A colour tangle with an actual theme

Wow, today has been kinda rough on me.. Fighting with my roommate (hopefully it'll resolve itself tonight, I hate conflict), got my Piportil injection (no, it doesn't hurt) and saw the trans* doc. She asked me a lot about my life, my medical history, how I identify with my gender, what I want to do, if I eventually want to transition (yes, female to male, but right now I'm an "it", or a "they").

I had lots of blood work, an EKG and a urine sample. Fun times. The urine sample is always the worst part. Ugh.

Oh well, its over now. My moods improved a bit with the Gabapentin, but at 100mg, the dose is still really low and it's not doing much. Maybe it's just the weather. Hopefully its the Gabapentin.

Here's what I did today. I found a similar tangle in a book I have and I just drew the "stalks", or the triangle ended strings, and coloured them in with Sharpies and fine-tip markers I have (note to self: use watercolour markers, they're much better). I used a felt tip to line it since I'm almost out of gel pens. It turned out decently.

I drew the general outlines, which was overlapping what, did some erasing, did some drawing with the felt pen, and came to something I liked. I like it. It's very Africa-y.. I know that's not a word, but fuck it. I was bored and kinda creative. I used different simple tangles that I knew already. Nothing complex here. I loved colouring it in. When I finished, I added the little embellishments. I like it. It doesn't have a name. Maybe "Get me the fuck out of here".

As always, click the image to view full size. Enjoy.

Some random tangles

I find I tangle a lot when I'm bored or upset. It gives me something to focus on. Trust me, I've gotten frustrated and ripped a few pages out. But I still tangle. It's relaxing. I have anxiety issues, not as bad as they used to be and schizoaffective disorder, so it's kind of a grounding technique.

I don't do it to be an artist. I'm NOT an artist, I suck at drawing, but this relaxes me and gives me an interesting, abstract piece of work when I'm finished. It's like knitting, I get a finished product.

Not my best tangle, but I was playing with negative space a bit.

Done with a black gel pen and a pencil. See the tangle in the bottom almost-circle on the right? That's one of my favourites to use. I was also experimenting with using different tangles, and large spaces.

This is a scribble tangle I did and I really like it. I was anxious and having a bad day, so I looked up some tangles to use, and came up with this. I love weird shapes and abstract.

I did this while I was waiting for a psychiatrists appointment. I get bad appointment anxiety and I started it when I woke up in the morning and finished it after my appointment, which went well. 

I take:

• Piportil depot, 75mg every other week. Piportil is a typical antipsychotic available everywhere except the US and crushes my psychosis. Every two weeks I go and get the shot, and I've been good in the psychosis department on it. It's a great med. It worked fast, and I haven't had delusions, paranoia or hallucinations since starting it in February, at 50mg. The dose was just increased.
• Clonazepam, 2mg. I take 1mg during the day in divided doses (so 0.5mg in the morning, 0.5mg near the evening, and 1mg to help me sleep at night)
• Ritalin, 30mg. I also have ADHD and this also helps with the negative symptoms from schizoaffective disorder. Negative symptoms are lack of motivation, being very tired, monotone speech, basically lacking in energy and drive. Some people get catatonic. Schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder is often thought that you only hear voices and get paranoid, but its much more than that.
• Seroquel, 100mg. This is an antipsychotic, but at this low dose, it helps me sleep.
• Gabapentin, 100mg and going up. Gabapentin is an anti-convulsant sometimes used for pain and seizures that is also a second line treatment for bipolar disorder - which is a part of schizoaffective disorder (the "affective" part means "mood") Combined with my other meds it stabilizes my moods and helps with anxiety.
• Artane, 5mg. This is an anti-Parkinson's drug I take for side effects caused by the medication. I take it as needed (PRN) and I don't experience many side effects. Piportil can make you have random body movements, called extrapyramidal symptoms, or even tardive dyskenesia (very rare) so this helps stop that. I find the injection form of antipsychotics to have few to no side effects. My worst side effect currently - dry mouth. Whoopidy-doo!