Tag: PTSD

Post 1792

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

Post 1792

I had therapy today and it went okay. We didn’t talk about anything we didn’t talk about yesterday. She wanted to know more about my “Purpose” blog, but I changed the subject. I have a knack of throwing her off a subject and only if it’s really pressing to her does she come back to it. She is concerned about my REM sleep as it happens very quickly. I don’t know why I can go to REM within about 35 minutes of sleep but I do. Today, for example, I took a nap at around 1110. By 1140 when I woke up, I had a dream. I don’t remember what the dream was about now but it was again, weird. I kind of wanted to tell her about my dreaming about my father but held back. I will one day, if it become more troublesome. Right now I am ignoring him in my dreams so it’s not like I am doing something or he is.

While I was at Starbucks, I was listening to a Rascal Flatts song about a father that had been estranged from his daughter for like 30 years. He then calls her when he is dying and then they both “forget the past”. It set off flashbacks to the last four days of my father’s life. He just deteriorated that quickly. His breathing had changed Friday and he was dead on Monday. Images kept flooding my brain, mostly of how he looked and had, in his last day, a glassy appearance to his eyes. I’ll never forget the look or the sounds he was making.

I texted my therapist that I was having flashbacks and if it would be okay with her to talk to the grief counselor. I think if I see the counselor, it will free up more time for other things to talk about in therapy. I just feel like all we do in therapy lately is just talk about my father. I know he was a big part of my life and he is gone now but there are other things going on in my life, too. Like managing my time, self-care, and handling my illness. I am seeing an ankle surgeon tomorrow for the boney formation that is near my Achilles. It is kind of freaking me out because I think I will have to have surgery to remove it. I know I will have to have an MRI before anything is done. But I am just worried that the stress of surgery and what it will do to my “bad” ankle if I have to put weight on it because I don’t think I can bear weight on my “good” one. It’s going to be tricky. I will weigh the benefits and stuff. But I just don’t want to damage the Achilles further, if it is. X-ray doesn’t show soft tissues so I don’t know if this bony formation has. I know she isn’t a medical person but talking to her about this anxiety is what therapy is about.

I know talking about my father is important too. I just think talking to someone specific about grief might be helpful and let me deal with it more. It’s been almost two months and I still haven’t cried or grieved him. Days I don’t have therapy, I just space out. It’s affecting my writing because I am just so sad. I want the sadness to go away and I don’t know how.

Broke my Rule

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

Broke my rule

It’s over 80 degrees in my room so I had to break my rule of keeping the door closed. I can’t open the window because I don’t like it. Now the stuffiness is a little more tolerable than it was. I don’t know what I am going to do tomorrow as the temp is supposed to be 90 degrees and my bro-in-law hasn’t put my AC in yet. I think I might melt.

I got some reading done tonight. A whole chapter and a half. I had to switch to my reading glasses because the progressive lenses suck for reading. It’s like reading through a concave lens. I kept having to shift my eyes or my head to read the page. Annoying!

I complained to Amazon about my shipping problem. They were no help as they want me to contact the seller. There is nothing s/he can do about it as it’s already mailed. Hope they got their money’s worth of my $7 that I paid. As I usually send things via media mail, I know it’s the cheapest way to send books so s/he probably paid half of that. I am never getting expedited shipping again. It never works out for me. I am seriously considering getting Amazon Prime so I can get two day shipping for free.

I am in mega pain tonight. There has to be a storm coming because my spine is aching really bad and the CRPS is flaring up on me. I can see every vein in my foot and it’s throbbing big time. I hate being in so much pain. I just took my night meds so I hope that plus my pain meds knock me out. But I am in a hot room so I am not so sure I can sleep, even with the door open. I might have to take some nerve pain meds. I really don’t want to because I will wake up a few hours after I sleep and I will be up the rest of the night. I might be pain free but I will be wide awake.

I haven’t emailed my psych since the beginning of the week. I should send her an email saying I am doing okay. She is worried about me becoming manic. I think the depression has finally lifted a bit and I am just left with the sadness of the death of my father. I really didn’t think I was going to miss the bastard, but it happened. I saw a picture of him today when he was a little overweight. It was taken when my littlest niece was maybe six, so it was almost 5 years ago. He had the smug look on his face that I can’t stand. I don’t know why I miss him. It’s strange to me that I do. I guess it’s the one attachment in my life that I tried to cut out but never quite could and now that he is gone, permanently, it sucks. The “movie” started playing again today. It was in fast forward from the time the ambulance people transported my father to when I first noticed he wasn’t breathing anymore. That’s where it ended, today at least. Then I went through what happened afterwards with me panicking about what to do. I am usually calm in emergencies but this wasn’t an emergency. My father was dead and there had to be an official notification of his death. Here it is a month later and we are still dealing with him and his ashes. “Dust we are and as dust we shall return”. I don’t know the verse in the Bible but I think that is how it goes. It’s funny that Jesus didn’t return as dust. He just rose from the dead and was never seen or heard from again.

I seriously need to finish the story I started while I was in the hospital. I know I am risking PTSD symptoms and with this being a holiday weekend, there is no coverage. My psych will be on vacation next week and I am sure my therapist will be away somewhere with her family. Only place I can go is the ER or take an extra Ativan, if I need it. It’s funny that the chapter I was reading about psychopharmacology and PTSD included Ativan as a medication to control symptoms relating to anxiety. PTSD is of course in the anxiety family of diagnoses. I had forgotten about that. It works well with me and my symptoms. I am lucky to have a drug that works for me. I have been on so many and they have failed me. It’s nice to finally be on one that works. I don’t use it all the time, just when I am desperate and all else has failed me, like grounding and distraction. Lately, distraction hasn’t been working for me. Music has though. I get lost in the sounds and lyrics. I finally was able to listen to Mary Chapin Carpenter’s new album tonight and found it wasn’t as depressing as it was when I was depressed. It’s a pretty good album.

Post 1765

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

Post 1765

I only got a few hours of sleep last night. PTSD symptoms were set off around 2300 and didn’t end till around 0230 when I finally fell asleep. I woke up just a couple of hours later and have been up since. I tried to get back to sleep and would have if my damn phone didn’t go off on me. I had successive text messages and they drove me from sleep. One of the psychologists I am friends with was replying to my blog via Twitter so I was getting his tweets. It was constructive and he gave me a name of someone at BWH. I will look him up and see what he can do for me. My friend didn’t say that he was a doc or a surgeon as he didn’t give me his credentials. But I trust my friend.

I was going to catch the 0950 bus but I was too lazy to get out of bed. I wanted some writing time at Starbucks but was denied, least at the one at the Square. I went to South station and tried to find a spot for my therapy session. Soon as I found a place outside, it started to drizzle. I knew there was a Starbucks across the street so I went there and found a quiet corner. I did some writing while waiting for time to pass. My therapist called at the appointed time and we began talking about guess who? I told her I had PTSD symptoms last night brought on inadvertently by just deleting my father’s contact information from my speed dial. I didn’t delete him from my phone, just the speed dial. It triggered memories to come flooding back, something I wasn’t expecting. I wrote a short blog about it on Tumblr and sent it to her. I am still paranoid my sisters are reading my blog so I am careful on what I post now.

We talked about the symptoms and how triggered I was. I told her I tried distraction and other forms of grounding but I might as well have been blowing bubbles in the air for all the good it did me. I was tempted to call my psychiatrist but it was after 0100 and I was not really in the mood to talk. I had been anxious all evening because my meds got messed up due to the computer system and I didn’t want to bring it up or make her think I was calling that late just to see if she called the pharmacy. I wouldn’t do that. I just needed reassurance I wasn’t going out of my tree. The memories were so real and so was the guilt that I felt. Maybe if I stayed with my father a little more after I gave him his medication he would have died with someone in the room. I know my sister said that he wanted it that way, for us to be eating and for him to die at peace in his bed, which he did. There was no struggle. He just let go. And I just am kicking myself because I didn’t see it coming. Yes, I knew he was going to die that day. And I am grateful it didn’t take all night for him to die. But I just feel like there should have been more for me to do for him and I can’t figure out for the life of me what that was or what it should be.

If my therapist and I talked about anything else, I don’t really remember it. I told her the fiasco with the computer system and how my psych has to now call the damn pharmacy because it’s a stupid piece of shit. She did everything right (as far as I know). The shit computer just didn’t accept the changes she made. What a retarded system. Now I know why she is so aggravated with it.

I think we briefly talked about seeing a grief counselor but I really don’t want to be double talking. I don’t want to talk about grief with my therapist and the counselor at the same time because then I am just wasting my breath twice. I still haven’t called the counselor. I think I might email her. I am good with that. But I think I can handle things with my therapist. I don’t want to be in a sticky situation with the counselor because I feel suicidal at times or because I have PTSD.

This afternoon, I went south of Boston to visit friends and to see my friend’s daughter in a concert. The noise was unreal from the kids, not from the concert. The concert was pretty good for a bunch of 6th graders. They weren’t as off key as I thought they would be, though they killed one of my favorite songs that the Money Pit plays. I forget the name of the concerto but the kids butchered it. I am going to have to find that piece of music or see Money Pit again to hear it played correctly. I love Money Pit. It always makes me laugh even though I’ve seen it a million times and know it word for word. I did have a good time even though I wasn’t feeling good. I kept thinking about my father. I guess I was feeling guilty about having fun while I am still supposed to be in “mourning”.

Tomorrow marks one month that my father has passed. I have groceries coming in the morning that should make me tired enough to go back to sleep. I set my alarm clock for 0645 as the delivery is between 0730 and 0930. I hope they come around first thing. I then have therapy, again. After that it’s burger time!

having a bad day

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, depression, mood disorders

Been having a bad day full of PTSD symptoms. I keep thinking about the last two hours of my father’s life and how much I miss him. He has been on my mind all day. I so want to call him to check in on him but he is no longer here or there. It’s been difficult to process. I have been trying to write about it but it only starts the movie playing in my head again. It starts with the ambulance ride and ends with his death. Then it starts all over again.

I have been trying not to think about it, to distract, to do some grounding but nothing has been helping today. Even though I am on a psych unit, I feel completely helpless. I took a PRN to calm down as it was giving me anxiety. I haven’t slept and should take a nap but I fear that I will be sleepy by 2100 and then I will wake up again at 0400 or earlier.

I told them my plan that has been cooking in my brain. I am still being discharged tomorrow. I don’t know why I told them. My psychiatrist here is very nice and easy going. It was not that hard to get the plan out of my head with him. I am so tired of fighting the demons. I want to give in. But I think of my family and the loss they just went through and I can’t allow them to go through my loss. It is one thing that keeps me going.

My outside psychiatrist finally emailed me with an appointment. I see her on Monday. I am glad because I was getting worried that I wasn’t going to be able to see her for a while. I see my therapist on Wednesday. I wanted to see her so I kind of planned my own discharge. I am not any “better” but I am more stable than what I have been. I know that I can