My hypomania is totally gone and I am mourning its loss terribly. I am not depressed, but I am so tired of being tired and having to nap again several times during the day.
Work is Suffering
I am unable to keep up the hours working as well as the great writing I had been doing. I am back to my usual struggle to meet my minimum needs to survive.
My Blog is All But Forgotten
I haven’t thought about writing here until this morning and that breaks my heart, too. I had been having so much fun writing almost every day. And now, writing here is barely a memory.
Wish to Create Hypomania
Wouldn’t that be amazing to be able to manifest hypomania sheerly by will?
Something I heard yesterday, but was drown out by the other activities of my brain, surfaced again in the night and continues this morning.
You remember the sound of playing cards on bike spokes?
They are humming along in my room.
I have a huge AC and a tall fan on 24/7, so nothing has changed as far as equipment. I turned them both off, together and separately, and I still have the cards-in-the-spokes sound. It’s not as loud as the video above, but it is distinct and I can hear it over both the AC and fan. I have to turn the music up pretty loud to drown it out.
So I do.
Tired of This Reporting
There’s more, but I’m tired of telling y’all every detail of what my head is doing. I think I’m going to take the day off writing about my mental craziness and find something else to chat about.
In the meantime, enjoy Queen’s “Bicycle Race” video below.
My vocabulary is exemplary with clients. My mouth is pouring out words I rarely use. My brain is on fire!
I am writing like mad.
I am lost as to time. I thought yesterday (Friday) was Monday all day long. I have appointments on Monday and was ready for them wondering where my connections were… why were they so late? I still barely know what day it is. I keep looking at the calendar to see where I am.
I no longer care one whit about the hallucinations. They are worth this glorious activity and brain power.
I’m tempted to cancel the psych appointment next week, but I can hear all of you now… “NO!” so I won’t.
I’m hanging on until I see the psych next week. I am not in a place of needing hospitalization or calling for help, not that way. I have only been hospitalized once, but not for trying to hurt myself, but close to it.
I went back to read what I wrote when I had the Manic Depression and wrote about it in this blog. If you’re interested, Search: Bipolar Diary and all the posts will come up. I wrote some good shit about what was going on. The published dates are 2018, but the Mania was in 2016. Blessedly, I wrote dates and times on the posts. I must have re-posted for some reason along the way. Who knows why.
“A crazy hallucination I had the other day was seeing my pillow breathing. Yes, I know… ridiculous, but I stared at it as it inhaled and exhaled for the entire 5-minutes I watched. I blinked, shook my head, told myself there was no way in hell that was real, yet the pillow kept inflating and deflating, slowly, as if it was breathing. I glance over a lot to see if it’s going for a repeat performance. Nothing so far.”
I also wrote:
“I have the usual roaches and now some flying bats, but those are pretty yawn-inspiring since they’ve been around so long now. It’s the floating toilet paper roll, the pens, my Blistex lip balm… things that are here in my room, in my real life, just appearing, mid-air… there… and then fleetingly gone again. My food shifts next to me. I “see” music coming out of the speaker. The movements around the room are near-constant. (The book next to me is shuffling the pages as I write this.)”
My Cardiac Stress Test came back no blockage in my heart. I am ecstatic about that! I’ve tortured my heart since I was 11 years old, so it’s actually shocking. The summary suggested “Lifestyle Changes.”
Doing it!
Crankiness
I fucking hate Risperdal. I hadn’t taken it in a few (many) days and took the 1mg prescribed and was so groggy all day as if I had taken Trazodone. I hate dreamless sleep. Still was only five hours total, but felt horrible when awake.
What is the price of non-compliance?
I will see if there is something else I can take when I talk to the psych next week.
What Does “Slightly Mad” Look Like?
Maybe I am just in Hypomania with teensy bits of manic hallucinations.
(Can you hear me laughing as I try and rationalize my behavior and thoughts? If I was listening to myself, I would be shaking my head and saying, “Stop it!”)
I had a Cardiac Stress Test today. The ants came along with me. It’s ever so much fun trying to ignore hallucinations in a medical setting. More on that in a bit.
Besides being a fat girl, the COVID I had late December fucked with my heart and lungs. I had heart palpitations from early January until I went to the ER mid-April. (“They’re going to go away! Dr. Google said they are transient.” They were not.)
While in the hospital, a full work-up also found swollen lymph nodes in one lung. They weren’t too worried about that and said to go for another CT in six months. Easy peasy.
The heart, though. Well, let’s just say when I talked to the Electrocardiologist from my hospital bed at the end of April, he gave me an ultimatum.
These Are Choices?
He said:
“You can either completely change your life or you live in a nursing home.”
See, when people said I was going to die, that was pretty much saying, “You get out just like we all get out.” So what? I could not have cared less.
However, a nursing home?
I had pictures of myself at 400 pounds with some nurse’s aid wiping my ass. I could smell my life of urine and shit. I saw the rows of wheelchairs and my super-sized one in the corner waiting for me to go to a dinner of mush and slop.
(This might not be your view of nursing homes, but it was what my mind flashed to.)
Life Changing
Well, the idea of a nursing home was less than appealing, so I decided the other option of changing my life wins that argument.
I quit eating from Uber Eats.
I threw out the salt. Mind you, I put salt on salt, so not having salt was the most challenging change.
I only buy low-sodium/no sodium foods. (No lowER, sodium, I shoot for less than 1000 mgs salt daily.
I now drink Caffeine-Free Diet Coke.
I upped my vegan game, but the cardiologist said, “You might want to eat salmon for your heart and kidneys.” I eat a small bit of salmon three times a week and take Omega-3 supplements daily.
I take Metoprolol Tartrate for my heart palpitations (PVCs).
I take Lasix to keep the water from flowing up and squishing my heart.
What’s Changed So Far
The heart palpitations/PVCs are gone.
The Lasix has stopped my retaining fluid. Good LORD, salt sure had me retaining fluid. I had so much in my body it was actually squishing my heart! That is a fuck ton of fluid.
I’ve lost 60 pounds since the beginning of May.
I just got permission to start walking again. Woo hoo!
Today’s Cardiac Stress Treat
The stress test was a chemical one instead of the treadmill.
It took wayyyyyy longer than expected because I am a hard stick for IVs and they had to bring in the PICC team woman to ultrasound my arm. She found it quick and easy after 4 pokes from the nurses. “I am a hard stick. You might want to get someone with a sono to do it.” <ignore Barb/>
Ants on a Log
Yeah, I brought the ants with me to the hospital. I closed my eyes and meditated to my Queen mix, deciphering the different vocal and instrumental parts to keep my mind working and not seeing or slapping the ants. I could still feel them, but worked to not feel them as much.
“Oh, listen to Deacy’s bass. That goes well with Roger’s kick drum.”
“Listen to Brian, Freddie, and Roger’s harmony. That’s Roger up there. I hear Brian better on this section. Freddie sure has range!”
I laughed thinking what they would think if I demonstrated my hallucination dance. I might be put on another floor of the hospital. At least I recognize my hallucinations. I know I am lucky that way.
Sniffing… Well, Sometimes Glue (I think)
At the hospital, I realized my olfactory hallucinations (phantosmia) are back, too. They have been for awhile, but it didn’t hit me until I began smelling the scent of a rotten animal at the hospital, too. It has been an on-again-off-again smell in my room. I have torn it apart looking for a dead animal, not finding anything. My room is sealed! There is no way for anything to get in. Why that didn’t hit me sooner is beyond me.
My olfactory hallucinations have been the most frequent hallucinations I’ve had over the last 30 years. Even when I am fine and balanced, I still have them. I have not had them for over a year; no idea why not. But here they are again.
Usually, when I am depressed, I smell gross things like vomit, something burning, shit or… dead animals?
When I am doing well, I smell great things like the plumeria in Kaua’i, strawberries, and (this is hilarious) the scent of the paper fresh off the ditto machine.
Smelling the ditto sheets. Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Am I Sliding Into Mania?
Yet, here I am, not depressed but having hallucinations.
I’ve sat for awhile and thought about the last couple of weeks. I also scoured Dr. Google.
I have:
Written a LOT of posts
Written things I regret writing (blessedly not on the blog that I can see… yet, anyway… but sadly to someone who I love very much)
Am sleeping way less
Am talking louder than I need to be
Saying things that are out of character
Fuck. Maybe I am sliding into mania again.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I have an appointment with my Psychiatrist in one week. I will let you know how it goes.
Crapola.
Afterthought: I started off this post all happy and almost silly. Now that I am in this place with new light, I am not so giddy.
Not so long ago, I was in a very sad and depressed state. When I started watching videos on YouTube, I thought it was a distraction and worried I was sinking deeper.
Instead, what I found was a way out of depression.
Damn Hallucinations
However, I am having hallucinations that are annoying and need more help with. Ants crawling on me… visual and tactile. Annoying for sure.
Having hallucinations reminds me my brain doesn’t usually work like it’s supposed to. Even when I feel good. That bugs me (so to speak). I am not in a manic state. I’m getting enough sleep. My meds haven’t changed. I am pretty sure I am going to have my Risperdal upped and that really makes me cranky because that shit makes me gain weight and I am on a losing streak, 60 pounds so far. (That’s a story for another day.)
Clearly, I have been writing more. Not just here, but also in my book. I feel so good, which makes the hallucinations especially annoying as fuck.
Brian May to the Rescue
Brian May is the guitarist for Queen and a soloist as well.
This is part of the transcript from a podcast “Brian May – How Do You Cope? Elis and John” found HERE. The entire transcript delves into Brian’s ongoing life as a “depressive” (his word) and how he works through it, including the time he went to a treatment center. I highly encourage reading the entire piece because there are 1000 nuggets of understanding and inspiration there.
And hope.
“Some of it was actually incredibly difficult to get through to even get in a studio because it made me massively depressed, and when you’re really depressed you’re not writing songs or you’re not writing the Blues. You can’t write anything. You can’t even get up in the morning. So I went through a lot of trials and I remember sitting in the studio feeling so incredibly bleak and wondering if I had anything to say. All I could feel was pain.”
“Yeah, I kind of felt life was over and I just wanted to try to get to the point where I could put it into music, and again this idea of sharing it with other people. I thought, if I can get through this then maybe I can help other people get through it.”
Again… and hope.
(Besides Bri helping me, his matter-of-fact speaking about having off and on depression has de-mystified and normalized mental illness, especially depression. I can’t thank him enough for his gift of speaking out loud about his struggles and triumphs.)
Watching Myself Fall Downward
I was stagnant for so long, for well over a year. A friend with whom I’d been sharing my work and getting lots of great feedback and encouragement from to keep going ghosted me. Crushed, I stopped writing. It took a few months before I realized why. I missed him and our interactions about my writing. It didn’t seem worth doing if no one was going to read it. I couldn’t find the inspiration to pick up the pen again and get any words on the page. Honestly, I thought the words in my mind had vanished.
I tried reading, but that gave me very little pleasure and no inspiration. I did read War and Peace and Anna Karenina , both by Leo Tolstoy, and loved them, but still they did not nudge me to write in the way I had hoped. Anything less intense was a bore.
I’m “On My Way Up”… and Out!
It is through music I have found my way out of depression and the immobility with writing.
I did not know that would be my path and am still a bit amused this is the territory I’m traversing. How could old rock music get my creative blood pumping and have me waking at 5:00am eager to tap, tap, tap on the computer? I keep going until I feel the words begin to slow, winding up, and then working much of the day. But, even my work writing is going so much better.
Dr. Brian May wrote a song called “On My Way Up” that has become my anthem.
“I’m on a roll
Gonna have it all
It’s gonna be fine so fine, baby all the time
I’m in control (on my way up)
I’m mighty bold (I’m telling myself)
I’m looking good (I’m totally sussed)
I’m quitting the neighbourhood
On my way up (yes I am)
(On my way up) Gonna get right with them
Got all of my life left for living”
I listen to this first thing in the morning, even before Track 13. I feel strong and powerful.
Deep inside my colorless cocoon, I have a vague sense of other lives nearby.
I slither through their reality; where is my own? Surrounding myself with the darkness of my depression.
My mirror’d existence bursts into color, fireworks exploding with energy that drains my body, but never my mind.
Having Bipolar Disorder 1 is, quite literally, opposing colors of my brain. I see auras anyway, but during a manic episode, the colors scream off my body, tsunamis of energy crashing into my brain again and again. Voices screech… or whisper… I, never knowing which will be next… raging about how I look, feel, need to act, need to fly, need to find this or that, things that are elusive even after hours of mentally and physically searching.
Exhaustion never comes.
When the electricity finally dissipates after months of zapping me, I collapse into that dark world once again, struggling to keep breathing and not smother myself with the thought that this will go on forever.
Reaching outward, always outward, needing several hands to keep me alive, I am fed my medication, waking only to swallow, then sleeping yet another 23 hours.
Writing is my emotional gauge. By how many words I write in a day, I’m able to see where I stand psychologically.
Not writing for days, weeks, months… I am in that dark place and need help. Too often, because I am alone, I do not recognize the need for many weeks and, by then, am buried by the pain.
However, when I write 20,000 words in a day… several blog posts for me, blog posts and essays for work… long emails to friends and family… run-on sentences with divergent topics… it is they who sense my need for help and their well-rehearsed phone calls are made to see who can get me to the doctor the fastest.
Walking the tightrope, umbrella in hand, I teeter, side to side, always searching for that inaccessible balance.
Once again, I am a live wire that hums like a fluorescent bulb, sleeping 2 hours a day, am a writing banshee and logged into work for many hours at a time.
It seemed to take forever to get control over the hallucinations and be able to sleep, and when I did, I slid into Depression mid-December. The fight to find balance between soaring highs and plunging lows has eluded me. Just when I think I am finding stasis, I slip by it and move to the next level of distress.
And here we are, mid-January 2017, and I am, once again, having hallucinations, staying awake for far, far too long.
Will I never find balance?
Hallucinations AGAIN
I’ve had increasing hallucinations for at least 2 weeks now. They aren’t terrifying yet, but they are on their way there.
Today I was visited by a bat!
Fucking thing was flying around the room then dove right for my head. I ducked and covered myself, but, of course, it wasn’t real, so if someone had been watching, it would have given them a hearty laugh. Other visual non-existent treats have been my clothes on the back of the door lifting off and swaying back and forth a couple of times and nondescript somethings sitting on the dressers or on my bed.
(I feel like a crazy woman sharing these things. How can I talk about what is going on so casually? I think it is just getting to be so normal, I am more shrugging than freaking out about it.)
The auditory hallucinations have returned, my hearing all sorts of crazy noises from windstorms to doorbell chimes. And the incessant whispers, always just out of earshot and too low for me to understand, but they are not happy noises. “Ominous” is the word I would use to describe them.
artist, Nguyen Hoang Hiep
Oh, the goddamn tactile sensations. Again, feeling like I have bugs crawling on me. Not lots so far, but just enough to make me slap myself periodically.
Not smelling anything (yet) – olfactory hallucinations – but those are probably what’s up next on the Manic menu.
Writing writing writing
And so I write. Here, in my work blog, in Facebook. The words tumble out of my fingers even when I am meditating trying to sleep. I cannot keep them still as they search for a keyboard upon which to create.
This is the part of the Mania that keeps me from telling my doctor or taking more Risperdal because the deliciously creative period would be fleeting and, right now, the negativity of hallucinations is balanced by the verbosity of my words.
One sign of when I am in a serious depression is I can no longer write. It’s been since Dec. 30th that journaling words have come out of these fingers.
Psych Visit
I went to the Psych today and sobbed about how frustrated I am about this post-mania depression. He said it just takes time. I said I am losing time by sleeping and losing LOTS of money by not working.
Blessedly, no suicidal thoughts or ideation. Still have visual hallucinations, but meh on those.
Last thing we did was up the Wellbutrin (of which I have even worse Tardive Dyskinesia now). Now we’re upping the Cymbalta from 60mg qd to 90mg qd. He said he is giving it 4 weeks to change things before he considers upping it again.
I feel like cutting my tongue out. I swear someone is using a course-grit sandpaper, rubbing it over and over and over, while I sleep.
What’s sucky, too, is the Tardive Dyskinesia is doing overtime even while I am awake. Unless I am purposefully monitoring my tongue and jaw action, my tongue is scraping across my molars or my front teeth. Continuously.
Thank the Universe no one is noticing.
Wellbutrin
I am lost over what to do about the TD. I would need to cut down or quit the Wellbutrin and I feel so, so much better on it. The prospect of stopping it terrifies me. (And the TD might not go away after stopping the medication anyway!) I see the Psych in a week and will talk to him about it, but the decision is 100% mine about what to do: stay on it OR go off of it and try yet another medication that might cause TD even worse, and possibly permanent symptoms, than this.
So, I still have hallucinations, minor visual ones, not scary. But for a couple of weeks now, I have been having visions… premonitions are what they feel like.
I meditate and have vivid images cross my mind. They are different than the fleeting, wandering thoughts that float around inside my head during meditation. These are more solid than vapor-y… and so, so, so real. They come with emotions, sometimes intense. So far, all good, but I am a tad nervous about seeing scary things; trying not to focus on them, though.
They do not only come when I meditate, but they seem to come easier at that time. Sometimes I am in that half-asleep place, going to sleep or waking, and they appear, too.
“Seeing”
I saw a dear single friend of mine sitting in a library and a woman came to sit by him. She was dressed modestly, something that is important to my friend and struck him immediately. I saw them meeting, marrying and having a family together. All within moments. It was so real I almost reached out to touch them.
I’ve seen my grand-babies, growing through their lives… specific activities that I’ll leave a mystery for now.
I’ve sat in a meadow touching a rainbow.
Confused
Google-ing visions with bipolar disorder, one gets “schizophrenia.” Eek! Really? I see the Psychiatrist in a couple of weeks and will ask him what might be going on.
Until then, I’ll take what I see, write the visions down and not worry too much about this new phenomenon in my mental illness.
I’m pretty upset as I write this. I’ve known I spent money during the Mania… enough that I am in quite a hole I cannot seem to climb out of… but I did not know how much.
I could have gone and looked at my bank statement when I realized the money was gone so I knew where it went, but I was sticking my head in the sand, ashamed of what I had done… too embarrassed to even disclose it to myself.
But I found a pile of Blu-Ray DVDs 3 days ago; all 6 seasons of Northern Exposure and Season 1 of St. Elsewhere. I’m enjoying Northern Exposure (am on Season 5 now), it being one of my fave shows of all time, but I cannot help wishing I had the $400 back instead.
Today, I decided to be brave… and humble… and go look at the accounting of my spending during the Mania. It isn’t pretty. I didn’t have lots of new things in my small space, so was baffled what I could have spent the money on.
Apparently, I was benevolent.
Not needing to share the organizations I picked… I’ll just say I chose ones who were either in Syria or were attending to Syrian Refugees. 3 different ones.
1 of them twice.
Trying to put the pieces together, I looked here in the blog and, as the Mania was ascending, I had written about my utter horror and distress about the Middle East. Clearly, it affected me deeply considering the amount of money I donated very soon after writing those posts. There is no way I could say, “I wish I had the money back,” but I still wince seeing how much I sent out.
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to not have that happen again. As far as I know, I didn’t tell a soul I had done it. If I had, maybe someone could have questioned me? I have zero recollection of spending anything during that time. I don’t have anyone to watch over my finances (which Zack used to do). I don’t have credit cards, but spent everything I had plus more I had in the bank, so can’t even cut up cards to try and save myself from me.
I’m lost. Maybe someone will have some good ideas for not having that happen again?
Holy crap! I am finally awake more than 2 hours a day. I worked right about 500 minutes last pay period (I usually average over 1000)… and yesterday alone, I got almost 300 minutes!
Med Changes
So upping the Wellbutrin to 400mg a day and the Risperdal down to 1mg a night seems to be the ticket. At least for now. How many times do I have to do this readjustment? Over and over again. Very frustrating.
However, I took no nap yesterday, so that was good. I laid down this morning, but not sleeping, just dozing.
I cannot work. I can barely write. I am sleeping 100 hours a day.
artist, Ksenia Anske
Yet ANOTHER Visit to the Psychiatrist
Over and over and over I go, like on a loop, sitting in the Psych’s office, trying to form words that explain how I feel:
Despondent
Apathetic
Useless
Premonitions of Agoraphobia
Infinitely sad (made worse by Aleppo)
So, so, so tired
And words I do not share because they will toss me in the hospital if they fall out of my mouth. We’ll just let them sit in there and rot.
artist, David Kessler
Medications
Another change in meds. Lowering the Risperdal, upping the Wellbutrin. Will it make one iota of a difference? Can’t I have some speed, please? “We don’t want you having those horrible hallucinations again, do we?” (Yes, please. If I can stay awake.)
Apparently I am really sensitive to medications, especially Psych meds. Over the last 2 years, I have tried 6 meds (not all Psych) that I eventually had to quit because of (what I would consider) intolerable Tardive Dyskinesia. I know that many others have it worse, have to take the meds that cause TD and that, for many, it never goes away. I have been lucky that mine generally went away.
Except the last time.
My Recalcitrant Tongue
The first time I experienced the TD, it took a couple three weeks to figure it out. My tongue kept burning… then I would wake up with blood in my mouth. I couldn’t figure it out. My teeth? They all felt fine.
So I meditated on it, talked to myself about paying better attention, slowing down the movements so I could figure it out.
I began paying attention as I fell asleep, honing in on my mouth.
A couple of nights after this new mindfulness thing, I relaxed and let my mouth do its thing. And boy did it ever.
Scraping is the best way to describe it. My tongue, clearly having a life of its own, pushed through my teeth, first pressed upward, then pulled back, my top teeth sliding against my raw tongue. Over and over and over again. Apparently, all. night. long.
Oddly, it didn’t do it as much when I was awake. I realized it did some, but not a lot. It was at night that my teeth assaulted my tongue. And holy fuck did it hurt.
Medication Connection
I Googled “tongue scraping” and TD came up. Medications were the culprit. Sometimes ones a person had taken for many years.
I’d recently started some medication or another (cannot remember and for whatever crazy reason, I didn’t note it or write it anywhere), so went off and within a week, the TD had disappeared. The doctor tried another one to replace the first. Same thing, but this time I figured it out a lot sooner. Went off, it went away, and tried a third medication. This time it was fine.
Fast forward to this recent Manic Episode when I had to go on Risperdal for the hallucinations, then when I fell a tad too low, increasing the Wellbutrin… a med I have been on for several years. I hadn’t an issue with the Risperdal, but began noticing some light TD symptoms after upping the Wellbutrin. No blood this time, but the scraping had begun.
I lowered the dose of Wellbutrin for a couple of days with no changes, so upped it back to the 300 mg my doc agreed to (after I’d upped it myself). It didn’t get worse, but was still annoying.
Resignation
artist, Margot Rijven
I seem to be in the place where the TD isn’t going to go away, but it isn’t going to get any worse, either.
It is definitely worse when I am tired or sleeping. I wake up with a very sore tongue and can feel I have been rubbing it against the roof of my mouth. I am happy that I am not waking up with a bloody tongue or enormous sores from the vicious play of teeth and tongue while I am unconscious. I am also quite lucky I do not have the serious symptoms of TD that include protruding tongue or uncontrollable facial tics that are obvious to anyone looking.
Still, my TD is annoying. It gets in the way of my work at times, having to make adjustments to my speech because of my involuntary mouth and tongue actions. But so far, nothing has been irreparable.
So, I shall just keep being Mindful and do my best to stay on top off the Tardive Dyskinesia, maybe lessening it over time.
It’s really sucky to just be living your life, tooling along as usual, talking with your friend… and then BAM! have your head smacked with a baseball bat and suddenly being an incoherent, crazy person contradicting yourself and being mean to the last person on earth you want to be mean to.
I can’t even find the words yet for how embarrassed and ashamed I am for hurting someone I really love.
I know. triggers are triggers and sometimes cannot be helped because seeing them down the road isn’t possible.
Last night I was talking to my friend. We were ranting a lot about that Hitlerian President-Elect, sharing our thoughts, our fears… our terror… then I needed to write.
Descending Distress
So I went to work on Stunned, Shocked & Saddened and right as I got to the end, I began to feel crappy, then worse, my heart started racing, my stomach was in knots, I began sweating like a piglaletta and finally I told my friend, “I feel like shit! I need to go lay down.”
Once I was on laying on my bed feeling horrid, I began breathing deep to try and lessen the distress.
Then I thought, “Oh, I recognize this. This is an Anxiety Attack.”
I situated myself on the bed, laying down, feeling my body’s frantic fight to keep control over my mind, but I strong-armed the panic so I could do my Mindfulness exercises.
I felt the sheets under my arms and legs… listened to the air conditioner’s humming… smelled the scent of cinnamon from the witch’s broom I have in the corner.
Working Through the Experience
When I could, I texted my friend that it was an Anxiety Attack so he wouldn’t worry. He then asked if I had meds for that.
Later, when I could explain better, I shared that I grew up in a Pill-for-Every-Ailment kind of family, so I have always seen meds as a free-for-all. My mom, sister and I have all been addicted to pills of one kind or another… my sister dying of an overdose of pain meds, mainly the 4 Fentanyl patches she had on when they found her. I am now about 2.5 years clean from Opiates (Percocet & Norco). I then shared that while acknowledging my forever-need for Psych meds, I do try to minimize other meds where I can.
Anti-Anxiety meds (Benzodiazepines) are one of those types of meds I would rather not be using. I tried them when I had the Agoraphobia and hated them; I was doped into a stupor. I was on a dozen other meds including the opiates, so probably to be expected, but still. So I made the choice to not use the Benzos, but Mindfulness and Mindfulness Meditation instead.
Back for Good?
The picture is so accurate, showing the electrical currents zapping the brain and heart, sending them surging into overdrive… often for no apparent reason. Mental ones that are short circuiting, sure, but often for nothing we can pinpoint.
I was confused why the Panic Attack even hit in the first place, but my friend reminded me (lovingly and gently) that the (fucking) Election has brought out intense emotions and then I spent a lot of time writing the previous post. Then the Panic consumed me.
Now that I remember what they feel like, I am on alert (not HIGH alert, though) for when/if it comes a’callin’ again.
Of course, I hope I don’t have another, but if I do, I am ready…
I am horrified to learn I live in a country with so many bigots, xenophobes and hate-filled people that they would elect a crazy man to lead our country.
But, I refuse to give up.
I am scared; I stand up
I Will Not Be Bullied
I don’t know what or how yet… and the only thing I can physically or financially do is write… but I will write until my fingers bleed trying to share, in words that have not already been said a million times, the impact of this Hitlerian President on those around me. And on me, a mentally ill Latinx on Obamacare, a femme Lesbian, an extremely pro-choice feminist woman who is scare for her Muslim friend.
When I went to the Psych a few days ago, he changed my Wellbutrin from 100 mg once a day to 100 mg twice a day. I asked if we could do 3 times a day. (You know, if 1 is good, 10 has to be better, right?) He said no to the 3 because it could send me back into Mania… and I wouldn’t want that would I?
Ohhhh, noooo.
I said what he wanted to hear, but began calculating how many Wellbutrin I had at home to be able to take 3 a day.
Just for a few days, you know. Just to get me over this sleeping 18+ hours a day thing.
It’s Working, Too!
artist, Sarah Dockter
Probably the bad part is it’s working. Not sending me to Mania that I can tell, but boy howdy, when I start to get that overwhelming sleepiness, I take a Wellbutrin and perk right back up for several hours.
I really am only taking 3 a day. I promise. (If I was going to confess this, I might as well go all the way, right?)
Not sure when (or if) I will lower it. Then I have to decide if I am going to tell the Psych when I see him again in 2 weeks.
Navelgazing Writer 