Sunday Musings

Sunday musings

I am still reading Linehan’s memoir. I am learning more about DBT this second go round than I did the first time I read it. I seem to be more accepting of DBT as I am realizing that there is evidence DBT works with highly suicidal individuals. The trouble is, it take a lot of work as there is so much to learn. The two takeaways I am getting from this second reading is the two skills radical acceptance and STOP. STOP stands for stop, take a step back, observe, proceed carefully. I am finding I need to practice this skill as otherwise I get angry and nothing gets accomplished. I also need to radically accept that I have depression and trauma issues.

I woke up late this morning. I didn’t get up till after 12. I kept getting severe headaches, like migraines. They would go away if I just stayed still. It happened three times after my alarm went off to take my morning meds. I thought I would have to take a migraine medication to get rid of it but it seems to have gone away on its own. I had started getting these kinds of headaches while in the hospital. I thought they had gone away but the last two nights they have come back.

My cousin texted me this morning saying that Ohio State has made it to the playoffs and they are playing Georgia. That is going to be a tough matchup. Georgia just won yesterday. They killed LSU by a big number. This is what I love about college football games, they score big numbers.

I am thinking about mailing out a card that I wrote out and then getting pizza for my late lunch/early dinner. Problem is that I have no energy to get moving and I know if I force myself to do it, I will have to take a lot of breaks to go around the block. I found my sunglasses but I still am unable to find my transition glasses. I have no idea where they went to. I know if I find the case, I will find them. I hate when I misplace things. It drives me crazy.

I miss baseball. It doesn’t look like the Sox are going to sign Xander Bogaerts. I just hope he doesn’t end up on the Yankees. I still don’t know if JBJ is still with the team. I watched a baseball game while I was in the hospital and he was playing for the Blue Jays. I don’t know if this is true or not. I will be sad if it is. I have no clue how the season ended because I was so sick in the hospital.

Yesterday, I listened to Taylor Swift’s 1989 album. Today I am listening to Rob Thomas’s Someday on repeat. I love this song so much.

I am feeling suicidal. Nothing really happened in the last half hour or so. I just feel like ending my life. I see no good in it. I have imagined how I would do it two different ways. I won’t act on it, though I do want to. I just don’t want to end up back in the hospital. There is no guarantee I will end up back on the same unit I was in. I could end up somewhere else. That keeps me from going to the ER. I know I spent a few days in the psych ER before I was transferred to the unit I was in. I don’t know how long I was there as I wasn’t myself. I was in a confused state. I don’t remember if I had my phone or not. If I did, I know I wasn’t using it. I was much too paranoid about it. I am working through the feelings of distress I am feeling. I am distracting myself by writing about them. I have therapy tomorrow and will tell my therapist about this. I want to die so bad that it is almost like nothing else matters to me, not even top surgery. I have hit a new low in my life. I try to keep telling myself life will be different when I have the surgery but will it? I thought about going back to college while in the hospital after I recovered from surgery. It seems impossible right now but I want to make an effort in the next couple of years to earning my degree. I want to finish it at UMass Boston. Trying to make goals helps defend against the darkness, least for a little while.

I am feeling worthless right now. My psychache is high. I am a little perturbed and my press is at least a three. I spoke how I wrote the book Darkness Always Wins while I was in the hospital. I was and still am in a dark place. I don’t know if I am going to recover from this episode of depression. Meds have made little improvement to how I feel. I know realistically, it could be a year or more before I recover. It is the way recurrent depression is. I don’t buy that I have bipolar disorder. My depressions are too dark and stay dark for periods that are much more similar to major depression. I really think I am misdiagnosed. Fortunately, the treatment is the same: antidepressant therapy. I need to take an antipsychotic because I am prone to hearing voices otherwise. I have done well with Latuda, though it is causing some dystonia for me.

I just read a blog that I wrote a more than a few years ago about Shneidman’s psychache theory. I was trying to think about it while in the hospital. I remembered the three P’s, press, perturbation, and psychache. A 5-5-5 indicates imminent suicide. I was a 5-5-5 in the hospital at times. I tried to remember the psychache scale by Ronald Holden. I couldn’t remember his name or if I had it on my blog for staff to look up. My memory has been so much affected by what I have been through.

I had dinner with my family tonight. It helped a little being around them but at one point I wanted to tell my sister I needed to go back to the hospital. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her though so I kept quiet. I will talk more about this with my therapist tomorrow morning. I really feel like shit. It is like the song going down in flames, “Falling into this, again.”

Saturday Blog 03122022

Saturday Blog 03122022

I woke up around noon today. I didn’t sleep very well. I woke up cold and couldn’t adjust my sheets and blanket properly for some reason. This went on for a few hours. I am not sure what I want to do today. I just had my coffee and need to brush my teeth. Taking a shower is a possibility.

I wasn’t feeling good last night. I was running a fever and my heart was racing. I also felt like crap. My heart rate was still elevated this morning at 139 when I took my blood pressure. It is not 105 so I will take that. I have no idea why my heart rate was so fast. I thought about going to the ED but I didn’t. If it went faster, I probably would have. It was very uncomfortable and made me anxious.

It’s raining today but warm. I want to go back to sleep. I am just feeling so sleepy. I did the same thing yesterday, but mostly because I was recovering from the covid booster. Today I just feel so tired. I feel like I have this fog around me. I don’t know why this is. I know it is not medication induced as I am not taking anything to cause it. It probably is just the depression. I need to do my pill box for the week. Now that I have a two week supply of meds, I can fill it out for the week rather than a few days at a time.

I was talking with the visiting nurse last night, asking her when I will be discharged. She said it was up to me. Then she asked why and I said because I can’t start outpatient PT while I am having home services. She said that was wrong. I was like that is what they told me. I don’t know why that is but it is probably a Medicare thing. I am sure we will talk more about this on Monday.

I half want to go out today but don’t really know where I want to go. I want to go to Starbucks for a mocha and to read for a bit. Trouble is I don’t have the energy to do it. I am feeling really sluggish today. I ordered lunch. I ordered clam chowder and got clam soup instead. It was not thick at all. I couldn’t eat it all so I saved it for later. Then I took a nap for an hour or so. My mother is making fish for dinner. The house smells of it.

My sister has started bringing down the Christmas decorations. I will help bring them down not put them up. I have no interest in that sort of thing. It is all bah humbug to me.

feeling sick after covid booster

Feeling sick after covid booster

I had my booster last night and today I feel run down. My arm is sore, of course but I have this fatigue hanging over me like no tomorrow. I also feel wicked cold at time. I am not running a fever but I am keeping an eye out.

I tried reading today as I want to finish the Linehan memoir. I just don’t have the right head space to read. I read a couple of chapters and then I had to stop. If I feel better tonight, I will read another few more chapters.

My aunt came to see my mother today. She was really worried about me when I was in the hospital. She wanted to see me but I guess every time she called, I wasn’t there. I don’t know if that means I was off the floor or mentally I wasn’t there. I don’t know if I still have the protection on my account from being an employee. I don’t recall any psych nurses having to “break the glass” when accessing my record.

My pcp sent me a message asking how I was doing. I thought that was nice of her to check in with me. My BP this morning was high but it leveled off after I took my meds. My pulse was high too. It is still over a hundred now. I didn’t tell her I felt icky because of the covid booster. It is to be expected the next few days at least. I am to give my weekend BP readings on Monday.

I called to make an appointment with PT today. Because I still have the visiting nurse coming to see me, I can’t have outpt PT just yet. I am upset about this. This is just delaying my care. I am going to ask the nurse to stop seeing me on Monday. I would have today but I forgot to bring it up.

My lower back has been flared up since yesterday. I don’t know why but I am in pain. I have tried stretching it out and that helps but only for a short period of time. I am not getting pain in my legs so that is good. I hope PT can help ease the back issues. I’ve been taking a muscle relaxant to help ease the spasms I have been getting. So far it has helped some.

psych appt and other things

Psych appointment and other things

I had an appointment today with my psychiatrist. He was pretty worried about me. I told him how things were and how anxious I was about the intrusive memories I have been getting. I asked for Ativan and he gave it to me. Because they are still being cautious with me, I only got a two week supply of my meds, which sucks. I just hope they don’t do this in the new year because the Latuda will cost me $60/month otherwise and I won’t be able to afford that.

I realized when I picked up my meds that I need to renew my driver’s license. It expires on my birthday, which is this month. I just tried to update it and the stupid thing crashed on me. I think I have to go in person. Fucking a. all because of the stupid REAL ID bullshit. I had to submit my birth certificate which still has my sex as female and dead name. I couldn’t use my passport because it is expired.

I need to go back to the pharmacy tonight to get my Covid booster and pick up the other meds that I couldn’t pick up at the other pharmacy. My back has been in spasms all day today for whatever reason so I had to take methocarbamol, a muscle relaxant. It has helped.

I took a shower today and that didn’t help my back troubles. Even while I was in the hospital and took a shower, my back cramped up on me. My feet also cramped today. I have been getting a lot of foot cramps lately and I don’t know why as I have been taking magnesium supplements since coming home from the hospital.

It’s almost 6pm and I am starting to lose gas. I am feeling really sleepy and tired. Every single night at this time I feel like taking a nap. In the hospital, I just fell asleep and then woke up to take my night meds. Sometimes I would be up for a little bit and other times I just went back to sleep only to wake up in the middle of the night. Then I would be up for the whole day. Pattern hasn’t changed, though while I have been home, I have avoided going to bed at this time. I still wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Sometimes I can go back to sleep but most of the time I am up for the remainder of the day, which sucks.

I am so glad tomorrow I don’t have to do anything but see the visiting nurse. I don’t know how long I will see her. I will ask tomorrow. I don’t feel I need to see her anymore. I am doing ok on my own and it isn’t like she is offering me a huge support anyways. I plan on just reading the Linehan memoir and finish it before the weekend. I started reading Dune while in the hospital. I finished the first book. I didn’t feel like starting the second book. I didn’t realize it was broken down by books. It is a big book to read but it is very interesting with its subplots.