Lady Lithium

I call her lady because only a female can come up on you so sly. Four days in, and I'm noticing the effects: the constant diarrhea and abdominal pain (it makes my IBS look like a kitten), the severe dry mouth. The dry mouth I can handle. The gastro-intestinal stuff ... Gah, wasn't IBS enough? I've been up and down all night in the bathroom. I haven't slept well. I'm dreading when I go to lithium twice a day. The bathroom and I will become very intimate, I'm guessing. Least the lithium doesn't act totally like IBS. I don't get the sweats, the shakes, then throw up.

And on another front, I'm still having the spins.

I was also a bad girl yesterday. The day before yesterday, I cancelled my therapist appointment. I was so down that I simply couldn't handle having to go out, much less drive Jb to work and back, then out to my therapist and back, the back to pick up Jb, etc. I just couldn't deal. A moderate depression as these things go. Not suicial like the week before, but depressed enough to be absolutely immobilized. My therapist is a doll and has volunteered to help me fill out SSI because ... I just can't get started on it myself. It's far too overwhelming. She's even volunteered to make a home visit to help. So I hope I didn't piss her off by canceling. I haven't heard from her yet.

I guess my big thing to do today will be to call SSI and get them to send me a Starter Kit. Their webpage says, "Don't worry if you don't have all the information. We'll help you get it." I wonder which information they mean, and if it's true. I've heard that you have to give them everything they want and be as detailed as possible. I kept horrible records until some time after the hospital. I thought I was merely depressed, that there was no help for people like me. I didn't know I had options, safe harbors, like the hospital, SSI.