Mania – I see you now

My problem with my bipolar is that i get depressed – i cant function with my depression. I don’t take on my responsibilities, I don’t make good decisions – that is when i do make any decisions at all and social interaction is painful because i can’t stop overthinking. I never saw a problem with my mania before. I get excited but doesn’t everyone? The cons of mania have never been visible to me. Until these last 3 weeks. I got into a loud shouting match with my supervisor 3 weeks ago and then last week i yelled at a client. That was Friday. I felt like i was unravelling. I feel compelled to defend myself – in both instances, they were situations that had been brewing. With my supervisor, he is a toxic individual who is obsessed with disrespect and thus find it everywhere that he looks, interacting with him is miserable and i constantly walk on egg shells and i had had enough and wanted him to discuss his issues in the open instead of banging things around in his office and making passive-aggressive comments at us. With the client, i felt myself getting annoyed and since she wasnt actually there to see me but was waiting by my desk, i repeatedly asked her to let me concentrate on what i was doing and please engage me on that topic late, she persisted until i sort of went mad. I really should have gone to the bathroom or something to get away from her but also why should I have had to do so? Why can’t people understand that someone cannot engage you right now? Let people breathe!

Anyways, I’ve been taking my medication but since Friday I’ve been wondering if I ought to go back to my doctor, maybe she might want to tweak the meds?

Then Saturday, I went to get refills cause i ran out that very day and they didnt have my usual APO brand of Fluoxetine. But they did have the CRAZY EXPENSIVE, like over $100 expensive brand name Prozac. This is the largest chain distributor, only one other pharmacy would possibly have it and they were 30 mins away, I could call but the way I felt, i know i wasnt driving over there. So I tried to be responsible and ensure an uninterrupted flow of my medication and i bit the bullet and bought the prozac. I was due to take it today. I finally took it around 7pm. I put it off so much, i’m scared that i will need to adjust and it wont go well. which is an argument for taking it sooner but still i put it off. I feel ok but I am dreading work tomorrow. my supervisor went on vacation for 2 glorious weeks. and for those 2 weeks there was no tension in the office, i could work in peace without fearing that i was upsetting him constantly. I got quite a bit done. Tonight I’m on edge because there is a task that i had put aside to deal with some other more priority ones but needed to get done before he came back and of course I forgot about it.

I cant deal. I am trying to get in early tomorrow to do it before he comes in. Some is better than none right? but I am so not a morning person. I’m also trying to do some reading for an assignment that i due tomorrow night and i havent started. I slept a lot this weekend because my period is coming and i’m sad and tired. Today i found myself thinking i didnt want to exist anymore. I wondered if i could quit work and just stay home. I wondered if i would ever be happy. and i wondered if i could live with thinking like this for the rest of my life. Because as much medication as i take, the worthless feeling never completely goes away.

Right Now I’m just trying to make it through tomorrow.

 

Better!

I forgot to put on my deodorant and my watch but I am at work today, was only 7 mins late due to extra traffic from the inclement weather – yay me! I work in air condition so i hardly sweat and I did remember my perfume so that should cover any scent i might emit lol.

I feel great today, like everything is possible. Getting out of bed was only hard because it was a bit chilly outside and my covers were so warm! I’m slowly slogging through work but I’m getting it done and managing my calendar like a boss.

Also just got GREAT news – the pharmacy is not only stocked with my meds but they have my new favorite brand – APO! As we say here “The Lord doesn’t come but he does send!” – meaning he may not appear in person but he does give you what you need.

I just wrote a resignation letter for a board I am on, i don’t want to resign but it conflicts with my job so I have to, and maybe it will be good for me to have less things on my plate. I am on another board that i tried to resign from due to time commitments and they REFUSED to accept my resignation, saying i was vital and they woudl work around me – that was nice to hear and that’s working so far. I’m managing, I’m remembering things! I am paying attention! I never thought it possible. I feel something great is going to happen this year! 🙂 Hope something great is on the horizon for you too!

 

Can’t today…

It’s 10:24am and I am still in my pajamas. Today is just one of those days where I cant face the thought of going into the office. I would have claimed a sick day but I have a rehearsal I really want to go to this evening so I have to go in, I said I had a personal matter to deal with and I would be in after lunch. Days like this, the idea of sitting at my cold desk under those fluorescent lights and doing my job is hard. I can’t handle the idea of getting myself up and showered and dressed and going in. I am trying to make breakfast and it’s taking a while… and it’s just toast.

But I don’t hate myself. I am not yelling at myself for the things I haven’t done and for not being able today. Medication doesnt make bipolar depression better, it just makes the depressive episodes manageable when they sneak up like a thief in the night. So I will make my toast and tea and watch Lemony Snickett’s Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix and hopefully by the end of the episode, my medication will kick in and give me the boost I need to actually shower and fend off the darkness that is descending.

Sometimes I don’t think I will make it. I don’t eat very well and by that I mean my eating habits are atrocious. I skip meals often, it just takes too much energy to make food or when there is food available – i usually dont want to eat it. If I didnt live with my parents I would have perished a long time ago. Which is my fear about moving out – if I move out and I have to feed myself during a depressive spell, i could become seriously ill. My mother watches my eating habits, she nags me to eat whens he notices I haven’t eaten for a while. She tries to get me up in the morning if I’m late, she helps a lot. It sucks to be 30 and still needing that kind of support but it would also suck to be 30 in a dirty apartment, with no food, lying on the bed, ignoring bills and calls and possibly losing your job. Don’t ignore or resent your support network. You need it. Desperately so.

I will move out eventually, I’m only about a year or so into a good medication regime that works and is effective. So pushing myself to get to the level that i feel other people are at is just silly, I could destroy all the progress I have made and I wont do that just to fit in. I never have fit in anyways so why start now.

I’m going to retoast the bread that is surely cold and make a cup of tea and hope my energy lasts throughout those tasks.

I hope you are having a better day but if you aren’t, I’m with you in the storm. You wont want to do it, but take your meds and eat. That’s all you need to do today. Take your meds and eat, everything else will work itself out.

Excuses Excuses

We’ve all made them to cover up the truth.

I say “I’m tired” but I really mean “I couldnt sleep because these awful thoughts about myself kept hounding me.” or “I dont have the energy to do more than the basics of existence today.”

“I don’t feel well.” but I really mean that I don’t feel mentally well and I dont have the energy to socialise or work.

I text sorry I cant talk right now and feign meetings to avoid interactions and channel them into a less immediate media like email.

People think I get sick a lot, and while my immune system could use a boost, I welcome colds because then i can stay home and be left alone.

I made excuses the last few weeks when i flat out stopped taking all of my medication. I said to myself, I’m really not that bad without it, though my closest friend argues I am not but i solve that problem by not telling her when i go off them anymore.

I said to myself, these new ones dont do anything so it doesnt matter if you take them or not.

Best one yet – let’s experiment and see how you do off all the meds. I take hormones as well to combat my poly-cystic ovarian syndrome and those can make you depressed. So i said to myself that I am fine, the hormones make me sad and if i dont take those then i dont need to take the other stuff. This was supported by a suggestion from my psychiatrist. She needed to get a baseline of how I was and that involved going off the hormones to see what i was like naturally and how they affected me so she could effectively treat me. No where did she say I was not bi-polar nor that the medication was to blame for my mental issues. But like faux news sites i manipulated the facts in my head to support my theory.

I was fine- or at least i think I was. Then I wasnt – I began to wonder if i should exist, i began to hate myself in the worst way again, i began to wake up and not want to get out of bed again. I began to be snappy at my family again. I blamed it on my period and they accepted it. I knew better and promised myself I would take the medications again.

It was a rock restart, remembering to take them, forcing myself to take them, arguing with myself about their perceived value. These are arguably not as good as the previous from Health 2000, which are no where near as good as the one from Wockhardt. But I need to be on something to survive the days, for my family who loves me and who i need to be better to.

I’m still only at 60% wellness and I feel close to tears to think of all the ground I lost when they stopped bringing in that brand. I ache for happier days, for surmountable challenges, for waking up and wanting to get out of bed. I get angry about how the pharmacy played with my life and didnt think twice – probably because of money or something. I hate the companies that make products that they claim are generically the same but personal trials have proven to me that they are not and i feel lied to and a victim of a corporate machine.

But today, I’m adjusting to the new stuff and I made less excuses. And tomorrow I hope to make even less.

Happy to be Tired

I’m tired. Properly tired, not exhausted but wide eyed like I have been for the past few weeks but tired. Enough to go to bed without my phone, to turn off all the lights and sleep soundly, hopefully.

I’ve been unable to get my regular medication and I have been given a different brand. I didnt take it at first, for a silly reason – it was a completely different colour. Stark white as compared to my usual multicoloured pills and it seemed impotent, like a placebo. I avoided it until I couldnt anymore, until getting out of bed became the chore it once was, until i was avoiding people and avoiding work and nothing made me happy, not tv, not video games, not outings with friends, not my pets, not my family, nothing.

One day I plastered a smile on my face to go in to work at 1pm when i should have been in way earlier, to do a task that was due days ago with nothing in my stomach and the idea of making myself a cup of tea loomed too mammoth and i realised i really needed to get back on my medication. The night before i stayed up until 3 or 4am, unable to sleep, watching netflix shows i cant remember and feeling numb and sad. I realised i didnt want to stay in that place, which is a place i used to consider home.

So I took the first pill. then another the next day. then another the day after that, and they didnt work. and i wrote the doc asking if i should take a higher dose and she said i could trial it for 2 weeks until i feel better. Apparently im reacting as if the medication was new. which i find funny because the first time on my multicoloured pills was wonderful, like an elevator out of the grave, i had no side effects and i immediately felt better. But I guess I am more sensitised now and it takes longer or more to give me a reaction. or maybe they really are placebos….

but they are starting to work. I still didnt want to see anyone and turned down social interaction this weekend, but i watched a show and enjoyed it and i played video games and did well and enjoyed them and the numbness is thawing and now i am tired. when i felt the need to sleep i almost cried, i was happy, wanting to go to bed made me emotional. because i’m getting better. the only problem with getting better though – is realising that maybe a shower wasnt such a huge chore after all… lol.

–signed,
sleepy, dirty and more mentally healthy than yesterday