Knee Slapper

It's all a big joke. People sucked into games and out of their own lives. Escapism at its finest. Arthur C. Clarke shit. And where is the other person in the relationship left when they don't want to spend their life in an illuminated box? If I had a Post Secret, I think it'd be: Mostly, I wish he'd pick me.

24/7

Flat out: it's been a bad few days. Crying, too sensitive, bruised. disillusioned, angry--so angry. Jb says I threw a tantrum the other night, that I was acting childish. But it wasn't that. It was this rage, and better I beat pillows on the bed and punch the mattress than take it out verbally on him, which I do far too often.

The nights seem longer. I seem less motivated. SSDI comes in bits, very small bits, because it's so much information, and some of it, I can only guess at. The creditors want to sue me, the DHHS needs medical documents, which my psych will fill out, but which feels like one more thing on my back. And it's too much to deal with.

And that's how it is. Rolling fine, feeling close to normal, or as close as I know to normal, and then, despite all meds, I get worse. I'm snappy, angry, unforgiving, judging. I become a different person. All my barbs hit below the belt. I'm witty in cruel way, and it comes so easily. I can see it happening, and yet, I can't stop it.

Any Plans for the New Year?

You know you have a mental illness when someone asks you, "What are you doing for New Year's Eve?" And you say, "Going to my psych."

So. Things aren't much different. Taking meds. Upping my Zoloft to 150MG. I'm doing better, but my psych keeps getting on my ass to start the SSDI process. I started last night online. What a headache. I was completely drained after the first two parts.

The other thing my psych and I argued about was my recovery time. He says I'll need about a year once I get stable. I was all, "You're kidding me, right? A freakin' year?!" I swear. I wish I could pretend there was no such thing as mental illness. I hate my meds. Resent them.

Inertia

It's one of those nights. Up at 4am, on the computer until 6am. There are things I, supposedly, wanted to do today: See Twilight. Having read the book, every trailer I've seen has made it more and more enticing to me (perhaps, too, because I knew I couldn't go; we were too poor). Now I'm up in the middle of the night, wondering what it's all for. Jb got laid off a month early. No help forthcoming from JSSA. I'm supposed to do grocery shopping tomorrow, and I can't be bothered with it. In fact, I simply don't want to do it. Not in a stomp your foot, two-year-old tantrum sort of way, but in a deadened, "I don't have the heart," way. And for some reason, at 6:33am in the morning, I feel like crying and mourning my marriage. But then, I flip like a switch and mourn anything these days--anything without discretion. I've become a "Fragile: Handle With Care" package.

What to Say?

My mind's gone dumb. I have no wish to write anymore. I don't even know what to say. I seem to be all right, and then I'm arguing with my boyfriend. He's extremely hurt and upset, and I almost don't care. I do, but it's this far away part of me. But it's the up front, face to the world, part of me that wants to sleep, that doesn't want to cook dinner, that doesn't want to play the new WoW expansion, who doesn't want to get up early to drive Jb to work, or drive to the therapist or psych, or drive to pick Jb up from work.

I'm smoking more. Almost half a pack a day. I have a bad smoker's cough going, too. It's another sign that I'm in this holding pattern, circling around and around the airport tower not sure if I'm going to land or be sent around for another lap. The thing is that I felt fine last week. I did. Then Jb and I argued Sunday--well, not argued, per se, but something happened that upset me--and it set me off later that night all over again. Now I don't give a shit. About much of anything, and I hate being in that place. I hate feeling so distant.

I'm more into Spore than the World of Warcraft expansion that Jb's been dying for. He's upset I'm not as excited and all-consumed as he is, and... I'm not. I don't know why. I don't know if it's because nothing really excites me, or if his excitement sets me off, triggers me into this overwhelmed anxiety that I can't deal with well. And shouldn't I be able to after all this time? Spore is easy. You sit in your little editor and make your little creations and it's like art therapy in the hospital. It's private, personal, no one rushes you.

Anyway, I go see the psych tomorrow. Woo. /sarcasm. I have no enthusiam for anything.

Throw Out a Lifeline

The last I wrote here I'd had a breakdown. A pretty good one. I didn't take my meds for a week. I wasn't eating. I had hit apathy so hard that nothing mattered at all to me. Part of this, Jb and I am sure is that I lost my therapist for about three weeks while she was nursing her son who'd shattered his foot and had to have multiple surgeries. I don't think I understood how very important therapy had become for me. How balanced it helped to keep me.

My dose has changed again. 100MG of Zoloft, 300MG of Lamictal twice a day, and Klonopin 3 times a day. We're winnowing the meds down, which is one of the reasons I like this psych. He had tried me on Lithium, and I couldn't stay hydrated enough to keep up with the shakes and disoriented, vertigo-like sensations. So we dropped as not a good drug for me.

In between, I've been moving along as well as I'm able. I had a week and a half after the major depression where I couldn't sleep. I'd be up until 5 am and running on 4 hours of sleep a day. I was restless in bed, could not fall asleep, thinking and thinking and thinking. I think I might have swung up into a bit of a hypo mode. Anyway, now that's gone, as if hypo episodes burn my body out, and now I'm feeling exhausted and unmotivated and all around... feh.

An amazing thing happened last night, though. Jb came with me to therapy. He actually wanted to. How many guys would do that for you? My therapist thinks he's the best thing on two legs. It was a productive session. I think he got to say a lot of things that were on his mind, and none of them exactly hurt or were negative toward me, but I couldn't help feeling guilty, and ashamed, and humbled by how much he truly cares for me, regardless of my condition. There was so much love and worry there that it really made me tear up.

So. Apparently, I have the best boyfriend in the world.

Last tidbit about what I've been dealing with. Balance issues. I'm still having them. In fact, right after the therapy appoint when we got home, I literally fell on my ass when I got out of the car and rolled down the grassy slope. I'm always tottering. I almost fell on Jb while he was lying on the bed, and when I was cleaning the other week, I feel smack on the metal garbage can we keep in the front room. I've bruises on my arm, bruises on my foot where I dropped a fan on it, and I've fallen into the closet door in the bathroom more times than I can count.

What else. I've a DHHS appointment to review my foodstamps and temporary disability. It's at 8am, and there's really no way we can work the single car situation with Jb working. I've called to see if they'll reschedule, but I had to leave a message. I'll try again later because frankly, I don't trust them to get back to me.

And the SSDI. I got the info about my doctors, though I couldn't get all the dates of tests and visits. I had to fudge and guess years of when I saw some of them. Best I could do. But I can't seem to get further than that. I brought up the online application page and just sat there looking at it for an hour, overwhelmed and unable to start it.

Lost It, Again

I lost it in the office at the psych's. Completely, utterly broke down. Shaking, sobbing. I think I used half his tissue box. I couldn't stop. And he just sat there and let me cry, which made me feel stupid and dumb and broken. I admitted I hadn't been med compliant and that I couldn't keep up with the hydration on the Lithium to offset the side effects. And when he suggested Abilify, I had to shoot that down because I'd been on it and gained 50lbs. And that's when my last psychiatrist suggested bariatric surgery rather than meds. What the fuck?

So I'm out in the parking lot outside the office, calling Jb, because I suddenly realize what day it is and that he's not getting paid 'til next Friday, and I blew all our foodstamps on food for, like, 4-5 days and a bunch of crap, and we've a whole other week we need groceries for. So I fucked up. And I'm bawling on the phone to him about that. And I can't stop. I can't stop crying. Up and down, up and down, up and down. Fucking roller coaster, and I want off. But no, the psych says, "That seems to be symptomatic of your illness." So it's official: I'm a rapid cycler.

Anway, prescription changes: off the Lithium. Still on the Lamictal and Klonopin. Wellbutrin is now gone. Zoloft has been up from 50 to 100MG.