The Toast Post

So I bought a new toaster, well two actually – one for myself and my youngest son as we are both gluten free and one for the rest of the tribe. I wanted nice black toasters for the new kitchen and I paid a king’s ransom for them but they don’t match and it erks me slightly.

 

I prefer the little one

The place I bought the four slice one from had run out of two slice ones so I went to another place to get the two slice equivalent and the ones they had were slightly different and I couldn’t return the four slice one so ended up with odd toasters.

 Now the purchase of a new small appliance is hardly a blogworthy topic, it’s not like my old toaster ended its life with a blue spark and a ball of fire but I have too much time on my hands and my creative juices aren’t exactly flowing at the moment so here we are...

Settings 1 through 6

You see my husband insisted on reading ALL of the 6 page instruction booklet out loud in a posh slightly Brittish accent and between bouts of laughter we were surprised that we actually learned a few things. 

For example we discovered that there is a genuine reason that toasters have so many settings ranging from “warm the bread slightly” all the way through to “burn the living shit out of it”.

Top toast tip: The “burn the living shit out of it” setting is designed for thicker, moister loaf cuts such as raisin bread and the “warm the bread slightly” is for thinner dryer slices. 

Caution this product may turn into a kettle without warning!

However, as we live in the days of reduced common sense, the instructions are very important as they stipulate important lesser known facts such as:

•  “Do not toast stale bread, rice crackers or similar on the high setting as there is a chance they may catch fire”. I confess that I have set my kitchen on fire multiple times but not yet with the toaster...

"Do not place objects such as toast, bread or similar on top of your toaster when in use." 

 

 




• “Do not immerse the appliance in water or any other liquid unless recommended” I wonder exactly whom is able to give such a recommendation and under what circumstances would they recommend it?

"Do not place appliance on or near a hot gas flame, electric element or heated oven"

•  “Do not use an appliance for any purpose other than it’s intended use.” Such a shame there are so many possibilities…      

“Never attempt to extract jammed toast, muffins, bagels or crumpets with a knife or other metal object” .

So without further ado I propose a poetic welcoming toast to my new toasters:

 “Welcome to my humble kitchen, where there is sometimes laughter and often bitchin', may you warm my bread to a golden brown when I adjust your setting to half way down.

 Promise me you will do no harm, like no setting off my smoke alarm and no dropping crumbs or sparking blue when inevitably I stick a knife in you.

So here you are with your ‘high lift leaver’, ‘defrost button’ and ‘Quick check feature’, we embark upon this journey together, browning bread or crumpets in the cooler weather, ‘your self-centering bread slots’ may have left my wallet empty, but with all these children you’ll be used plenty.

Listless

I’m bored. Bored and annoyed at everything and nothing at the same time, I guess ‘depressively listless’ would best describe my current mood state, it feels like I am killing time but until what I still don’t know. 

Right now I could be cleaning the house or in the garden or (attempting to) bake something or some other domestic goddess style feat but no, I’d rather sit at the computer drinking coffee and trying not to binge eat out of boredom.

As I type this my internet isn’t working (again) satellite internet is really, really dodgy but beggars can’t be choosers and I should be thankful to have internet access at all. Right now this means I can’t check Twitter / Facebook or read blogs and that’s a little bit more frustrating than it healthily should be!

I have been thinking a lot about this bipolar lark. I am at a stalemate with my illness and I am sick of participating in its games. I don’t want bipolar any more, I want to be able to make and honour commitments, sleep at night without going over the 100 ways in which I could kill myself first and I sure as hell don’t want to take these bloody meds anymore.

Meds have changed me, yes life these days is totally void of any sort of euphoric (hypo)mania, I feel connected to absolutely nothing including my family and have zero motivation, zero libido and next to no enthusiasm for things I used to love. When I used to stay awake all night at least I used to achieve stuff, I excelled at the work I can no longer cognitively do, now my head is fog and my memory is goldfish.

The one benefit is I have saved a lot of money not feeling the desire to purchase vast quantities of things I don’t need – and I haven’t felt the desire to gamble which becomes a nasty habit during my “up’s”. Yes, the only hypomania-esque symptoms I get these days are racing thoughts, paranoia, insomnia, irritability and angry outbursts.

So basically I am either totally numb or suicidally depressed, I just want to be happy.

Part of me is thinking I should just turn up the self-denial knob and refuse to have bipolar, perhaps if I deny it for long enough it will magically go away by itself. I have already basically made the decision to stop taking my meds, but I am going to go about it the right way, with the help of my psychiatrist whom I will finally see on the 31^st August.

Frankly the worst thing that could happen if I stop the meds is a full blown manic episode and I am willing to take that chance, meds have done nothing to reduce my suicidal depressive episodes so I am not going to be at any higher of a risk of suicide than I am on medication.

The withdrawal symptoms of stopping psychiatric meds can be pretty full on so I need to find out how to taper safely rather than going cold turkey on my own, as tempting as that has been lately, I do know I need my support system around me if I am going to be successful.

What’s your relationship with medication? 

Do you think it’s possible to maintain your mental health without it?