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I couldn’t stop crying at the shrink’s today. Why? Because I am way out of balance. My anxiety level just will not come down.

We had an earthquake, then a hurricane, then 6 days without power. Talk about rattling your world view.

Since I last saw the shrink, I’ve had not one but TWO friends my age die. 😦

My income has been halved the past thirty days, primarily due to hurricane and lack of power.

Meditating consists of daily spending 15 minutes “gently” pulling my mind back from intruding thoughts. Not especially helpful, but I keep at it.

I have not been able to exercise since July because of bronchitis, asthma and then of all things heat stroke that I can’t seem to recover from. 2 minutes on the exercise bike makes me nearly faint and definitely nauseous from overheating.

The days are getting noticeably shorter. Welcome back S.A.D.!

And then there’s the rest of the minor shit. On top of an already seriously stress and anxiety laden year so far.

So why the fuck am I stressed and anxious and sad? No clue. No. fucking. clue.

So… back on the meds go round.

Remove the buspar I just got ramped up on. The lady didn’t mention to me that it had a serious serotonin effect and I didn’t think to look it up. *headdesk* Me and serotonin drugs do VERY poorly together to the tune of mania and a suicide attempt. Just fucking dandy. Oh well. At least that one will go away. That may help.

Zyprexa here we come again. Ugh. I gain 3 pounds a week just looking at food with it. But it does help. Oh well.

Not long enough

Told the therapist today that I won’t live long enough for COPD to kill me. Mental illness will get me first. I have no doubt of that.

No, I have no plans to kill myself any time soon. I just know there’s a limit to how much misery I can take, how much I’m willing to drug myself into zombiehood with antipsychotics.  Sooner or later I’ll cave.

If I can just get through this shit year maybe I’ll be ok for a while longer. Sad part is I’m losing any care about whether I get through it or not. I’m just tired of it all.

I remind myself that will pass.  I’m not sure I believe myself any more.

So much for that

My home has been without power since Saturday afternoon.

My whole life is gone. Because of my crap health it’s all online any more. Or most of it. And I have no laptop to go elsewhere and visit my life. And can’t even stay home because of my asthma and medication caused inability to deal with heat.

I’ve had to start my emergency antipsychotics I’ve been so messed up. I’m still depressed, but not emergently.

I see now how fragile my pitiful little life is. Something will come sweep every shard of it away before long probably. No big loss to anyone.

I just want to be able to go home.

Even with ativan in me, I still keep diving under the desk. I’ve had to stop talking to anyone because my nervous system is screaming so loudly that anything said feels like an attack.. I feel like I’m dying and if I don’t do something right now to prevent it, I will die.

Realistically, I’m on the western edge of the tropical storm zone, in an area that isn’t likely to flood seriously, and still has power. I know this. It has virtually no emotional impact, though.

FIGHT!

FLEE!

Or die.

I hate chronic PTSD

Who invited Irene anyway?

Bad Day

My illusions that I meant something have come crashing to the ground. Mostly I mean nothing to me probably. But it was much nicer to have the illusions.

Look at all my trials and tribulations
Sinking in a gentle pool of wine
Don’t disturb me now
I can see the answers
Til this evening is this morning life is fine.

….

The end is just a little harder when
Brought about by friends…

Oh I want all the pain to be over. I was not made to be able to walk off the stage until the curtain falls at the end of the play. I’ll have to stay. Crap.

Well SHE can deal with it…

… why can’t you?

Those of us dealing with mental illness often get annoyed when we get compared unevenly. Yeah, I may be depressed at any given time but that’s not “better” than being hypomanic with bipolar in my eyes. And believe me, PTSD and bipolar aren’t the same things. But people not dealing wtih these things, and many that are, sometimes forget to make sure they’re comparing apples to apples. Better yet, we all forget not to bother comparing.

Everyone is different. And at different times one thing may be more problematic than another. And sometimes things are just ok, or just awful. It’s not static.

I get by with a low level of psychiatric medication, personally. This means I have a much higher incident of psychiatric effects like depression, mania, hypervigilance, etc. than most doctors and patients both are comfortable with. I make the choice to put up with this particular balance because it works for me.

I do creative work, and getting rid of all the psychiatric effects undoes my creativity to the extent I can’t earn a living. I’ve tried it. I can’t however, go unmedicated and do my creative work either because then the mental illness effects get too severe. I’ve tried it. Ialso work from home, so I can tolerate my effects of whatever kind without it being a huge problem. In an office I probably wouldn’t be able to lay down every afternoon so I don’t get worn out and then have problems. What I do now as far as meds and tolerating side effects vs mental illness effects is a balance worked out with my mental health professionals over years of trial and error.

Ok, so that’s me. But that’s just me.  Joan, Jack or who the heck ever is different. They may need to work in an office, not be able to work at all, have a less severe case of mental illness currently, or a worse one.

Just because I can deal with something doesn’t mean anyone else can, and vice versa. Note to self: Keep this in mind.

Psychosis

I get prednisone psychosis every time I have to take it. I’m used to it. Prednisone, bipolar disorder, my old antidepressants. I never know what might take my brain out from under me, especially with new meds. But the prednisone does it every time.

First the mania hits. This is actually fun at first. So much energy when I’ve been sick seems awesome. Then I end up feeling like I’m doing 85 miles an hour while sitting still and I can’t organize a thought to save my life. Not so fun after all. But that usually goes away after a day or two.

Then there’s the hallucinations. I usually have olfactory hallucinations first. At 2:30am the other night I kept smelling carmelized onions and couldn’t shake it. No one was carmelizing onions in the house or had for well over 2 weeks. Oops. Not real.

Then come the auditory hallucinations. Bells. Damned bells. There are no bells in the house to be ringing, or in the car. I did a reality check on that one with a friend of mine. And the children’s choir in the attic never existed either. Nope, just the prednisone talking.

After that come the visual hallucinations. Flying cats and flying saucers and cars that don’t exist and so on. Hodgepodge really. But 99% of it is obviously not real… just vivid with sight, sound, touch, smell, and I expect if I bit it, taste too. Amusing and annoying  but in the end not a huge deal.

Here’s a convo I had by txt with a friend just now:

Me: Oh great. now i’m seeing things. unless there are tiny bright light ufo’s flying around the edge of my vision for real

Friend: That sounds like aura hope it’s not a sign your getting migraine. Have you thought of sitting quietly (resting) for a bit?

Me: Am used to migraine auras, this ain’t it. they have little blinky lights on top and silver flying saucer things on the bottom. LOL

Friend: Eh probably not a migraine then.

Me: There’s also a periodic cat running by in mid-air across the room. white and gray cat actually. Hallucinations are interesting.

Me: Rest won’t help — it’s the prednisone, happens every time. But I do have something for it if it gets too much or too annoying.

Friend: WTF is too annoying? Flying cats and UFO’s aren’t to annoying? LOL Ok just be safe.

Me: Don’t worry, I won’t drive or use heavy machinery or anything at all dangerous. Am used to this.

I have to be blase about it or I would just sit down and cry. Why? Because my health stinks and the meds I have to take cause all sorts of weird effects at various times. I do make sure I’m safe, though, and friends and family locally keep an eye on me. And if the symptoms are too bad I have antipsychotics I can take. My psychiatrist has RX’d for psychiatric emergencies just such as this. It works out overall. Annoying, but it works out in the end.

Hypomania

Hypomania is fun. Let’s not mistake that. It’s annoying too. Let’s not mistake that either.

Asthma bit me. Doc prescribed me. Prednisone! Woo hoo!  Hop on for the crazy ride.

Yes, I’m unwell. So I took my prednisone. I went to bed at 12:30am. I watched netflix in bed like I always do for a half hour. Then I turned out the light.

La la la la. Story plots and plans for the day and all manner of amusements trip through my head. Hmmm. I’m not sleeping. In fact, I’m wide awake! Not good. Hypomania can lead to mania all too easily and that makes an ugly mess of my life. So I meditate. Do breathing exercises. No dice. At 4am I give up and go play on the computer. La la la. At 6:30 I finally feel like I can sleep. Go lay down fast. It takes forever it feels like, but it couldn’t have been, since at 10:30am the phone wakes me up. Which makes me realize I have to pee. Ugh. By the time I’m done with the phone and bathroom, I’m up for the day and ready to go.

Prednisone will rattle me along for days. Unfortunately stopping breathing would be worse. So I take it and get hypomanic. Annoying.

But it is fun. *grin*

Everything

“Everything is back under the bed in a neat fashion except the sugar, which is now in the kitchen.”

And all is good in the world.

Ah crap

It seems I only post when life gets overwhelming. C’est la vie. It’s cathartic for me and I don’t guess anyone has to read it. *grin*

I just found out a friend has cancer. I mean, just now found out.  Just one more thing in the overload bukkit. I mean… Since I last posted I’ve had to deal with my business very nearly tanking, re-injuring my bad knee to the tune of grand pain accompaniment, switching from generic to brand (!!!) Lamictal, various crap keeping me from sleeping (reasonable stuff, but insomnia still sucks), my co-worker’s PC blowing up with sparks and all so that a lot of business data was lost, IBS flare-ups, my brother suddenly becoming very ill, acquiring a new counselor, had a good friend with bipolar disorder become psychotic and have to be hospitalized.  That’s just the last 13 days. And in the days before that I found out my father has cancer, dealt with weeks of nausea and diarrhea from starting metformin, dealt with rats around the house, had my intercostal neuritis flare up again, developed Piriformis syndrome, had insomnia for a week due to those last two things, had a debt collector come after me over something that was taken care of and had to bend over backwards to prove it, had a bout of hypomania, had my alcoholic uncle move in then move back out, found out that the county may not be able to get me my crazy meds, had severe foot cramps that wouldn’t let me sleep for several days, dealt with dizziness for days caused by starting lisinopril. Since July 1 this stressful stuff has happened. And that’s just the stuff that’s significant enough to bother mentioning. My life is absurd, I sometimes think.

I keep remembering my old therapist at first telling me, “Things happen in everyone’s life. We just have to deal with them.”  About 6 months later she gave in and agreed that more shit seems to happen in my life than most. I still have to deal with it.

You know what?  Bipolar disorder and PTSD hasn’t made me any less of a tough cookie. That I always survive this never-ending crap on top of dealing with mental illness is kind of amazing.  So you see, it is possible to deal with mental illness and a bunch of crap. It’s not always pleasant. Often not at all. But it’s possible.

To the good side, I’m still alive, so is my brother, my knee is healing, my business hasn’t quite died, I’m past all the side effects from all those new meds, and on Friday I will have made it to 15 years clean and sober. Assuming I don’t fall off the wagon by then. Seems unlikely since the last 40 days — and the last couple of years for that matter —  hadn’t tipped me off the wagon. I’ll get taken out for sushi to celebrate. Wahoo!

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