Friday, June 4, 2010

Rerun-This Time It's Different-A New Hollowness In My Soul

(This is a repeat. I am currently the same med cocktail, only on Abilify for Cymbalta. I am also just getting out of this depression fugue).

She sits in front of me in a big overstuffed black leather chair, black patent pumps swaying softly while she crosses and uncrosses her legs as a nervous tick.

She is made up and looks like she just stepped out of Vogue for working women. I, on the other hand, look like an unmade bed. It's been a week since my hair was washed, and that long since I showered. I did brush my teeth and floss before I got there, and brushed my long blonde hair, tying it up in a scrunchie. My jeans are clean, but the shirt I threw on, a black turtle from LL Bean, has a white mark from deodorant, and should have gone straight in the laundry pile. No make up , not even a trace of lip gloss. My shoes are brand new and hurt, brownish tan clogs from my parents for Christmas to replace the blue ones the cat destroyed a few months earlier.

We are discussing my current med cocktail. The fact that it appears that my thyroid has shut down or is shutting down because I am constantly tired and sleeping close to 16 hours a day. I cannot eat but am drinking copious amounts of water. I crave sugar. The Dunkin Donuts across the street is singing a Siren Song to me.

Lithium is being raised to 3100 mg, Cymbalta is staying the same at 60 mg. If the lithium doesn't start working soon, I will be weaned off it and go on Lamictal. All I know is it took every ounce of effort to get there this afternoon, to get dressed, brush my teeth and drive the two miles to the therapist's office. Climb the 15 stairs to get to her room in the building. I am winded like I was in my childhood when I had asthma.

All I know is I am in crisis. My brain knows this. My mind and my soul know this. Life hurts and every breath I take makes me feel like a medieval torture devise of being crushed or weighted to death in the Tower or some other gloomy place. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. But surprisingly, I am not suicidal. I just don't care- I just want to go to sleep and wake up as worm bait.

Raising the lithium, with the Cymbalta, now- it's not passive anymore. it's active. But not active like it was when I was on Remeron and got so suicidal I knew to get to the hospital pronto. It's different this time, but isn't every depression slightly different, like identical twins are never really totally identical?

I find it more violent, the ways I want to go out would give Stephen King a new novel and a literary hard on. It would make Jeffrey Dahmer a new recipe for madness. No OD'ing on pills and slipping gently into that good night. These are painful, horrible, dreamscapes and nightmares from a fevered mind sparked from neurons and gray cells not reacting or over reacting to chemical number 3 on the Periodic Table.

I hover between periods of sanity and insanity- wondering to go into the hospital and make arrangements for the striped baby girl, or just going to Home Depot, buying a few items, and going out one night in the parking lot when everyone is home and asleep and ending it all, the last moment of consciousness dialing 911 and telling the cops to seal off the parking lot.

Right now I can hover. I am scared I might slip. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but hopefully not soon.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow...it looks like as if you had nicked the thoughts right out of my brain. I've been thinking a lot about my mental state lately and the fact that my therapist assumes that I could be bipolar doesn't make it any better. It's right I think that every depression is different from the one before (yupp, like twins^^)...that's why you could never get used to it because it keeps changing and changing.
I'm scared that I could slip away somehow, that I could give in to my urge to give up and end it all...but I'm still fighting which is awesome I think...and that you're still fighting is awesome too. I wish you the best of luck.

xoxo

Radagast said...

Crossing and uncrossing legs? Very defensive! Perhaps she thinks that she'll catch something from you!

Erm, I can't think of a diplomatic way of putting this - on balance, which do you think is "easier": being depressed, or being cheerful?.. You're trying to solve other people's problems, Susan, and I can only guess who they are (but I won't, because that would be pointless). You were kind enough to take their stuff on board, but they didn't stick around to find a solution with you.

Hmmm. Somehow, I feel that that's a bit unsatisfactory, but then you've only told me how you're feeling - you haven't told me what you'd rather be feeling... You should decide that, I think, and then you'll know where you should be heading, next.

Matt

Anonymous said...

All I can say is I can relate. You are not alone. I hope things keep on progressing away from depression.

You deserve all of the happiness in the world.

Wishing you well,
NOS

Syd said...

That level of depression must be hell. My mother never talked about what she felt. She would become almost psychotic at times. I am glad that you are coming out of the depression.

Andrew said...

I am also glad that you are coming out of this depression Susan.

Blessings.

Just a girl said...

Wow, I can totally relate. Thanks for sharing. You are helping some of us find a voice.

Kristin said...

It is painful for me to read this. I watched my daughter in the grips of depression (bipolar/ BPD) and heavy meds. I felt helpless in the face of all her pain.
The docs tweaked and adjust meds but as the side effects mounted and the amounts of drugs prescribed escalated, I saw it get out of hand with my daughter. When her thyroid was out of whack from the lithium, she was put on synthroid. Another set of problems cropped up.
I hope the depression continues to lift.
xx kris

susan said...

@Black Eyed Dog- keep fighting. In the end we are all fighters and that is what makes us strong. Like I said, put anyone of us in a ring with Mike Tyson, and we could knock him out within one round.

@Radagast= maybe her legs were itching or her skirt was itching. Or her shoes. I didn't look into it! LOL

@Nos, thank you. I am doing better, h0w are you?

@Syd thank you. I look up to you and your mom.

@Andrew, thank you!

@Just a girl, thank you. I am glad you are a new blogger. Welcome to the blogosphere. I look forward to reading you.

@Kristin, thanks. I love reading your blog and am actually working on a piece based on things I have gleaned from it. You and your daughter are in my thoughts.

Anonymous said...

May I pass along an award to you??

http://semicrazed.blogspot.com/2010/06/and-oscar-goes-to.html

Suzy Creamcheese said...

I have been looking for people to whom I could relate, people who write with an interesting edge about these kinds of experiences. I like your words and I welcome you to check out mine at http://suzycreamcheesegoesinpatient.blogspot.com.

Any other Frank Zappa fans?

All the best,
Lynn

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