How Deep is Your Well?

A day best slept through than lived. You can only understand that if you've ever been truly depressed. Made myself shower. It had been a week since I'd washed my hair. Made myself refill my pill boxes and take my morning meds. It'd been three days.

I confessed to my therapist that I hadn't been med compliant. And she asked me why, which is a reasonable question, and I surprised myself by saying, "It's not really intentional. Last week, I was so high I didn't think I needed them. And then when I crashed, I couldn't be bothered to care."

There's a lot of that last lately. Can't be bothered to eat. Can't be bothered to care about food, groceries, money, bills, pills. As if they will all, somehow, magically take care of themselves. Don't care about my hygiene, how the apartment looks, if I'm able to get anything done.

I've started having the gas mask fantasy again.

They're Back

Psych took me from 600 Lithium to 300 because I was showing side effects. And while Lithium at 600 seemed to stabilize my mood, it stabilized it at a moderate depression. The 300 Lithium, however, doesn't stabilize me. I've had one 3-4 day period of hypo/mania, and I crashed afterward into a moderate depression. This is hell on my relationship with Jb. It's hard to feel close--for him, as well, I imagine. I don't know how to get closer to him when I feel like this. I feel so self-centered and day-to-day. The financial situation doesn't help. We argue over spending $5. That's how bad things have become. And the IBS just gets worse and worse.

Med Update

Therapist is going to help me fill out my SSDI form. My psychiatrist is behind this as well, which helps having the two behind you.

As for meds, psych is dropping me down to 300MG Lithium. I was showing side effects: shaking hands, disoriented, walking like a sailor. He suggested I hydrate more.

Restless 12pm

Can't sleep. Spent an hour tossing and turning. It's not going to happen. Couldn't sleep last night either. Up until 2am. I haven't been eating much. Lost a few pounds, despite the Lithium, which I hear tends to pack on the pounds. Just not interested in food, shopping, making meals. You'd think this was the beginning of an upward spiral, but I'm still walking--stumbling really--around at about a 3, though to be fair, I have my moments of okayness with Jb.

Obligated

I feel somehow obligated to put up a post, to talk about what's going on with me. But I don't have anything to say. I can't get up quickly, or slowly, and I can't bend over or else I lose my balance. I smacked my head into the closet door yesterday and nearly went down on the Ikea rug. The shakes are worse and are making it hard to type or use the mouse. I can't tell if the lymphedema is worsening because of the lithium or the deteriorating stockings because I can't afford new ones. And I forgot to eat dinner last night. It sat there right next to me, but I kept forgetting it was there. Jb tried to make me eat it. I just put it in the fridge. I am ... nowhere. I see the psych and therapist on Wednesday. Until then, I remain tired (I'm not sleeping well), unmotivated, and I feel like an old lady at 33. It's wearing on me. On a scale of 1-10 today, 10 being the best I've ever felt, which is more like a 12 when I'm hypo, I'd say I'm walking around at about a 3.

(Dis)Orientation

This is like a meta discussion in graduate school: talking about talking about the disorientation that I've been dealing with. When I discuss it, it's always in the context of what I did while disoriented: nearly took a header off the front porch, fell into my car, fell headfirst into the bed. But I feel like what I should be talking about is what it feels like to have to talk about "the spins" or this rolling deck type motion that comes over me.

I hate having to discuss this. It makes me feel weak. This whole situation makes me feel weak and small, and at times, I hate myself for being this way. "The spins" are getting worse. I can hardly make it into the bathroom late at night. I nearly fell in the tub the other day. There are so many near misses. When it snows, I will surely bust my ass on the paving stones. Jb has taken to walking behind me, as if he'd catch me if I fall. He watches me, to make sure I make it in the door, up the steps, across the yard. And all I'm able to say about it is, "I can't help it."

For the most part, I don't want to talk about what's happening to me. I had a professor who told me that even silence is a form of rhetoric, and so it is. My silence says that I am, in some small place, ashamed. This is even worse now that I've started getting the shakes. When Jb and I go out for a smoke, I start to shiver and my hands start shaking. As it's coming on fall here, he's right to ask me if I'm cold. And sometimes, I say, "Yes," and sometimes, I say, "No" -- without any more explanation than that, though the true answer is always, "No."

All this silence, all this guilt, over a year since I went on FMLA at work. Around six months since the hospital, and in some ways, I'm worse. How can BP show up at 33 and just wreck your life? Oh, I know, I know. The signs were there. I made excuses. I didn't see them. But if they were spikes in the Richter scale of my life, this breakdown was the Big One. And yet, I still don't know how to talk about how I talk about it.

Overwhelmed

I can't help feeling overwhelmed lately. I've gone to 300MG of Lithium twice a day, and whether it's that or something else, I've started getting the shakes, the spins, mild headaches, constipation (which is funny, considering the IBS alternative), and dry mouth. All this on top of an IUD period. (An IUD period means you will bleed like a stuck pig, for days and days. You will go through three boxes of tampons, having to use one every two hours at your worst, and the cramps make you feel like shit.) So. Good times right now.

Perhaps it's all the physical symptoms that are making me feel touchy. I'm reactive to every bit of criticism, every bit of rejection. When Jb's goofing around, doing a little smack talk, I get upset. I feel disrespected. I can't find it funny anymore. I'm touchy about everything. I want to be coddled, loved, take care of, and I don't feel that at all. And then Jb yells at me for not being involved in our relationship. And I'm absolutely fluxommed.

And Jb and I are fighting again. I'm supposed to clean up, do the dishes, make dinner, do the finances, plan meals, go grocery shopping. This is supposed to be me carrying my weight. But I have no interest in it. I've no interest in writing this blog. I've no real interest in anything. Thank god the book I'm reading has only 2-3 page chapters because that's about all I can manage at once. And there's SSI to think about. I should start that. I haven't the faintest where to begin. I'm just ... I'm tired.

I hate smoking out on the front stairs now because there's something about looking down the cobbled walkway that sets me shaking, that makes me want to say, "Good dammit!" And then the knives start to glimmer when I wash them. They look appealing. And I start to wonder if you can overdose on Klonopin, and if it'd just be like drifting to sleep. Because I'm a coward when it comes to suicide. But it doesn't mean that I don't want to sometimes.