Tag: bipolar disorder

Four Weeks

Today marks four weeks since the passing of my father. I have been tearful most of the day but have yet to cry. I saw my psychiatrist today and I said as long as you don’t jerk me, I shouldn’t cry. She agreed and said that wasn’t her job. I was thankful. I really didn’t want to cry because I am afraid once I start, I wouldn’t stop. I rather do it in the privacy of my room than public places. I have been trying to get used to the time I have on my hands now that he is gone. The worry is still there that he needs help with something or other, but I know it’s not really there. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. My schedule has suddenly been free of his doctor’s appointments, which I am glad because it took so much mental energy and physical to take him somewhere. Then of course, you had the wait and the longer you waited, the worse it was. Sometimes I wanted to take away his watch so he wouldn’t tell me the time, like I didn’t know it myself. Man, he drove me crazy.

It’s little things like that that I miss. For good or bad, he was still my father. I still remember the day he died like it was yesterday. The last image of him being alive is still with me because I stared at him for quite sometime before leaving the room. He died not too long after, maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes later. We’ll never really know the true time of death because although we were with him, we weren’t in the room when he took his last breath. The nurse that came an hour later listed the time of death as 1645 but I say it was an hour earlier. Course, I can’t pronounce people dead. But I did get to witness it. I hope I never do again.

My psych told me she is on vacation for a week but might not have access to email. If I needed someone, I am to page the covering doc. She is worried that the increase in sertraline is going to cause a hypomania episode. I doubt it will happen as it never has in the past when I was taking it. I still feel pretty low despite feeling okay at times. She asked how my sleep was and I told her I was getting 5-6 hours a night, which is my norm. She raised her eyebrows in concern. I told her I would be okay and will call if things escalated. I don’t think they will.

I got Pad Thai for lunch from my favorite restaurant. I haven’t had it in so long. It’s hard to get good Pad Thai outside of Boston. I live on the out skirts of Boston but it’s not that far away from me. I love the city with all my heart and soul more than the town that I live in. I hate the town I live in. It’s hard to get around because you need a damn bus to get you anywhere. And I can’t walk the mile to the station anymore. I wish I could but I would be paying for it and if I could, I wouldn’t be disabled anymore. I could go back to my job in the lab and deal with the fun of the labels being down every other day because of the new system. It sucks because although I saw my psych change the strength of the sertraline when she ordered my prescription, the system didn’t change it so I am still taking 4 fucking pills. She has to change it or send me another prescription for a higher quantity or I am going to be out of meds in less than a week. Fucking system sucks. Then she told me there was a front page article about it in the Globe. I am going to have to look it up and read it to see if it is positive or negative. I know it’s giving docs a hard time because it’s just so damn complicated. It really makes clinical work a bitch instead of making it easier. I have a feeling that is why my great PCP left the practice. It would mean more time on the damn computer than actual doctoring.

My psych wants me to send her my blogs. It’s been a while since I sent her one. Maybe if I write one later I will send it. It’s been a while since I wrote two blogs in a day. Maybe I will write up the story of my father’s last two hours. I might add to it if I write it out. I just don’t know if my movie will start being intrusive like it was a few weeks ago.

I think my psych now knows what I wish to be called. She thought it was Alex but it’s not because I changed it more than a year ago. I told her I would change it legally sometime this year because I really hate my birth name. I just need to get my birth certificate from the town I was born in as I have no clue where the one I had is. I told her how perplexing it was to be transgender at the hospital I was in. I had to play the “female” role for a while because I was in a double room. It was stupid. But that is because the hospital that admitted me doesn’t know I am transgender. My psych knows but that is the only clinician that does. My ex-PCP knew because I told him while I was in a hypomanic state during my last physical. I don’t know why it’s easier to come out during a hypomanic state than it is in a depressed state. I think it’s because you have a tighter grip of reality while depressed than when you are hypomanic. I got to get my haircut this week. Now that I finally figured out the way I like it cut, I think it will be styling.