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Hej, hello & こんにちは!

Hej, hello & こんにちは!

My name is Magnus and this is my silly blog where I try to sort out events in my life, one piece at a time. You’ll notice I’m not super active, but feel free to look around. 🙂

The name Dirge for November is from a song by Swedish progressive metal/rock band, Opeth, on their 2001 album Blackwater Park.

If you want to get in touch with me, please contact me over at twitter, basically the only “antisocial media” I use. You’ll find I’m way more active there, albeit maybe not as personal.

See you around!

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I am become The Hulk; anger personified, less green

I am become The Hulk; anger personified, less green

I would never deny being a pretty lousy husband and an even worse dad. Partially because of my ADD, but also because when I get angry I say stupid things, things no one should have to hear, least of all children.

I can’t really help myself when I lose my temper, even though I know it’s on me to change. While I don’t turn green, the anger wants out some way or another, and unfortunately for the people around me (my immediate family, mostly), it is often on them I am unloading my garbage.

In a meeting with kindergarten the other week they had an “oh by the way” which involved Agnes swearing a noticeable lot lately, which I apologised for, taking the blame. Gotta give credit to her though; she has a pretty good grasp of the grammar and where to insert the “power words”. It’s impressive, but oh so wrong.

On top of last years ADD diagnosis I’ve asked for CBT, to try find better “tools” to help keep a level head. It was meant to start in August, but because of Covid it’s been delayed until who knows when.

If it doesn’t work then maybe proper anger management (which include CBT anyways) is the next step. Whenever that’d be. Who knows anymore? Feels like there’s more than a year between each step I take. 🤷‍♂️ Fcking mental health. Fcking Covid..

By the way, 1999 called. They wanted their animated gifs back.. 😆

See you around!

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Called it

Called it

Five years and change passed between those tweets pictured above.. Getting a diagnosis isn’t as easy as one would think, or wish for, but I suppose that’s mental health in a nutshell; there’s no rushing anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(There’s also no rushing a “really neat and not at all stupid blog”, so hello again, some two and a half years later!)

I’ve felt like absolute crap for various reasons over the last few years. (Actually for a lot longer, but let’s limit the time to start from when I finally got to talk to someone about needing help; we’re looking at some four, five years, give or take). This time around I’ll focus on the ADD part. In the future I’ll try and get through the other things, if time permits.

Now then, I mentioned a doctor’s appointment in October of 2017. Initially, to our horror, her opinion was that I showed “no, or very few signs of ADD” and was reluctant to proceed with anything. Thanks to a sweet and helpful nurse nudging the doctor in the right direction she budged, and after another few meetings (or how many) I got to test Strattera. Hello drugs. Hope restored.

Strattera is, as far as I understood it, one of very few drugs they’ll give you without a diagnosis. It worked, somewhat; it helped “kickstart” me a bit, I got a little more things done, around the house and what not. The downside was that I felt pretty nauseous for hours after taking them; one of the many possible side effects. I stuck with it though, and after a few times of raising the dosage to appropriate levels things started to look brighter. For a while.

After a few months, or a year – I don’t remember – I started to feel, along with the “extra energy and motivation”, a lot more depressed than usual; my mood was really dark at times and Marie and I would get into heated argument after heated argument. Things got really bad.

Eventually it got so bad that I decided to stop the pills. I got in contact with the nurse and she said that was fine, but to contact them again if I wanted to start up again, because I’d be starting on a lower dosage again. After a month or so I figured I was ready to try again and called her up, but she asked me to hold off on the drugs for a bit if possible, because I had a meeting coming up relatively soon and they wanted me to be on “my normal levels” of stupid struggling with myself.

Turns out I was meeting with a psychologist. Eep!

There were three sessions over the course of two weeks in the autumn of 2019 and by mid September I finally FINALLY got the diagnosis; “ADD and GAD”. Felt just great, finally having a proper explanation of what my problems are, even though we’ve suspected as much for some years.

GAD, though? I don’t think I’ve ever really reflected on anxiety being a factor in my life, but here we are.

Along with the diagnosis came the opportunity to try other drugs and I am now on Elvanse and Aritavi, which is working soo much better for me. For starters I don’t feel any nausea when taking them (apart from maybe on the first day) but when time permits I can get a lot more work done around the house.

Marie and I still argue ever so often, but often it’s not as bad as before (on Strattera) and I – or we – actually have a really good day, now and then. There are still some rather shit days, of course, and I doubt they’ll ever fully go away, but we’re slowly working out methods that can make it a bit easier on us.

Well, that’s all for now.

See you around!  ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

The Pterodactyl is here

The Pterodactyl is here

Meet Alfred, our Pterodactyl. He’s a sleepy little fella. 🙂

He arrived on 6th of December 2017, roughly a year and a half after our Raptor, Agnes. Our little “Dino-family” is complete. 😍

Not Star Wars episode IV, yet still a new hope

Not Star Wars episode IV, yet still a new hope

Aw man, if I hadn’t been distracted I could have posted this exactly two years after I made the first post here. Missed it by thiiiiiis much. Ah well. Here’s to another two incredibly exciting years of blogging. 😜👍

I’m no longer seeing the psychologist – who I wrongly labeled psychiatrist (fixed that) – and I havent for quite a while. I didn’t really like him. In his defence, I generally don’t like people.

I don’t remember the last thing we spoke about. Don’t know what was said. I don’t know if I said I wanted to quit going – or him asking me if I wanted to – or what, but I ended up never going back. Looking through my email conversations with the guy it appear as if I canceled an appointment and never rescheduled. I don’t really remember.

I guess it’s worth mentioning that I hate being scrutinized. I hate to “spill my beans”, about my life, about everything. I hate how boring I am, and how boring I must sound to people when I try to explain my boring life to them.

Anywho, a while later – with the help of Marie – I saw a occupational therapist that had me trying a bunch of things to get me going. (Remember, the reason I’m “in this mess” is because I have a hard time kicking things off. I have a million ideas, and maybe three is seen through to the end; the rest of them are lucky if I ever even start working on them.

There was an app I tried that only managed to piss me off. It really didn’t help at all. (It had me tap-tap-tap-ing three times more than what, like, using the regular calendar on my phone would’ve. It was idiotic).

Eventually she ran out of ideas and told me as much. There wasn’t much she could do to help me, and sent us on our merry way.

Well, crap.

<montage> Stuff happening that I’ve forgotten about </montage>

Some time later we decided to look into how – or if – I could get a proper diagnose, because things weren’t improving. Spoke with a nurse and filled out a form. They told us it might take a little while before we hear anything, because they’re short on doctors.

I believe this was in spring, March perhaps? It might even have been before Christmas. It was chilly, but no snow. I don’t remember. My memory is out the window. I think I blame technology.

Anyway, time passed. Felt like forever. I was starting to think they might have forgotten about me, or misplaced the form. But being me, I figured I’d wait for summer vacations to end before calling them to check. Don’t want to be too hasty, now..

Lucky me I didn’t have to wait much longer, because one day I got a letter.

Apparently they hadn’t forgotten. Turns out I have a doctor’s apointment in October. Obviously no idea what she’ll say, but I’m hoping they’ll go through with the diagnosing. It’d be a relief for both Marie and I.

Of course I understand that even if they decide to go ahead, a diagnose is not guaranteed. I know that. But it gives me new hope.

I’ll see you around!

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House, not M.D.

House, not M.D.

The apartment was getting a little cramped (partially because it was a 2-room apartment, partially because of too much stuff!) and Agnes is needing more and more space these days, meaning we had to go looking for a new place to call home.

We went viewing a few houses but none of them felt right. As it turned out though, we didn’t have to look too far from “home”.

We “swapped places” with Maries dad, with us moving into the house, him moving into an apartment not far from where we used to live. It’s a roughly 10 minute drive either way, which is nice and close.

There are a lot of pros and cons to this of course. The house has lots of space for Agnes to play around and practice walking (she still count on us or furniture for support but she’s on her own any day now!) but father-in-law’s apartment isn’t very big, meaning he’s left some of his stuff in the house, leaving us with even more stuff.. Going through his stuff, on top of ours, is a bit of a project. Slow and steady, though, we’re getting there. I think.

The house needs a little bit of work here and there but is otherwise very cozy. To quote one of my favourite Disney movies;

So he’s a bit of a fixer upper, but this we’re certain of
You can fix this fixer upper with a little bit of love..

Frozen, 2013

(That’s actually from the worst song in the movie, but I suppose it’s fitting, just this once).

There’ll be more updates regarding the house “some time soon”. I’m keeping it short in the hopes that I’ll be able to finish writing something because these things take forever, for whatever reason. (Thought-to-text doesn’t work so well for me, but that’s for another story).

Also, reading back through the very first entry I mention our cats, and games; neither which have been properly addressed since. I’d like to try and rectify that, in the future, as well.

Until then, I’ll see you around!

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Player 3 has joined the game

Player 3 has joined the game

“I guess at the speed I’m updating, the next time I’m writing will be after the baby is born.”

-Me, more than a year ago

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This won’t be super-long, but I wanted to finally introduce our raptor – Agnes. She was born the 18th of June, 2016 – which, if you do the math, means she’s turning one tomorrow! (Jebus, yeah, this has taken me a while)..

It took me a few days (go figure), but I posted the following image to twitter:

As calm as that may sound, it was a turbulent start for Agnes. A hasty caesarean (grade 2, turned grade 1) gave us quite a scare. Her values were dropping and she had to come out, fast. Marie was anesthetized and I was thrown out of the room.

I felt awful. Hopeful. Scared and so alone. One moment I was a wreck. The next, a dad. I think that is the strangest feeling in the world. Also the most wonderful. But the fact that it was I who got to meet Agnes first, and not Marie, will always make me sad. It’s so incredibly unfair considering everything she had to go through for us to get here.

As it turned out, the reason for the bad values was that Agnes had a sinus node dysfunction (which has since matured and corrected itself), meaning we had to spend a few days in the neonatal nursery for observation before we were released and could return home with our little raptor. My memory of the events are still a bit cloudy from the shock, but the medical staff were brilliant, taking good care of us.

I never knew it was possible to love someone this much. With every day, week or month passing, I find myself ever more astonished how lucky we were to get such a wonderful girl. Every day is an adventure, for good or for bad. I won’t lie; some days I am convinced she actually has the mind of a raptor..

She has the most beautiful smile. No matter how bad a mood I’m in, she can melt my heart to a mushy puddle. I think she gets that from Marie. And Marie keeps saying Agnes has me wrapped around her finger. I think she’s right. I’m in trouble with these two..

Watching her grow has been an amazing journey. Watching her slowly start to move around, to quickly moving around – when she’s moving towards something she know she’s not allowed near, and I’m on my way to grab hold of her; with a delighted cry she’ll try and crawl 300% faster. She’s just adorable. Recently, Agnes has started standing up. I don’t think it will be long before I have to run to chase her..

Anyways. There’s a little something. I’ll try my very best (it’s not very good) to write more often. Let me end this by pointing to my twitter, where you’ll find I post way more frequently than here. And it’s quality stuff, for sure.. 😉

See you around!

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