Well folks, here’s the image of a potential cocktail of death lollies which in a momentary lapse of judgement or sanity could be extremely dangerous. ‘Stilnox’ was suspected as the possible cause of death for our infamous thespian joker, Heath Ledger. I liked Heath a lot, such a sudden and early loss to the Australian Acting Industry and to his family. Oh, and guess what? I have a packet of these candies in my medicine cabinet. I can take these at my leisure to assist with my troubling insomnia. Meanwhile, I tether and try to cope with my depression, I have to muster the strength not to self diagnose with too much Stilnox, which can be tempting during my dark moments. Go figure? I take Zoloft for the depression, and if that doesn’t work, I can chew my troubles away with Stilnox. I have decided to stop taking Stilnox as I completely lost one day this week. Ziltch, zero, nothing … I have no memory nor recollection from Tuesday noon till Wednesday night. Funny thing is that I experienced what they refer to as a side effect to the drug … ‘sleep walking’ … and of all places I gravitated to the local train station, watched trains, and somehow ended back home after 10pm on Tuesday. Brad offered me this insight the next day because he said I explained how I went bush walking and eventually sat down to keep watch on the timetable. I can’t remember a damn thing, except the trains, and I thought it was a dream. Everything else is a total blank. I actually woke up in a daze on Wednesday, believing it was still Tuesday. Gotta laugh, … yup, gotta laugh, now. Not sure how I navigated my way across 6 lanes of road to get where I was heading to, and back safely? Perhaps there was a carnage, flaming cars, and wreckage left in my wake, … I just don’t know. Last night, I set the iPad on YouTube and searched for a variety of ‘Meditation for Insomnia’ results. I played 3 different meditations, each one giving me about an hour of sleep in between each one. I’m sure I’ll find one that will set me to a deeper more lengthy slumber … one night … one night soon. On a final note, anyone seen the movie, Silver Lining Playbook? I totally relate to it, it was well directed and absolutely brilliant. The girl was in ‘Hunger Games’ and I’m sure everyone knows Bradley Cooper.

Love Hurts. Click here to watch the trailer!

Over the years I had noticed many narcissistic traits in my good friend, but at the time I was not aware of the term “narcissism”. I could only take comfort in the confused notion that I was being punished for the sins of my youth, and that in suffering, we will all mature and become wise adults. My friend has a wonderful and charming public persona and is extremely sociable. She organises many events and likes to go out regularly. People who do not know my friend very well usually have great admiration and think how lucky I am to know such a wonderful person. Within some time, she then developed a habit of having episodes of seemingly uncontrollable rage, and I had still not fully understood what triggered these attacks. The doctor prescribed the cause as a lack of estrogen, but the irrational episodes did not subside and from what I hear, continues to this day. She started more and more to scream at only those close to her, often for very minor misdemeanours. She began forever complaining of feeling exhausted and ‘stressed out’. I really do think that the narcissist is the principal sufferer but it has to be said that it is definitely not pleasant living with one. These people are toxic. All in all I am tempted to say that narcissists deserve to stew in their own rancour but I have to remind myself that they themselves are often suffering, and are trying to cover up their low self-esteem. Having read a little about narcissism I realised that there are many people in my predicament. There is a saying that a problem shared is a problem solved but, like me, there are very few people that they can share this particular problem with others. It has taken a long long time, but I have learnt that the only way to win with a toxic person, is not to play. And until you accept that fact, you’re anybody’s sucker. All it will take is one bloated accusation, one lie, or one insinuation about you, and you’ll forever be the toxic person’s most treasured source of satisfying fun and games. If you don’t know how to leave the bait alone and find another, quieter, more indirect route back toward being left alone, you never will be. Abusive people know that as long as they can set and keep their hooks in you, you are stuck being there for them to use and abuse – to feed on. When they want to, abusive people will say and do whatever it takes to keep you glued painfully to them and their world, because if you are stuck to them, they will always have you handy for whatever emotionally abusive purpose they want. You may need to cut contact altogether if you are in an entrenched personal relationship, and if so, you may get hoovered and manipulated into staying connected. This is often easily done by deliberately upsetting you so much that the urge to call or contact them just to have your say will be intense, because the lies or other distortions being propagated are so hurtful. Don’t fall for it. Just ignore the whole thing, walk away and wipe your hands. There is no winning such battles. The greatest reward is freedom from the toxicity, which only comes with your non-involvement. The sooner you do, the sooner it will start to become quiet, which, given certain toxic types, can take long enough without additional delays being thrown in. Don’t tell yourself you have to reply — learn to recognize your refusal to respond for what it really is — a sign that it will be over as quickly as possible because you knew how to ignore drama-baiting and send the toxic person looking for a better target. So when you find yourself invited into an ugly tug-of-war with a toxic person, simply drop the rope immediately, walk away and LEAVE IT BE FOREVER. Because the simple fact of the matter is, toxic people can’t have a tug-of-war with you if there’s nobody holding on at the other end.

The test results were fantastic, at least this is my personal assessment. The PSA results increased by a small amount and for those who do not know what PSA means … it’s the yard stick doctors use to determine how much cancer is floating in your blood stream. It’s like counting how many goals your favourite sports person has achieved. The number might be static in some weeks, while in other weeks it may increase. My cancer is like that, it will never go away, but it will rest abit and offer me some reprieve, and then it will rise again. For the past 6 months, my PSA had been doubling, and at that rate it was projected to reach the heavens taking me along for the ride at the same time. I’m of course ignoring the oncologists’ response at the time he delivered this information. He made a remark at how the figure was suspicious, and I’m not sure whether I was meant to hear that. I’m hoping he meant “goodness me, I didn’t expect this result and although it’s hard to believe, this young man is on his way to full recovery”. And so, all in all, the results today tell me that I’m ok, and I should live life well for another 3 months before the next test. So lock up your daughters … I’m thinking I could go out and ‘partay’ tonight, … … but I’m too tired.

So cool to have friends, problem is I don’t have many. I’ve invested so much time over the years working and dutifully returning home each and every day. My line of work is not physically taxing, but it can be stressful and so I learnt early in the piece that a beer in the hand is worth two in the fridge … like Homer Simpson, ‘cept I have more hair. Friends, like really good one’s, are like receivers. You transmit information and they process it. Problem is, I’ve noticed is that, some people take advantage of this and use it to spin their yarn with full poetic license, and the ‘friend’ fulfils their obligation to believe everything told to them. There’s two sides to almost every story and, it takes two to tango. Tango by the way is not as cool as Samba or the Salsa. Incidentally, it takes two to Samba or Salsa as well but the negative connotation only applies to Tango. My children are my bestest friends, however I don’t weave any tall stories with them, unless it’s about the fish I caught, that was this ‘bbbbbbbbiggggggg’ or the fierce dragon I wrestled to submission. Oh well, got to get up soon for work, ground hog day.

Unbelievable results today everyone, the cancer count has dropped. Yessiree, the numbers are on my side finally, this is the second drop, the pomegranate juice works, all that up, down, up, down, up, down on the dumb bell lifty thingy works, the meds probably contributed, the sleeping pills are useless, and having awesome friends definitely works. My mate Pete not only furnished me with accurate and detailed information about the songs Prince sang during his Australian tour, but he also left me a good book titled, “The Secret Language of your Body”. The book contained 230 pages of words that even my bi-focals struggled with, … and I’m not sure what drove Pete to even imagine I could cope with that, … and so I thumbed through to the pages that connected most with me, and I read those 6 pages over and over and over again. I was even more ecstatic when the doctor said, see you in 6 months time. This was my verbal assurance from the grand wizard (who also wore the coolest watch) that although Sydney had been issued with a severe weather warning tonight with the State Emergency Services on high alert, I can sleep well tonight and for the next 182.5 nights likewise. Those wild winds can blow the roof off my house, I’m still going to cuddle warmly under my blanket, content that everything can get better. I have been issued with a free Get Out of Jail card, and I’m bashing this one down on the monopoly table hard for impact. If the table breaks, who cares. I’m going back to the gym tomorrow to work on my pecs, eat bananas and drink gallons of protein shakes. I’m going to dream tonight about conquering Mount Everest, and if I forget my oxygen equipment, who cares! Adios Chichitos.