Tag: depression

Hypos Return, Again

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression, mood disorders, suicide

Hypos return, Again

I thought after last night’s episode with depression, I was DONE with being hypo but as I was talking with my therapist today, it came back. I hadn’t yet taken my morning dose of my mood stabilizer so I took half of it while we were talking. I didn’t want to be sleepy the whole day so I just took half. It worked. I am calmer than I was even though my thoughts are still kind of racy.

I was going to write a paper on no-suicide contracts but while I was reading the paper, I remember writing about it. Sure enough, I did, two years ago. I sent it to my fellow psych people on Twitter and wow did my phone blow up with retweets and replies! Someone (not a psych person) read the paper and thought it was not worth reading. She only read the first paragraph and thought it was like “plaster on an old wound”. She then says how she “wasted her life being depressed”. Issues? I think so. No one chooses to be depressed and if they think this way, someone is telling them this. I have been depressed most of my life (minus these hypomanic episode the past three weeks). I started keeping track of them because I think it’s important as I might not remember I have been “happy” or “content” when I get back to my depressive state. But getting back to this woman, who I did not respond to, I just was taken aback. Did she think that I could just will myself happy? What does that mean and how do you do it? Is it a switch? I don’t think it is. I think she is just fooling herself. I have seen people pretend they are not depressed and it just makes them more miserable when their positivity ends and they are overwhelmed with depressive thoughts. I have a friend that is like that. To me that is just hurting yourself if you are not being true to yourself. I stopped caring what other people think about my depression. Either people are going to be supportive of it or they are not because they are ignorant. In their world, they like to think that depression doesn’t exist because they don’t want to catch it. I have a cousin that is like that. Drives me crazy. I love her to death but when we were talking about my book, it was like she wanted me to pull a switch and not think about suicide.

I asked my therapist if she forgot I code word when she was being frantic when I brought up being suicidal. She did. She is a ditz. So I had to explain to her that it was “baseball on her desk”. I couldn’t just say “baseball” because I talk about baseball for a good six months during the season and off-season. I am a baseball junkie. But there is a baseball on her desk that I think I gave her. I can’t remember how it got there now. I know that she had to get a replacement because the first one the ball melted after a little while. It was sad to see. I thought that would be her centering point. We haven’t tried it out because I haven’t been too suicidal and she has been more aware of her anxiety when I talk about being suicidal.

My pdoc got back to me about taking my PRN trilafon. I prefaced it with I know you don’t want me to be taking it but I need it. She writes back she doesn’t want me to take it every day, only when I need it. UM, isn’t that the whole idea behind PRN (take as needed)?? Or am I missing something? I want to write back to her but given my current agitation levels, I will let it go. Or try to. It really pissed me off.

I got such a headache for some reason. I am not tired, though I should be. I have been on the go, so to speak, since 0800. I am glad that I didn’t have to rewrite that paper. That would have really given me a headache. I took some Tylenol. I can’t take an NSAID because I am on an extended release one. And this one is not one to mess around with because it can cause gastric bleeding. I don’t want gastric bleeding. My mind is going to fast for the keyboard. I have been typing every word twice because of typos or misspellings of words. Ok, that was redundant, LOL. See I am not in my right mind right now. I have stopped listening to “just over” by Luke Bryan. I have been playing it all day because it is a good tune and it’s lyrics are stuck in my head. Another reason I need trilafon. It will break the cycle. I know people get songs stuck in their heads all the time, but with me, right now with this hypo business, it can lead to psychosis very quickly.

“Plaster in the wound”. Seriously, this person wanted to read my paper and then insulted it. I should be offended but I am too goofy to really care. I am just shaking my head because I know I wrote a good paper and if it wasn’t up to tuff with her, then so be it. Sometimes my writings are too powerful for laypeople to read. It can be technical or to emotional, depends on what I write. My blog covers a wide range of writings. It has been the place where I can publish my thoughts about scientific papers using MY experience as a reference sometimes and I know it is different for other people. My experience with something similar might not be the same as the next. I am not writing in a general way because there are no general ways. Everyone is their own expert in their illness and I respect that despite our same diagnoses. I really wish these hypos would go away, and soon. Not that I want to be depressed again, but I don’t want to run the risk of being in the hospital. I might crash tonight, again. There is no way of knowing where this is going or if I am cycling. I am kind of scared. It would be helpful to talk to another bipolar person who has experienced this. I am getting no help from my treaters. They have never seen me this way before for so long. They are worried, too. Though I can’t tell if my pdoc is. It’s hard to discern through an email in my current condition. I am too agitated to read the words, other than this is only for as needed. Like I am an idiot or something. UGH. Shaking my head again.

No Breeze Stirs this Cauldron

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, psychache

“What I had begun to discover is that, mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from normal experience, the grey drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain. But it is not an immediately identifiable pain, like that of a broken limb. It may be more accurate to say that despair, owing to some evil trick played upon the sick brain by the inhabiting psyche, comes to resemble the diabolical discomfort of being imprisoned in a fiercely overheated room. And because no breeze stirs this cauldron, because there is no escape from the smothering confinement, it is natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion”
― William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

The crash has started. I am once again thinking of quote that I hold dear to me when I am in a despair like state. I just emailed my psychiatrist telling her I am in despair but I am not quite suicidal. I can’t sleep because of pain and the pain meds have not kicked in yet. But the pain I am feeling now, is a different type of pain. It is psychache and there are no pain pills for that ache. My heart feels like it has been broken into a thousand pieces. I feel like I am being suffocated by this weight on my chest. Like Styron says, “there is no escape from the smothering confinement, it is natural the victim begins to think ceaseless of oblivion”. Except, I am not there yet. I am close to thinking of my oblivion but I think if I start thinking about it, I will act.

I started vacuuming my room a little bit at a time. I bought a hand held vacuum. I thought it was cordless but it is corded. No matter, it still does its job. Too bad it hurts me in the process. I can’t stand for too long before my hip goes out. It is this pain that I am feeling that the pain meds aren’t helping at the moment. They will soon, I hope. It is past midnight. I hate staying up this late because it can only lead to Hyde coming out when I am in this despair. I got to find my “Touched With Fire” book. It, I think, has the quote by Hugo Wolf about the heart being broken into a thousand pieces. I thought it was Byron but it’s not. I would like to have this quote on my quote page. I think it will be a nice addition.

I wasn’t expecting to crash this soon. I thought I would have a few days of “normal” before I headed to psychache land. I started writing in my journal. Five pages later, I got an idea for my next blog on “no-suicide” contracts. What got me thinking about this was that if I didn’t find the “Crisis Response Plan” how different my treatment would be with my therapist. No-harm or No suicide contract are stupid and have no validity. They are not even a legal contract in the eyes of the law (to the best of my knowledge) yet are used over and over again. Meds are kicking in so I can’t quite explain more as it is complicated.

I found the quote from Wolf, it is “I appear at times merry and in good heart, talk too before others quite reasonably, and it looks as if felt too. God knows how well within my skin yet the soul maintains it deathly sleep and the heart bleeds from a thousand wounds”. That is how I feel right now. I feel like I am faking being happy yet I so am falling apart and no one can see it. I feel utterly alone.

Earlier tonight, I was feeling fine. I don’t know what caused the downfall to occur. I was just writing in my journal and thought about writing this no contract paper and then I suddenly felt really sad. I got a notepad that has another quote on it, “people do not die by suicide, they die by sadness”. Anonymous

I think that is true. I have real sadness. Dark sadness that won’t leave me. It is like black storm clouds following me. And it came on just with the snap of your fingers. I wish I could snap my fingers again and have them leave. I am hungry. Maybe this sadness is caused by low blood sugar. I only had one thing to eat today, a half of roast beef club sandwich. I couldn’t finish the rest of the sandwich. It was too filling. I should have saved it but it was soggy and I had soggy sandwiches. Now I am hungry and want something to eat. Maybe I will have a pop tart. I don’t know. It’s getting later and later. I really just want to sleep. The hell with eating.

Manager of Time

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

I had therapy again today. Not unusual as I have it every week. We talked a little bit about the class and my writing. I was hoping to get some insights into things but they never materialized. I sometimes feel like therapy is a waste of my time and that I should decide when to go, rather than have my therapist dictate the sessions. There was nothing in particular I wanted to talk about. We talked about how her phone has been messing up and losing connection. She is so overdue for an upgrade but is so old fashioned she won’t consider the possibility of changing phones. Granted changing phones is a hassle in the beginning but once you get used to it, it becomes second nature. Half way through out session, there was some static on the line. I don’t think it was my end so I didn’t say anything. I knew she would flip out. She is still clueless about my tones. I was sarcastic with her and that set her off. It was funny until I said I was being sarcastic, then she calmed down. I can really push her buttons when I want to. It’s payback for driving me nuts.

I’m listening to 1989 for the millionth and one time. I was going to listen to Luke Bryan’s new album but it is driving me nuts. There are some slow songs and then slower songs then really fast songs. You don’t know what you are going to get when it’s on shuffle. And my shuffle sucks. It could play the last three songs five times before it kicks out of gear to another song. And this is with a new phone. I know it’s the app, but I sort of like it because you can have access to it before the lock screen.

My day has been made when they announced that Hanley Ramirez will no longer be playing left field the rest of the season. He is an AWFUL outfielder. He has cost more runs scored than anyone. I can’t stand him. All the hype and he didn’t live up to it. Actually, no one lived up to the hype this season. That is why we are in last season, again. I think that if John didn’t get cancer, he would be out as manager. They have been playing better but I think they are out of the running for the wild card. The bullpen just can’t hold a candle to the wind when they get called up and the starters, even though they have pitched better, still can’t go more than 7 innings consistently.

I haven’t read “Order of the Phoenix” most of the week. Mostly because I was hypo and too hyper to read. Today I was too sleepy to think about reading. I think I am a little depressed and it’s interfering with my concentration. I was thinking of reading the suicide research articles that I printed out weeks ago, but I feel meh about it. I sort of lost my interest in reading them. I got my new SLTB journal and nothing interested me. There was one article that caught my attention but not enough to sit down and read it. I don’t know why I lost interest in suicide research articles. They are my “thing”. Maybe it is just a low level depression and that is why I can’t read my interests at the moment. I am just coming down from being super “high”. It’s going to be a while before I feel back to my normal, whatever that is.

Last night for the first time in months, I had side effects from my abilify. My arms felt like spaghetti. I couldn’t stand it so went to bed after writing my blog. There was no point trying to stay up any later as I was wicked tired anyways. The pain in my ankle was horrendous and I really didn’t want to fight through it. Not like I slept for a good length of time. I was thinking of waking up around 0800. Instead, I woke up around 0430 to tinkle. I have been going all day for some reason and I haven’t been drinking that much fluid. Weird. I don’t think I drank more than four ounces the whole day. Maybe I should drink some water.

I think my therapist needs to start acting like my therapist than my friend. If she did some psychodymanics more, maybe I wouldn’t be so frustrated sometimes after session. Like session was a waste. I miss the days where I would plan my sessions in what I was going to say and sort of come up with a treatment plan. She would be okay with it. But lately, I am not feeling it. We talk about stuff that isn’t important. Like my friends on Twitter. Sure they are important to me, but I don’t think they are relevant to therapy. Then we have the writing bit. I just have been writing this blog for the past two hours and it still isn’t finished. But that is all I write lately. I haven’t written anything for my book in months. It is so frustrating. I wish she wouldn’t bring it up because I feel so guilty about it. I have a shit load of time on my hands and I don’t use it well. I have never been a good manager of time. And I know that if I even planned a schedule, I wouldn’t stick with it. Today I needed downtime because I didn’t want to overtax my ankle. I was really hurting last night and even though I was feeling okay this morning, I still didn’t want to cause pain. It’s worked because I haven’t taken any pain meds today, least not yet.

Class

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Class

Class was a success. I learned a few pointers, but they didn’t really apply to me. I was looking forward to adding to my vocabulary and instead I found that my writing is powerful and that I was brave to read what I did to class. I know there are some minor changes that can be done but the whole piece of the Love/Hate blog was good. I am annoyed with myself. If it is so good, why haven’t the NYT considered what I wrote, unless they are too chicken. That is a possibility I haven’t considered. It might be too powerful.

I had an exhausting day. I saw my pdoc this afternoon and then rode the trains until it was time to get something to eat and leave for the class. My pdoc and I talked about all the events of last week, including the psychotic symptoms of my reading experiences. I was afraid to tell her that in an email for fear of her telling me to go to the ER. I finally got a handle on the mania and she was glad that I did. And I still have a positive bank account so I am very happy about that as it could easily be in the negative. On the way back to the station, my legs gave way. I had woken up with my left knee hurting and sitting straight for three hours didn’t help it. Also the tops of my feet were on fire. I was dying by the time I reached the T. I could barely walk when the train came. I am going to be hurting tomorrow but I don’t have to do anything. It will be a rest day.

The person that does the editing is an editor. I am hoping I can hire her for my second book, or she can recommend someone that doesn’t cost a fortune. I also met someone in class that lives in my area. I wanted to give him my number but I didn’t. I should have kept a business card in my pocket. I think his name is John. I know the vicinity where he lives so he shouldn’t be too hard to find and we take the same bus route. I hope to bump into him again. He seems really cool.