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 :)