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It’s A Balancing Act

October 5th, 2009

I feel myself slipping, ever so quietly, into a mild state of mania.

It’s quite possible it’s time to back off my meds.

This time four years ago, I experienced a similar, but stronger mania. My General Practitioner had ever so quickly upped me to 150mg of Zoloft (I had never been on anti-depressants before, despite numerous bouts of depression).

I became erratic in my decision making. I did not think — or care — about the consequences of my actions.

My previous boundaries, which I held on so tightly to in years past, became silly little invisible fences.  It was so easy to step over those fences since it appeared that they did not exist.

It’s true that before this time my boundaries were like the walls of a medium security prison. It’s true that these walls needed to be relaxed.

But a comfortable boundary would have been between a picket fence and an eight-foot chain link fence. The former is a visible barrier that is easy to go around, or open the gate to walk through. But it requires a decision.

The latter is a sturdier deterrent — tall enough to be a serious hurdle — but not SO scary that I would not climb OVER it.

Now I’m in a new place mentally and in a new space in my relationship with my husband. I also now have a child to consider when setting up my boundaries.

My return to medication is due to my child. Post-partum depression set in shortly after I weaned my baby after nineteen long months (of breastfeeding).

I spiraled down into a depression that I could not out think. I became uncomfortable to live with. I needed help, mentally and physically.

I needed permission to get help. I needed permission to ASK for help. I had to let go of the notion that I had to do everything myself. I had to let go of the notion that accepting help equals weakness.

Now, a year later, I have willingly accepted help and favors from friends, relatives and neighbors.

I have accepted help from artificial serotonin replacements.

I am clearly more upbeat than I was last year.

But when does this help become a hindrance? When do my boundaries solidify?

I aim to find out somewhere along the way.

Bear Traps and My Urgent Need for Hobbies

September 19th, 2009

There are so few words in me right now and they are so mangled that I am struggling to make conversations much less coherent sentences.  Let me state for the record- the record that is really just for my sake so I can point something out that I am not willing to deny- that I am doing better than I have been in a long while.  Just today I saw my doctor and we spoke of my many improvements and the signs that prove I am fortunate enough to be moving forward- away from the depression, the instability and lack of will.  Among other good developments I have even quit one medicine and lowered two.  I am more willing to meet people, keep up with things I enjoy and things I don’t but that are necessary.  I am even working on new projects.  To the point I go-

Just now my DVR disrupted the recording of a show I wanted to watch.  A repeat, one that I may have even seen already but I wanted to record in case I hadn’t.  When I asked my husband to fix it there came an escalation, or maybe a de-escalation.  How should I describe me swearing horribly at my husband, twisting the remote as if I could break it with bare hands and breathing more quickly than a racehorse at the end of the Kentucky Derby?  It got worse.  There was twisting and turning, begging and pleading.  Things I won’t put to page because I am not yet that brave.  All of it a showing of vulnerability I despise.

Because of TV?  An electrical malfunction?  Why is TV so important- this is my second post that highlights its place in my life?  I’m beginning to understand why people worry so much about the television as babysitter.  I’m 32 and I pay it every month to keep me busy.  I must make a note to watch less TV and pick up macramé or perhaps a weekly bridge group.  I digress.  Boy, do I digress.

I know better than to believe that I should blame the silver box beneath the flat screen.  I already mentioned the medicine changes, although I stand behind them as being the right moves.  Last week I wrote about my overwhelming fatigue and of course that can play into a flash of panic and irrational anger.  Of course there is the ankle sprain and twisted knee that I sustained on Sunday during the extreme sport of apple picking.  There are also the other chronic pain conditions I have that cause me to be on a separate cocktail favored by pharmaceutical reps.

And so I write somewhat briefly and definitely without my best skill right now to say that sometimes even when things are okay I cannot, must not forget the undercurrents of the diseases that are rooted in my brain.  I cannot ignore the pangs that go through my stomach or the quick, double breaths I occasionally take.  So many things make me, us, anybody and everybody, vulnerable to falling into a bear trap.

I am tired.  It hurts right there.  How come I forgot to do that thing?  He/She is being ridiculous.  Stop tailgating.  Is the bank wrong or am I?  I just need two more inches of space.  I only wanted to watch the one damn show and then I will go to bed.  I am thirsty.

Little things, big things, the size in this case simply does not matter in the least.  Vulnerable is vulnerable and for someone with depression, anxiety, mania, PTSD, you name it- the smallest of bear traps can be the most deadly.  I am lucky that tonight I was not alone and I had enough wits to want to hold it together and want help even when I pushed it away and I think even called it names.  My bear trap of an anxiety attack and outburst of anger came equipped with a ladder: my husband and his steady hands and clear mind.  They should all be that easy.

I am saddened to read backwards and see that I have developed a view of panic, terror, helplessness, fits and rage as being able to be called “easy” even once.  However, I recognize that if I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t be able to get up most mornings and take my two kids to my son’s school where I make pleasant conversation with people who have no idea that this is my life.  I do not know their lives either.  I can only hope that this is a moment in time that will be lost as the minutes tick away.  I also hope that if even one of the people I make eye contact with in a day finds themselves surprised by a bear trap that they can reach a ladder or at least summon the courage to scream until they are heard.

I’m listening for them and will resolve to hone my ladder building skills.  It seems like a better past time than TV and is far less likely to be effected by electrical failures.

I Haven’t Slept A Wink

September 9th, 2009

I’m so tired. I am very tired.  I have always been tired (unless clinically opposite of tired) at least as far back as fourth grade.  I vividly remember telling my best friend at the time that I had bags under my eyes so big that I could carry groceries in them.  Oddly enough she didn’t really get what I was saying.  But she had a bedtime that she kept to and didn’t know who David Letterman was.  What could I really expect?  She also hadn’t seen Bachelor Party or Prom Night on cable- not even Three’s Company in syndication!  I was pretty sure all 9 year olds had the same unsupervised TV habits I did.  I was shocked every time I found someone without a working knowledge of HBO and Cinemax.

As for the present- the non-mid-80’s time, well, right now I am experiencing more than my usual brand of tired.  I haven’t stopped functioning and I hope that doesn’t come to be.  But I can’t stay awake through morning snack, let alone dinner.  My body is moaning this awful old-lady moan all the time. If my head even tilts at the same time that I blink then I will fall asleep.  Or at least wish I would, could.  Still I find myself searching the channels at 3:30 in the morning because I have pushed tired too far and am worried I will never not be tired and that it is too late to wake up not tired so why sleep anyway?

This last week has been big for the wee ones I grew and who now seem to be growing on their own.  My son started kindergarten and my daughter and I are hanging out together alone all day regularly for the first time.  I could go into detail on any of 901 topics related to the kiddaloos, changes, time, playground tears and you-were-thiiiis-bigs, but I won’t.  I think that is for another place or time even though pieces of all of those have relevancy and I may come back to one or another.  I mention that it has been a big week because I want to clarify my current state of being.  And maybe give wee little mad props to my son for not combusting on impact with the elementary school.  He and my daughter rock in different ways that are cool and perfect in the exact right ways for each of them.  And don’t worry; I know I am old for trying to fit “mad props” into my writing- or anything for that matter.

Back to the sleepiness.  Just the sleepiness- we haven’t even gotten into the good reasons not to sleep like nightmares, flashbacks, panic and missing something potentially fun.

I am fairly confident that most medications for mental illnesses come with the warning of a possible side effect of fatigue. I am also fairly confident that quite a few of the illnesses those medications are provided for come with a possible symptom of fatigue.  Even with mania you must eventually come down and when you do you are, yes, fatigued.  Add in the fact that most of us are humans with some degree of responsibility for something or emotional accountability to or for someone and quell suprise… there is a possibility of fatigue entering the picture.  And yes, we are an overworked, overstressed and poorly rested group of adults running around this country, sane or not.

So hey, guess what- I am so damn tired that I am starting to be close enough to the other side of it as to be wide awake again.  There is not enough coffee in the world and even if there was, drinking it would only upset the tiredness long enough to push me into overload and make me miss my window for good sleep.  I can’t clear my head enough to make sense of any of it and I am losing track of what is symptom and what is side effect or just plain life.  If I seem disjointed, please remember the topic at hand.

So when do I stop my vigil?  Do you have a stakeout routine for over-tiredness?  When do I stop watching for the side effect, warning sign, and symptom, what have you- of being very, very, very tired?  When is sleepiness worthy of a medication overhaul and not just a cup of coffee?  When is it something you start hiding instead of complaining about openly?  Having been like this so long should I have been at a sleep clinic instead of sleep-away camp?  Okay so that is a lot of questions just to say I am tired and you may be too and it sucks.

I spent a long time working with a woman who whenever someone would say they were depressed she would say “What is the difference between depressed and sad?”  The answer she waited for each time was “2 weeks.”  Apparently a symptom only becomes a symptom when it persists for 2 weeks.  What does that mean for me and my bloodshot eyes?  I think if I started feeling tired at age 9 than my 23 year run would technically qualify as a symptom.   But with my medicine collection that would bring a tear to the eye of any soulful pharmacist, I can always blame modern medicine.

Modern medicine, cable TV, self-awareness, pharmacy inserts, the PDR and my DVR- I blame all of you for this total immersion into fatigue.  Maybe things will start to cycle anew if I start tomorrow with four shots of espresso instead of three…

This Time You’ll Listen To the Movement In Your Body

September 7th, 2009

It starts on a Saturday morning.  I slump out of bed and remember that I forgot to take my pills the night before.  So, I shake one Lamictal into my hand, and open the package that holds my birth control pills.  The last one I had taken was Wednesday.  Thursday and Friday are still there.  I stand still.  Completely still.

What was I doing Thursday, I think quickly?  What was I doing, what was I doing?  Then I remember: Joey got dizzy at work.  Joey hadn’t been eating because he was sick.  Joey hit a car on his way home.  I put him to bed and went out to get him Ensure, Mucinex and a milkshake.  Ate dinner in bed with him and fell asleep—intending to get up later.  But I never did.  And it never occurred to me that I hadn’t taken the pills.  Two nights gone, no pills.

***

You know, it wouldn’t be such a big deal if it wasn’t such a big deal.  So what?  Just take a pill.  It’ll be ok.

Except it’s not.  Except this drug, in particular, is carefully titrated.  Except it will take me four weeks to get back to my dose.  The first two weeks, I cut my pills into quarters, swallow ¼ of what I should be taking.  The next two weeks, I cut them into halves on a cutting board in the kitchen.  Swallow them there, exposed by the subtle blinking of the fluorescent lights.

***

It’s fine, I tell everyone.  I’m fine.  I’m fine.  I’m fine.  I repeat the words over and over again.  I’m fine.  My best friend, my psychiatrist, my mother.  I’m fine.

And I am, honestly.  That is the simple answer, the short answer, a true answer.

The longer answer is: I’m fine, and I’m working mighty fucking hard to be that way.

The challenges of my every-day life are magnified by the absence of my chemical crutch.  There are late-night papers to be written, for the first time since I was last crazy [and God, that doesn’t feel like a coincidence].  My car breaks down for what I declare is the last goddamn time.  Buying a new one takes time, and I sometimes feel trapped in my house.  I am flailing, sometimes, before wrapping myself up in a blanket or a book or a bath.  He doesn’t know it, but I am mentally flailing, until I turn on my left side and push myself back into him.  Wrap yourself here, I want to tell him, and it’ll stop.  Just trust me, I know it will.

But sometimes, the pleasures are magnified too.  I fall hard for a new friend, the rare girl in my life.  Sitting next to each other in the lab, we giggle in fits and talk shit in lowered, hushed voices.  When we aren’t together, we send text messages and our inside jokes accumulate like snow on something rolled down a hill.  Food is suddenly spicier, and my eyes water and my unmyelinated nerves scream and I choke down glasses of water and margarita until I have the slightest buzz.  Then saunter off, wobbly, smiling, laughing.  Sex is faster, and I ask for more dangerous things.  I am light-headed, or held down and fighting, falling halfway off the bed and upside-down.  I try to follow the lines of control—who is in power now?  Me?  Him?  Both or neither?  The answer is always best when it’s unclear.

***

This, of course, comes to the heart of the matter.  At times, when I am most vulnerable and open, when I talk about the past, I have to analyze what happened then.  What went wrong and how can I stop it?  Can I ever say with 100% certainty that it will never happen again?

In the midst of this aching vulnerability, I see the truth: that I could have stopped it.  That is, and will always be, my burden.  Bipolar disorder may have lowered my threshold, but I still crossed it.  There were a million outs, and I could have taken any one of them.  Sometimes, I did—ignored a phone call or pulled myself, turning, out of one of their grasps.  But not without turning back, tossing my head over my shoulder, smiling that old smile.  The memories are so seductive because they make me feel like I was good at something, once.  These days, sometimes, I feel like I can’t win.  But back then, dammit—I was good at something.  But I was very bad at maintaining control.

These days, I’m much better, but I still feel the tugging, the desire to spin out of my own control.  I’ve long theorized that these desires came from a lifetime that required control—oldest child, high school valedictorian, successful woman on the path to being something people dream about, something people would kill for.  My professional life, and everything it has taken to get this far, has required tremendous control.  I’m not surprised I want to lose that sense of power in other places.  I’m not surprised that I want to find myself swept away by whim, by emotion, by anything that I don’t choose.

So I am sitting, filled with want.  I want to kiss someone on the collarbone.  I want to reach out my pinky and wrap it around someone else’s.  I want to be able to pull someone’s hand and go somewhere dark.  At least, that’s what my wild mind tells me.

But I step back, smiling, and walk away.  No, I say.  What you want is to find yourself not knowing where you are.  You want 60 seconds of confusion, you want 15 seconds where you don’t know what is going to happen next.  You want the tiniest flicker that something unexpected will happen.

***

Which, unexpectedly, happens.  We’re sitting around, watching TV with friends.  One of them offers to roll me a pure tobacco cigarette.  I accept, with his promise that I don’t know what I’m in for.  That it will be incredible.

So, we share it back and forth, a simple kind of intimacy that I’ve come to appreciate and relish.  I pull the smoke down into my lungs—I am inexperienced, and bad at it.  I’ve smoked enough times to know what to do, but not nearly enough times to do it without choking or looking very unprofessional.  I feel nothing.

So, he passes it back to me, and says the rest is mine.  I draw in heavy, hold the smoke in my lungs until I’m coughing, suddenly nauseous and very dizzy, disoriented and confused.  I have no idea what will happen next, but I do know that I need to sit down.  Violently, my ass hits the edge of the porch, and I reel back.  The nausea subsides, but the dizziness, the haziness, the brilliant confusion lingers.  I pull Joey in behind me, and I fall backwards into him.  I fit perfectly there, and I remember that love is a choice, and that we have chosen each other—not just once, but many times.  The night is lovely, suddenly.  Everything that was wrong, everything that has happened drains away.  It will come back.  But for a few minutes, I’m out of control.  And I haven’t ruined anything.

I’m fine, I say to myself.  I’m fine.

All Art Requires Courage, Macro Medication

August 25th, 2009


Originally uploaded by Sam Catchesides

All Art Requires Courage, Medication Pills Blister 2

August 23rd, 2009


Originally uploaded by hitthatswitch

I Guess It’s a Good Day

April 21st, 2009

From Bloggymommer

Anxious. Anxious. Anxious. Lonely. Angry. Anxious. Abandoned. Burdened. Anxious. Disappointed. Anxious. Stressed. In a hurry. Anxious. Unable to sleep. Anxious. Tired. Dragging. Anxious. Worthless. Anxious. Regretful. Anxious. Listless. Wistful. Anxious.

Today, the meds are working, and I am less anxious. A reprieve. It doesn’t happen often. But, when I’m less anxious, I’m left to deal with the other things rattling around in my head.

Anxious. Anxious. Anxious. Lonely. Angry. Anxious. Abandoned. Burdened. Anxious. Disappointed. Anxious. Stressed. In a hurry. Anxious. Unable to sleep. Anxious. Tired. Dragging. Anxious. Worthless. Anxious. Regretful. Anxious. Listless. Wistful. Anxious.

I should be celebrating. For the first time in twenty years, I have meds that help. Today I’m not anxious. Lonely. Angry. Abandoned. Burdened. Disappointed. Stressed. In a hurry. Unable to sleep. Tired. Dragging. Worthless. Regretful. Listless. Wistful. But not anxious.

I can sit still! Now that I can sit still: I can, I should… what should I do first?

I’m almost bored. The anxiety has waned, and now I have nothing to do, nothing to think about. Well, not nothing: Lonely. Angry. Abandoned. Burdened. Disappointed. Stressed. In a hurry. Unable to sleep. Tired. Dragging. Worthless. Regretful.

One foot in front of the other. One thing at a time. One. I can’t remember the last time there was a singular thought in my head. I can’t remember this sense of focus. The house is clean. The work is done. There’s nothing on the calendar until next week. What did I focus on, the last time that I had focus? I can’t contain this need to plan something, anything: a trip, a date, a movie premiere, a trip home.

Quiet. Birds chirping, and a bus passing on the street. There’s nothing good on T.V. I need something to do with my hands. I thought I got over this loneliness. I thought I worked through this anger. I feel raw and defenseless. A ten-year-old kid all over again.

I can’t remember the last time I lived a day without that pattern. Anxious. Anxious. Anxious. Keep Busy. Think of something to worry about. Anxious. Anxious. Anxious. It’s bizarre, but at least I knew what to do with my day. Is it strange to miss that?

It’s a beautiful day outside. The chores are done. The list is checked off. There’s nothing to finish up. I’m dressed. I can’t think of what to do or where to go. Now what?