Three things

I promised my therapist that when this school semester was over I would call about the DBT program. So guess what’s on my to-do list for tomorrow. Arg. I know I shouldn't be complaining about doing this, I’m just not comfortable with the idea of it. I don’t think I’ll be very good in group therapy. I would much rather do this on my own. But I said I would give it a try.

My problem is that when I’m in a good state, I don’t want to spend time thinking about the dark times. I rather just enjoy things.

My therapist and I spend a lot of time brain storming ways to keep me stable, to generally just make my life more enjoyable. I hardly ever follow through with any of them. I told myself today that I would pick three things to start adding to my everyday life. Just starting off with three things shouldn't be tough right?

Exercise

Eat healthy

Get outside more

I think I can do that. Hopefully the fall semester doesn't use up all my free time so I can get some exercise in.

The past few days my symptoms have been very calm. Maybe this new dose of my antipsychotic is kicking in. I hope so.

B*Witched

I’m not sure if I’ve fully recovered from my episode a couple weeks ago. I don’t feel I’ve been in a “normal” state since then.

For the first time in a while I’m not tired. I don’t feel like sleeping. I want to be doing things. Unfortunately what I should be doing is homework. Unfortunately my mind is not up for that. It has other ideas. A lot of other ideas. I just can’t focus. Even trying to write this. I keep stopping midsentence. And just. I don’t know. My mind goes somewhere else.

I need to paint my toe nails. My cats are cute. There is a lot of noise outside. My house is a mess. I should clean it. I should do homework. In 48 hours I’ll be done with this semester. I’m looking forward to the fall semester. I need to sign up the girls for swimming and gymnastics. I’ll do that tomorrow. Maybe I’ll clean the house tomorrow. I have to work tomorrow. I’m ok with that. I had too much to eat. Wish I had more ice tea. My house is a mess. I want to start cooking more. I want a tattoo. I need to remember to order my school books. Oh wait, I did that already.

^^There’s a glimpse into 10 seconds of my mind. It goes on and on and on. And on and on and on.

Now I have a song from B*Witched stuck in my head. Remember them? I wonder what they’re up to now. Maybe I’ll google them.

A lonely feeling

I’m not mentally stable. My mind does not function like others. I’m not happy about this. I do not choose to be like this. I really wish people close to me would stop telling me what they think is “wrong” or what they disagree with when it comes to diagnoses. No one knows what goes on in my head other than me. I try my best to share, especially with my family and doctors because that’s the best thing to do, but I will never be able to fully express what it is like. And that’s a lonely feeling.

I really don’t have much more to say. Well, that’s a lie. There is a lot more I could say but I’m holding back because I don’t want to start drama. I’m just upset. And I’ve cried enough today so I’m going to try not to think about this anymore.

Dreaming of a break

I am a little worried. Today has been a bit of a blur. The past couple days the noise in my head have been particularly bad. I have been able to function though. Today it got too much while I was at work. I ended up going home for two reasons; I had such a hard time concentrating on what I was supposed to be doing, and I was honestly scared this was going to lead to another episode like the one two weeks ago. I tried a Xanax to see if that helped (it didn’t), and took a long nap (which did seem to help). I feel much calmer now.

I’m really hoping all this is stress related. I’m used to having this happen once in a while, but it’d been a lot the past month. It has not been normal. I’m pushing on through another week till this semester is over and hopefully it goes away. If it doesn’t clear up quickly I will probably end up in my psychiatrist’s office again. I have no idea what he will do if this dose of Abilify doesn’t work. I want something that will help but I don’t like the idea of having to try a different medication completely. I think I’d ask if we can just stop my antidepressant as that could be making things worse.

Oh I don’t know.

7 days left of this semester. I have so much work to do. I keep falling asleep while doing it. I’m looking forward to next Wednesday when I wake up knowing that I have a week off of school. That’s a lie. I still have all my philosophy work to get done. But I might actually not do anything for a week. I think I need an actual break.

Man, a break sounds like heaven. 

Hallucinations and supervision

I never know how much detail is alright for me to get into on this blog.

The topic of my therapy session today was hallucinations. This is something I’ve had in my life for two years. Auditory hallucinations. The only time I’d say it got serious was a couple weeks ago. The majority of the time I just hear noises. Someone knocking on a door, water dripping, paper ripping. Random you see. I’ve heard music.

So yeah.

My therapist is concerned that even though my antipsychotic dose was increased it hasn’t made a difference. It could just be too soon, we are going to see how it goes for the next couple weeks. He said he will try to talk to my psychiatrist to see if the two of them can come up with something. Which is perfectly fine with me. Sometimes I feel I shouldn’t have a say in my treatment.

I can’t get into detail about this, but basically something has recently come up in my life that should only affect me slightly. In reality it will hit me hard. I am honestly scared. I don’t think people realize how much I use them as support. As a way to keep me on the right track. I feel I need to be supervised. I don’t know how I’m going to handle this.

I hate this

I woke up knowing today is going to be a bad day. Symptom wise I fell asleep not good. Symptom wise I slept horribly. And symptom wise I woke up feeling pretty awful.

I hate this. I absolutely hate this. I hate that it is happening. I hate that it is happening when it should not be. I hate this.

I have to go to work. Hopefully I will be distracted there. And I have therapy today. Good. 

Red Bull = Bad Idea

Last night I had a Red Bull for the first time in about 10 years. I knew it was a bad idea before I drank it, I did it anyway, and I was right.

I had one because I needed to stay up to get school work done. Which I did. I got a good bit done. But then around midnight some of my symptoms started acting up. There was a loud ringing in my ears and I thought I kept hearing someone at the door and my daughters talking in their bedroom. This lasted for a couple hours.

I tried researching caffeine mixed with my meds but there wasn’t anything that said there would be an interaction. Something obviously happened though. I really should avoid it in the future.

Guess what I’m drinking right now...

I know I shouldn’t, but right now Red Bull feels like the only option to get through the next few days of trying to catch up with school work. I’m extremely behind and actually fall asleep while doing school work, probably before 9pm. Last night I was able to stay up much later and get stuff done. I know in the long run I can’t keep doing this, but for now I really need to catch up. And I’m doing anything I think will help. School is such a stress right now, and I believe a lot of that is just because I got behind. If I can catch up I think I’ll feel a lot better.

I am going to skip my meds tonight though so there is hopefully less of a negative reaction.

Speaking of meds, I started the higher dose of the antipsychotic this morning. No extreme side effects. The only thing was I could not stay still, my legs just had to keep moving. I’m not joking, I walked around my desk for 6 hours at work today. But I didn’t feel like I was on a real high and I didn’t have any nausea. So yay!!

I have to get back to the exciting world of algebra and history… 

Higher dose

I got to see my psychiatrist today. He didn’t have much to say about last week but asked me a few things about my (hypo)manic episodes. My doctors suddenly seem very interested in that side of things now. Probably because I was in a hypomanic state right because the psychosis started.

In regards to my medication, there is a few things he wants to try; a higher dose of my mood stabilizer, a higher dose of my antipsychotic, and a lower dose of my antidepressant. He didn’t want to try everything at once right now though, and said that the priority should be to avoid what happened last week. So he raised the dose of my antipsychotic. I’m happy with this. I’m worried about what he would change my meds to so just changing the doses is alright with me. However, now that I’m really thinking about it, if my meds haven’t helped me so far, is a different dose going to help me? I guess I don’t know what to think about the whole thing.

Nothing much I can do now though, just try the higher dose of this med. Every time I start, restart, or go up a dose of this med I go a bit manicy, so tomorrow will be interesting. It also gives me bad nausea. Arg. Also this med has made me gain weight, I really hope I don’t gain any more.

We’ll see.

The rest of my life

My mental disorder includes psychotic symptoms. It started about two years ago. I’ve only had two major psychotic episodes though, one last December and one last week. The one last week being the worst. I’m not going to get into all the details, the basis of it was that I thought everyone was plotting against me and was trying to lock me up in the hospital (what’s ironic is I ended up in the hospital which is where I started feeling better).

I only went to the hospital because I wasn’t given a choice. My therapist gave me the option to go voluntarily or he was going to have the police transport me there. I decided to go myself. I spent 5 hours in the ER but they didn’t admit me. Which I was happy about as at that point I was much calmer (my therapist however, not so happy).

The week leading up to the day I snapped was a hard one. I was having lots of ups and downs. One day I was extremely depressed, one day I was on a high. Monday going into Tuesday I was very depressed, but by Tuesday night I was manicy. I stayed up all night. I can’t remember what I did though, I just know I didn’t sleep. Wednesday morning I was still on this high and around 11am, I believe, I just…snapped.

When I saw my therapist on Friday he told me we had to seriously work on this because my symptoms are getting worse instead of getting better. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist in a few days. My therapist said most likely my mood stabilizer will be changed. Possibly to lithium, which I do not want to try so I’m hoping the doctor has other suggestions.

My therapist said to me that this is something I’m going to have to live with the rest of my life. I assumed that was the case but it’s the first time someone told me that. I can’t live the rest of my life like this, so I really need to find ways to control this. Tomorrow I’m going to try to call to arrange an interview for the DBT program here. And I see my psychiatrist in three days. So I’m doing the best I can do at the present moment. I guess I just need to be happy with that.

I’ll write again after my appointment on Thursday.

Fight-or-flight

I think stress is making me crazy. I’m not depressed right now, I just feel like I might lose it. I just have that feeling. It’s like there is a little me in my head twisting my mind around. And this little me is still me, but separate from me at the same time. I know it that may sound odd. I’m in an odd place. I don’t know.

My cat just ran and smashed into a tower of blocks.

Did I ever write about the time I let my kids finger paint on the wall? I’m looking at it now and it’s making me laugh. I was sitting in my dining room one day and decided that I hated how the walls were white and that HAD to change, and it HAD to change RIGHT AWAY. So within a minute of deciding this I let my daughters go at it.

My mind is very frantic right now. My body is calm, but my mind is like in fight-or-flight mode. Something stupid like that.