Therapy break

I’m taking a 3 week break from therapy. I feel awful for wasting his time and I just need to figure some things out. I haven’t shared everything that I should and I need to decide if this is something I can do so I can get the most out of therapy. I think without sharing everything I’m really not getting much out of this.

I know there are people out there who don’t agree with this decision. I respect that but I can’t keep wasting my time. I’m tired of doing this.

Time for more fun

I need more fun in my life. That was determined at my therapy session today. If I had more fun and more things to look forward to it could be a lot easier to avoid, and deal, with the tough times. Trying to figure out what I can do for fun. On a regular basis. Hummm..

I’m used to the life I’m living. I feel like I don’t have time to add anything, even fun things. I need to figure out how to manage my time better. I want to have time to exercise, to do fun things with my family, to have some kind of a social life. I need to figure out how I can do that as well as everything that I have to do.

So far I’m thinking I can manage to get to the gym three times a week. And I want to have one evening a week that I can bring the girls out for ice cream. Maybe a date night once a week or every other week with my husband. I should be able to manage that, right?

So yesterday I passed out, hurt my head and shoulder. Don’t ask why this happened cause I have no idea. Anyway, I had planned on exercising tonight but I’m still really sore, so I think this is going to be a homework night. Blah. I have five philosophy papers to write in the next three weeks. How is that fair? And I’m panicking because I need to add a class to my 2^nd summer semester but I can’t because there is a hold on my account because my financial aid has not gone through. I need this to go through asap so I can switch my classes.

So may be a little boring for anyone who’s reading, sorry about that! I don’t have much to say right now. I wish I had more interesting things to say :)  

40 lbs uncomfortable

I’m so uncomfortable with my body right now. I’m so out of shape and it’s really showing. Yet I can’t bring myself to do anything about it! I don’t have time (or energy) to exercise. And I’m an emotional eater so I’m eating way more than I should. I just feel awful. I’m at my heaviest (other than pregnancy), and 40 lbs more than I was 1 ½ years ago when I was actually comfortable with my body. It’s embarrassing. I hate leaving the house now. I hate trying to find something to wear in the morning.

I need to step up. If I am this uncomfortable I need to find a way to fix it. Easier said than done. My gym membership expired a couple months ago so I haven’t been going and I think that is a huge part of the problem. I’m hoping to go renew it tomorrow. Maybe if I at least have the option of going to the gym I will. I wish I could remember was I was doing 1 ½ years ago. I think it was just down to exercise. I can’t remember really changing my eating habits.

I’m so tired. I think I’m getting sick. I slept 12 hours last night, and took 3 naps today. I really want to go to sleep now but I can’t.

I’m in such a bad mood. This is a pointless post.

It hurts

My brain is scattered. My thoughts are everywhere. I feel like doing nothing by crying. But crying is a lot of effort. It hurts.

I’m trying, I really am. It’s just not happening. I’m so tired. I really want to go to sleep. Every little movement is work.

Writing this is work. I’m doing it because I promised myself that I was going to start recording these things.

This is what depression is; you can’t function. You just can't. You are stuck, in a dark place. A pit of negativity. And you can’t climb out. And it just hurts.

Do I care?

It is possible to care so much and so little at the same time. That’s where I am right now. I just don’t care. Yet, I care probably too much. I may not be making any sense. In my mind I am.

I slept most of the day. Got very little done. Part of me just doesn’t care. I’m tired, so I’m going to rest. And then part of me is crying because I have so many things I should be doing and I’m falling behind and I’m just failing. I feel it. I feel the failing.

I’m feeling very weak right now. Like a breeze could knock me over. My attention span is horrible. I’m not writing this quickly. I’m pretty much just staring into space. I know there are things I should be doing. I feel like I can’t. I can’t do anything right now other than sleep.

Yes, I am depressed. I know I am. Two days ago I was fine. Today I am not. Tomorrow? I don’t know. I’m trying to not let it get to me. I don’t know how that’s working out. Probably not well.

I’ve been sitting here for half an hour. I’m going to go work on something. Or go to sleep. But I need to do something other than just sitting here.

So tired

Here’s a secret: I wish I could take a break from school. Like take a semester off. But I feel like I’m not allowed to. And I know it’s myself that is not allowing me to take a break. I just feel like I need to catch up. Catch up to others my age who are already done with school. It’s like I’m behind in life. I hate that I feel this way. But I don’t think I can change it.

I put on this attitude that I can handle everything I have going on in my life. But the truth is there are times that I feel I have too much. Times that I wish I could cut down on things. Right now I’m so tired. I slept some this afternoon, yet still the only thing I can think about is sleeping some more. I tell myself I just need to get the girls to bed and I can sleep too. But I can’t. I have a couple hours of school work to do.

I’m just tired. I know I’ve already said that but I feel like I can’t say it enough. I’m tired. I’m tired. Maybe I can skip school tonight so I can sleep. Except that is what I’ve been telling myself a lot this past week. I do have all day tomorrow to work on school work, but will I actually do it?

I’m the kind of tired where taking a shower seems like so much work. Doing the dishes seems like too much work. Reading a story to my kids seems like too much work. Thinking seems like too much work. I just want to sleep.

Maintenance, high-risk management, and crisis

Last night I stopped by an abnormal psych class to share my experience with a mood disorder. It went really well. Surprisingly I was not nervous and was quite comfortable. I actually found it really easy to open up. The group was great, they were really engaged and asked a lot of good questions; questions that I was not prepared for, which I think was good because it made me think. My awesome advisor said some really nice things about me (and if you’re reading this now, thank you again for your kind words, I was truly touched).

I did go into detail about my episode this past December. Something that was fairly easy to do in front of strangers. Embarrassing, but easy. I wish I could talk about it for the people reading, but this episode involved some psychotic symptoms. And I feel psychosis is such a touchy subject. I think it would be tough for a lot of people to read.

I had therapy today and I was nervous about telling my therapist about last night. I don’t know why exactly. I guess I was worried he would think it wasn’t a good idea for some reason. He was surprised that it was something I did but seemed impressed. He said he wishes I had the same attitude and bravery when it comes to my treatment. I do too. He really wants me to commit to getting better since therapy without working on something can be a waste of time. And I know it has. I’ve been seeing him for over two years and I still have barely worked on anything.

So once again, he came up with another plan. It involves three steps: maintenance, high-risk management, and crisis. The idea is to come up with ways to maintain my good moods, how to prevent and deal with my episodes, and what to do when I’m in crisis (other than going to the hospital). He had me pick somewhere to start and I chose the high-risk management. My “homework” is to start looking at my DBT book and start putting that into practice. Which, is easier said than done. I know it should be a priority, but I have kids, work, and school. I have very little time for anything else. I’m going to try my best to do a little bit every night before bed. But lately I’ve been falling asleep while doing school work so we will see how this is going to go.

I’m actually filling up on caffeine now to be able to stay up late to get school work done. I’ve done very little the past week and I am behind. No one to blame but myself there.

I’m supposed to see my psychiatrist in the next month. I’m not sure if I’m going to change anything about my meds. I would love to stop my antidepressant. I’ve had trouble coming off that one before, but I think I may give it another try. I just feel I’m on so much and would love to cut down. And I think it’s important that I stay on my mood stabilizer and antipsychotic. Honestly the real reason I loved my antidepressant was the weight loss. However now that my other meds made me gain all that weight back, what’s the point? It’s a bad way of looking at it, but that’s the truth.

Ok, I think this has been long enough. Hope everything is having a good day :) 

Hospitalization episode

A comment was left on my previous post asking for more details of my episodes, especially the one where I ended up in the hospital. I’ve felt for a while that I couldn’t go into detail about this stuff; I am taking a huge leap here by admitting what was really going on. But, I’m going to do it.

Something that is important to mention though, if I haven’t already; I don’t remember a lot of my episodes. I don’t know why. A lot of times it’s just a blur.

I was hospitalized end of November/early December 2012 for five days. Before I get into that I need to back up a little. About a month before I had an episode that lead to my bipolar diagnosis. I had an extremely bad couple of days, one day in particular. I remember spending a lot of time just sitting, not doing anything, and just thinking how I couldn’t stand it. I don’t exactly know what “it” was. I can’t put it into words. I’m sure someone with major depression knows what I’m trying to say. Anyway, I recognized that things were bad for me because I started thinking about how my daughters were better off without me. Thankfully I still had a fair bit of sanity and I called my PCP (I do not know why I did not call my therapist at this time). She wasn’t available to talk and the woman I was speaking to kept pressing me to find out why I was calling. It took me a little while, but I was able to get out that I was having suicidal thoughts. The woman said she could have another doctor talk to me but I told her to forget it and hung up.

I managed to push myself through the day, although I do not know how. I was even able to take my daughter to her swimming lesson. While I was at her lesson I got a voicemail from my PCP saying that if I didn’t return her phone call within the hour she was going to call the police. I promptly returned her call and told her that I wasn’t going to do anything (by this point I was handling myself a little better, I think because I had pushed myself to continue on with my day). She said she would have my therapist call me the next morning.

I woke up that day completely fine. I was functioning normally, not depressed in the slightest. When I got the call from my therapist I told him “something is seriously wrong with me”. How is it possible to go from that seriously depressed, to being completely fine? This was when I got my diagnosis.

The next month I was fine. They started me on a mood stabilizer which I was feeling positive about. Unfortunately this calm period didn’t last long. This is where things get a bit fuzzy. The only thing I can remember clearly is sitting on the floor of the kitchen, unable to function, with worried people around me. My husband told me that the day before I was hospitalized he sat with me in bed for four hours while I cried and decided to call a doctor. I vaguely remember talking to my PCP at one point. Oh, this I do remember, I called my therapist’s office and cancelled all my upcoming appointments.

By the way, there is no chronological order to this.

I actually went to the ER twice. The first day I was evaluated and released (I had assured them I was fine and did not want to be admitted to the mental health unit). The second day I knew before I went to the hospital that I was staying. I called work to let them know I would not be in. I emailed my therapist to let him know that I did “not trust myself with my own life”. And I packed a bag and went.

I was in the ER for 11 hours, and the only reason I know this is because my therapist told me (I guess he flipped when he found out that they kept me for so long). I do not know why it took so long. They didn’t have me wait in the waiting room, I was put in a private room. I believe it was labeled “family waiting area”. I slept for the whole time. I don’t remember much more, I don’t remember what happened when crisis came to evaluate me or what was actually done when I was admitted.

That’s the story of it. Before people get too upset over this I want to assure everyone that since I have been on antipsychotics (which they put me on in the hospital) and my mood stabilizer dose was increased, I have not had any suicidal thoughts. Even though I still have episodes, I do not have those feelings. I do not expect to have those feelings. I am in a different place than I was then. At the time the first episode happened I was just on an antidepressant; the episode where I was hospitalized I was on a small dose of mood stabilizer that probably hadn’t kicked in yet. So basically at this time I was only on an antidepressant as well. Antidepressants alone make bipolar symptoms worse. This could explain this bad period.

I expect to get a lot of comments from this, and I’m not looking forward to them, not in the slightest. For those of you who feel they need to say something, please keep in mind that I am putting a lot out there, and I am very nervous about sharing this. It is not easy for me. If you do leave a comment, or try to contact me another way, I may not respond. I respect what you have to say, but I don’t want to have to explain myself any more.

Holding back

I got back a couple days ago from Ireland. It was a great trip but so exhausting. Travelling with young kids can drain you! I feel I did good mood wise though, which I was worried about. It was nice not feeling like I HAD to see my therapist, which is something I feel a lot. I have an appointment with him on Tuesday. I promised myself that starting this session I would be more honest and open with him. I feel bad that I’ve been wasting his, and my, time by not committing 100%.

In a few days I am going to be speaking to an abnormal psychology class at the college here in town. I was talking to my advisor (who is teaching this class) and I offered to come in to talk about my experience with a mood disorder. I’m actually really looking forward to it. I like the idea of sharing this stuff for educational purposes. And I’m not nervous about it, at least not yet. Ask me again on Monday and I may give a different answer.

I’ve been thinking about what I can say and I think what I’m going to have to do to make it interesting enough is to go into some detail, more than I probably do here. I know I’m sharing a lot on this blog, but at the same time I’m holding back a lot. I said in my first post, I believe, that I worry about how what I say will affect others. I’m not necessarily scared about sharing, I just worry about how my family will deal with this stuff.

In other news; my blog viewings have gone way down. Which doesn’t feel too good. For those of you who are still reading, if there is something you think I’m doing wrong or if there is something else I could be doing let me know. If there is something you want me to talk about please leave a comment. I would love to get my viewings back up.