Hoping I could just forget

Just when you don't think you can get any more mentally stressed, WHAM! You get side-swiped. Back in the middle of April I filled out an application to get on a wait list for an apartment in a new supportive housing building for those with mental and physical disabilities, plus a certain number of units will be specifically reserved for veterans. The building is ironically located just around the corner from where I had spent 7+ years living with my daughter & her sperm donor, before I went completely insane, he cheated on me and I ended up moving back in with the old people.

Anyway, I hadn't expected to hear anything back for awhile, but last Friday I received a rather large packet of forms that needed to be filled out and a rather long list of information that I needed to supply to the Housing Authority at a meeting they scheduled for us yesterday.

Couldn't work on most of it last Friday, Saturday or Sunday because I was working on our NAMI fundraiser. I tried to get some of it together on Monday, but they also needed all the same info from my daughter since she would be living with me when not in school. Couldn't do anything Tuesday because she was moving home for the summer and I was working a mental health fair. Wednesday we had to go renew her ID since they needed a copy of that and then we had to go get one of the forms she had to fill out notarized. A lot of the paperwork was really confusing because of our situation with her being away at school and having her own apartment most of the year.

When we went to the meeting yesterday I was in complete panic mode. I took an Ativan, but I still felt like I was going to pass out, throw up and lose all control of my bowels. It was horrible. Thankfully my daughter had to be there since she was over 18 and would be living with me part time, and she was able to help answer some of the questions they were asking me.

On the way home I was so worked up and needed to relax that we stopped at a bar. We each only had one drink, but that was enough to get me to focus on driving instead of on the panic. I was so spent by the time we got home, I passed out and took a nap. I don't think I've fallen asleep that fast since, without the use of Seroquel, since 2003!

I was hoping I could just forget about the whole thing for now and if they call me great, if not, whatever, but I find myself still thinking about it and when I think about it, I start to panic. I really want this apartment. To have some level of independence, but yet still have staff available that I can go to on site if I start to struggle with anything from taking my medications to dealing with my insurance, that'd be so much better than the living situation I have now.

Haven't really addressed much

Tomorrow I'm supposed to review my treatment plan with my therapist. I've had my copy of the thing sitting in my inbox since she gave it to me because I felt there were things we needed to discuss about it and I tried bringing some of those things up in our early sessions, but we never really got anywhere with them. Now after reviewing what was on the plan I can honestly say that, after six months, we haven't really addressed much.

I did finally confess to her last week that I had gone off all my meds, but that I have also since gone back on all of them. I feel like shit on or off them and at this point I'm too damn confused as to what to do, so I'll just stay on them until I see my pdoc next month. My head feels foggy and my memory problems are much worse while taking them, but they've already done so much damage, I don't think I'll ever be able to function at the mental capacity I once did, so what difference does it make if I keep taking them.

There is so much on my calendar this week and next week, and I'm not really looking forward to any of it. We have a NAMI fundraiser coming up next weekend that we have to put the finishing touches on this week, plus I have to clean my house because a friend of mine is coming out to help with the fundraiser and will be staying with me. Then the following week I have to help my daughter move home for the summer. I wish there was some way to do an I Dream of Jeannie, just blink and have it all be done. I have very little physical energy and no mental energy to do any of this.

I listened and stopped

My experiment of trying to live a "normal" life these past several weeks has been a complete failure. I tried not letting the depression I felt building keep me from doing the things I needed to. I took on more responsibilities with NAMI and have been helping my sister get her home business up and running. And while everyone was busy complimenting me on how well I seemed to be doing, including my therapist, I was quickly unraveling on the inside.

I was becoming more depressed and lethargic, so my pdoc upped the dose of Cytomel I was on to a level he was unfamiliar with and wasn't sure how I'd respond, hoping it would give me more energy. It sent me into a horrible mixed state. I was just as depressed, only my mind was running 1,000 mph, so I wasn't able to sleep. I finally stopped taking it after about 5 days of almost no sleep.

Once I stopped that med, I became practically bedridden with depression. I didn't want to see anyone, hear anyone. I didn't want to see the sun. I didn't want to know I even existed. I was sleeping 12-16 hours a day and I wanted to continue sleeping until I wasted away into death.

When I was awake, I couldn't help but think, "why am I swallowing all these pills every day just to feel lousy?" Apparently the selves (as previously described here) inside my head, which when they aren't drugged into submission love to battle over control of my brain, heard that question and started repeating it over and over. "Yeah? Why are you on these drugs that aren't working?" So I listened and stopped taking them.

It has been a free-for-all since. Without the drugs to numb my brain into silence, it never shuts up. I had gone several days without sleep, but yesterday was so exhausted, I finally did get a few hours. Most of the time when I can't sleep, it's because the selves are bringing up toxic memories from my past, or they are fighting over who's really in control.

The one thing I've learned from quitting my meds this time is that they don't do anything to fix whatever's wrong inside my head. They don't even relieve the symptoms most of the time, they just mask them, all the while doing irreparable harm to my brain and memory. What's the point of that?

Don't believe

Seems my therapist likes to cancel on me at least once a month, sometimes more than once. Usually I'm told it's due to "illness" but I don't believe this is the real reason. I suppose it's best that she cancelled on me today because I honestly didn't feel like going. Not only am I depressed, but I'm also suffering from Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. I was tempted to either slit my wrists earlier or take a coat hanger and permanently remove my uterus.

Still I managed to get in the shower, something I hadn't done for three days, and go to the NAMI Board Meeting tonight. It was an important meeting, so I needed to be there and didn't really feel there was an option to just stay curled up in bed. I made myself look extra appealing, with more make-up than I usually wear, dressed nice, put on a smiling face and pretended everything was just hunky-dory so no one was any the wiser.

If I didn't need to go pick up prescriptions tomorrow, I wouldn't get out of bed for the rest of the week. I sure as heck ain't bothering with showering. I'll throw on a hoodie and go through the drive-thru so I don't even have to get out of the car. Oh shit, I have to go out on Wednesday. I promised my nieces I'd come over and spend time with them while they're on Spring Break. Fuck.

I'll only have two days after that before my daughter comes home for Easter weekend, though whether or not she's planning to spend any time with me or not is unknown. I think she's avoiding me.

Not where I was

I hadn't planned to write for a few days and then disappear again for a week and a half, but things have actually been kind of busy around here. Haven't yet decided if that's a good or bad thing. I suppose I'll find out if or when I crash. Keeping busy has left me totally confused as to what day of the week it is, so has having my daughter home this past week because she is on Spring Break.

To date, March has looked like this:

1st - Went to see a play at my daughter's college. She only had to work the information desk until the play started and instead of joining me, because she had already seen the play, she ditched me and went home. I totally didn't appreciate that. Lately it seems like the only time she's willing to spend time with me or even talk to me is when she needs something (clothes, medical bills paid, food, etc). Half the time she doesn't even acknowledge when I send her a text. I still haven't seen the pictures we took at Disney 2 months ago! Supposedly she uploaded them to google+ and was going to send me the login information, but hasn't even though I regularly ask her for it. Even with her being on Spring Break, I have barely seen her. She spends all her time at her boyfriend's house even though she lives with him and sees him every day of the week while they're at school.

2nd - Went to my sister's house and set up her Facebook page for the home business she's starting. Took some photos of the products she'll be selling. We then attended the musical being held at the high school her oldest daughter goes to.

3rd - Updated my checkbook since I haven't been recording receipts into it for a couple of weeks. Did laundry. Worked on my sister's Facebook page some more. Worked on our NAMI Facebook page. Fixed my printer. 

4th - Saw my therapist, which was not fun. We went over the homework she had given me last week and discussed the answers I gave for disgust and glad. I initially was afraid to even show her the papers. I asked her what she was going to do with them. She assured me they were mine and that I could take them with me, though she would like a copy to put in my chart if I would let her. I said absolutely not and she said that's fine, she would respect that. I just feel like any information I give her or anyone else in a position to have me locked up would get twisted and used against me and I explained that to her. After my session with her, I did my weekly grocery shopping since I was already out of the house.

5th - Only day I was able to sit around and do nothing. I did read 'A Child Called It' and started reading 'Silver Linings Playbook'. I'm disappointed that I saw the movie before reading the book for Silver Linings because the book, as usual, is much better and quite different than the movie. Don't get me wrong, I really liked the movie and would definitely see it again. But I have to highly recommend reading the book to anyone that hasn't seen the movie yet.

6th - Went to lunch with my daughter, ran around shopping at a couple of stores and then went to my sister's house to help work on her business. Didn't leave there til midnight even though my sister had to work the next morning and her kids had school.

7th- Got my bank statement so I balanced my checkbook. Paid my bills. My car insurance is being jacked up 15% for no reason, and I say no reason because I have the no accident discount on the renewal notice, I haven't had a ticket that went on my record since I was 23 and I printed out my credit reports to make sure all the negative crap that was on there from my ex-hubby was gone and my credit is pristine again. So I'll call them and find out why they want to raise it so much, especially since my car is 10 years old. If I can't get them to drop it back down, I'll just get quotes from other companies.

8th - I had stayed in my pajamas until 4 pm, but then my sister called and asked if I'd come over and help work on her business because today she had her first chance to sell her merchandise. I stayed there until 1 am.

I know that doesn't seem busy by other people's standards. Heck, if I had read this myself back in the mid 90's when I was working 3 jobs, as well as being a wife, mother, chauffeur, chef, housekeeper, etc. I would have said, "that's not busy, you haven't got a damn clue what busy is".

Even though I know I'm doing much more than I was say in 2004 when I was basically catatonic or in previous years where I was hospitalized multiple times (made it through 2012 without being inpatient), I still feel like a failure because I'm not where I was in the 90's. I'm not as productive as I have been, as I think I should still be able to be.