Playing with Myself

Thanks to all for birthday wishes. I don't feel a day over 31. Tsk.

My doctor has been keeping me on a short leash with the trazadone, which is the lovely little bit of pharmaceutical that gets me to sleep these days. I was obviously in mom's "Oh I feel much better so I don't needs meds" mode on Friday, because I'd been sleeping well, and wasn't terribly stressed by the thought of going off the trazadone. The doctor and I were going to discuss this and the rest of my meds on Friday.

Unfortunately, I was 20 minutes late for my appointment. So they cancelled, and rescheduled for a day that I now realize won't work either because of work stuff.

I was mortified. I hate being late for appointments. Hate it to distraction. And to have to deal with the obnoxious nurse making me feel worse on top of that... *sigh* And of course I was out of trazadone. So while I was mentally berating myself for being late and fighting back tears (hello, not dealing well with stress right now), I ask nurse to ask doctor to call in a refill for the trazadone. She asks how I'm doing on it, and I respond "okay". Of course, if you'd asked me earlier in the week (or day, for that matter), I would have been able to say objectively that it was doing its job. I was sleeping, nightmare count was down, yadda yadda. It won't fix the other issues, it just lets me get to a frame of mind where I can deal with them. But I was upset, so the "okay" apparently came out as less than okay, and that's what the nurse told doc.

I get home on Friday evening and find a message from the nurse (even though I told her to call me at work) saying that "since the trazadone isn't working for you, the doctor has decided not to refill the scrip."

No biggie, I think. I can do without it until I see her in 10 days.

I did not sleep this weekend. I did not sleep well. I napped during the day, in the sense that if I sat down on the bed for more than ten minutes I was asleep. But that never lasted very long. I was up at 3 am on both Saturday and Sunday, and absolutely could not get back to sleep. My skin hurt, I was so miserable. Or perhaps I have the cause and effect misplaced there.

Regardless, I want my fucking refill and want it now.

So... I went off Prozac about 4 weeks ago.

It shows.

Adding more of Wellbutrin this week may help. In the meantime, I need to find a way to deal with emotional crisis that doesn't involve

a) deleting things
b) breaking things
c) throwing things away

I honestly never understood why my mother doesn't have "things". She really doesn't. She goes from house to house, husband to boyfriend, whatever, and doesn't take much with her. Fine, I get it now.

My friendly neighborhood human resources professional tried to have me committed today.

Well, not really. But I had fun saying that. And it hasn't been a fun day.

So I've been having the usual round of frustration with my primary care physician, hereafter referred to as Dr. Do No Harm. Dr DNH had decided several months ago, in her infinite wisdom, that Prozac was Not Good and that I would be much better off with Wellbutrin. I asked her, after she started fiddling with my meds, why she was easing me off of Prozac. She cited (vaguely) a study that said Prozac can have long-term effects. Okay.

In late October, my prescription for Prozac ran out. She didn't renew it. She had, in the meantime, also started me on 150mg of Wellbutrin. Just before Thanksgiving, after I had been off of Prozac for about three weeks, she upped the Wellbutrin to 300mg a day.

Three days later I was contemplating killing myself.

I'm not a complete idiot. I knew that wasn't good. I've never been suicidal before (at least not since high school, that hotbed of misery). But after the "episode" I was fine. It seemed so unreal. I shrugged it off. But it kept bothering me, so about four days later I called Dr DNH and reported the incident. Her nurse got back to me the next day, and said to keep taking the Wellbutrin.

A little later, I had another episode. Afterwards, I realized that I had been artificially "high" earlier in the day. After Thanksgiving, the same thing happened. With Thanksgiving, there was about 24 hours between up and down. With this, there was an eight hour window.

Last night, there was a three or four hour window. Danakate did something very nice for me yesterday afternoon. I was happy. Way too happy, really. Later at home, I reacted entirely out of proportion to a minor issue, went into a crying jag, and was trying to decide how many pills I could take to make this go away.

Mr G and some nebulous sense of guilt got me through it. I called Dr DNH last night and left a message, telling her that there was something REALLY WRONG with this dosage.

This morning, Dr DNH called me at work. Her words: "Your mood swings are beyond my ability to treat." She cut me off when I tried to describe what was going on. She suggested I call a suicide hotline (she didn't give me the number of said hotline).

I stared at the phone for a while. I walked over to our HR director's office and told her that I needed to avail myself of the company's mental health program. I explained the situation to her. She offered to take me over to the mental health facility right then. I thought it was a good idea. So did she.

So I spent about five hours at the mental "emergency room" being handed around. I was told I could not get a medical review by a doctor until January. Hospitalization was suggested. I was cajoled into joining a daily therapy group, which I was willing to do until they told me the damn thing met from 9 am to 2 pm. Why not just fire me from my position at work now and get it over with? I was threatened with hospitalization. Apparently the part where I started beating my head on the table convinced the so-called counselor to actually go find a psychiatrist. Bless her heart, one of the psychiatrists worked me in to her schedule.

She went over my case history and confirmed that I'm bipolar, which I have suspected for about a year.

She encouraged me to think of this as an allergic reaction -- Wellbutrin put me into a period of ultra rapid cycling. She is tapering me off Wellbutrin and putting me back on Prozac. Once I am off the Wellbutrin, she may add a mood stabilizer. She did not have kind things to say about Dr DNH.

She was totally no-nonsense and I think she may have saved my life because she didn't make me feel like a lying, drug-addicted hypochondriac. I see her again in about five days.

So I guess I'll be looking for a new primary care physician. At the moment, I feel fine. Apart from the sense that I'm going to vomit.

I guess I'll leave comments open on this, but if anybody says I should have done anything differently, I may scream.

I really need to write my yuletide story. Which may not be a problem, as one side effect of the mania has apparently been sitting down and writing (in half an hour each) Lost and Stargate SG-1 stories that I actually like.

January suckage: Return of the Mother(tm), craziness at work, utter exhaustion, realizing the extent of numerous bad decisions made pre-Lithium including several financial fuck-ups

First week of February suckage: Craziness at work cont., performance review today, exiling kirbyfest from my house forever by taking in a stray cat, utter fucking exhaustion, realizing that the repercussions of numerous bad decisions made pre-Lithium including several financial fuck-ups are going to affect our ability to do ANYTHING this year including Mediawest and me going to DC with Mr G in the spring when he goes for a conference even if ND is paying for the hotel

I really do think it would be best if I just hibernated until sometime around July. Except for the whole needing a paycheck thing.

Many things feel muted. That may be because I am shuffling my stressors, rather like pieces on a gameboard. I can't deal with this right now... let's just move it over here, out of the way.

I feel deflated. Who let all the air out?

Another reason (other than lack of necessary income) why long-term stay at homeness is not a viable option for moi is that my sleeping timetable is wackified. To put it bluntly, I ought to be in bed.

Alas, the cornucopia of pastel pills which keep the madness at bay are not doing much to hinder my racing thoughts these days. Maybe that's not a bad thing, though -- I've been without motivation and words for too long. While I crave the stability and demands of a regular 8-5 gig, I still haven't really had a chance to work through the fairly momentous changes of the last few months. Changing jobs, leaving the job to move to Nod, trying to get the house ready to sell, finding a house here... I had my previous job offer for all of one day before Mr G got a call to interview again in Nod. By rights I shouldn't be keeping it together this well. I blame my support group -- Mr G, Dawn, the family, the exercise bike (whom I have named Spike, just this moment, and it amuses me ). If I'm a wee bit manic so that I can't get to sleep when I should, at least it's only a touch of the crazies. A year ago, I couldn't have imagined being in this existential and literal 'here'. And yet here I am talking to myself again, but I'm doing okay. Imagine that.

I had some thoughts regarding Father's Day, but they will have wait until later because PsychoSpaniel insists that it is time to feign sleep. But for your mockery, I present Mr G, Donald, & Me. Please ignore the double chin. Nothing to see here. Move along.

One thing about living in the oh-so placid Land of Nod is that when there is something to do, everybody does it. Case in point, this weekend's air show (which is, as far as I can tell, the only reason the regional airport remains open) -- I was able to do grocery shopping and errands on Saturday with nary a muttered curse against my fellow man because there weren't any about. I think there were more people in the parking lot of Wal-Monster watching the whiz bang jets from the hoods of their cars than were actually in the store. Hooray for me.

It was a lovely week, weather-wise. Weather is not actually a favorite conversational topic of mine, but last week was absolutely gorgeous. LoN graced us with a preview of Autumn, and it sparkled. Things will be heating up this week, but I can't wait for Fall. The shadows in the light, the layering of decay (yes, I like it when plants start to go into hibernation) and crispness in the air, and the texture of the iconography of Fall (straw, pumpkins, gourds, falling leaves). The prospect of Autumn makes me happy.

I wish I could say the same about my meds. I like my new doctor, even if he keeps harping on the unfinished PhD in my past. He suggested that I try a new drug that could eliminate both the lithium and Depakote, but didn't push it. I waited until I was feeling somewhat settled here to broach the subject again, because although the lithium/Depakote therapy works well, it's a lot of pills to take. I got a little worried when Dr. Z changed his mind about which "new drug" I should take because the one he initially had in mind is a bad cocktail with Depakote in your system. Um, why didn't he think about that before suggesting it? Regardless, he gave me an alternative, Abilify.

I should have refused to take it just based on the stupid name.

Backache. Stomachache. Constipation. I couldn't sleep as I was in so uncomfortable. Frankly, I would have prefered out and out pain to the nagging aches. I paced so much throughout the week that by Sunday I was nearly crippled (how pitiful... I better remedy that grievous lack of leg stamina before Disney). Argh. Supposedly Dr Z is going to give me a different scrip today. If he doesn't give me the muscle relaxant I also requested, I may have to switch doctors.