.

But now I’m noticing that things aren’t never-ending.

The fruit in the grocery store is pretty much the same every week.

But before antipsychotics, I thought there were endless amounts of fruits, so many I can’t keep track of most of them.

But now I know that’s not true, and the fruit at the grocery store is pretty predictable.

I used to think that it was impossible for me to notice the difference between birds.

How do you even start to tell them apart?

There’s countless species.

Too many calls, too many patterns to comprehend.

Now, I have a bird tracker/finder app and the types of birds around my apartment complex are pretty predictable. 

There may be a rarer sighting once every few months or so, but the same birds hang out here everyday.

And there are not an infinite amount of birds or fruits.

There’s a ton of both, but not as many as I used to think.

I used to think it was infinite and confusing.

Honestly, I couldn’t see an end.

It’s amazing to me how much antipsychotics have helped me see the world through a different lense.

A clearer lense.

It feels impossible to really get this point across to y’all.

But I see the world differently now.

It’s much more cohesive, much more understandable, more predictable.

Things were so chaotic for so long I just thought that was how the world worked.

But, in fact, that was just how my brain works.

The world used to be very scary and unsure to me.

Full of information that’s bewildering and puzzling.

I couldn’t quite wrap my head around variations of things.

I guess that’s the clearer way to say that.

It’s almost like I couldn’t see the details of things.

I could get the idea of what was being said, but my mind couldn’t comprehend the smaller features.

And I knew the smaller features existed, my mind just didn’t compute that that’s what the difference is.

If that makes sense.

This is so hard to describe!

Before I was taking medication that works for me, I saw the world almost like it’s full of basic categories.

A bird is a bird.

There was no room for a barn swallow and a house finch.

They’re all just birds.

Which isn’t wrong, right?

It’s just not seeing the full picture of things.

It’s like I could only see half of the subject matter.

A bird has a beak, wings, eyes and ears, and that sums it up.

There was no space in my head available for feather lengths, colors, or patterns.

It’s like that part of the concept of a bird, didn’t exist for me.

But I knew that there are tons of different species of birds at the same time.

It felt limitless, exponential.

But it’s not.

It’s just that I couldn’t see the whole picture.

As if my brain was just fumbling all of the information into these comprehensive subjects or topics for me.

Because it knew I didn’t have the capacity for all the details with the chaos in my mind.

So the details were just not there.

And this goes for everything in my life, not just the birds and fruits, those are just easy examples that I thought of.

This goes for people, places and things too.

Everything, everywhere, everyday.

I have never been able to see the full picture until recently.

And even now, I’m unsure if I have all of the parts of things.

This even comes into play with people’s names.

I have a terrible time retaining names, it’s almost embarrassing how bad I am.

But I can see a face and notice it’s familiar, but for the life of me, I can’t attach a name to people I meet.

It’s like my brain can’t compute it.

Because I want to remember and I try to remember, but my brain won’t retain it.

And I don’t know how to change that part.

I don’t know if I can change that part.

Antipsychotics have made name retention a bit easier, but it’s still very difficult for me.

Maybe one day things will click into place for me.

Or maybe it never will.

It’s now making more sense as to why I was confused all the time for years.

My brain, quite literally, couldn’t keep up with the information.

I realized today that I don’t want to feel things like I used to.

When I went off on my rants about how annoying it is that medications numb me like they do a few entries back…

Well, as of today, Thursday, July 18, 2024, I’m now grateful for the numbing effect.

Because I’ve been feeling a lot this week – from being inconsistent with my Paliperidone last week.

And I don’t want to feel like this anymore.

Not at all.

This is not fun.

I have got to stop romanticizing shit that’s not healthy.

I think I’m over the giant ups and downs for now, for today.

I’ve been getting a taste of it this week and I do not like who I am unmedicated.

That Keren is not who I am anymore.

Today, I’m grateful for antipsychotics and their dulling effect, and I’m grateful I can see all of the birds and fruits.

– Keren