jesus songs

my psychiatrist was very nice and agreed that increasing the paxil didn't seem to help and said that it was okay with him if i cut back to 12.5 mg. he left a message to call if i needed more or if i wanted to pick up samples. i still have two 30-day refills of it, so i will be fine until our next appoinment. i wonder what we're going to do next time. if i stay on the low dose of paxil or if he wants me to try a different medication. i still feel depressed. today at work i got the tour of the courthouse. met legal secretaries, judicial assistants, and relevant supervisors and executives. it wasn't exactly fun as i could barely put a smile on my face. i have such a flat expression and am acutely aware of it.

i feel out of place. different. not normal. this afternoon, two coworkers were talking about college and law school, and one of them mentioned that the college he goes to used to be a mental hospital. the other person responded, "that's scary." she asked him if it was haunted. it's a good thing they don't call them mental hospitals anymore. psychiatric unit or psych hospital or behavioral health sounds less freaky. i thought it was ironic they were talking about it in the cube right next to me. people see psychiatrists for less than mdd. i hear about people at my dad's office getting depressed and taking leave for a month or two. they come back when they're better. i wonder if they consider themselves mental patients and if they had to be hospitalized.

when i was hospitalized, i didn't feel different. i was very sick, and i was around people who were just as sick as me. some, like the schizophrenics and the "psycho" kid screaming, kicking, and hitting people, or my rapid-cycling bipolar roommate, were much more sick than me. in one ward, i met a girl suffering from what might have been postpartum psychosis. she sang jesus songs, slammed doors, went into other patients' rooms, stole clothes, mistook other patients for family members. one time i held her hand and walked her back to her room.

the first time i was hospitalized, i was truly sick. i was laughing and crying at the same time. i had anxiety attacks. i was on a 72-hour 5150 hold which was extended to a 14-day hold because i had bought a gun and wanted to kill myself. i had rapid pressured speech and some dissociative symptoms where i would become a little child, laughing and crying like a little girl. i was disoriented. my moods were up and down, fluctuating within minutes.

the second and third times i was hospitalized, i was less sick and acting out on borderline impulses. i wanted to cut myself and fantasized about going back to s. so i could be around people who would take care of me, maybe see the resident physician i had a crush on again, be in a safe place, not have to face the world, take a rest, just rest. i cut myself on the wrist before both admissions. i fantasized about attempting suicide. i wanted to hurt myself so badly. but i knew that i wasn't acutely ill, not in the same way i had been previously. i knew that i had a choice.

i face that choice everyday. i want to be taken care of. i want to be in a place where i feel safe, normal, accepted, where i almost feel i belong. i want to be in a place where i can be myself, because most of the time i don't feel like a functional human being, i only feel half alive, and making the effort to smile and to live takes more than an ounce of will. it's a struggle to wake up in the morning. it's a struggle to hope. it's a struggle to believe. sometimes i wish i were bipolar, i could experience some of those highs, a little hypomania to get me through the day. there were times in the past i thought i almost could be. but i rarely feel the urge to laugh, giggle, i rarely feel the urge to sing.