Lazy, Hazy, Days of Summer

Confusion. Sometimes my brain is so confused I don't know if I am coming or going. So what else is new?


I've been tired. Tireder than anything. You know you are tired when you are sleeping more hours a day than a cat. It's not the sleep that comes from depression or boredom it's the kind that comes from being downright tired, worn out, feeling sick but you don't know why everything is hurting. You lie down on the bed and you can feel your insides moving around, you feel them working. There are sharp pains in the kidneys, and the female parts. I've been waking up in the middle of the night with flashes and the only way to feel cool again is to take an ice cold bath and dream I am in Antarctica.

I can't eat, which is not a bad thing. I cannot see well enough to read, so I listen to books on tape. I just stumble out of bed, like after a long ago two day drunk, with wobbly legs and make my way to the toilet. Then it's feed the kitty, water the kitty, change her box, back to bed. Maybe update Facebook or post a lone Tweet, so people know I am alive. Then back to bed. To sleep, perchance to dream. But dreams don't come- or if they do, and I am a very vivid dreamer, - I simply don't recall them.

It's a numbness. My hour of lead, so to speak.

I've been told to see a doctor. I'm scared to. Scared there may be something really truly wrong. Like with my kidneys again, or my white blood count. I know my bladder isn't working at the moment, it's either feast or famine with it.

All you can do is persevere, like Dilsey.

I see my psychiatrist for the last time tomorrow. She is leaving her practice. I have to find a new one. I still have weekly meetings with my state worker, who I think, is nice but I keep her on a short leash. (More about that later). Things with the family are status quo. They don't really ever change. It's like a weird dance where you want to change partners, but you can't. To make matters worse, the band keeps playing the same song. It's worse than Groundhog's Day.

The cat now has hyperthyroid and is on a special diet. She is doing better. I couldn't write about that because she was on pills and doing terribly, and I thought for a few horrible days I would loose her. She is doing much better now, though she's very mad at me she can't have a bit of chicken or some other yummy morsel with her dinner.

When I started this blog four and a half years ago, I never thought I would go a month without blogging. I needed the break. I needed the time off. When I blog, I read psychiatric news stories for hours a day and read all I can to keep my education current. It was getting too much, which I think had a lot to do with my tiredness. My body was tired, my soul is tired.

It still is, but I miss my readers, I miss the process of writing. This is the best therapy I know of- and it doesn't cost anything more than an Internet connection. It calms me down, makes me feel whole. Not many things in life can do that, that aren't illegal, immoral or fattening.

It's no longer a matter of surviving for me. It's a matter of persevering. One step beyond survival.

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For your enjoyment, the latest Holly photo. You can see she's getting a bit older.

Rain-outside and in my heart

I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open, despite the three cups of coffee I had prior to getting in the car and being taken to my psychiatrist. All I can think about now, as I wait in her waiting room is how my bladder is filling.

A very tall, handsome man comes in with a briefcase and a laptop. He sits down next to my mother and I, says hello, and opens the briefcase. I can see samples of Abilify. Ah! A Bristol Myers salesman! Not unexpected, I am just a few miles or so from BM US headquarters, as the crow flies.

Eventually, the doc comes out of her office, and ushers me inside. Everything is turned around, the couch is on another wall, and the chairs are facing a different direction. It turns me around, I do not like it. It's like the Feng Shui in the room is totally messed up by moving the chairs and couch around to different sides. I tell her I don't like it, and she says it was done by the person she shares an office with. Every time she moves them back, the next day they are in this pattern. I sense she is frustrated.

We talk a little small talk. I have 10 minutes total. One and a half minutes to small talk. One minute at the end  to pay, get a receipt and make the next appointment. Seven and a half to  Eight minutes for everything else.

The small talk comes easy. As a whole, I like my psychiatrist. She's about my age, the mother of a teenager and a pre teenager. She's a little smaller than me- I'm 5 feet tall, and she is 4 feet 10 inches. We both complain about our short stature and problems it entails. It's like we share one common bond.

It's really the only other thing we have in common.  She asks me the standard questions, I answer. She tells me flat out she thinks I should be in the hospital- I'm non compos mentis. My foggy brain kick starts- something lights up the gray cells and I hear myself saying "No. I've been in the hospital twice during the month of December. They are very short staffed. I don't want to go in now. Let's wait."

She's not sure. She asks me to consider going to this address (Robert Wood Johnson) and going inpatient. I've never heard of this hospital, I've always gone to Princeton House. i tell her there is no way I would ever go back as an impatient to Princeton House. She suggests Carrier. I don't know about this one, but I do know they let you keep stuffed animals with you.

I tell her I cannot go in, I need someone to take care of the cat. I can't afford to send her to the cattery, and I have no one to take care of her. I need someone to collect my mail. It won't work. No. I have a friend who can house sit for me, and cat sit, but he is over 200 miles away. I have to give him notice to get him to visit. Meanwhile...

She raises up out of the chair, and goes to get my mother. She tells my mother flat out I should be in the hospital, and gives her a piece of paper with a number written on it. I tell my mother, in FRONT of my doctor, do not ever call that number, the police will come and it will be involuntary. I won't go in involuntary- my insurance will automatically throw me out after two weeks and I am off to Trenton Psych. Please Don't. Call.

A compromise is worked out. I should get into the Princeton House IOP program- ASAP. And I shall see her once a week until I can get in.

When we are finished, mom takes me to the Omega Diner for lunch. Bless NJ for being the land of the diners. No Waffle Houses, but we have diners. I can't eat. I have a huge whole in my heart, my stomach is in agony. I drink some coffee, and a few spoonfuls of soup. I try not to cry.

"Mom, I don't want to be in any more hospitals , ever. Please promise you won't call that number."

She promises, but I wonder. I tell her how I am trying. I try to get dressed every day in clean clothes, shower. Some days that is pretty much all I can do. Some days I can do a bit more- the agoraphobia abates and I can leave my apartment. Go shopping. Go do things. Be around people. Other days I am so ... if I leave my bed, it's to use the toilet and feed the kitty.

I try to tell her my problems with out patient therapy- I've had as much if not more education than the therapists, and I know what they are doing. I've had the same courses. People might get better from these things, but I know too much about them. It's futile. This is why doctors make the worst patients. I even tell both psychiatrist and my mom I am seriously thinking of auditing a  psych class at the university to see if I could get a MSW or a PhD. Let's see if my brain can do it. I tell both of them I want to help other people who have been in my shoes, if I can get my stuff together, I can help others; be a better advocate.

It's just- well, I don't know. Futile. I'm doing the best I can.

For the last three days it's been raining. The mail carrier drops off my mail and forgets to shut the lid. Magazines and letters are destroyed from water. My cat is bored because the squirrels are not playing outside. She sleeps a bit more than normal. I can relate. I feel like sleeping more too. It's a Herculean effort to stay awake with the med cocktail I am on. No psych meds, just other meds to deal with the side effects brought on from the psych drugs.

In analyzing Literature, rain is the sign of renewal, rebirth. In analyzing art, it's the total opposite. Depression. It makes no sense to me. It's almost bipolar in it's reasoning, or is it like Ying and Yang? I can't decide. I don't know.

I don't know what I am anymore. It's very complicated. All I know is it's like the line from Robert Frost- I have miles to go before I sleep. I have miles of things to ponder and try to overcome before I go to sleep.

Lost

I'm sitting in my psychiatrist's office. It's on the clock, in her waiting room are another four clients and one irate rep from Big Pharma, with lots of samples of Cymbalta. I have about 5 min plus another min or two to pay and re-schedule. It's going to go very fast.

She looks at me. I'm trying to care about my appearance- I noticed she's referred to me as "disheveled" in the past. I've taken care to wash and blow dry my hair, and put on make up. Put on new clothes. The friend who is staying with me this week says I look "Beautiful". The doctor clearly disagrees, she's writing furiously on her writing pad.

She wants me on medication. It will be a year, since last November when I went cold turkey off all my meds. She feels with diagnosis, I should be on something. She wants Prozac. I don't want Prozac. I was on Prozac when it first came out, after a couple of months, I developed something strange- I felt like there were bugs under my skin. I went off it cold turkey, and on to Zoloft and Paxil.

I remember when Prozac first came out. Dr. L- was all over this, thinking this drug would cure me, cure everyone. His copy of Newsweek was worn, he treated it like his bible. Prozac was all over the place, everyone was taking it, even people that didn't have depression. I even knew a man from work who named his cat "Prozac".

So when I told the doctor one night, I couldn't stop scratching and felt there were bugs crawling over me, he couldn't find that in the side effects. Eventually this side effect did make it into the list, but not then. All I knew is that this drug wasn't like a magic wand, it was making me worse. This was the first drug that failed me. Over the next two decades there would be many, many more.

My doc wants me on Prozac and Abilify. She has called my GP and my kidney doctor to make sure I can take it. She thinks Abilify will help, and the Prozac- why don't you take it, maybe it will work this time. If it doesn't, stop it immediately.

I don't want to be on psych drugs. The swelling in my feet is going down. I'm moving around better. A friend who is staying with me has me walking every night this week except the night it was raining. The last time we saw each other I could only walk with a walker. Now, I am walking, leaning gently against him for balance, with a semi like drunken gait. It's not where I want to be, but it is better than it was even a month ago. Baby steps. Recovery goes in baby steps.

I made dinner one night, broiled chicken, broccoli, and noodles. It was nice cooking for someone, I enjoy cooking simple, plain meals. My friend tells me I look healthier- my skin has a glow in it that it didn't have earlier this year, and I'm not in pain every moment. No, my pain has been ebbing over the last fortnight, it's not as bad as it was. I'm sleeping again, only it's hyper sleep- 16-18 hours each day.

Despite the company, I feel lost. I'm being pulled from two different directions- all over the medications. Over my life. What I am doing with my life. Do I go back to school for a PhD or another Masters? I think I am too old and don't want to go into Student Loans. Can I find a writing job when all over newspapers and magazines are laying off writers. Can I even work if I am sleeping too much and feeling terrible from the kidney, bladder and high blood pressure meds?

I don't know. I just know I want to contribute something back to society. That would be the best therapeutic answer to everything and make me feel whole again.

Psychiatry Tales or I don't want to go back on Cymbalta!

I’m sitting in my psychiatrist’s office in an overstuffed beige wing chair. It reminds me of Archie Bunker’s chair. My mother is near me sitting on an overstuffed red pattern that reminds me of William Morris. I wish my mother wasn’t here. This is the downsize of my bout in November with shut kidneys and bladder- she is treating me like I am 16. It’s getting on every last nerve I have, and like a teenager, I want to rebel. Smoke or drink, or do something to irritate her. 

My mother is talking to my doctor; I cannot get a word in edgewise. Something about me sleeping the day away. I try to tell her it’s from the kidney/bladder medicine, but she isn’t buying it. Not now. I’m lazy. 

She’s talking pills. The only pill she recalls me taking is Cymbalta, and she wants the doc to put me on that. I get upset. I don’t want to go on that drug. I was on it three years ago and the side effects after the first 2 months were horrible. It's because of Cymbalta I developed agoraphobia, not to mention a dozen other side effects like severe bloating, confusion, twitching in my arms and face, impossible to read a book, constantly thirsty, itching, a feeling like bugs were crawling over me (I had that one with Prozac too), and the worst, when I went off cold turkey on the doctors suggestion, I had brain zaps for the first time in my life.

The doctor says she will look into it, call my kidney doctor and get back to my mother. Mom is adamant I need to be on something. I’m depressed. 

“I’m not depressed mom, I am sad, in pain and frustrated”, I tell her. My father doesn’t want me to be on any meds. But my father is going downhill. My mother is calling all the shots now in their marriage. In any marriage there is always a dominate partner, even if it’s 50/50 it’s always 51/49. 

My mother looks at my psychiatrist. “She needs to be medicated. She needs to get out of the apartment more.”

I look at my psychiatrist. She’s the most petite woman I have ever seen, doll like at 4 8”, and exotic since she was not born in the States, but in India. As a person, she’s nice, she even gave me a recipe for a vegetarian korma. 

I will give her props. She asked me a month or so earlier to give her a list of every med I have ever been on. She called the kidney doctor to check which one(s) I should be on. And she knows I do not want to go back on any psych meds, and respects me for that. 

Only now it’s my mother telling her, begging her to put me on something. Begging for a script for Cymbalta. Not understanding why I cannot be on an antidepressant and a mood stabilizer. 

The doctor does her best to explain I do not need to be on both, and right now, it’s all about the kidneys. My mother goes back on her tirade all I am doing is sleeping and crying. 

Yes, I am sleeping too much, but I found if I miss a dose of the kidney/bladder pills I sleep 10 hours a day opposed to 18. I cry because my gynecologist is saying I am perimenopausal and anything and everything turns on the waterworks. I wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat like I am bringing off a fever, and find for some reason it’s easier to sleep during the day than the night, even with a fan blowing directly on me. 

I’ve been on psych meds for about 5/8 ths of my life. I’ve been off them now since November, and I am noticing some things happening to my body, all-amazing. Physically, my body is a wreck. But my brain, the brain that had the photographic memory, the brain that could read a poem once and have it committed to memory, who never forgot a book from the first one I ever read “Pat the Bunny”, to the last one I read, “The Noonday Demon”, when I had ECT. I am watching “Jeopardy” at night and actually can get more questions correct. 

There seems to be two camps both on line and in real life. Those who are pro meds and anti meds. Let me state this here and there. I don’t know where I am. I don’t think, any of the psych meds I have ever taken have helped me, and two came close to killing me, one actually had me flat line. Personally, I don’t think they did anything for me, but I stayed on them all these years because of the propaganda; doctors telling me it was like diabetes, I needed these drugs to stay alive. Playing Monday morning quarterback, I don’t they did anything for me. I might have felt good for a very slight time when they started working, but after a couple of months, they always made me feel worse. I was always told to cut the drugs cold turkey and start another one. I was a good girl, I took the drugs, blindly like a sheeple. My parents believed I should be on these drugs, and I wanted to be a dutiful daughter. And I believed the PR, the promises, because all I wanted was to be the person I was when I was first diagnosed. 

That person is gone. “She’s dead and gone lady, she’s dead and gone”- but unlike Ophelia I don’t think I am mad. I pray I do not succumb to suicide like she did. Gosh knows I’ve been in her shoes. But I am older and wiser. And I know the only Dane to die for is a Danish. (Preferably Apple Cinnamon). I want to rebuild my life again. True, the dreams I had at 22 are gone, but maybe I can make new dreams, and have a good life for how ever long I stay on this big blue ball called Earth. 

ETA: Here is the video I posted a few years ago on Cymbalta and the side effects. I will be showing it to my psychiatrist on why I hate Cymbalta. It’s a keeper.