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.
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.)
I miss being awake almost all day (or a couple of days at a time). On Halloween, I slept 19 hours. As I have written, that isn’t the first time I have been asleep more than awake. It’s not only annoying me no end, but it is severely limiting my being able to work.
Even when I am awake, my brain is not functioning. I have no memory. Thoughts jump around until they are in a jumble in the center of the room. I am still struggling with the fucking homophones (week/weak, right/write, breech/breach, etc.) spilling out of my fingers as I type. Annoying!
Foresight
Until this manic episode, I was able to tell a depression was coming because of the hallucinations I almost always have them turning ominous. I’d mentioned to my Psychiatrist several times about the hallucinations’ slow transitions from pleasant to less pleasant, but I felt fine! (emphatic “fine!”) Now I know it was because I was shimmying UP instead of sliding down. 1998 had been my last manic episode and even that was only my second, so seeing this one coming was virtually impossible.
I have been concerned about depression setting in for awhile and talked about it at therapy today. I remember when I told the Psych my concerns a couple of weeks ago, he said that anything after where I had been is going to feel like depression.
I am really good after 38+ years with diagnosed mental illness, at being able to see my depression setting in. Or I thought so, anyway.
Being able to write is a litmus test for me; if I can write, I’m not in a catatonic depression. I can still write, so that’s good. Even if it is a scrambled mess.
Hindsight
So the Manic Episode officially (by my designation) began on or around September 1st and I declare it officially over on October 31, 2016. 61 days of Mania… the first 19 days lifting off; the last 18 the beginning of the end. 24 days of really distressing, trying to keep myself out of the hospital, bullshit. Give or take a few herky-jerky days on each end thrown in for good measure.
I miss the mania in several ways, mostly the being awake so much and the incredible productivity. I do not miss spending money I did not have and that I have zero to show for what I spent and the gigantic hole I am now in financially. No, that I could do without.
I keep being reminded that the mania came at a price (not just financial). I really did think I was losing my mind in the midst of it all. I am so thankful I am aware of when I need help.
I am finally finishing this 5 days after beginning. I have slept so much I can hardly do anything, including work.
I joined MoodTracker this morning and have been inputting my meds and moods (thank goodness for writing things in the blog!). I had no idea I was struggling for so long. I’d been “productive” for probably 6 weeks before I started writing the distress on these pages, but had no idea, until writing it down just how long I have been trying to find balance.
Now I feel useless. I cannot concentrate… or stay awake… long enough to work. I am irritable as shit. Hair-trigger anger. I need to work so bad… the pay period ends tomorrow… but I cannot keep 2 thoughts together long enough to take even a 15-minute call.
And as if the mental crap wasn’t enough, the pain in my upper right abdomen. Fuck. I am tired of hurting.
What to Do Instead of Work…
… or read or watch TV or watch a movie or clean anything or focus for more than 2 minutes at a time?
The only thing I have found is listening to Disney music.
Disney is as much in my blood as my Dad’s Cuban heritage is.
Navelgazing Writer 