When you Can’t Let Things Go

At times I think myself and my family are hoarders, unable to get rid of things because we just might need them. But then I watched this amazing film – POSSESSED by Martin Hampton – and realised we weren’t so bad.

Hampton’s documentary looks into the homes and lives of four OCD sufferers, whose symptoms come out as an inability to let go of possessions. It’s beautiful, haunting stuff and certainly makes you wonder about things like “who are we when we let everything in our lives go?”, and “how much impact do we have on this world in a lifetime?”, as well as “how many 3G phones do you really need?”

Un-Caffinated Update

Well the ‘no’ caffeine kick has been going for over a week now and things are starting to settle down a lot more. The headaches have pretty much stopped now, which is very good news and generally I’m feeling perkier than before and finding it a lot easier to stay focussed. Surprisingly I’m not finding it at all tricky to get up in the mornings, but then I’m pretty much a morning person – as soon as that sun hits the window I’m wide awake. My favourite outcome though is that my stomach is being incredibly well behaved and not hurting at all, which it had been since I came back from England over Christmas. Huzah!

On the advice of various sites I’ve been keeping up with extra vitamins (especially B12), drinking plenty of water and generally being more healthy than usual. So this is in no way an inbiased study of caffeine withdrawal. For one thing my morning drink is still green tea with honey, which although having less caffeine it’s still only 1/4 of normal coffee. Also this week I’ve not been drinking at all, not even a little glass of red wine at dinner, so that could definately be affecting outcomes – although it’s a bit annoying that I’ve had more headaches since I stopped drinking than when I was! Plus I’ve been out running more than usual, even in this cold, slushy snow. Oh, and because I’ve kicked coffee I’m now way down on my milk intake – so who knows what that’s doing to me.

Next week: find out what happens when I only drink water and eat one grain of rice a day… Riiiight.