Long Nights

A normal night of sleep would be so great right now.

My insomnia got a little bit better for a few days and lulled me into a state of confidence. I started getting depressed and my pdoc put me on Remeron, which has to be one of the few medications that I’ve never been on before. And it helped with the depression AND the sleep. Instead of 5 hours, I was getting around 8. In a row. I need 10, but I was happy to take what I was getting.

The whole damn thing has backfired on me now. For the last several nights I’ve fallen asleep between 7 and 8. No problem. Hubby is up at 3:30am for work so we go to bed early. But, NOW I’m waking up around 11 or 12 and can’t get back to sleep. Tonight, I actually took 1.5 mg of Klonopin and got high. And fell back asleep. For 20 minutes. Twenty whole minutes.

So I’m up. It’s 3:11 am, I’m on my second cup of coffee and have no intention of trying to go back to sleep. I’m running the dishwasher and when that’s done, I’ll start laundry. This way, when I want to try to take a nap around 3, I won’t feel bad about it. And hubby is on a liquid diet tomorrow (today) for his colonoscopy on Monday, so I don’t even have to cook dinner.

The problem here, of course, is that my insomnia has been going on so long that my circadian rhythm is completely out of whack. I don’t have a job, so I guess it’s not that big a deal. But, I’d rather be snuggled in bed with hubby then watching Young Sheldon on Nick at Nite and being assaulted by my dog’s farts which are really awful tonight.

Pdoc is at the end of her rope with my insomnia. None of the meds are working the way they should. She gave me something (I can’t remember the name) that was supposed to put me down hard. She only gave me 7 days worth to fix things up. But, it didn’t put me to sleep. It made me wired. I was up for more then 24 hours in a row.

Now the Remeron did a good job at lifting my depression, but my anxiety is roaring back. We’re not sure if the depression has been hiding the anxiety and now that the depression is pretty well gone the anxiety is back. Or is the Remeron causing me to be anxious. Who knows. I can barely keep track of this stuff anymore.

I’m going for more coffee. And possibly a butt plug for the dog.

I don’t understand

TRIGGER WARNING for active suicidal thoughts.

It’s 4:30 in the morning as I write this, and I’m worried. I’ve been up since around 1:00 am and when Joe got up at 3:00, I stayed up a little longer to hang out with him. But then, tired, I decided to go lay back down. Big mistake. My rambling mind started to ramble which usually isn’t a great thing.

To be clear, I live in a world of passive suicidal ideation. For those unfamiliar with the lingo, it basically means that suicide is something that is on my mind, but there is no real desire to go through with it and there is no plan. I have this a lot. A LOT a lot. In fact, way more often for my comfort.

Tonight though, as I lay in bed, watching “Mom”, I started thinking that maybe if I took another milligram of Klonopin (I had already had 1 mg about an hour before), that might help me go back to sleep. The insomnia thing has been going on for months and I’ve really about had it. Now, I think my circadian rhythm is messed up, so it’s going to be even harder to deal with. But, I digress.

If 1 mg of Klonopin was good, surely 2 mg would be better. And suddenly I felt ready to take everything I have. I started thinking that this time, I would surely do it right. This time, I would surely take enough, because I planned on taking it all. All of it. The Klonopin, the mood stabilizers, the OCD pills, hell even the blood thinners and cholesterol medicine. That should do it.

I still have the presence of mind though to realize that these thoughts are lies my brain (mind?) are telling me. I certainly don’t feel very depressed. I mean, I’m depressed but it certainly doesn’t feel like I’m depressed enough to be contemplating suicide with any degree of seriousness. But, there I was, doing it anyway.

So, I used what was left of my clarity and got up. Went out to the garage (too cold to smoke outside) and admitted to Joe what was going on. That was HARD. I don’t like to admit that weakness, I’m sure no one does. And honestly, I didn’t want to upset him, but I did. He’s not acting upset, but he’s not talking either and that’s a sure sign. I certainly can’t blame him. If he told me he was contemplating suicide, I would be devastated. But, I really felt it was in both of our best interests for him to know what was going on.

So, now, here I sit in the living room. Lights and TV on. Pills in the other room. I’m hiding from my meds. I’m hiding from the only thing that keeps my chemical imbalance relatively controlled, because it is also the only thing that can give me a relatively painless exit from this life. It’s really a shame when the thing you probably need the most is also the thing that holds the most danger for you.

Thankfully, I have therapy at 8:00am this morning. It’s a special session because I was so depressed last week. I felt it would be better to see her an extra day than risk a problem that ended up cropping up anyway.

I just wish I could understand why this had to happen today. Usually, suicidal thoughts crop up when I’m extremely depressed, and I’m just not. I’m not lying to myself either, at least I don’t think so.

Y’all, what the actual fuck. This day is going to suck.

Feeling useless

Tags

bipolar, radical acceptance

Wednesday was 7 years to the day that I had to stop working. I was really surprised when I found that out (thank you Facebook memories).

Seven years that I’ve been unemployed. Seven years of disability. Seven years of feeling “less then” because I can’t work. Seven years is a long time to feel like I’m not living my best life. Seven years is a long time to mourn what was. Seven years is too long to do anything that doesn’t make you happy.

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. It’s too formal and there are too many expectations with “resolving” to do something. I used to resolve to lose weight, but I would go at it like crazy and burn myself out by February. So I just don’t do it anymore. But, I do usually try to find one thing that I’m not happy about and deal with it in some way. Slowly, carefully and with help. That’s what I’m doing this year with this damn work thing.

I’ve been working on Radical Acceptance for a very long time. If you’re not familiar, Radical Acceptance is (in a nutshell) accepting that something is what it is, even if you don’t like it. To be honest, I thought I had it nailed. It doesn’t really sound that hard. I accept that I can’t work and I don’t like it and that’s ok. And, by saying this, I really thought that I had done the Radical Acceptance thing with this particular problem.

But, the fact that it still bothers me as much as it does, tells me that I’ve accepted nothing about this particular situation. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I do accept that I’m too damn tired to work. But I don’t attribute that to bipolar, I attribute that to laziness. But something in the back of my brain tells me that laziness isn’t really the problem. The bipolar is the problem. The inability to hold onto a mood for lengths of time isn’t laziness. The exhaustion isn’t laziness. That’s all owned by the bipolar.

I talked with my therapist about this again yesterday. We’ve been discussing my (lack of) work situation on and off for 7 years, but a little more often lately. Same with Radical Acceptance. I’ve been doing somewhat better with this struggle this year because, well, COVID. The lockdowns and the endless pleas for us to go nowhere we don’t have to and see no one we don’t have to are a homebody’s dream. Don’t get me wrong. I hate COVID so much. But, not being allowed to go anywhere was no big deal for me. And if I had a job, I would have been forced to go and that would have pissed me off.

Before COVID, I was working as a volunteer at a Resource Center. I was providing food, clothing, diapers and other necessary stuff to the homeless and the poor. But I had a falling out with the owner of the place over how to treat clients. I thought he should be nicer. He was getting very political with the place which I hated and he was starting to act like people shouldn’t complain because it was free. But, I’m sorry, if I go through a food line and the bananas are bad, I’m going to let you know. So I left there. My goal was to chill until the new year and then find another opportunity. So, it’s the new year and I have no idea what to do with myself. And, because I have nothing to do outside of the house I’m starting to attribute that to the aforementioned laziness.

But, that’s not it. My therapist was very clear about that. She does not believe that I should be working and quite frankly, neither does my psychiatrist. But, I’m having a terrible time reversing my beliefs about myself. Beliefs I have held since I was a child. Work hard, make money, have fun, rinse and repeat. I wrapped my work ethic around me like a safety blanket and never considered a point in time when working wouldn’t be part of my life. And, if I did consider what could happen if I suddenly found myself rich, I was always working 60 hours a week for a charity. Now, that security blanket is gone and I have nothing to replace it with.

I have a possible lead on a new charity job very similar to the one I was doing. But, I know in my heart that I can’t be gung ho with this new opportunity. It can only be a few hours a day for a few days a week. I have to suppress my natural urges to become invaluable and know everything that is going on at all times. I have to remember not to volunteer to run large events (or small events for that matter). I have to be a background player. And I don’t like to be a background player. The work is still fulfilling for what we are doing to help people, but at the same time, not fulfilling, because I won’t be living up to my full potential.

But, isn’t this all about how my full potential looks significantly different then it used to? That is the whole problem. The thing I’m unwilling to give up is the thing I have to give up if I want a chance at living my best happiest life.

It’s time to start working on Radical Acceptance again. To find out how I accept, in any way, that my full potential no longer looks like what it used to. I’m sure this is going to entail me somehow figuring out how to accept myself at less then full potential and be generally ok with it.

This is going to be a very challenging year.

My suicide memories

Tags

#suicideawareness

TRIGGER WARNING

Exactly one year ago this week, I attempted suicide for the second time in my life. For the last few days, I’ve been mulling over what I did, why I did it and what lessons I’ve come away with.

What I did:

Well, put simply, I tried to kill myself. It’s easier to write it then say it out loud. I took a lot of medication. A lot of medication. And a variety. That part is easy.

Why I did it:

Well, that’s harder. There are a lot of things in that pile. The thing that screams at me the loudest is the argument that I had with M (stepson’s girlfriend). I was accused of doing something that I didn’t do, which is probably my single largest trigger. I do plenty that people could pick apart and latch onto if they want to challenge me. But, when the accusations are about something I DIDN’T do, I go from calm to incensed in less then a second. To make it worse, my attempts to defend myself seemed to make the situation worse. Her source was unreliable and motivated either by a dislike of me or a drug addled mind remembering things incorrectly. Either way, I was screwed. But, the result of this was that my husband was no longer going to be able to see his son or granddaughter, and the unfairness of that drove me further down a slide of seething anger with no outlet.

Not to be outdone, my bipolar swung to mania. So now, I’m furious with no outlet to express it AND I’m completely unable to settle down from the manic high I’m riding.

The next part is fairly predictable with my downward slide. I latched onto what my husband was losing as a result of this fight. Access to his son. Access to his granddaughter. And my mind made these into barriers for him that could only be overcome by my absence. But, I knew that my absence couldn’t just be simply accomplished by not coming to visit. My addled mind knew that my absence must be permanent. I was completely positive of this. It had gone from opinion to fact nearly immediately. And I “realized” that the only way to make this right for my husband was for me to die. He would get his kid back. He would get his granddaughter back. Life would settle down without my crazy mood swings. And my life insurance would pay out, giving him an easier path in life.

As much as this seems nuts now, this was the why of what I did.

The lessons:

Some of the lessons are repeats of the lessons I’ve learned through other periods of suicidal ideation. My brain lies when under severe bipolar pressure. My husband loves me and under no circumstances wants me dead.

But, in this instance, the lesson I really needed was what to do about M. This lesson took months of Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) group therapy and new meds to help me level off and see things clearly. I can’t control other people and their actions. No matter how unfair they are being to me, or how much I point it out, some people will never see things my way. And that has to be ok. I’m still working on being ok with it, but I have the thought in my head and I’m working on it.

Radical acceptance has to lead the way with these things. I will never wrap my head around how some people can be so hateful. I don’t get it now, and I don’t see that changing. Radical acceptance though will allow me to make peace with the idea, even if I don’t like it or understand it.

But the biggest lesson has to be to reach out for help. I have to believe so deeply in the unconditional love my husband has for me that I reach out to him instead of reaching for the pill bottle. I know he’ll be frustrated and upset, but it doesn’t matter. That part I need to brush aside. I have to trust in the love we have and get the help I need before things go too far. I have to have my coping skills handy and ready to use at a moments notice so I can keep putting one step in front of the other until I can get to hubby for help.

Keep fighting. Keep moving forward. Keep writing. Keep engaged with others. Keep accepting the hard lessons. Keep believing in my husband.

Keep believing in myself.

Sickness and the Election

Tags

bipolar blog, blog, blogger, donald trump, Election, Mental Illness, President

I have been really under the weather for weeks.  I picked up a sinus infection after Hurricane Matthew rolled through and it kept recurring.  I’m most of the way through my second round of antibiotics and yesterday was the first day in nearly a month that I didn’t feel like hell.

Well, I actually did feel like hell.  In my mind a storm was brewing.  Anxiety climbed the walls of my mind lifting me to panic attack readiness.  I finally found some solace in a 10 mg Valium and Morgue’s chat room.  (and if you want to check that out, let me know.  It’s completely worth it)

Wednesday I had pretty much spent the day in front of CNN watching in disbelief what our country had done the day before.  But, yesterday I had taken to social media and the internet at large with a vengeance.  I wanted to know why.  Why had We The People elected this hatemonger to the highest office in our country?

I joined a lot of discussions.

I queried on my own Facebook wall why Christians had shown up in droves to elect this man.  I received the following response from one of my relatives after she admonished me for not watching Jim Baker (yes, THAT Jim Baker) to get the information I should have gotten before I made a misinformed decision

Here’s the scoop: 1) Trump is “pro-life”, which is why he hopes to abolish “Roe vs Wade”. Hillary, on the other hand, boldly proclaimed (during their debate) that she is totally in favor of a full-term baby being murdered before it’s head leaves the birth canal!!…..2) Trump wants Jersalem to become the capital of Israel & wants to move our American Embassy there. Hillary, on the other hand, wants to divide Israel in such a way as would give some of Israel’s land to the Palestinians, WHICH WOULD DEFINITELY BE A NO-NO W/ GOD, WHICH WOULD RESULT IN HIS WRATH BEING POURED-OUT UPON US!!!!!!!!!….That is why evangelical christians had to vote for Trump irregardless as to his flaws…..God can do extraordinary things w/ ordinary people!!!!!

Seriously, I’m related to the person who gave this answer.

Excuse me while I go take another Valium

…

…

Hopefully that kicks in quick

I found a lot of posts, and I mean a LOT, from people explaining why I should just “get over it already”.  I spent some time answering those people.  I explained that, while I respected their right to be satisfied, I should also be allowed some time to process and mourn.

I spent a little bit of time watching CNN as I wanted to see our President-Elect meet with President Obama and see the press conference afterwards.  But, it wasn’t easy.  My heart broke for President Obama.  I couldn’t imagine what he must have been feeling as he worked to pave the way for our President-Elect, knowing that he was working with a racist.

Later in the afternoon I went back to Facebook.  I couldn’t help it.  I knew that I shouldn’t, because of the level of animosity I was encountering.  But, on the other hand, I needed information.  You can’t fight what you don’t understand.  If you don’t see what’s coming, how can you prepare for it?

I ended up being brought to my limit by this

Now, I agree with what that says.  But, I was still feeling like it was telling me to get over it.  And I was still feeling like I had the right to be heard.   So, as a comment to the person who posted this, I laid out the reasons that I am upset.  And terrified.  Let’s please not forget terrified.

I have several  mental illnesses and that marginalizes me in the new President’s eyes.

I need disability and that marginalizes me in the new President’s eyes.

My husband works for a company that buys parts from overseas.  Renegotiation of trade deals, or scraping them altogether, could easily raise the costs of those parts which would raise the cost of the finished product.  The finished product of the company my husband works for is heavily financed through the Export Import Bank.  The dissolution of that bank desired by our new President will mean that those products will not be purchased driving that company out of business and with it my husband out of a job.  This last bit holds true for many many large businesses in our country and could potentially mean the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

The Affordable Care Act helps over 11 million people in this country obtain coverage.  Our new President wants to repeal it.  He has a plan to change it, and it’s a decent plan, but what about a bridge for coverage while prices come down (if they do)?  That’s 11 million people out of health insurance.

This is not counting what black people, Muslim people, Mexican people and gay people must be feeling.  If I’m as scared as I am, how must they feel?

After posting all of this, I started to panic.  I had never really meant to “out” myself as mentally ill and disabled on Facebook.  Not yet.  Not like that.  And this is when the panic attack started to rise.  I did what I felt I had to do to explain WHY this election was so upsetting.  But, in the process, I had outed myself in a way I wasn’t really prepared for.  I had put my mental illnesses right out there for people to look at and I was afraid of what the backlash would be.  But, in deference to my budding panic attack, I turned off the TV, logged off Facebook and logged into the chat room.

This morning I went back.  I needed to see what the fallout had been.  Had I been being mocked overnight?  Had I actually managed to make my point understood?

The post had been deleted.

Gone.  I had outed myself for no reason.  I received no response, not even a thank you for trying.  I had laid bare my soul and my terror.  I had done it very very nicely.  And it was deleted.

This morning I had therapy and I was in tears in the waiting room.  How am I supposed to deal with this new world we find ourselves in?  If social media and the news are stressing me out, the obvious answer is to avoid them.  But, if I avoid them, how will I keep myself aware of the developments that will be happening constantly?  How can I fight for myself and, at the same time, keep myself safe?

And, the answer is…moderation.  I have to cut back on the news.  I definitely have to cut back on Facebook.  But, I need to stay aware.  I need to see harmful legislation coming so I can work to cut it down.  We all do.  It’s not fair that those among us who are least likely to cope with this kind of crap have to be more aware of it then anyone else.  But, it is what it is.

Two last things:

Somebody got his Twitter account back

Donald J. TrumpVerified account‏@realDonaldTrump

Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!

 

Poor baby.

 

And lastly, a very cool, very easy new campaign based on one that occurred in England following Brexit:

By fastening a safety pin to their clothing, people are declaring themselves allies to groups who have been maligned by Trump, to show that they stand in solidarity with anyone who might be afraid.

And as we’ve been dismayed to find out in the days following Trump’s election, it appears that there is reason to fear. People across the country have shared stories on social media of violence and hate speech directed at them in the wake of Trump’s victory. Racist graffiti was spotted around the country and minorities reported experiencing harassment the day after Trump was elected.

These frightening instances illustrate why the #safetypin idea ― which was inspired by a movement following Brexit in the United Kingdom ― is so timely. It’s a tiny gesture, but it speaks volumes, assuring people they are not alone.

You can read the full story here

My safety pin for solidarity

It’s a really easy way to let other people know that you support them.  I hope this little movement catches some fire and becomes HUGE.

I hope that all of you are ok and coping.  Together, we can all do this.  I’m considering starting a weekly series just to let everyone know about the things happening that we all need to be aware of.  Let me know if you think it’s a good idea.

And thankfully, that Valium has kicked in.

What’s worse?

Tags

anxiety, bipolar, coping skills, depression, disability, insomnia, lamictal, latuda, medications, memory loss, Mental Health, Mental Illness, prozac, saphris, seroquel, therapy, zyprexa

What’s worse…the side effects or the medication?

Unfortunately, that is the choice that we often have to make.  Not just those of us with mental health issues, I know.  But that is the direction I’m coming from, because that is the direction that affects me.

Over the last year and a half my meds have been changed approximately 6 times, not counting dosage changes.  Seroquel XR, Prozac, Lamictal, Latuda, Saphris and Zyprexa. These have been combined with Prozac and Neurontin (for depression and restless leg syndrome), a low dose of Elavil for pain, various anti-anxiety meds and several different sleep meds.  Right now my meds are Tegretol, Prozac, Neurontin, Elavil, Klonopin, Ambien and Trazadone as needed for sleep.

My actual meds look different now.

And, I’m doing ok.  Just ok. Not bad, but…not great.

The Tegretol is causing memory problems.  The Lamictal did the same thing at a higher dose, but at a lower dose didn’t really work on the bipolar as well.  But, the Lamictal helped me to gain weight, as did the Seroquel XR.  A LOT of weight.  Even while on Weight Watchers I gained weight.  To deny myself food over and over again and STILL gain weight was creating depression.  The Tegretol XR, while not helping me lose weight, has stopped the gain and made weight loss possible again.

My goal with all these medications has always been to get me well enough to go back to work.  I have applied for disability because I needed to get the process started, but in the back of my mind I always figured I’d get back to work at some point.  I brought it up in therapy on Friday and Karen, nicely, shot me down.  She pointed out that I’m spending all of my time on my coping skills (blogging, gardening, coupon clipping, therapy, resting) and if I start working, my stress will go up and the time for my coping skills will go down. Which will more than likely end badly.

I’m trying now to decide if I’m willing to deal with the side effects I’m feeling with the Tegretol or not.  I stop halfway through sentences because I forget what I’m talking about, or can’t find the words I’m looking for.  This post has already taken me an hour because I keep losing my train of thought.  But, my mood swings have been less intense and shorter in duration.  For a med resistant, rapid cycler like me that’s not too bad.

I have to decide if I’m willing to give up my memory for more stable moods.

What side effects are you willing to accept?

New Meds

Tags

bipolar, lamictal, prozac, seroquel xr, tegretol

Up early and I’m not feeling it already.  It’s dark, it’s cold, and since SC votes after NH the onslaught of political commercials is reaching its saturation point.

I was able to get myself an appointment at the pdocs office yesterday.  There is really something to say for having a good relationship with the receptionist or nurses or whoever schedules your doctor’s appointments.  I have to get through Roxanne to get to Dr. M. and she likes me, so she tries hard to help me.

ANYWAY, I told Dr. M that I’m done with this Seroquel XR / Lamictal/ Prozac combo. We’ve been playing with it for over a year.  We’ve tried so many different permutations that I’ve lost count.  The last straw was 50 mg in the morning of Lamictal, which made me severely anxious.  Even the 2 mg of klonopin I get per day wasn’t touching it and then I had no more klonopin for the day.

So, I went for blood work yesterday to check liver function, and assuming all of that is fine, I start Tegretol later today.  Goodbye Lamictal, goodbye Seroquel….don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.  We’re also adding in Trazadone if needed for sleep.

I’m happy that we are finally trying something different.  But, at the same time, I’m worried about what will happen if it doesn’t work.  It’s, I think, a very common worry with any type of mental illness.  If the meds are an epic fail….well…that’s a big fat problem.

But, I’m going into this trying very very hard to be happy and upbeat about the situation. I’ve been labeled med and treatment resistant, but who knows, maybe it’s because I’ve never tried this one.

One thing that Dr. M. said yesterday that rankled me a bit was that Tegretol is a good medicine that works and she doesn’t know why doctors (including herself, I hope) have gotten away from prescribing it.  I wanted to scream at her that maybe it is the constant onslaught of drug reps coming in and out with samples and samples of all the newest crap. Look, it’s NEW, it must be GREAT!!!  But, what about the meds that have been around for forever.  They’re still being made because THEY WORK.  Otherwise, they would have stopped production of these meds years and years ago.

I go back to her in two weeks and, fingers crossed, I hope I will be feeling ok.  It will be great if I’m feeling great, but I’m shooting for at least ok.

So….

Tags

anxiety, bipolar, lamictal, latuda, prozac, psychiatrist, saphris, seroquel

So…..I took my 50mg dose of Lamictal upon waking every day for the last 5 days.  Each day I feel the anxiety rising within a half hour.  Waking up anxious is not new to me, but doing it daily is.  I expect that within another half hour there will not be enough food in the world to satisfy me.  I won’t be hungry.  But I will have a terribly strong desire to eat anyway.

So….I’m going to call the pdoc office when they open and request an emergency appointment to fix this.  It is obviously not working.  I’m going to request Topomax or Geodone. I’m tired of playing around with Seroquel, Lamictal and Prozac.  They are not working.  I think we have tried every possible combination of these meds and it’s just not doing it.  I’m feeling like a drastic change is required, and these meds may or may not work, but I have to get away from what I’m on now.  I could not tolerate the newer stuff like Saphris and Latuda, so I’m thinking it’s time to go off script and try completely new stuff.

So….that’s all I can manage right now.  Hopefully I’ll be able to write more later.

Alone time

Tags

addict, addiction, alone, alone time, depression, drug addict, drug treatment, rehab, suboxone, therapist, therapy

Originally I was going to title this “Be Careful What You Wish For”.  But, now I’m realizing that these feelings are entirely dependent on the time of day and how much I’m thinking about at the time.

I couldn’t wait for MIL to go to PA to visit family.  We bought her a plane ticket for Christmas and she is gone for 10 days.  10 days where I would have the house to myself every afternoon and evening after hubby went to work.  And then hubby and I would have the house to ourselves over the New Year’s holiday.

But, now hubby is in PA, too.  It’s a necessary trip, to get J into rehab.  But, after hubby left yesterday, I was really disappointed.  I didn’t want the house to myself anymore.  I wanted hubby to not have to leave.  I wanted to have him here for our traditional chilled out New Year’s Eve.

But, then I got up this morning and I was able to get things accomplished. Early.  While I have energy.  And I didn’t have to be extra special quiet, because no one else is here.

I need to revel in this  time alone.  I have to find a way to enjoy every single drop of it.  Because, it could be the last time I’m alone for a very long time.

Assuming J goes to rehab, he will not be able to stay in PA.  His mother is useless and her badgering will only send him back to old friends and old habits.

So, he will be coming to live with us.

I don’t even know how we are going to figure that out.  But, again assuming he goes into rehab, we will have about a month to get it together.  I know that he has to be responsible for himself, but we can’t just leave him there.  We have to help him change his situation.  It will be his decision to make it work, but we need to give him a fighting chance and he will not have that living with his mother.  Rehab will help him get medical assistance so we will be able to help him find a therapist (no way is he going to Karen, she’s mine!) and get him set with a doctor that can help manage his meds.  He’s going to need an antidepressant and rehab will more than likely start him on suboxone for the heroin detox and recovery.

Karen and I need to start right away preparing my mental state for J’s possible move here.  The last time someone moved in (MIL) I dropped my marbles only 2 months later.  I couldn’t cope with the change and the depression made me want to wrap my car around a tree.

Now the change is going to be staggeringly large.  As of right now, the only place for J to sleep is the couch.  Hubby and I have been waiting for a little over a year now, to put a small bedroom addition on the back of the house. This was to have been paid for with the money MIL got for selling her house in PA.  But, it hasn’t happened and her money is dwindling fast. She copes with her depression by shopping.  Not good.

This situation is a serious test of my ability to handle one thing at a time.  I cannot allow myself to get worked up about what is coming a month from now.  I have to deal with what I can do now.  And that is to support hubby and get this house purged of crap and cleaned super well so that we are ready to start dealing with J moving in.  We may finish the room over the garage (although I don’t know where all the shit that is up there now will go) or to get that addition built however we can.

For now, I await hubby’s call to let me know if J goes to rehab or not.

Bipolar dispair

Tags

anxiety, bipolar, Celexa, Cymbalta, depression, disability, dry mouth, klonopin, lamictal, latuda, Lexapro, medication cost, medications, Mental Health, Mental Illness, prozac, psychiatrist, saphris, side effects, stigma, suicidal thoughts, suicide, Trazodone, zyprexa

 

Christmas is over and bipolar is still here.

I’m starting to come back around to my baseline of constant low level anxiety.  I got a couple weeks out of my med changes and now they are slowly failing me yet again.  I will go to next pdoc appt and request an increase of klonopin, which she will give me.  That will hold for a couple weeks and then I’ll need more.  So we’ll change to something else.  She loves messing around with my prozac dosage, so I’m sure we’ll do some of that as well.  Can’t increase lamictal or I’ll lose my memory again.  Can’t increase Seroquel XR or I’ll stop losing weight and start gaining again.  Latuda?   Immediate fail.  Zyprexa? Immediate fail. Lexapro?  Been there, done that.  Cymbalta? Couldn’t pay me enough. Celexa?  Eventual fail.  Trazodone?  Eventual fail. Saphris? Immediate fail.  There are more.  I’ve been through all the sleeping pills and all the anxiety rescue meds more than once.  We just keep cycling through them as their effectiveness wears off.

It’s an exhausting cycle which many people go through when confronted with mental illness.  There just isn’t a good enough solution.  We’re the guinea pigs of our own treatment.  We get fat from our meds.  We get dry mouth and horrible breath.  The depression meds make us manic, but if we don’t take them we move towards suicidal.  Some of the meds take away our personalities.  We become emotionless robots, plodding through our days, enjoying little to none of it.  We lose our memory.  We lose our creativity.  Many of us don’t regain the ability to rejoin the workforce.  But, obtaining disability is a multi-year odyssey in humiliation and poverty during which we struggle to pay our doctors and purchase our ridiculously expensive meds.

And, as if all of that was not enough, we are told to suck it up.  We are told that if we exercise we won’t need those meds.  We are told that suicide is selfish.  We are told we are lazy.  We are told we are a drain on the system.

If we are fortunate enough to eventually obtain disability, we live in poverty.  And disability can be taken away, regardless of our doctors reports, leaving us to wean ourselves off dangerous medications without medical supervision.

The stigma of mental illness will keep many of us from getting the treatment we need.  We will endeavor to keep our families and friends in the dark about our conditions for fear of losing them.  We berate ourselves for being so weak and crazy.  Because our illness can’t be seen, it is hard to accept.

We remain anonymous, even to each other.  Being known, speaking or writing publically could make the government decide that we are, after all, capable of doing the things our doctors say we can’t.  It wouldn’t matter that it is taking me hours to write this.  I would never be able to commit to speaking anywhere, as there are days I can’t bring myself to get out of bed. Or shower.  Or eat.  Or hear loud noises.  Or have conversations with others.  Or see the sun.  And there are rarely warnings that those days are coming.  So, we don’t trust even the people who live with the same problems as ourselves, with our real identity.  Which I believe hurts us in the long run.

I wish I knew how to make it all stop.  A med that will help everyone with a minimum of side effects.  A removal of stigma so that our condition can be openly dealt with, as it would if we had cancer.  And a government that would listen to the opinions of our doctors and help us when we are no longer able to help ourselves without a helping hand.  After all, I paid into that system for 25 years.  Instead they are forcing us to fight battles we don’t have the strength to fight to get the money we are were told we were entitled to when we were forced to pay into the system.

It would be so wonderful if we could all speak in unison of the trials and tribulations of mental illness.  But those of us with the most need are those whose suffering prevents them from doing much else but suffer.