Daniel Odom's Blog

Adventures in schizoaffective disorder, cervical dystonia, and art.

It has been pointed out that I have a lot of experience with mental illness, and that my experience could help people. The purpose of this site is to communicate my achievements, frustrations, and general attitudes to those having trouble.

Schizoaffective disorder is a psychiatric disorder. It can be thought of as a cross between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It involves hallucinations and paranoid delusions like schizophrenia, and it involves depression and episodes of mania like bipolar disorder. It is treated with therapy and medication—I take handfuls of pills.

Cervical dystonia is a neurological problem. It involves involuntary movements in the neck (in my case, my head tilts to one side) and extreme pain. Like schizoaffective disorder, it is treated with therapy and medication. I receive therapy from a psychologist who specializes in pain, and a pain management doctor helps me with medication.

Art is what I do (whenever possible). I sketch, and I create finished art using several mediums: ink, watercolor, colored pencil, and oil. I really love it, but my symptoms frequently get in the way.

There are plenty of sites out there about schizoaffective disorder, but they mostly focus on symptoms and stigma, not on what is is like to live with it on a day-to-day basis. I hope to fill that void.

My plan is to update this page weekly. Please email me with any questions or comments.

October 06, 2025

I spent a long time in the hospital, but I'm back now.

I was inpatient for some paranoid issues. Even in the hospital, I couldn't use the stairs or shower. I was too terrified. I had to use the elevator to move between floors, and I just skipped the hygiene thing. After getting home I managed to shower, but the stairs were still scary. I sometimes have to stand there and psych myself up to go up / down stairs. It's a problem.

They tweaked my meds—I now have 5mg Zyprexa scheduled in the morning and afternoon, and I still have 5mg Zyprexa PRN available to me. It seems to be helping. They also prescribed hydroxyzine, but my pharmacist said that taking hydroxyzine with clozapine is a really bad idea. I'm going to ask my psychiatrist for an alternative. It's a bummer, because that was really helpful.

They also suggested that I might have some obsessive compulsive symptoms. They think this because I have been having thoughts that go around and around in my head, distracting me and making me feel bad. I also have obsessive issues; for example, in the studio I have to have my pens set down in a certain order, or, in the kitchen, the Keurig pods have to be in a certain way. My therapist tells me that about 30% of men with schizoaffective disorder have obsessive compulsive disorder. Ugh.

September 14, 2025

I'm gradually getting better. I managed to do two good things this week: an oil painting a few days ago, and an ink piece today. I'm hoping to be able to do another oil tomorrow. If I hurt too much to paint, I may go to the natural history museum. I like the shiny rocks. 😁

My depression has not been an issue, which is great. I have had pretty serious depression problems in the past, but lately it's been paranoia. I've needed my PRN every day this week—a couple of days, twice. I'm ready to be through with this flare up. It's gone on for weeks.

Speaking of PRN, my prescriber (Chris) changed it from twice a day to three times. Medicaid didn't like that, so she needs to get a Prior Authorization to make the change official. I talked to the pharmacy today, and she hasn't done that yet. I'll have to call her tomorrow.

September 07, 2025

Another terrible week. Just today, I went out for my daily walk, and I was convinced that a car driving past was filled with spies. After a couple of minutes, I realized that it was just my brain messing with me, but still, it was scary. I had to take an extra Zyprexa.

Speaking of meds, I counted. I take just shy of forty pills a day, not counting PRNs. It reminds me of a story: a couple of years ago, I was in the hospital. The nurse brought us our evening meds, and, when one of the other patients saw how many pills I take, he exclaimed, Holy Fuckballs! I thought it was funny.

I sketched a couple of times, but not enough for me to be satisfied. I'm usually pretty hard on myself, but in weeks like this one (and the last couple) my self esteem takes a pretty big hit. Since I can't have a job, working on art or writing is how I feel productive. I can't do much, even in a good week, but art makes me feel better.

August 31, 2025

This was one of the worst weeks on record. No art or sketching, almost no writing. I have been in incredible pain, and had bad paranoia too. There is nothing I can do about it—because I'm on Butrans, my pain doc does not want me to take any other pain killers. It's frustrating.

Playing video games was hard. Watching TV was a challenge too—I couldn't concentrate. All I could manage was just sitting there trying not to think about my neck. This is why mindfulness is bad for me: If I'm being mindful, what I am mindful of is pain and paranoia.

I don't know what I'll do in this upcoming week. I hope it's better, but I'm afraid it won't be. Wish me luck.

August 24, 2025

I have been unable to do almost anything in the last few days. My neck hurt so much that all I could do was watch TV, and I couldn't really focus on that. Taking twenty minutes to update this blog is a problem.

Last week I mentioned gabapentin. I tried it a few times, and discovered that it makes me very drowsy—so much so that I can't take it. It helps a little, but makes me sleep all day.

As far as art goes, I managed to try out a different white this week. For years I've used titanium, but now I'm trying flake white. I haven't used it very much in the past because it is really expensive. I like it a lot. It is better behaved than titanium—it doesn't wash out colors or make everything so cold. I can get around the "expensive" problem by using it only for the important parts of the painting, and use titanium for the background.

I managed to go to the art museum on Monday, and saw my favorite blue painting. Every time I go I stop and see that one. It's by a painter named Sonia Gechtoff, and it's with the other contemporary paintings. It's quite large, and is one of the best paintings I have ever seen.

August 17, 2025

Overall, this was a really good week. I got to do art several times. Tomorrow I plan to go to the art museum. Yay!

On the advice of both my therapist and my peer support guy, I'm trying something new. I mentioned before (several times) that I need to go easier on myself. Now I'm trying to treat myself as I would anyone else. I wouldn't expect other people to be perfect, so why should I expect that of myself? I feel that I need to be right and perfect all the time. I blame my father. There are so many ways to screw up your kid.

My neck has been a significant problem this week. It hurts. I spoke with my pain management doctor, and she recommended extra gabapentin. It's 300mg twice daily PRN. I've used it a couple of times lately, and it seems to help. It does give me a bit of a stomach ache, but that's not bad enough to really matter. Hopefully this will work out.

August 10, 2025

I did art several times in the last week, including a colored pencil piece, an ink piece, and an oil painting. A couple of days I was in so much pain I couldn't do much, but the other days I was able to art. I did some writing too.

After using it for a few months, I'm really getting in to Vim. I encountered some problems using a plugin called UltiSnips. It wants things to be configured the way it wants them to be, not because it's a good idea. It does some useful things, but it's not very well behaved.

This week my brother is visiting, so I won't be doing a whole lot. After he leaves, I hope to go to the art museum. I haven't done that in a while, and I always like it.

August 03, 2025

I have recently come to the realization that I am a total nerd. I was playing Call of Duty the other day (and the fact that I can say that shows nerdy tendencies) and I saw a player with the name TK-421. I immediately recognized that as the Storm Trooper on the Death Star in A New Hope—he's in the scene where Luke and Han sneak on board.

Another thing that qualifies me as a nerd is that I have called Apple technical support twice, and both times I stumped them. The first time was about iCloud preferences re-setting every time I log out (they do, and they shouldn't). The second was about how to make software recognize the Option key rather than let the operating system deal with it. I eventually figured this one out on my own, but still, they should have known. Artists are not known for their nerd-like personalities, but some of us deserve to be.

This last week I was able to do quite a bit of sketching, and some finished art—today I did a watercolor. I've only been writing a little bit. I have been having some problems with hallucinations, which is rare for me. Normally my psychotic symptoms center around paranoia, but I've been seeing things too. I didn't take olanzapine every day, but close. I'll have to discuss it with my therapist next week.

July 27, 2025

I did an oil painting yesterday, and today I did an ink piece. The last few weeks can fairly be called good. I never do as much as I'd like, but I have a really good reason. 😁

I have been needing my olanzapine quite a bit—every day this week. It's a strong drug, and I don't like taking it, but sometimes I have to.

I'm still working on being easier on myself. I went deep in therapy this week, and it will be a while before I can do it again. Something important that I've been doing is to not be mad when a painting isn't great—rather, be happy that it's not terrible. The painting I did yesterday isn't terrific, but it's far from bad. Instead of being upset, I'm trying to go the other way, and accept it as OK. I think this attitude is going to be important moving forward.

July 20, 2025

As last week, I'm calling this week good. It wasn't great, but I got to sketch every day, and do finished art a few times. I also worked on my writing project.

I've been thinking about the software I use for my writing. I don't use anything conventional like Microsoft Word. I edit using Vim and format using LaTeX. Vim is a powerful text editor, and LaTeX is a sophisticated typesetting system. You don't do a lot of formatting inside a LaTeX document—instead, you say things like "this is the beginning of a new chapter" or "emphasize this text," and let the software worry about the details. You are essentially coding your document rather than just typing it. It's a programming language for articles and books. A major advantage to doing things this way is that it's very easy to make changes. If you decided you want all your chapter headings to be blue, you can do it with a couple of lines of code. If you decided you want to change all italics in the document to underlined text, that's easy too. I have mine set up to print one way when I'm drafting the document, and to print another way when I decide it's finished. That change only requires two keystrokes.

When I was young (and able to work for a brief amount of time) I had a job implementing databases using SQL and C#. Coding comes naturally for me—this blog is created by editing HTML, not using some kind of WYSIWYG system. Code makes more sense than navigating menus and dialog boxes.

July 13, 2025

I did quite a bit of finished art this week, so I'm calling it good. I did an oil, two inks, and a watercolor. I decided to break out the colored inks again—I abandoned them a few months ago because one or two of the colors shift while drying, but this time around I'll just try to identify the culprits and dispose of them. I got frustrated before, so I'll work on my attitude this time around.

I had quite a bit of paranoia this week. It was not specific—I was scared in general, not scared of anything in particular. My olanzapine PRN helped a lot. I don't like that I am so dependent on drugs, but they work, so whatcha gonna do? I can't just suffer.

For my literary pursuits, I use an editor called Vim. I've been using it extensively for a few months, and I can safely say that I am now a power user. It had a serious learning curve, but now that I have it all set up and configured, it's great! Most things can be accomplished with just a few keystrokes, and I've mapped important stuff (delete word, delete line, delete to end of sentence, and so on) to quick chords. Its main competitor is Emacs, which I tried. The Vim / Emacs debate is a big one in the editor community. I am solidly on the side of Vim. Emacs will do things like check your email or browse the web, but when it comes to actually editing text, Vim is more efficient. By far.

July 06, 2025

I'm still working on being easier on myself. Every once in a while I have a thought that is not news—it's something I've been aware of for years, but I didn't really think about it until now. This week that was self esteem.

I constantly (every few minutes) have thoughts that say, "I'm not good enough, I'm stupid, I'm ignorant, I'm worthless." These thoughts have been so common for so long that they are normal for me. If I ever thought, "I'm a good person, I'm doing my best, life is good," I wouldn't know what to do. Being disabled doesn't help. I can't hold down a job. It's not my fault—how many people with psychotic disorders can hold down jobs? Still, it affects me greatly, especially in terms of my self esteem.

This is what I mean when I say, "my symptoms frequently get in the way." Maybe I am a good person, but my symptoms prevent me from realizing it. This is yet another thing to discuss in therapy.

June 29, 2025

I was able to do all my sketching almost every day this week, but I didn't get to do any finished art. I did a little writing—not enough.

I was able to be a little easier on myself, as I mentioned last week. I am trying to change my attitude from I must do lots of things, life sucks, I'm not worth anything to I'm getting along just fine, doing my best is good enough, don't stress. This is one of those things that I'll be talking about in therapy for the next decade. I am, however, motivated—it will improve my self esteem and self worth, and I'll have a higher quality of life.

June 22, 2025

This week wasn't as great as the last few. A couple of days I managed to do all my sketching, but I was only able to do finished art once, and my writing was minimal. In the past this would have made me really upset, but my therapist says to accept life for what it is rather than getting mad about it. That's a good idea, but is easier said than done.

I looked in to using Markdown for both my web site and my creative writing, but it isn't even close to powerful enough to do the job. When it comes to web sites, there are no good ways to format text or to use CSS, and for creative writing it has no way to do headers and footers, no way to make a table of contents, and no complex formatting. I'll stick with coding HTML for the web site, and using LaTeX for the creative stuff.

I think I need to find a way to socialize more. I don't get out at at all. For a while I tried to get in to Magic the Gathering, but several times I went to play and I had such terrible paranoia that I had to leave. I don't know what other options are—I can't commit to Dungeons & Dragons, and I don't drink, so bars are pointless. There are possibilities at the mental health center, but I don't like hanging out with other mentally ill people. It reminds me of how sick I am.

My goal for this next week is to stop being so hard on myself. I get annoyed with myself very easily, especially when I feel like I'm not doing enough, and that needs to stop. It's amazing that someone like me is able to do anything at all, and I should accept that.

June 15, 2025

Yesterday I managed to do all my sketching! Yay! Today I've done it once, but, since it's only lunch time, I hope to do it again. In the last week I've managed to do a little art—not every day, but enough to keep me happy. I'm running low on India ink, so I ordered more. The brand I ordered (New York Central) is known for drying quickly, which I'm looking forward to. The main complaint I have about the kind I was using (Bombay) is that it took a long time for my outlines to dry. My new ink should be here later today, and I'll try it out.

I did have to use the olanzapine several times this week. As I stated last time, I'm trying to take it as soon as I have problems rather than waiting until the problems become severe. That is helping. While I did have issues a few times, they did not get to be awful.

Depression has been a minor issue. It mostly happens on days when I hurt to the point where I can't do anything, including video games. Severe pain of that sort makes me really depressed.

June 08, 2025

This has been a spectacular week! I was able to sketch every day, and do finished art three of those days. I'm not back up to where I want to be, but I'm getting there. I hope within the next couple of months I can be back to sketching every day. Wish me luck!

My writing has been OK too. I've been doing it a little more often than I was. It's fun, and interesting, and it doesn't seem to require as much thought as painting does. This is probably just me—I don't take it nearly as seriously as painting, so I don't worry about it as much. Calling me amateur would be generous.

I have needed olanzapine a few times. I'm trying something new with that—I take it as soon as I start to have trouble, not when the symptoms get bad. This means I take it more often, but it also means that I have fewer really bad days.

June 01, 2025

Tough week. My pain was not terrible, but my paranoia was, similar to last week. Once again I had to take the olanzapine a couple of times, but I don't think I needed it twice on any one day.

I haven't been able to do much art. Several days my paranoia interfered, and one day my pain really interfered. If I had just pain or just paranoia, that would be terrible, but it would be easier to deal with. Having both really sucks.

I decided to stop playing Call of Duty—they pander to the lowest parts of society. I'm playing others now, including Gran Turismo 7 and Doom Eternal. They're fun, and I don't have to put up with stupidity.

I've intended to do an oil painting for several days, but my symptoms have precluded that. I haven't even be able to do a lot of sketching. Hopefully next week.

May 25, 2025

Several days this week I did well—I even managed to do art a couple of times. Today I did a colored pencil piece. I've also been writing. I had a hard time sleeping last night, so I finished the story I was working on. Tomorrow I'll have to start outlining another, but I don't know what it will be about. I'll have to think about that this evening.

Dealing with pain was a problem this week, but the bigger problem was paranoia. I had to take my olanzapine PRN several times—yesterday I needed it twice. I seem to be needing it later in the day rather than in the morning. I don't know why.

I was thinking about impatience today. I am very impatient. When I'm working on something, I am usually thinking about what I will do next, and hurry through whatever it is that I am doing. Rather than looking ahead, I need to focus on the task at hand. This is not mindfulness. Mindfulness, as I understand it, means being aware of and taking part in whatever is going on around you. This is not good for me—when I engage in mindfulness, I am frequently mindful of pain, paranoia, and depression. What I need to do is focus on the task in front of me, and try to do a good job.

May 18, 2025

This was a shockingly good week. I sketched almost every day, and managed to do finished art two of those days. I also wrote almost every day, and I managed to figure out some issues I was having with the software I use.

The med tweaks from last month really seem to be helping. Unfortunately, I had to use the olanzapine PRN five days out of the last seven, but I guess that's what it's there for. I am having some pain issues. I contacted my doctor, and she is not willing to try anything else. I just have to suffer.

Today I did an oil painting entirely in shades of red. I haven't tried that before. I like it, but I'll have to try other monochrome paintings before I really decide what I think. Maybe next week I can do one entirely in shades of green.

May 11, 2025

Both my pain and my paranoia have been moderate this week. I did not get to do art every day, but I was able to several days. The olanzapine PRN helped a lot.

I've been getting in to writing. I've flirted with it in the past, but now I'm starting to get serious. A couple of weeks ago I started outlining a story, and now I need to actually write it. I've started another story as well—to keep boredom from setting in, I think I'll need to have a couple going at any given time. I don't feel up to tackling a novel. I'm going to do short stories for a bit.

To help with the task of writing, I set up a desk and populated it with pens, sticky notes, etc. I'll be coming up with the characters, setting, overview, plot, and outline all on paper. I'll write the actual story on the computer. In my youth I was a coder, and the attitudes of a coder have stuck with me, so I'll be using Vim as my editor and LaTeX for typesetting. Coding a document just makes more sense to me than having to navigate various buttons and menus.

May 4, 2025

My God am I in pain. I did nothing today other than watch television. Simply typing this is a challenge; it's a bad sign when your symptoms are so out of control you can barely take twenty minutes to update your web site. I was unable even to play video games today.

I don't know what to do when this happens. The Butrans and Memantine help, but I have no PRN for pain. We discussed adding ibuprofen for that purpose, but I tried it three times, and threw up two of those times. It's not going to work.

My psych symptoms haven't been too bad this week—most of my problems have been pain related. Adding the olanzapine on an as-needed basis was a good idea. The only problem (and it's really minor) is that it makes my mouth dry. I keep Jolly Ranchers on hand to help with that. Increasing the clozapine didn't hurt either.

I'm hoping that this was just a really bad day, and I can get back to doing things tomorrow. Wish me luck.

April 27, 2025

It's been two weeks since I've updated this blog because I was in the hospital. Twice.

First, I was in a psych unit because of terrible paranoia. We tweaked some meds—up on the clozapine, up on the fluoxetine, and added an olanzapine PRN. I'm doing much better. I am still having some paranoia, but it is not disabling like it was two weeks ago. In the hospital, I had a major breakdown and spent several hours in my room crying. Things just seemed so hopeless. The clinicians didn't seem to care—they were just concerned that I wasn't attending group therapy sessions. I honestly believe that the only reason hospitals have groups is so they can bill medicaid for them; they are completely useless. I am no longer feeling as hopeless, but I am having residual depression issues. It's hard to maintain good self esteem when you're so psychotic you can't function.

Second, I was in a regular hospital for a respiratory problem. I thought I just had a bad cold; I called the nurse advice line asking about what OTC medication I could take. They told me to go in to urgent care, and then urgent care sent me to the hospital. I was there a couple of days, and was diagnosed with some kind of infection in my lungs. They prescribed an antibiotic. My doctor wants to wait a month to let the infection clear up and then test me for asthma. In practical terms, this means I had to stop smoking. That pisses me off—I really enjoyed smoking my pipe.

April 13, 2025

Pain has been up-and-down. Every day this week was either really bad or really good. Some days I got art done, and some days I vegged in front of the TV. I haven't noticed any patterns.

Just because I can, I'm going to nerd out about pens. I use two types of pen: fountain and ballpoint. I use fountain pens (in combination with Sharpie) for sketching. I like the way a fountain pen handles—it's like drawing on glass. I use a lot of ink, and it's always Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black. When I got serious about fountain pens, I tried many different inks, and Pelikan is the one that stuck. I bought it in 30ml bottles for a long time, and then learned that it is available in liter bottles at a much lower cost per milliliter. My favorite type of pen is the Lamy Al-Star, but I have others. Right now I'm using a TWSBI.

I use a ballpoint to write in the notebook I keep in my pocket—not a rollerball, not a gel pen, a ballpoint. I keep a running log of my thoughts and pain level—it helps me solidify my thinking. I use a ballpoint because they do not smear. My preferred pen is a Parker Jotter, with medium point Quinkflow refills.

April 6, 2025

I started something new this week: an Idea Binder. It's a binder (duh) where I record ideas (duh). Being the major pen nerd that I am, I dedicated a fountain pen to it, and Amazon'd some nice loose leaf paper. I've been putting down at least one idea per day, which seems like a good way to do it. I hope this will help me keep track of my moments-of-genius, or at least my moments-of-mediocrity. 😁

My pain was much worse this week than it was last week. I didn't get any actual art done, and only a small amount of sketching. My therapist has me doing this thing she calls pacing—instead of a lot of sketching on good days and none on bad days, I should do a little every day. I've been OK about that, but there was one day when the pain was so bad I just couldn't. Pacing is supposed to help me feel productive, and it usually accomplishes that, but it also makes me feel like a failure on the days when I can't do it.

I haven't been terribly paranoid, but I have been having depression issues. Unfortunately, there is no PRN medication for depression, so I'm stuck. Distraction is the best I can do. I expect it to continue this way for the rest of my life.

March 30, 2025

Things are going better than they have in a while. I was even able to to a watercolor; that hasn't happened in a couple of months. I developed cervical dystonia about fifteen years ago, and during that time I have gone through periods of mild pain (and therefore good levels of functioning) and periods of extreme pain (like now). When I'm in pain, I can't wait until the next good period. I've been spending most of my days in front of the TV, or playing games. It's frustrating.

I was playing a video game the other day, and one of the characters was an artist. Her friend pointed out that she only has three colors, and she responded, "I can mix the rest." I was thinking about that, and in my opinion, in addition to the three primary colors (red, blue, yellow) you need a good green. I think that I could survive with cadmium red, alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow, cobalt blue, and viridian. You also need a good white—I like Williamsburg titanium. The watercolor I did today was cobalt blue, alizarin crimson, and sap green (which is a little yellower than viridian). I usually make good color choices—it's composition that I have trouble with.

I haven't been as paranoid this week, but I'm still having some depression issues. I've been in therapy for greater than thirty years, but I still can't find a better way to deal with depression than distracting myself. The "bus" thing I mentioned last week has been helpful. When I think "wow, my life really sucks," I try to have another thought that says, "is this contributing to my quality of life?" Of course it is not, so I try to dismiss it. I'm hoping this turns out to be one of those therapy things that can become automatic, and therefore helpful.

March 23, 2025

This has been a tough week, with both pain and depression. It doesn't help that pain makes me depressed. Ugh.

Even though I've been dealing with mental health issues my entire life (I was diagnosed at age 13), I still have serious trouble dealing with them. Medication and therapy help, but the struggle continues. Last week my therapist told me something really good: life is a bus, and I'm the driver. Negative thoughts are like rowdy passengers, interfering with my driving. I need to kick them off the bus if I'm going to complete my route.

That's an ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) thing. I had never heard of ACT until last month, but I'm finding it interesting. We'll see how it goes.

I was working on some sketching this morning, which was good. I was thinking about my technique. I use a Sharpie for the outlines, and a fountain pen for the inside. The paper is always the same (index card stock), and the ink is always the same (Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black), but I have several pens. I rotate every few weeks, and have fun with it. It's always neat to try a pen I haven't used in a while.

I don't know yet whether the Memantine helps—I'm still in the process of increasing the dose. I haven't noticed any side effects yet. Today I had to order more Butrans. I really like Butrans. It's a continuous-release patch (which means I don't have to wait for pills to kick in) and it is usually very effective. The last couple of weeks I've been having problems with cycling, but I'm doing much better than I was before Butrans.

March 16, 2025

As usual, things have been up-and-down. As amazing as it is, I actually had two good days this week. I define good day as one where I get to sketch.

My pain goes in cycles—sometimes it won't be a problem, other times it will be so bad that all I can do is sit in front of the TV. Right now it's somewhere in between. I recently went for an entire year without issues, and now even playing video games can be a challenge. Pain really sucks.

Paranoia-wise, I've mostly been able to handle it. I've been having significant paranoia-related issues because my doctor is decreasing my clozapine. She tested my levels, and they were waaay too high. I used to have a clozapine PRN for use when my paranoia got bad, but I no longer have that. On the bright side, I no longer have problems with night sweats. That was a problem for years, and I didn't think to blame the clozapine, but there you go.

The pain doctor started me on something called Memantine. I've only been taking it for a couple of days, so I don't yet know whether it helps or not. It will take several weeks of increasing the daily dose to get to where it needs to be. I hope it works.

March 9, 2025

Pain wise, this last week has been rough. I even went in to urgent care on Monday. On Wednesday, I had an emergency appointment with my pain management doctor. She increased my Baclofen. She also mentioned a different medication that might help (I forget the name). I will email her next week and let her know how it's going. The pain has been so bad that I have not been able to do art for the last few days. It's upsetting me.

I've been having trouble with hallucinations, but at this point, I can usually ignore them. Sometimes they trigger paranoia; I'll think that they are spies watching me. This is common (spies), and it's inconvenient. Sometimes I can't leave the house because they're after me.

Sometimes I like to play Magic the Gathering at a local shop. It takes place on Saturdays. This last week I was not able to go. Ugh. My therapist says I need to get out more, but it's hard. For the same reason I can't do art (pain) I can't socialize.

This first blog post has been intended to be informative. I'll get more specific in the future. See you next week!