Tag: Bipolar

Vindicated

I have been on Depakote, with very few small breaks, for 8 years. The day I was put on it it made me tired. And on the rare occasion I was off Depakote I was often on something else have at least moderately sedating. But Depakote was always the worst. I have been sleeping in till 10 or 11 almost constantly for years. I would miss half the weekend with my family and miss out on going to church because I could not wake up. I would set all kinds of alarms. I would ask my husband to help me whenever he could. Everyone kept telling me that I needed to change my body clock, that I needed to get up early whether I was ready or not, that it was lazy not to be awake by 8, that I needed to start going to bed earlier, and all sorts of other advice or criticisms. But the thing is I tried to change my body clock. I went to bed between 8 and 9. When my husband would force me to get up while I was still that tired (usually at my request the night before) I would end up too exhausted to move all day and I would have a mood swing. And no matter how many days I did that my body still wanted to sleep and sleep.

Past a certain point I privately began to wonder if people were right. Maybe I was just lazy. I didn’t know anybody who laid in bed as much as I did. Everyone else got up in the morning. Not at noon. Some people get up for their jobs, some people to do activities with their kids which I was missing out on, and even the people who periodically sleep in as late as I was sleeping in were capable of getting up earlier and being functional people, especially when they needed to do something. For me it didn’t matter what I needed to do it was a nightmare to get up in the morning. But I seriously wondered if maybe I was lazy. I wondered if it was a character flaw.

Over the past week I have been vindicated. The doctors pulled me off Depakote. Initially that wasn’t good because I went manic, but since then the other drugs they have put me on have kicked in and they are much less sedating while still keeping me stable. I’ve been getting up naturally between 4:50 and 7 every morning without setting any kind of alarm. I get up and I spend time with my family or I do work around the house or I get ready for church. I spend a full busy day doing stuff and enjoying my life. I am not laying around in bed, and I feel great. I really hope this continues and that these drugs work as long as possible. But even if these burn out, as almost everything I have ever taken has, I have learned that I will refuse to go on Depakote again. I will never ever take that drug again. It’s heavy stabilizer and it prevents Mania, but that’s not worth what it does to you. You miss half your life sleeping.

I am just enjoying being awake so much! And it feels so good to know that it really was the medication and not something morally wrong with me. I felt so bad. I think a lot of people don’t realize just how strong some of these medications are and how many different bad side effects they can have. And sleeping all day is not even the worst thing that can happen to you. But long-term it’s a pretty serious consequence of the medication because sleeping 12 to 15 hours a day is no way to live. I will never go back to that again.

Mental Hospital Outpatient Program

After a couple of days of suicidal ideation and overdosing on anxiety drugs, I ended up in a psychiatric outpatient program which I still need to go to next week.

So as I wrote about last time I wasn’t feeling well on Easter and it continued to get worse. I went into the psychiatric nurse practitioner on Tuesday to ask her to please put me on some new medication because what I was on wasn’t working. Instead she told me that she would not write me any prescriptions, that she did not feel comfortable dealing with my case basically, and that I had to go to a psychiatric outpatient program. She didn’t even send me off with any meds to tie me over. I didn’t even have a babysitter to go to the program because my regular babysitter isn’t available early in the morning most days because she is a student. Needless to say I will not be going back to this nurse.

I then overdosed on anxiety drugs to calm down, and when Craig came home he took me over to the mental hospital to do the admissions process for the outpatient program. I started Wednesday morning and the doctor is changing my drugs to two drugs I have been on before. But they might still work because sometimes when drugs burn out and quit working for me if I wait awhile and give it some time they work again. One is a stabilizer and one is an anti-psychotic. There’s a lot of group therapy. I only go to the half day program so I only have to stay until noon. But in that time there’s two hours of group therapy. The first day I didn’t talk.

Then something happened the night before the second day. Instead of being depressed I swung the other way and went manic. It was not my most severe manic attack but I only got one hour of sleep, was hearing and perceiving things incorrectly, and I had poor impulse control. And the afternoon after the second day of therapy I ended up spending about $400 on crystal.

On Friday I was only hypomanic but I actually talked during the group therapy. Both sessions. It was useful. I am glad I got to go that day. The only reason I got to go on Friday was because my next door neighbor was kind enough to watch Angelica for me. Otherwise I would not have been able to go. My regular babysitter Grace has class all day Fridays and the other lady that I had hired as an emergency hire quit on me.

I am supposed to be in the outpatient program every day this coming week. I am not sure when they will discharge me. I have mixed feelings. On one hand sometimes it can get really stifling just sitting there and I get Restless or agitated and have to get up and walk around. And it also leaves me tired because I have to get up earlier than I normally do, although that’s probably a good thing. At the same time once I get out of the program my days are kind of empty. I used to spend most of my free days, both on days I had Angelica and on days I had the babysitter, hanging out with my mom and visiting with my dad. Now I’m too far away and the days are just a blank canvas. At least the day program gets me around people and gets me out of the house.

 

Easter of Failure, Manitou Cliff Dwellings

Easter did not go well. I struggled to wake up, and then when I did wake for Angelica to do her Easter egg hunt and find her Easter basket, I was low and anxious. I was low last week too and called the psychiatric nurse but she never called back.

Then we tried an Easter Mass and the incense dried out my eyes and the crowds bothered me, and even though it was a gorgeous church with panoramic views of the mountains and prairie, I felt stifled and in pain. We left early and by the time we reached the car I felt like slitting my wrists. I didn’t, though. What I did do was take extra clonopin and just numb my brain out for the rest of the day and into Monday.

I have held out for awhile now being normal (except for rocking back and forth when my anxiety is bad) and doing normal things. We went to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings a few days ago and it was great. I drive. I take trash out. I read. I am living and documenting life and staying out of the hospital. But beneath it all is a flowing stream of depression. I cry at the laundry because I can’t fathom dealing with all the stuff. For every one time I meet up with a neighbor to talk or have a playdate, there are five more times I could have but I didn’t because I couldn’t socialize. I am in this really weird place where half the time I am ok (not great, but fine) and the other half of the time I am dropping so low I need new drugs or even the hospital. Right now I am doubling up on my antidepressant while I wait for the nurse to see me tomorrow. I am cycling too quickly.

I was definitely at my worst on Easter though.   This move has been traumatic. I miss my family. I have no support network in Colorado. Back home I could have called my Mom and she would have come and helped with whatever I needed and kept me company. Dad could have gone to a movie with me. Linda would have come over and I could have talked to her.  Other friends were just a phone call away. Here Craig goes to work and I am on my own. I have a part time babysitter, but she is a kid. I can’t talk to her. I have good neighbors here, but I don’t know them well enough to call or text when I am having a bad day.

The only thing that lifts my spirits is how beautiful it is here. Mountain and prairie both sing hymns to my soul. That and how much I love my house. Craig has made it a very happy little nest for me. Now if I could just balance out and enjoy it.

Sweet Cravings

I am absolutely starving for a new volume of poetry that will blow my soul open. I need some poetic C4. I’ve been asleep lately, and only some fresh imagery and sensuousness can wake me. Alliteration allows me to think in music. Synesthesia strokes my senses.

I have been writing a little bit the past couple of days, but I still feel a tremendous pressure in the back of my head from all the images that are stuck behind my mental block. I’ve been able to birth a few good lines, but mostly I am blocked. It is as though there is a dam in my mind and the poetry is leaking through at a trickle, when what I need is a flood.

Science fiction and horror are starting to call my name, so I think I will read through some of the volumes I bought but haven’t read yet of horror and scifi. I  am renewing my interest in microfiction too.

Today my mom had surgery on her toe. Thankfully it went well and she is out of the hospital and at home resting comfortably. I wasn’t able to go to the surgery because my poor babysitter is sick with the flu, but my thoughts are with her. I  was going to take Angelica with me to visit Mom at her house after the surgery, but Mom was tired (turns out she had to be sedated in addition to her local anesthesia) and needed to sleep undisturbed. I will go over tomorrow to keep her company and see if she needs anything. She can walk on her heel, but she cannot drive so if she needs to go anywhere she has to have help.

Today I have washed dishes, loaded laundry, emptied trash, washed and refilled our Soda Stream bottles, supervised Angelica cleaning her room, and I am feeling utterly uninspired to do anything else. I don’t have to do a major cleaning because the cleaning lady is coming tomorrow, but I should at least sweep. I might read a good homemaking blog to give me that little boost needed to do the boring but Holy work of house cleaning.

Lately my brain has been trying to climb upward toward hypomania. I had to cut back on mood stabilizer because it was making me too tired (one of the reasons I always have low energy) and I think it is causing me to swing a little. But so far instead of feeling super good and creative I just get suddenly irritable and angry at no one in particular and for no good reason. I will suddenly be overwhelmed by a desire to yell (that I don’t give in to) or to be alone.

Rising like this has made me miss my good hypomanias. I don’t miss mania, but hypomania can be fun if you don’t do anything too stupid and get in trouble. I become keenly creative and highly energetic. Colors actually look brighter. All my senses awaken. I can see connections between things that I normally can’t. I really hope if I do swing high into hypomania I get one of the exciting ones, not one of the angry ones. No hypomania is good for you, but at least I get something out of the ones that feel good. It doesn’t get scary until you are thinking so fast you can’t remember your thoughts.

Pharmacological Fog

Recapturing yourself will be easy.

White still in the bedroom,

structure from private, necessary snow.

dreaming of silence.

Your mind is a playground of artillery.

 

Capturing the sense of yourself will be hard,

Lost 2 feet tall in a field of chaff.

The women have needles and no yarn.

A man sits toward the curdling sun,

his face a mouth.

 

Sound your siren song

A gentle offering of wisteria wishes

and sulking letters.

Give her a sonorous rope to tie round her wrist

a little balloon bobbing desperately toward mass.