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.

I Don't Know Anymore

I don't know what I'm doing or how I'm feeling anymore. I'm down. A minor depression maybe. Maybe something more. Brought on by days of heavy bleeding and IBS. That's enough to put anyone down for the count for a few days. I'm broken out like I'm 16 again. The bathtub's been stopped up, so I haven't showered. I feel disgusting and out of place and unable to face the world. I don't want to go out. I don't particularly want to do anything. I'm definitely going through the motions when it does come time to do things. I'd be hard-pressed to get myself beyond the front door today.

On a brighter note, I've been turning over the idea of a book in my head for, oh, a year or three now, but I hadn't considered doing anything with it because I had no characterization, and thus, no plot. There was no motivating force behind one of the main characters. Except that suddenly, today, while starring testily into the bathroom mirror, the character's motivation burst full bloom in my mind. Suddenly, I knew exactly what had happened to him, who he was, and what he wanted, or didn't want, and why he had become what he'd become. Moreover, it gave me a better handle on the other main character. I've a tertiary character that's still vague to me, but a little research might help me flush that out. Do I have any energy to do anything with all this, though? I doubt it. Which upsets me more, and it becomes a whole cycle of "I want to be a writer, but I don't write," along with accompanying feelings of guilt and failure. Guilt for wasting what talent I might have and fear of failing. Then there's the commitment and time it would take, and the game you play if you want to publish, and maybe all the work would be for naught. Then what? Then I wasn't good enough--just like I thought. (And if that's not self-fulfilling prophecy thinking, then I've never had cognitive-behavioral therapy.)

Otherwise, there's nothing much to say. I see the psych Thursday, I think. I don't even know what I want to discuss with him. I'm so very meh about the whole treatment process. I don't care about the drugs, I don't want to take them, and I'm fed up with being "sick." I should be better than this, I should be bigger than this, I should be able to handle this on my own. Treatment and meds have never, ever helped me. And I've tried a few. Effexor, Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Topomax, Wellbutrin, and now Remeron, Lamictal, Klonopin. I don't even know if I can put any faith into a diagnosis. I feel like I'm in that revolving door of doctors and meds, where you wait 30m for your scheduled appointment to sit 15m with your psych who tells you next to nothing while handing you a few more prescriptions across his desk. All the while you're barely keeping your head above water with all the doctor bills and prescription costs.

Still Here

I am . . . here. Which is to say that I have nothing to say, despite feeling somewhat better than I have, mentally speaking, since the hospital. My body, however, not so fine. First period in fourth months, non-stop IBS during the day . . . it's really more than I can be buggered to say that I actually swept up some and have a load of laundry going down in the basement. The dishes and dinner are waiting, but I can't quite bring myself to that yet.

Overall, I'd say I'm very . . . meh. With a bit of restlessness and random anxiety thrown in. Maintenance was supposed to be by to fix the tub and oven. No show, of course. And I've been sitting here waiting for them all day. Thus, no doubt, the anxiety. I still don't like the idea of having to deal with strangers or having people in my "space." I actually was resistant enough to the idea of leaving the new apartment that I rescheduled last week's psych appointment for this week. And I still don't want to go.

I don't care to write anymore either. That's be supplanted by reading. I'm reading again. And with that, the writing's dried up. There is nothing intelligent in my brain to say, no spark of personality to put forth. These are clunky words put together by a clunky mind and typed by clunky fingers. We're broke. I have no job. I have no idea what I'm doing with myself. Epic fail.

By the by, when I went down to do the laundry, I really took a good look at the basement, and promptly wished I hadn't. There are, I'm certain, the largest cockroaches I've ever seen down there. They're all dead, which is a good sign, I guess, but dear god. As long as they stay down there. The spiders are welcome to them.

Back to moving around the apartment and random futzing with this or that to pretend I'm being productive. If I were working, this would be one of those days when I couldn't be buggered to do my work because I'm too distracted and unable to focus. My body feels leaden, and I'm utterly unmotivated, except that I owe it to Jb to do something. Feh.

Slippery Slope

I'm heading for a depression. I can feel it coming on. I've lost interest in most everything again: reading, computer games, movies, sex, going places, doing things. I am angry at myself about this, so I'm cranky all the time and restless. Sometimes, instead, I'm listless and passive. The IBS and GERDs is acting up as well. I'm beginning to stress about things like Jb coming home at night. While other things, I don't care about at all: like whether the bills get paid, whether we have money or not, whether we have food or not. When Jb tries to ask me about these things, I get annoyed, short with him. He is constantly yelling at me for snapping at him. My temper and patience are nonexistent. I resent Jb's intrusion into my "world." More and more, he says things to me like, "You know, maybe you should try living here in reality, like everybody else."

This morning, on waking, I remember having a very vivid dream about living in a city with Hitler and being somehow close to him. Because he's a despot and mercurial of mood, everyone is always on eggshells around him, not wanting to curry his disfavor. I am someone he favors, and even I am very careful about what I do and say. It is stressful, this living on the edge, never knowing whether he'll be kind or cruel. And he can be very kind, as well as very cruel. There is a small resistance in the town. They know each other by the books they read. But those loyal to Hitler know them by the books they read as well. I try to sneak past a Hitler supporter with one of these books tucked among many. I make it, barely, out to a terraced park full of students and wildflowers, and there are two women who oversee the whole body of supporters. L-----, from the psych ward, is there in my dream. She screams out at a line of nuns who walk past the park; she was always screaming out about freedom and being closed in.

The dream is telling. I am having a hard time dealing with being home all day, then having Jb come home and disrupt my little world. It's like Jayne says in Firefly, "[He] damages my calm." It also sends me back to my childhood--when I lived in fear of my mother's moods, never knowing what they might be from minute to minute. I have to admit to myself that I've felt this way for the last year or so. Even when Jb was picking me up from work, the last hour of work, before I knew he was coming, I'd start to get sick to my stomach, I'd taste cigarettes in my mouth, and my IBS would suddenly flare up, so that I missed almost a half hour of work at the end of the day, every day. I think, perhaps, this is an inability to deal with change on a small, localized scale. And like in my dream, I used to escape into books. But since the hospitalization, I've had trouble concentrating enough to read them, except in small snippets.

Jb also gets on my ass--understandably so--about not having started to unpack. I took a week off because I needed it after the move, but I've no energy for it. It's been up near the 100s this week, so I tell myself it's because it's been so hot and I've been trying to keep the A/C off during the day. But the truth is that I simply don't have the motivation to do it. And Jb's losing patience with me. We had another fight last night. He told me that I've ruined every night so far in the new apartment, that I no longer participate in our relationship. And I'm left hurt and shamed and guilty and small--and angry at him for making me face the truth. I wish, sometimes, I could not listen. That I could wrap the bubble of my quiet day alone around me.

I cannot blame Jb, though. He is working hard, for both of us. He has every right to resent what he must see as my laziness. And it's like work all over again. How many times can you say, "I don't feel well," before they begin to look at you askance, like you're lying, or making it up. Depression isn't an excuse, but it comes across as one. Unless you've been there, deep and alone, you cannot ever truly understand what it feels like. Mild depression is not the same as major depression. Trying to follow each mood swing is exhausting. Depression is depleting. You are told, expected, to be this or that, but you can't be. Part of you no longer even cares that you can't be. Another part of you is angry and bitter, guilt-ridden and ashamed. And still, even though you want to meet someone's expectations, you can't. The will to try sputters and flags like a flame about to go out, and you're left feeling helpless, and you know it's all you're fault. You are the one who is broken. You are the one who is wrong.

9:59 a.m. How Do I Feel Today?

It's one of those "activities" they make you do in therapy and at the hospital. In the hospital, you rated yourself on a scale of 1 to 10. In therapy, I had a sheet of faces with the names of different emotions beneath them. Often, there wasn't an emotion that ever fit how I felt, or I couldn't quite name how I felt. On a 1 to 10 scale? About a 3 today. I'm feeling numb. I don't care about much. There will be no shower today. I will put my hair up in a makeshift bun with a hairband. I will not unpack--something I haven't really done since we moved in. I will not play on the computer. I will not read a book. If I do either, it will be for 10 minutes, maybe less. I may turn on the tv, but I will not watch it. If Jb comes home and asks anything of me, I will be upset and put out. I'm supposed to make a grocery list today. I will wait until the last minute to do it. When we go to the store, I will shuffle around from aisle to aisle without really seeing anything. I will not want to be there. I do not care about eating, though I will when I'm hungry later. I ate half of one of Jb's Nutty Bars because I couldn't be bothered to make anything more complicated. Jb will probably be upset that I did. I don't much care. He will take that as me not caring about him, or his feelings, but it's simply apathy. He can be mad at me if he wants to--he often is these days--and I don't care. I do not want to write. That is how I feel today.

7:43 a.m. Med Check

"Me and my medicine we are
So hard to take
Me and my medicine we are
So hard to take"

Kate MacLeod, "Me and My Medicine"

Meds: Took 'em. Didn't want to, but did.

Jb spent half the morning, I think, slamming every drawer in the file cabinet to find every single freakin' pen because I said I needed one to make a grocery list. I swear it's the stupid, petty things like this that make me want to give it all up. Why bother taking my meds? It's not as if it helps anything. I'm still down. Jb and I still fight. And almost always it ends up being my fault: I've snapped at him, I can't control my moods. It makes a person tired.

Breakfast: I don't feel like eating.

Now back to bed so I can sleep out the day rather than deal with it. I'm too damn tired. And again, that's just another way of saying I'm depressed, down, not up to dealing with the day.

Dreams: Vivid, but I don't remember them.

Change

As Jb puts it, "It happens." But then, so does shit if you believe the bumper sticker, and this week has just been a shit kicker for me. Major life changes have always been a trigger for me. This move was no exception. The last few days before the move I was already in a passive-aggressive state. The two days of the move, I was snappy, angry, bitchy, and hard to deal with. Jb and I went 'round several times during those two days, and even more since the move.

I actually had a small breakdown over not being able to put my own computer together. This from the girl who's always been capable with her own computer setup, who used to troubleshoot computers for her co-workers, etc., etc. This time, though, the wires were too much, and I sat there throwing things around and having a tantrum, all the time looking at the wires like they were some foreign entity I couldn't wrap my mind around. And that pissed me off. I can't explain the frustration. Somehow the fight escalated to me swearing I'd leave Jb -- and all sorts of irrational nonsense.

That night, in bed, when I was far calmer, Jb told me that I couldn't control my moods anymore, that it was worse now than before I went into the hospital. And I feel so helpless in the face of these moods. They overtake me on a whim. I hadn't realized how mercurial my moods had been until Jb pointed it out to me. And at least, at the time, I was in a rational state where I could really look back on the last few days and see that Jb was right. That hasn't stopped the moods, though. We had another fight yesterday, and I ended up sitting in the bathtub for a while. We've already snapped at each other this morning.

The following are among the things that are setting me off:

• My computer setup: I hate it. It's uncomfortable, too compact, and I have no where to put my feet up, which is crucial to me because of the lymphadema in my legs. But I have no space, and I can't stand that. I can't stand not having personal space.

• The bed: It is on the floor sans frame. I hate this. It's difficult to get up, and frankly, I slept on the floor on a futon the entire time I was in college and at my ex's place, but I was 21. I'm freakin' 32-years-old. I want a proper bed frame. I'm too old for this shit, and I wake up every day feeling like someone pummeled me during the night.

• My knee: The osteo-arthritis is acting up. Maybe due to all the rain we've had, maybe because it tends to be seasonal. Either way, it hurts like hell when I'm trying to get to sleep at night, and the computer setup isn't helping any, neither is the bed.

• Cutting: Jb wants to cut this Ikea bed table we have to give me some sort of setup that gives me more room, but (1) I don't want him cutting up a $200 piece of furniture and (2) it won't solve anything because I need a solid base, like the end of the bed frame, to put my feet up. I've been trying a storage container, but the sucker moves all over the place, my keyboard feels like it's sliding off my lap, and it's uncomfortable as hell.

Also, when Jb brought home the saw and measuring tape to modify the Ikea table, I broke down in a crying fit, trying to explain that it was too much change all at once. That I needed time to test out the new setup, to even see if I liked it. I was so brittle from all the newness. I needed time to get my bearings. I swear to God modifying that table would have been the last straw for me.

So, in summation, the apartment is quite nice with its hardwood floors, its quaint window frames that sometimes need to be propped open, and the wild jungle that is our backyard and which I can see through the kitchen window. It's grown on me, though I spent the first few days walking through the place, touching things, opening and closing things, like some befuddled ghost who's trying to understand her surroundings. The neighborhood is quiet, you can hear birds, but little else. And it smells green and loamy when it rains. The apartment feels homey, mostly because it's one of five apartments in an old house from the 1940s. (This is why it's quaint. I'd swear the cabinets and a few other things hail from the '40s, as does the washer/dryer and the stove.) We've met the upstairs and downstairs neighbors.

All this change makes me feel very Benny and Joon-ish, though, as if I'm Joon: fine as long as I'm in an environment I'm comfortable in, but change anything, take me out of my comfort zone, and I start to flip out emotionally, lashing out at Jb and exhibiting a sort of dysphoric mania: the depression and the anger and irritability of hypomania mixed. It's a little like being in a life raft in a raging sea with a small bucket, trying to keep the water from overwhelming the boat. Unfortunately, Jb's no Sam, and he's not dealing well with my outbursts of late. Not that I blame him, but it does remind me that bipolar people are "three and a half times more likely to [`divorce'] than the rest of the population."

Furthermore, the entire time I was unable to log onto the internet because of Comcast's ineptitude, I didn't write. Even Jb asked if I'd been writing, suggesting I probably should be keeping up with that, that he thought it was a good outlet for me. But I simply didn't want to. I felt like I had nothing to say. When in reality, I had plenty to say, especially to Jb. It just all came out in this destructive, irrational way. And part of me feels guilty about it, and part of me feels like I had the right to vent my spleen. That's the grandiosity: the thinking that I'm entitled to more than other people, that I'm different, better somehow. More and more I hear Jb telling me: "You don't care about my feelings, that I'm hurt. You just don't care." And to a point, he's right. There are certain moments when nothing matters to me but me. As if I'm due more than everyone else. And that's solipistic to say the least.

I do care, though. I just don't know how to show it anymore. I feel like an emotional retard, unable to access certain emotions, while others are making hay while the sun shines.

11:45 a.m. Sleep Study

I'm right back in bed after Jb leaves this morning and not up again until 11:46 a.m. I was having vivid dreams, though they were gone on waking. But this is the first time in nearly a week that I've been aware of even having them anymore. I feel like I should note this before moving on to a more thoughtful post. So, not hypomania. I can't do without the sleep. But my sleep schedule has definitely shifted. Could have been a couple days of up-up and this could be the downswing, bringing with it the over-compensating sleep. We'll see what my energy is like around 2 p.m. This is when I begin to wonder if it's bipolar, and then I think about what I'm about to write in my next post, and I think it's likely; it's just been so long since I've had an extended manic episode.

12:01 p.m. Pharmacies, Insurance, & Copayments, Oh My!

Thwarted at the pharmacy. I swear. Took a bus all the way out to the hospital, and I could only get the Lamictal filled. Luckily, it was the one I was completely out of. Since I seem to have dropped off prescriptions elsewhere, insurance won't pay for them until June 13th. Nevermind that my prescription has changed. But I've enough Remeron and Klonopin to last me a couple days more. I checked out my receipt for my Lamictal and about went into sticker shock. $20 with insurance. Without? $276. My god! I need to look up one of those free prescription programs my nurse practitioner (PCP) told me about. (This is when I seriously consider moving to Canada.) Health Insurance will certainly be a big influence on who gets my vote, that's for sure.

On another note, side effects today. I was falling asleep on the bus and in the pharmacy waiting room. And walking was this odd sort of seasick weave out to the bus stop and down the halls. My feet kept wanting to go in front of each other, and my body kept wanting to gravitate toward the nearest wall. It's a strange sort of gravity, this dizziness thing. And I feel weak, unable to really get to work and start cleaning the kitchen and the bathroom, both of which need it. I was also planning on making this Creamy Sausage Casserole with Biscuits, but that might be overkill for today. I hate having to conserve and space out my energy. I understand how, even when a patient might be feeling better, that person might still be unable to work. I do believe it'd be frowned upon if someone was found, head on their keyboard, at work. Not to mention the walking like you're drunk. Stellar review, I'm sure.

By the by, I love my nurse practitioner. She gave me two months worth of samples of Benicar so I wouldn't have to pay for them because she knew I'd lost my job. Psychiatrists, on the other hand, are stingy bastards I'm finding, and look at you like you're a junky if you ask for samples. Given the fact that they're the ones prescribing the medicine, it just makes me wanna slap 'em.

6:52 And She'll Be Swingin'

Impulse replaced by crankiness, mood swings, everything that's wonderful about the up and down. It reminds me of a training exercise in Space Camp. We were on a moonwalk simulator, which was a glorified chair on a four-story scaffold with a pivot bar in the middle. The counselors would strap you in, and you'd push off with your feet, and you'd float up into the air, up two-stories, over the zenith of the simulator and back down, to bounce back up and over. It all happened in a sort of slow motion, with that awkward, bouncing gait of an astronaut, except that you had the leisure of being strapped in, of being able to look outside yourself and watch the slow upswing and then the slow downswing of each pendulum-like swing. That's how this feels sometimes, the way a mood will creep up on me, send me up into an agitated, pissy state, then slowly recede into something more depressed, more sluggish. Back, and forth. Back, and forth. Except this is a ride I can't get off.

3:59 Productivity, Tally Ho!

I have been productive! I am a genius! I got all my mail sorted and compartmentalized and put into the right flaps of the right folders: medical info, bills, job foo, info from the county. All trash mail was thrown away. I am keeping tabs on all my medical info. I called all the right people, including the utilities for the new apartment, and Jb did some calling and packing, too.


Calls Made:

• Pepco -- To transfer electricity to new apartment.
• Comcast -- To get apartment listed in their database so I can transfer cable and internet service in 24 to 48 hours.
• WSSC -- To get gas transferred to the new apartment.
• Allstate -- To get renter's and auto insurance transferred.
• T-Mobile (Jb) -- To figure out why his account was screwed up.
• Jewish Social Service Agency -- To try to find a sliding scale therapist and psych. (They called back to say it could be 3 months. This is the problem of not having money. You may get help, but not necessarily when you need it.)
• Benefits -- To get them to resend the info for my insurance premiums from work so I can pay that bill.

Bills Paid:

• Comcast
• Allstate

Boxes Packed:

• All Jb's console gaming foo
• My jewelry, makeup, misc. from the bathroom and kitchen, and the odd computer part we don't use.

Call me productive and slap my hiney! I'm proud of all that. Clearly, I'm still feeling fine, and focused. In fact, I don't see how I need a therapist. Maybe the meds have kicked in. Maybe I'm on an upswing. Maybe things are looking up. I don't know what it is. But I have a general sense of well-being in the world. The world, in fact, is fantastic! And I am a productive freakin' member of society! (This may be a little more expansive than I should feel, but I like the feeling. It's a little bit like an endorphin rush, and it's been so long since I felt good.)

I say this with a caveat. I did have a fit of anger when, in furiously digging through old mail and correspondence, I found the rent list for a nice community we'd been looking at last year. We couldn't have afforded anything in the new complex, but we could have afforded a "mini" one bedroom, as opposed to the larger-than-average studio we'll be moving into. And after being severely upset about this, and throwing mail around for a while, I've calmed down and have begun to think there were some "issues" with the older part of the complex. I may be trying to placate myself because, in all honesty, the place we're moving to is quite nice, and I've no real reason to be upset. I just was. And Jb and the mail received the brunt of it.

12:20 p.m. Breakfast

I dutifully make my breakfast -- a little bread, butter, and brie -- and eat it. I'm not really hungry, though. I'm also not sure what to do today. There are things to do around the house, but I don't want to do the things I should do, I want to do fun things, and maybe I should call the therapy places, and I should call my primary care physician (PCP) about that blood work. Then there's the gas and electric and cable to move over to the new place, and someone has to call that in. And there are bills to pay, so maybe I should do that, but I can't find the letter about my premium charges for my insurance. And I think I could be very productive today -- if only I could focus.

11:58 a.m.Perky!

Didn't wake up until 11 a.m. I could have woken up earlier, but I was having this delicious dream that involved some sort of family business rivalry, and perfume, and sex and seduction. I kept trying to fall asleep and recapture it because my dreams are so vivid right now, but I couldn't. And finally, a lady from 1-800-THERAPIST called me back and woke me up. We talked for a few minutes and she gave me some numbers for a few places with sliding scale fees, medication management, and support groups. The support group is every other Thursday, but downtown. I'm not quite sure how I feel about a support group at the moment, but it's a good resource to know about.

And here's the reason I'm unsure about a support group: I feel perky! I feel awake, I feel fine, I feel... just great, really. I took a Klonopin and more Lamictal this morning, so maybe the Klonopin took the edge off the more out-of-control fine I was feeling yesterday. I don't know. If I do what McMan calls a "systems check," I can still feel a little fraying at the edges.

Yesterday was bad, though. I kept doing a shuffling dance waiting for the bus. Everything was so slooooow, and because I didn't want to miss my second appointment, I got there an hour and a half early. So I sat down on a bench outside to get my 10m of sunlight, like the therapist I broke up with, said I should. In case there was any benefit to the hooey. And I kept calling Jb, like 3 times: "You're driving near home? Oh, hi! -wavewave-," which he didn't get and I repeated many times, then I called him about bumble bees because there was a big one, and he was all up in my space: "Do bumblebees sting? No, the big ones, like at the arboretum, do they sting? Wouldn't their stinger be even bigger than regular ones? Wouldn't that hurt more? Are you sure they don't sting? But you said they don't sting! I don't care if they sting different! Are you suuuure they don't sting? 99.9% sure? Well, okay. I just wanted to know if they sting."

And so on and so on. I already mentioned the fiasco in the office, hands shaking, trying to show the psychiatric nurse practitioner my list, being told things about my medications I wasn't quite sure I'd remember, talking too much. Then not being able to wait for the bus because it was so sloooooow, and the wind was getting my hair in my face, and doing that shuffling, rocking dance again at the stop, and deciding no, no: I'll go wait in the hospital cafeteria, yeah, which was a longer wait, but which also had food, which the nurse said I needed. So I ate a salad with eggs and nuts and cheese for the protein and read more Madness.

When Jb finally picked me up, I couldn't stop talking. He definitely noticed I was a little hyper, a little too happy. In the Subway line, I couldn't stop giggling and laughing. I'd just thought of the funniest joke, and it was so funny I couldn't keep the laughter in. And that was the ride home, giggling, and all the way up in the elevator, where I just wanted to laugh and laugh, and should have put both hands over my mouth to keep it in, but couldn't. He called me "crazy," which I sort of resented, but then, inside, he said, "Hey!" And I asked, "What?" And he said, "I love you." And I asked, "Even though I'm crazy?" And he said, "Unh huh." And I said, "I love you too. ... Even though you're sane." And we were good.

I'm finding that I'm also getting more pokey and wrestley when I'm like this. I antagonize Jb into getting into small wrestling bouts. I'm more touchy, but not in the good way. I poke and prod and try to get him to pay attention, and he ham-handles me back, which I deserve, but then, which I resent, and so it sort of escalates until someone gets pinched too hard and pouts. Sometimes me, sometimes him. And we're mad for minutes at a time. But then, I start up all over again, and it's not something I can help. I think it's a need to be doing something, I want for attention. I'm bored easily, and Jb's the nearest one around.

I take my meds at 9 p.m., but I'm not asleep until almost 12. My new meds as of May 19th, 2008 are:

• Remeron 30MG taken as 15MG 1x a day
• Lamcital 200MG taken as 100MG 2x a day, or if it starts messing with my sleep, 2 100MG tabs in the morning
• Klonopin 1MG 2x a day
• No Adderall refill
• Benitar HCT 40/25 1x a day

I see the psychiatrist again in 2 weeks.

Doctor!

So, um, it was good: I took a list. Kinda scattered, very talky. She made me eat a piece of candy 'cause I hadn't really eaten all day. She says I should get blood work to make sure it's manic and not diabetes, but I told her I'd had all that blood work 3 months ago, but she said do it anyway.

Med changes. Yes. Of course, always tweaking. Twice the Lamictal I was on. Half the Remeron. She didn't believe me that Remeron made me crave sugar. She thinks I'm making that up, I can tell. That's what the blood work is for. She thinks I could be diabetic. But I was shaky, so she made me eat candy out of her drawer, which was sorta disgusting. It was all dusty with that powder they put on hard candy in tins, and I didn't want it, but she made me.

Forgot to take the Klonopin. Adderall now a definite probably no. Caffeine probably didn't help.

She said I'm supposed to eat three times a day, protein to stabilize my moods. I can't afford to eat three times a day. Jb jokes we'll get me protein bars, which is better than the other joke he could have made. Jb also called me "crazy" in the car. Very clearly manic. Or hypo, really. Up up. To-may-to tah-ma-to. We went to Subway after (Jb picked me up because I couldn't wait for the bus; it was too slow), and that was a great joke. Whitebread! Very funny. Can't explain more, but it's giggly good.

I need to write down my prescriptions, but not now, I can't focus, and I doubt I could read her writing. They use those squiggly things to signify how many and how many times a day. Feh.

3:00 p.m. Blog Blog Blog

I am blogging again because I can't sit down. No, I can sit down, but I can't sit still. Except, that's not right either. I can sit down, sit still, but my mind can't. So it took me 2 hours to take a shower. One hour, in which, I almost got to the shower, but took a call from my mother instead, because she called, and e-mailed, and sent a package, and was worried. I let my mother talk for a little, saying what I think are appropriate things to say, "Well, that's good," "Okay," "I e-mailed you," "Mmhm, concrete walls," the last because she says her phone connection isn't very good where she works.

Then I'm taking over the conversation as soon as I'm given a chance, and I'm talking and talking and on the edge of my seat with the need to talk. I'm talking over her, around her, only half listening, though I think she needs to be heard, too, like me. We're both unstable in our own ways.

Then it's back to breakfast, to pick at crumbs, and somewhere in there, I turn the shower on, but then I think I'll re-read my blog today, to prep for the psych, and so I do that, listening to the shower run the whole time I'm also looking up the directions on how to get to my psych's office. I find them and think, "Of course! I knew that," and still the water is running, so that has to be attended to, I think, and I'm in the shower. The shower is too quiet, so I put on Paul Simon, which is the only thing in the cd player by the shower, and if I get out to find something else, it'll be another 30m before I get back to the shower, so I'm singing and dancing in the shower, and singing and dancing, and thinking everyone in the hall passing can no doubt hear me, but oh well.

And then I'm out, and right back to the blogging, and can you believe it? I forgot what bus to take to the psych's. So I'm looking it up again. And ping! There's an IM, but it's just a line, and my IMer is off again, but I can't help msg'ing back the ghost of a friend, using too many lines and exclamation marks for someone who isn't there, and if I were talking right now, I know it'd be a touch too loud, and there'd be much gesticulation, but I keep it all in, because I always have, so I talk too loud in my head and prance around like an overactive puppy at my mind's heels.

11:24 p.m. Wake Up Call

In and out of sleep until 10ish. Try to find it again, but my brain is wracked with scenes from the novel I woke up to yesterday morning. I lie in bed and let them play out in my mind. Question them. Turn them over. Is it too much like any other book I've read? Of course, aren't all plots derivative? It's the characters that drive the story, make it unique. I'm unconvinced. Still, the characters seem to live and breath in my head, having their own voices and desires.

I've been reading Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher. Not the way I usually read, devouring books in a day's time, but in the way I read now, quick, but slow, scanning pages, but only able to ever absorb a few pages at a time. This makes Marya's book perfect, as her chapters are often only a few pages at a time. Sometimes, it's not until I've read some of her book that I understand what is going on in my own head. For example, I am, and have been, screening my calls. Not because I don't want to talk to people, but because I can't. It's exhausting. Similarly, I don't think I'll be going out today. At best, I hope to take a shower. I haven't in days. And I'm not sure if I've missed my appointment with my psych.

6:20 p.m. Creativity Stymied

One movie later -- Miss Potter -- and I'm feeling more myself. I also gorged on potato chips and Nerds, which may have put the sugar junky monkey at bay for now. It's not something I'm proud of, so we will not mention this again.

Here's the kicker, though, about watching a movie about a creative mind, who talks to her works of art, no less: you begin to wonder if she wasn't a little off in her head, and then you wonder why you, who may have this thing that many creative minds reputedly have had as well, cannot produce a creative work to save your life. Now, you're either substandard in the creativity department -- after all, whole worlds don't run around in your head, only a narrator who proceeds to narrate your entire life at sporadic moments when you should be sleeping -- or you're lazy.

When I think back on it, my most creative moments were at school: (1) at college when I lived by myself in a small efficiency, worked three jobs, and stayed up all hours of the night, just to get up for an 8 a.m. class and (2) in graduate school where I worked incessantly in my office, churning out paper after paper, essay after essay. If the professor wanted 20 pages, I'd write 40. I was mad with the working of it. And toward the end, burnt out, my stomach a wreck, and my digestive system with it.

But then, I had something to show for it.

Of course, there was that brief flirting with a romance novel that got very close to 200 pps. once. Even then, I wrote in long, productive bursts, that suddenly fizzled, as if I'd shot my wad all at once, as did my confidence. So why am I able to start, but never able to finish? Why so abortive? Is it the depression that always creeps in, the lack of self? Was it the inevitable cycling that comes with hyperproductivity, or more to the point, hypomania?

Damn the depression. Where is my upswing?

2:17 p.m. Tired & Cranky, Period.

Annoyed. Bitchy. Cranky. Tired. Crabby. Beginning to dislike Jb just for sitting there and watching t.v. Unreasonable dislike, even hatred. Want to crawl out of my skin. Annoyed with all things slow, dumb, insignificant. Or, at least, what I consider insignificant, which is anything beyond myself or my desires, which is completely ridiculous. And yet, the anger and annoyance are still there. Don't want to make decisions. Want Jb to intuit my wants and needs (good luck with that). Totally unreasonable expectations. Jonesing for sugar like a junky. Again, the Remeron?

Note to self: Noticing trend in mood swings. Mood seems to take a dive around 2ish each afternoon.

9:53 p.m. Waning of Words

Forecast: Frustration with slow country songs scattered throughout the afternoon. Moodiness experienced in the evening with a waning of words towards 10 p.m.

2:54 p.m. And Down Again

...

What more is there to say. -poof- From up, to down.

The energy feels like it's hiding somewhere, but it's not accessible right now. My lids are heavy, and so is my body. My mind, however, continues with this subtle static.