Pizza

I purposely did not take my meds at my usual time tonight. I had a couple of assignments due at midnight and I knew if I took my meds I was going to fall asleep without getting them in. So I didn’t take my meds until after midnight. And now it’s backfiring. 3:30am and I’m wide awake. I don’t think the meds have actually hit my system yet. And if I skip a dose I start to have hypomanic symptoms. So here I am. Awake.

And I’m writing just because why not? I actually don’t have much to say.

I ate pizza today. I’ve been eating wicked healthy lately and I’m in the process of switching to a vegan diet again (I didn’t want to do it all at once). But pizza sounded good so I thought it would be a cheat day. I ate pizza, half a chocolate bar, and an iced tea. And I kinda hate myself for it. Pizza, chocolate, iced tea. Six months ago this would not be unusual for me. A night like this I could handle. Sure I would be a little upset that I ate so much, but so do many others. However, now? No. This was a huge mistake. Not only do I feel disgusting physically, but I can feel it mentally as well. I cannot believe I gave in and had such food. It’s awful. Disgusting and awful. And yes, I know it sounds very dramatic. But remember, this is what is going on in my head. And no one else in the world knows what is going on in my head. It’s a mess up there. I’ve cleaned up a little, but it’s still messy. Like a little kid’s room. It looks clean but there is still a mess under the bed.

I’m really hoping this is a once off. I want to get back on track. I have my follow up with my doctor in two weeks (where she is checking my weight and eating and exercise habits). I want to go into that appointment feeling comfortable with myself and not break down. I would very much like my doctor to be able to relax a little. And it would be nice if I didn’t have to come in for another check.

I may have had more to say than I thought.

Still not tired. I’m going to go study for my midterm.

Bad student, anxiety, Xanax, depression, boxes. Great title isn't it?

I’m a bad student. I should be doing school work. However it is spring break and I also got five assignments back in the last three days and they were all A’s. Soooo, I’m taking a couple days off. It means working a lot more to make up for these days. But oh well!

I feel really on edge. I keep being hit by an anxiety feeling for no reason. It doesn’t last long, usually not more than 30/45 minutes. And I really do not know where it’s coming from. I will feel fine and all of a sudden my heart rate goes up, I feel dizzy, and just very panicky. It’s strange. It’s happened before, but still strange. Maybe I’m worrying about something that I don’t realize I’m worrying about. But I’m also getting anxiety from small things. My husband was watching The Walking Dead last night and even though I wasn’t actually watching (I was internet shopping), I still felt anxious about this show.

And even though I keep having these mini anxiety episodes, each time they happen I don’t feel like it’s something that is going to go away in half an hour. I pace the house in a panic trying to ignore my Xanax yelping at me from my purse. I hate taking Xanax. I still take it once in a while, but I hate the stuff. Better than Ativan though, which I had a very love/hate relationship with. People, if you can avoid taking these medications just stay away from them.

Saying that is really going against how I usually feel and voice my opinion. They are bad news for me, but if they help you and you can handle them, do what’s best for you. In general I try not to tell people to do something, or take something, that has worked for me in the past. Or to stay away from something that didn’t work for me. What works for some people may not work for others. That’s really what I should have said above. I could have erased and edited what I wrote previously, but I try not to do that on this blog.

Anyway. I’m just now wondering if my anxiety is trying to be full on anxiety but I’m doing things to tame it. Does that make sense? I’ve been exercising really well, I’ve been eating a very good diet (at least compared to the past). I’m doing things like listening to music I like (instead of whatever is playing on the Disney Channel). I’m watching old shows I used to be crazy about. I’m sure all these things are really helping me, and possibly kicking the anxiety away.

If these things are helping with anxiety, they will possibly help with depression. I wrote in a post, possibly my last post, that I needed to start doing things to help my depression. One of the things my therapist urged me to do was make an “in case of emergency box” (it doesn’t actually have to be a box). Basically I would put in a box, or make a list (or both), of things that could help me feel better. Movies, CDs, a nice smelling lotion, names of people to hang out with. You get the idea. Like everything else my therapist suggested I did not do this. I wish I could say I’ve been working on this idea for a while, in fact I only thought about it two minutes ago. But I think I’ll do both. I’ll make a box and put in things like lotions, books, magazines, CDs, maybe chocolate, and then make a list of other things that can help.

There is a good chance that I won’t do this any time soon. My aim is for my husband to read this and push me to do it.

I’m running out of things to say. And I’m multitasking this with watching YouTube. So I’m going to go and focus on that.

Geodon is making me sleeppppyyyyy

I get very tired, pretty much every day around 11am and then around 9pm. Like extremely tired. I fell asleep in the library today at about 11:30am. Most nights I can’t make it past 10pm. It just really hit me that it is the Geodon I’m taking (the antipsychotic). I take it most mornings around 8am and then in the evenings around 5-6pm. I did a little research online and found some reporting the same problem, that they get unbelievably exhausted a few hours after taking this medication.

Night time is not a huge problem. I do need to stay up later for school work though. So I’m going to start taking it later at night. Simple fix. Mornings are going to be tough. The obvious solution is caffeine, but I hate coffee and I gave up soda. I can drink tea but there is not much caffeine there. I may have to bring soda back. It did always help wake me up. Maybe diet soda won’t make me feel that bad about drinking it again. If anyone has any ideas PLEASE share. If there is a coffee out there that does not taste too coffee-like, please let me know. I’m desperate. I have no intention of going off the medication but I seriously have trouble functioning because I get so exhausted. And I hate that I’m considering caffeine because caffeine is not good, especially with these types of medication. I just don’t know what to do.

Before anyone suggests it, taking both doses at night is not an option. The medication does not stay in your system that long. Also if I skip a dose I start having manic symptoms. This makes me forget my next dose and then things get a lot worse. So I need to take this both mornings and at night.

Moving on. I’m feeling much better than I did last week. After a couple days of a depression hangover I snapped back and have been feeling fine since. I really should accept that this is probably the best it can get in terms of medication. I shouldn’t try changing anything because of a side effect that I could live with. Acne sucks, but at least I’m stable. For the most part.

I need to focus on the next step of treatment. The medication is helping enough so that I can function while depressed, and the hypomania has pretty much disappeared. So next I need to work on ways to cope when I am depressed. The medication is not going to take care of it completely, I’m going to have to put some work into it. I also don’t want to rely on weekly therapy. At this point I should be able to have ways to cope myself.

So that is my mission. To start finding ways to cope. Everything my therapist has discussed with me in the past three years… I need to actually try them.