katinkab.blogspot.com

i'm back and medicated

2006-11-23T08:53:00.000-08:00

sorry it's been awhile. i was going through an unstable period, probably a relapse, another depressive episode or something, my meds were a bit of a mess, but my pdoc and i just settled on increasing my cymbalta. for awhile there i thought i had to go on a mood stabilizer, because i was so emotionally unstable, crying a lot, agitated, wanting to hurt myself, angry, anxious. i still have an underlying depression and high anxiety.

my cymbalta is considered nonformulary on my insurance list and costs me mega bucks. my pdoc had originally written the script for ninety 30mg caps. but my insurance wouldn't approve it, so he had to write two 30-day scripts for the 60mg caps and 30mg caps. totally sucked. if i talk to my pdoc about the cost, we might talk about switching meds or trying another combo. but i don't know if i want to make any changes because it is so damn hard finding the right meds. i've been on almost everything already, damn it. my pdoc thinks the cymbalta is working for me. on tuesday, he said i was in the best mood he's seen me in since he started working with me.

cymbalta is supposed to be activating, give you more energy. it did the first three days, when i was highly agitated, jumping around and screaming my head off. lol. my heart was beating fast and i had so much adrenaline. but i adjusted, and now i'm mostly feeling tired. like i'm not getting enough sleep. i'm always tired. i have also noticed that cymbalta continues to curb or suppress my appetite. i'm just not that hungry and when i do eat, i don't eat that much, which i suppose is a good thing, since i do need to lose more weight.

anyway, my pdoc also prescribed lunesta 3mg, since i'm developing a tolerance for ambien. takes me longer to fall asleep, i wake up 2-3 times a night, and wake up earlier, without fail, just short of 8 hours sleep. it's weird. ambien puts me to sleep, but when i wake up, i don't feel rested, and i don't feel like i've been asleep. it's like i didn't feel the time passing. maybe it's because i didn't dream all night. i like dreaming in my sleep. it makes sleep interesting. lol. the plan is to alternate between ambien and lunesta every other month to prevent tolerance. and my pdoc told me if i start taking ativan daily to give him a call asap. lol. my pdoc is a funny guy. he winked at me ;)

so here's my current med situation:

daily a.m. meds
cymbalta 90mg (60mg + 30mg)
diltiazem cd 120mg

prn's
ativan 1mg for anxiety (up to twice a day)
ambien 10mg for insomnia (odd months)
lunesta 3mg for insomnia (even months)

oprah

2006-10-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

well, i have an appointment with my psychiatrist today. can't wait to see him. he's an easygoing fellow, rather good-looking, not as handsome as dr. rosse, but a genuinely cool guy. i realize i'm doing a lot better now than six months ago. i'm no longer on risperdal, thank god. it wasn't a bad drug, minimal side-effects, but it had consequences. stoned me out during the day if i took more than 1 mg, slowed down my thoughts, etc. also i was eating a whole lot more than i am now. i think the cymbalta has been working pretty well for me. i still have some anxiety, but god, i have lost weight. i lost 10 lbs since june.

i guess i am glad i am not bipolar. i don't think i'd like to take all the bipolar meds. i'm a writer and i value my creativity. i don't want to take any meds that might interfere with my writing process. i'm glad i'm only on one psychiatric medication, a common enough antidepressant. i do take ambien for sleep occasionally, and i have ativan for anxiety. but i don't think my anxiety is severe enough to justify taking ativan. also, i have found that anxiety can be managed. you feel like shit managing it, but you can do it. last night i was seriously thinking of taking ativan just so i could feel that chill down effect. but i didn't take it because i have a tendency to abuse substances, like i did with alcohol, and i know that i could go down the same path with ativan, and ambien for that matter. so i only take ambien when i really need to as well. i've only taken ambien once in the past two weeks.

i have however noticed that i'm having a problem with my sleep. although i stay in bed about 10 hours a night, i'm not getting restless sleep and usually feel tired and groggy in the morning. sometimes i feel irritable, anxious, and angry. i've been waking up around 10:30-11:00 and taking naps around 4pm. i stay up past midnight. i have so much junk on my mind. i dream more than i sleep, and i frequently wake up during the night from talking in my sleep. this morning, i woke up crying because i was dreaming of the time i was raped. that's the first time i've ever dreamt about it. i've got to stop watching law & order svu before i go to bed.

anyway, i'm feeling really tired during the day. i feel like i'm not getting good sleep. i'm having anxiety about eating again. this time, i'm eating less, restricting the amount and types of food i eat. so i guess you could say i'm on a diet. i just don't think i'm living healthily and i don't feel very healthy. i think it's because i'm feeling a lot of anxiety and need to control my life. i have a certain idea of how i want my life to be, and the only reason why i'm not more depressed or suicidal right now is because i'm obsessed with getting there. my goals in life now are to become financially independent so i can move out of my parents' house, i.e., get a job. i also want to complete my novel and get it published, and lose a lot of weight, like 40 lbs. i don't know how i'm going to lose 40 lbs, but i'll try. all i'm doing so far is eating less and taking walks. i know i'll probably have to do more eventually. when i get a job, maybe i'll join a women's health club.

i have this fantasy of one day being on oprah and talking about my book and how i got to where i am and where i came from in life, and i know this fantasy is all about seeking validation and fulfilling some of my unmet needs, and sometimes when i think of myself being on oprah, i smile and laugh. even though it's wishful thinking, it's got to be better than thinking of myself alone in a hotel room with a bottle of vodka and razor blades.

bad mood again damn it

2006-10-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

well, i am in a bad mood again and don't feel like doing anything. i didn't sleep well last night. i slept but it didn't feel like it because i was sort of just drifing and not really sleeping although i did have a few dreams one of them with janet jackson and friends it was weird. who cares about janet jackson? lol. so my head feels like crap because i'm not getting my sleep. it is really weird. i go through days when all i do is sleep and then i go through days when i can't get enough restful sleep. i think i've got a lot of stuff on my mind. maybe that's it. i feel like cutting. i guess i've been thinking about cutting a lot lately. maybe that's it. i've got a writing deadline this week. maybe that's it. i don't want to go to the writers club board meeting tomorrow. i want to go to the depression and bipolar support group instead just to see what it's like. i need a job. i am stressing because i don't have a job and my parents are paying the bills and i know they don't want to pay my bills my whole life. i really want to be a writer so i won't have to work a day job anymore but i don't have anything published yet. i'm not anywhere i want to be i'm not doing what i want with my life now all i want to do is sleep. i feel like taking a sleeping pill. maybe i will tonight.

stable

2006-09-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

whoa. i am freaking stable today. i have been stable for two or three days actually. my mood is normal. i feel like i should celebrate. weird. although i have been feeling like cutting the past couple days. so i read on wikipedia that chocolate can supposedly relieve feelings of depression by increasing serotonin. now that's a cure. a chocolate a day to make your si go away. lol. i have therapy at 1pm. i am too lazy to go. i still haven't taken a shower. ten minutes. i'll get out of bed in ten minutes. lol.

daniel

2006-09-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

so apparently, anna nicole smith's son daniel died of a lethal combo of zoloft, lexapro, and methadone. what i want to know is why the hell was he taking two SSRIs? there's something called serotonin syndrome, which can be fatal, resulting from too much serotonin in your system. the reports say he died from an irregular heart beat caused by the combination of meds. that's sad. accidentally dying from your medication. i wonder just how much he had taken.

my mood is better now. after i blogged, i went back to sleep and woke up about three hours later. my mood i suppose is normal. i hope i can do some writing. i really need to write.

re: the t.o. story. if he took up to 30 painkillers, i dare say he was attempting to commit suicide.

words

2006-09-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

i can't go back to sleep. i woke up at quarter to 5:00 because i had an idea. i was thinking of words, like "i began to recover memories in my first year of grad school" and "before the anger and the tears and the yelling, there was fear, there was pain, there was longing: longing for emotional support, nurturance, and comfort, and to be physically held" and "my first psychotherapist was gifted. he was young, had less than ten years of private practice under his belt, but he had a way with words, a sensitivity to their mixed messages, an ear for their hidden meanings, an empathic understanding of their depths." i'm brilliant. i started thinking of writing a play. last month, around this time, i was convinced i ought to get a phd. i need to slow my thoughts down. yesterday, i was feeling normal. completely normal. asymptomatic. i didn't feel depressed. it felt like my mind was clear of the cluttered thinking that goes on when you're depressed. i was like, wow, i feel normal. my head feels light. i guess exercise does help. lol. i've been walking these past couple of days, walking to the part, feeling the breeze. it's been wonderful. i didn't feel any of the burden of the past, the obsessive need to understand the trauma, the unrelenting flashbacks. i didn't feel the overwhelm of borderline emotions. because emotions are what being borderline is all about. borderline emotions tend to overwhelm thinking, but yesterday i was feeling all clear. calm. nonborderline. nondepressive. normal. i thought, this is too good to last, and it appears i was right. i can't go back to sleep. the marked difference between my mood yesterday and my mood now is that i'm thinking in my head, i can hear my damn thoughts, i am talking to myself, i feel a whole lot of adrenaline, i am freaking angry, i am saying fuck a lot in my head, i want to break things and throw things, i need to calm down. i want to go back to sleep but i can't. i have an interview at 2:05 this afternoon. i don't know if i want this job. it's a damn data entry position. how freaking fun is that. but i need a job. i need to do some writing. i have a deadline for my writing group coming up. i want to submit something. the past two weeks i haven't been able to write crap. it's like i just can't think of the words. writing is so damn hard. i think it's because the character i want to write about is hard to hear. unlike some of my other characters, regina's words are slow, cautious, fearful. juno is full of energy, passionate, emotive. regina is quiet, scared, reserved. she's not in touch with her feelings. she's very angry however, but doesn't show it. she holds her feelings back. she doesn't understand herself. it so frustrates me that i can't find the words for regina. i've already written her novel, but the first draft is so bad. well, it's not that bad, but it's definitely not good enough. the ending is abrupt and disjointed. the language is stiff and painstakingly deliberate. it needs to be loose and free. it needs to sing. regina's story is a very important one. and i have to make sure i tell it well. anyway, i'm going to stop blogging now. i feel like i could go on and on just freewriting whatever's on my mind. oh well.

back to m

2006-09-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

i think i'm going back to my therapist maureen. the search has not been going too well, and i have been pretty stable with her. this guy i saw today took one look at the word borderline and decided he didn't want anything to do with me. lol. i am having serious anxiety thinking that my writing group doesn't like me. i took another sleeping pill last night. i need to do something about my sleep. it is just not regular right now. anyway, it is the season premiere of grey's anatomy tonight. i can't wait!

unrealistic

2006-09-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

i'm okay. well, i feel a little crappy. my moods have gone up and down all day. depressed, normal, depressed, depressed. i don't know why i'm like this. so i quit my therapist, and i tried out a new guy on monday, but i'm not sure about him. so i'm going to see someone else tomorrow. i saw a new psychiatrist on monday as well. he's cool, but said that the reason i've changed therapists so often is because i have unrealistic expectations. anyway he is having me keep a mood tracker which he will review the next time we meet. i really don't think there's much else that can be done about my meds. and part of me doesn't care. cymbalta is okay. i'm not all that happy. maybe i'm not living up to my potential. but all i care about is writing. i can work a day job on the side, as long as it doesn't stress me out too much or depress me, fine, i'll do it. as long as there isn't too much bullshit, i can handle it. why do i have to do anything special? i feel like knocking myself out tonight with a sleeping pill. i hate my life. it's not so bad really. i always have food even though sometimes i couldn't care less. i still eat. anyway, i'm going to see if i can get some writing done tonight.

freaking out

2006-09-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

i am so freaking pissed at my parents. they told me i should stop seeing a psychiatrist and going to therapy and that i should try to get better on my own. my mom said, "you can control it." my dad said he didn't believe in psychiatry. this from two people who think that my mom can heal people by waving her hands around in the air. my mom does something called healing touch. she even has a certificate and is qualified to teach this thing. i am so freaking angry i want to throw things. i want to take an ativan. i want to swallow a whole bunch of pills and just go to sleep. last night i had to take an ambien to go to sleep because i couldn't stop thinking. i was really stressed. i am freaking stressed right now again. i hate not having a job. it stresses me out because i don't want my parents to start complaining and telling me what to do. they already tell me i need to lose weight, exercise, quit therapy, don't eat rice, eat salad, get a professional job, apply for federal jobs, blah blah blah. oh and my mom's big thing, dress smart, dress to impress, etc. fuck. i am so fucking pissed. i have no one to talk to. i have no friends. i would die if i didn't have anyone to talk to. i need to have someone supportive to talk to, someone who's on my side, someone who will listen to me and be on my side. not someone who is going to order me around and make me feel bad.

and to top it off, one of my old friends has been emailing me from the middle east where he's on temporary duty. he's in the military. we used to be close in high school and sort of had this thing for each other but never got together due to who knows why. well, now he is married and sometimes we wonder what would have happened if. anyway, he emailed me today and told me he is going drinking to blow off some steam and that he hasan't gone drinking in two years because he realized he has a drinking problem and now he is kind of worried he might relapse. well, if he has a drinking problem, he shouldn't drink at all. it is very concerning. i don't want to worry about him because i have all my own crap to worry about. the rape story has been coming up again. it came up in therapy last week and i didn't want to talk about it but my therapist kept prodding me and i really didn't like it. that was probably one of the reasons i decided to switch therapists for once and for all. and then this got me thinking of my old friend because he's from that time when these things happened, so i emailed him, and he emails me back, and suddenly i'm writing to him about it all over again, and i'm having flashbacks and stupid shit. i want to close myself off from all of this. but i can't. i started revising my novel again, the novel about the rape and the drinking and the boys and my mother being mean and not having anyone to talk to about anything back then.

i am screwed up for a lot of reasons and i can't go back to when i used to cover things up like nothing happened, not when i've done this much therapy, not when i've pulled the lid off. my last therapist was just going way too fast for me. she wasn't delicate about my feelings at all. and she assumed all kinds of things about me. i don't think she knew me very well, but she acted as if she thought she did.

anyway, i hope i start making money again soon. i want to get out of my parents' house. i'm working hard on my writing. i seriously want to make a living as a writing. i did something i shouldn't have done today. i called the pharmacy to have my refill of ativan processed. i still have a whole bottle of ativan. i am stocking up on my meds. i don't know why. i really shouldn't be doing these things.

new seasons is a no go :(

2006-09-15T15:14:00.000-07:00

well, i quit my therapist. i guess i should look for another one. i don't know if i want to though. she suggested i go with a psychologist instead. i was thinking of that too. (she was an mft.) i don't know. i feel like all i need right now is a job. i don't know what i want to work on in therapy anymore, except just have someone to talk to. i don't know what therapy is all about anymore. oh and i found out that place new seasons doesn't provide outpatient dbt therapy unless you've paid for the whole package, which means you have to be in their treatment program. that totally sucks. why can't the therapists do dbt in their private practices? i feel like i'm being denied a service because i'm not rich enough. it's crap.

dbt at new seasons?

2006-09-14T23:51:00.000-07:00

i found a place around here called new seasons that might do dialectical behavior therapy. i'm going to call them first thing tomorrow. i'm kind of excited. i'm looking forward to waking up in the morning. i emailed my dbt therapist up north. i've been thinking about her and missing her again. i'm hoping for good news tomorrow.

anniversary

2006-09-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

today, september 14th, 2006, is the one year anniversary of my first psych hospitalization. i thought i would want to write about it, but strangely enough, i don't. actually, i'm working on some other writing projects that are more important to me at the moment. and also, i've done so much writing about it already i feel as if i've probably exhausted the subject. i'm sure we all have our psych ward stories.

anyway, i'm planning to work on my CV. i want to try to get a university job teaching creative writing. i'm going to try to get more involved in the writers club in my area. maybe i can lead a writing workshop. i know it would take up my time, but i think i need the experience. and do more writing so i can get published. i have to get letters from my creative writing profs and things like that, which might be a bit difficult. i think that's the next step.

regarding therapy, i feel like quitting, or leaving my current therapist for a new one. i don't know. the whole therapeutic relationship feels weird to me now. i am very very uncomfortable about it. i think i would work better with a male therapist. or maybe it's just time for me to move on and build relationships with people and friends outside of therapy.

i feel like i still want to be a part of the mental health community though. i mean i want to be part of a support network, give support as well as receive it. maybe i'll join a support group. i'll see.

last night, i met with my writing group. we critiqued manuscripts, etc. it was fun for me, although i did have a bit of anxiety because i didn't feel like i was articulating my thoughts very well. i definitely need to get out more, socialize, and read more too. my vocabulary stinks. lol.

ruminating

2006-09-08T05:57:00.000-07:00

not doing too great. was really creative last week. started a new writing project. but this week having trouble getting restful sleep. waking up a lot during the night. keep thinking. ruminating. circular thoughts. memories. feelings. hearing dialogue in my head. book evolving. i need to put my thoughts down. isolating again. i don't have anyone to hang out with. have only one friend in town, haven't called her, don't want to hang out with her, just want to stay home. except now, staying home is kind of depressing. i will have to keep working, going out, although work is stressful. have to find the right kind of job. before i left the bay area, my therapist and psychiatrist were thinking of putting me in a residential program. i wish i could have gone. i think i could have benefited from it. i have some serious cognitive distortions that i need to fix. i don't feel like i'm getting the right kind of treatment as an outpatient. the right kind of talk therapy, the right kind of therapy. i wish i could stay longer in a therapeutic environment. i hate outpatient programs. i wish i could stay in the hospital and work 1:1 with a psychiatrist for longer than the fifteen days i was first hospitalized. i wish i could work with the psychiatrist i saw when i was hospitalized. sometimes he was the first person i talked to when i woke up in the morning. sometimes he would come to my room and wake me up to check in with me. i wish he could always be the first person i talk to in the morning when i wake up. i should have told him how i felt, expressed my feelings to him. it would have helped me to talk to him about how i felt. but i stuffed my feelings. i didn't know how to express myself. and now all i do is think about him. i could have benefited from a longer stay in the hospital so i could work out my attachment issues, self-esteem, thought and behavioral patterns. i might have to look for another therapist as well, someone who can do intensive analysis with me to help me change the way i think and behave. i know it starts with me first. yesterday i tried. i took a walk. i hadn't done that in awhile. but i didn't go more than a mile away from the house. now i am feeling depressed again. and i made one cut on my thigh. one-inch long with a razor blade. i really want to cut up my arms, but i don't because i live at home and my parents would trip and give me a hard time. i'm more afraid of my parents than anything else i guess. i wish i could move out. i'm also starting to worry about money again and how i'm going to pay my bills because i owe sallie mae $260 or so and i have to pay for my health insurance and credit card and car insurance. crap. my cell phone bill too. i have no income now since i'm unemployed. i will have to ask my parents for money again. i hate doing that. i am in a black mood. i need to get some rest.

unemployed

2006-09-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

well, my therapist did not tell on me to my psychiatrist. lol. i am thinking of switching psychiatrists anyway. i want someone younger, and someone who might actually listen to me. my current psychiatrist is okay, but i feel that it's all business with him and he doesn't particularly spend enough of our 15-20 minute med check getting to know me. lol. i guess i want to work with someone who doesn't mind if i express concerns about side-effects or concerns about anything, someone who asks a bit more questions, just someone i feel more comfortable talking with overall.

other news is i'm unemployed again. i announced last week that i wasn't returning to the temp job just in time to find out that the company i was temping for didn't want me to come back anyway. i think it's their way of getting back at me for quitting. lol. they said i didn't have good customer skills, i wasn't a good fit in terms of my personality, and i wasn't friendly. i couldn't believe the unfriendly part of it. i think i am a friendly enough person. i guess i just wasn't friendly enough for them. oh well. i am back to job hunting. in fact, i have a test for a data entry position on tuesday. it's a city job, so i suppose there will be good benefits involved. i don't know what kind of job i want, all i know is i need one so i can pay my bills and one day get back on my feet again.

at least i am writing and hopefully something good will come out of me writing. i would love to one day make a living as a writer. i hate working day jobs. they are so boring and unimaginative. and i hate being pushed around. i just want my own little cube, computer, a place where i can put up my 365 dog days calendar and a potted plant. it is the holiday and i have nothing to do. i will probably just watch us open tennis, do some writing. i have been sticking somewhat to a partial south beach diet. i eat carbs for breakfast and lunch and at dinner i only eat salads or south beach diet food. i have lost a little weight. i am down to a size 12 again. i am fairly lonely but hope it will go away with time.

i read somewhere on the internet that borderline resolves itself with time and age. so the older you get, the less borderline you'll be. i hope that's true. i don't want to be borderline all my life. i used to think it was better to be bipolar than borderline, because you could at least medicate bipolar. most psych docs will tell you that you can't medicate borderline. so i guess my depression is pretty well medicated as i am not feeling suicidal at this moment. i was comparing the other day how i felt a year ago to how i feel now. a year ago, i was afraid of driving on the freeway because i had urges to crash my car. now i feel fairly secure of getting to my destination safely. i don't have those overwhelming feelings of hurting myself anymore. i don't feel that blackness of despair. i don't feel the emotional pain. although i do feel often sad and lonely and still miss my dr. rosse quite often.

life

2006-08-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

well, i'm actually not pissed at my therapist. but i am concerned that my psychiatrist will think i'm manipulating him if she tells him that i've been planning to stock up on my meds. it wasn't my idea to prescribe me refills. lol. my psychiatrists up in the bay area never prescribed refills on my meds. and i had more check-ins with them. they also didn't give me ativan. my last psychiatrist only gave me 10 ambien at a time.

i'm starting to really like my therapist now. it usually takes 6-8 weeks to establish a rapport or connection with your therapist. i feel like i've finally achieved that connection with her. usually you can tell within a week or two if the therapist isn't going to work well with you.

i've been spending a lot of time the past few days thinking, obsessing, about dr. rosse. i don't know why. i think i'm lonely. yesterday all i did was basically stay in bed. and i think i'm going to do that again today. i'm going to take my laptop with me and try to write. maybe i'll apply for a couple of jobs. i should go down the street to the donut store and get the sunday paper and check out the classifieds, but i don't feel like it. i'll do it next weekend. lol.

i miss having my own place. i'm used to having my desk and desktop computer in the same room as my sleeping room. instead because there's no space in my bedroom here in my parents' house, i had to put my computer in the den downstairs. it sucks. i guess one of my goals for making a life worth living is to make enough money to move out of my parents' house and get my own place. i need to be more forward-looking. i hope it doesn't take me long to get where i want to be.

i really need to start writing again, writing well, and writing productively. i just so suck at it right now. i hope i can find the inspiration and perseverance to make my mark as a writer in the world, and make a living as a writer too.

pills

2006-08-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

i told my therapist this morning about the stash of pills i am collecting, and she said she's going to call my psychiatrist to get him to cancel my refills of ativan and ambien. i am a bit pissed. after therapy, i went to the drug store and bought some razor blades. it's probably not a good idea to do any cutting. i probably won't. i don't know why i bought the razor blades. it was my fault for telling my therapist i am starting to build up a stash again. maybe i really don't want to kill myself and just want some attention. i am so tired today and have been fantasizing pretty strongly about suicide and going to the hospital again. i know it's my borderline issues coming up again. i think what my mom said really upset me because it brought up past stuff for me and made me think about the abuse and i felt all the guilt again about thinking of it as abuse. i want to move out of the house and wish i had enough money. i'm so screwed up. i'm going to try to do some writing today and see if that will help. it will suck if my therapist calls my psychiatrist and he decides he doesn't want me as a patient anymore because i'm chronically suicidal. maybe one day when i'm happy i'll stop feeling this way.

work

2006-08-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

drama at work and home today. people were running me around at work, having me do all kinds of projects for them i felt like i was supporting the whole department. i thought i was filling in for someone who was on medical leave. today one of the team leads asked me to photocopy one piece of paper for her. i couldn't believe it. she walked over to my desk and brought over one piece of paper and asked me to photocopy it. in the time it took her to walk to my desk and give me instructions, she could have photocopied the piece of paper already. i called the temp agency and told them i didn't think i was coming back on monday. so the temp agency called my supervisor who had the lead payroll processor jen talk to me about the job. i told jen how i felt and she concurred that basically i was doing the grunt work and that i wanted work i could own. basically i want to have work that i can say this is what i do, this is my stuff i'm responsible for. i don't want to be people's errand girl. it was like they dumped with all the work that had backed up and all the work they needed cleared off their desk. can't they do their own damn work??? anyway, so jen talked to my supervisor rhonda who suggested that i submit my resume so that rhonda could see what i could do and maybe find a place for me. rhonda is thinking the office assistant position. i don't know how i feel about that. rhonda doesn't think i can do the payroll clerk job because it requires phone contact and she thinks i'm quiet and wouldn't be able to do it. like i can't do customer service. i can do phones. i worked for a friggin 24 hour telephone answering service. i did a lot of phones.

anyway. then i go home and tell my mom what happened and she told me that i needed to dress smart because i dress like an old lady and that's the reason people look down on me at work because i don't dress smart. i hate it when my mom says things like that because it makes me feel down. it's very upsetting. i shouldn't let my mom get to me because i should know what to expect from her, but i was feeling good about myself this afternoon when i drove home from work because i stood up for myself. i actually felt empowered. i was hoping my mom would be happy for me and not find a way to put me down or make me feel disappointed, but she did. oh well. i know i don't make her too happy either. i'm hardly ever enthusiastic about her healing touch stuff and everything, and when she was talking about the job she applied for and how she hates her job i wasn't really listening. i think i was still upset about what she said. i don't have a real good relationship with her. it's just so tiring. i have a hard time relating to my parents because they want other things for me. and they pressure me to succeed. they pressure me to apply for jobs. they have this thing about government jobs and want me to work for the government. my dad wants me to take accounting classes. today he told me to take excel classes. they have so many things they want me to do. my mom wants me to lose weight and go on a diet. all i eat at night are salads now because that's what my mom makes for us. isn't that enough. i feel so conflicted. now i feel like maybe i'm not making the right impression at work maybe i look like a fat slob like my mom says. i don't know. i feel so small. i'm already disadvantaged because i'm working while i'm sick, i.e. mentally ill, now my mom tells me i'm even worse than i feel.

i have a freaking illness and i'm still working. i take medication to stay alive and function. i'm doing the best i can. i should be proud of myself. i have worked four weeks in a row. before, i couldn't even work four days in a row. i am so so tired.

tired

2006-08-23T19:21:00.000-07:00

i'm really tired today. i was late to work, and when i got there i couldn't stop thinking negatively. i had some seriously bad thoughts today, including quitting therapy. most of my thoughts were centered around going for a long drive back up to the bay area and renting a hotel room and committing suicide by overdosing on a whole lot of pills. i am starting to horde pills again. it's not good, but i'm doing it. i've got 2 more refills of ambien and 1 refill of lorazepam. i just hated work today. i made it through the day though, but in general felt like my life was meaningless and worthless. i know i'll end up being a worse person if i do commit suicide. my dbt therapist told me suicide ruins lives. and i fantasized about cutting myself again. i just want to do it. i've been so good. i want to get away, take a vacation from this place, and go off on my own and cut and then swallow a whole bunch of pills and a couple bottles of alcohol and curl up in bed and go to sleep. i thought about going to the hospital again and being in a safe place there and feeling cared for and cared about. i don't know if i'm depressed or it's just the borderline me acting out. i'm so tired. i feel shaky, exhausted. i just want to lie down and close my eyes. could it be the cymbalta? i don't know. i had a fantasy about seeing my former therapists up north one last time before i die, saying goodbye or something, and going back to the hospital one last time too. i'm so weird. i would feel sorry for my parents. they do their best. anyway, maybe i'll feel better tomorrow.

staying on cymbalta

2006-08-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

i saw my psychiatrist and therapist yesterday morning. my psychiatrist wrote me a new script for cymbalta, ambien, and ativan. i was surprised he gave me the ativan. my previous doctors wouldn't prescribe it to me. i don't know if i really need it, but i thought it would be good to have some handy for the occasional anxiety attacks. i always like to have some sleeping pills handy too because i'd rather take a sleeping pill than an antipsychotic to help me sleep when i'm having those occasional sleepless, restless nights. so i'm staying on the 60 mg of cymbalta. it does seem to have some benefit especially during the day. at night i'm still a bit restless and agitated, although all i did these past couple of nights was sleep. i have been sleeping early because i've been so tired. i think i've been sleeping too much. i'm kind of irritable now and easily get irritated by my parents. it could be that i'm depressed, which of course i am, and thus grouchy and unhappy about everything. or it could be hormones. low iron. who knows. anyway my cymbalta cost me $51 because it's nonformulary. freaking blue cross. lol. the ambien also cost me $51. so now i am all stocked on meds. one for my depression, one for sleep, and one for anxiety. i don't think i'll need them all though. i've been sleeping a lot lately and i haven't had any major anxiety issues lately. although i am a bit anxious about having the lorazepam around. i really shouldn't have asked for it. it's too tempting.

my therapist thinks i stayed on the cymbalta because i want to have a psychiatrist. she thinks i'm trying to duplicate the relationship i had with dr. rosse with my current psychiatrist. i'll never be able to have the relationship i had with dr. rosse with anyone else. my relationship with him was special. i was concerned when my psychiatrist gave me the ativan because i felt like he wasn't taking care of me since having ativan around isn't really good for me. my therapist suggested that maybe i can learn how to take care of myself.

cymbalta side-effects

2006-08-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

i didn't sleep well last night. i was twitching a little and edgy and i kept waking up. i thought i wouldn't be able to fall asleep. i was pretty sure it was because of the cymbalta. i didn't know if i should take it this morning, so i called my psychiatrist and left a message. but then i ended up taking it anyway at 9am and called my psychiatrist back to disregard my message. i see my psychiatrist on saturday so i'll just see how things go until then. maybe the side-effects will go away. it takes a month or so for side-effects to go away completely. i feel okay during the day, more functional, with the cymbalta. sometimes i feel like smiling. it's similar to the way i felt when i was on the combo of zoloft and wellbutrin. the cymbalta is okay. it's just at night when i'm sleeping when i feel the side-effects. i hope they go away soon.

i almost didn't go to work this morning. my mom had to wake me up. she told me that i needed to go to work because when she and my dad are gone they won't be able to take care of me and if i don't keep this job then i might not be able to work again. it's been hard for me to work, so i have to keep going even though i don't feel like it. i was so tired this morning, but i felt okay during the day. the cymbalta is more of an activating drug for me i guess. i hope i don't get any complications from it. all these psych meds are scary because of all their side-effects. the cymbalta has been good for my creativity i think, or maybe i've just been motivating myself to write more. sometimes i can't tell if it's the meds working or if it's me. my psych doc at the hospital would probably say it's me. i miss him again. i really do.

i think i'm going to take an ambien tonight to help me sleep better. it really doesn't work for me that much, it doesn't keep me asleep, but it might help me to relax a bit more during the night. i might have to ask my psychiatrist for a sleeping aid or something to help me sleep, something relaxing i can take at night. i wonder if i could ask for a benzo. lol. i know they're addictive, and knowing me i'd be tempted to take one every night. i should listen to my relief from anxiety cd more often. i should practice my dbt skills. i talked to donna this morning. she says she takes otc sleeping aids and benadryl for sleep. i wonder if i should try them too.

addicted?

2006-08-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

i took a 60 mg capsule of cymbalta this morning. i was thinking of skipping the dose and discontinuing altogether, but i ended up taking it anyway. i don't know why. it's like i can't quit. am i addicted? lol. i'm so indecisive. i feel like i am in a better mood and since i'm doing better i don't want to jeopardize things. the only problem is that my sleep is still messed up. i keep waking up, and today i had some palpitations. i was very tired after work. on my drive home, i had palpitations and i was afraid i'd pass out in the car. i didn't though. but when i got home i didn't do anything except lounge around. i took my heart med early, around 7pm. usually i take it about an hour or so before i sleep. i am just distrustful of the pharmaceuticals and i have heard stuff about cymbalta. it can really damage your liver and i heard that its withdrawal symptoms are as bad as effexor's. great. i don't know how sick i am anymore and if i still need to take antidepressants. i know that paxil gives me a sort of stoned out effect, but i found it to be effective for anxiety. i keep taking this cymbalta thing one day at a time. i don't know how i'm going to feel about it tomorrow. will i take it again? i'll see.

cymbalta magic

2006-08-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

i still haven't quit the damn cymbalta. grrrr. i think it's because i feel close to freaking normal. i feel like i'm in a better mood overall. could it be because i'm working and around people again? is it the cymbalta working its magic? and i'm starting to write again. when i was on paxil, i was soooooooooooo dull. i'm still overall dull. i mean, all i want to do on the weekends is sleep. i stayed home the whole day today. but i'm actually starting to feel like i want to go out and do things, so who knows what it is. i'm supposed to go up to 60 mg. i've decided to switch to taking the cymbalta in the mornings now because i'm still not sleeping consistently. i'm waking up a lot and feeling a bit on edge during the night. i hope the 60 mg will be a therapeutic dose for me and the side-effects will wear off soon enough. i haven't been sweating all that much. it's just my sleep is kind of messed up.

to cymbalta or not to cymbalta

2006-08-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

i had a rough night. i fell asleep okay but kept waking up with weird nervy feelings in my head, knees, elbows, legs, arms, back. i felt really on edge and felt like twitching and thrashing in my bed. i tossed and turned a lot last night. it made me think about not taking cymbalta ever again. i kind of feel over-medicated right now. a bit wired and edgy. i do not feel relaxed at all. i feel tense all over. i am thinking of stopping cymbalta altogether. i don't know what to do. i don't want to be on antidepressants anymore. i do wish i had some emergency ativan though for those occasional anxiety attacks. i haven't had an anxiety attack in awhile though. i think i've got them pretty much under control. my therapist thinks it's because the meds are working. i don't know. i've done a lot of work in my head this week to keep myself looking forward. i think i've gained confidence just by going out and working and making it to work everyday last week and not quitting. i feel better about myself. i'm not sure i'm doing the best i can at work but i guess i will just try harder. i just haven't been sleeping well lately. i think i slept better on paxil. i've been on so many freaking meds since last july. i've honestly had it with all the med changes and every psychiatrist having their own ways of doing things. i just want to relax damn it. i want an ativan already! lol. well, i will just have to practice my dbt skills. and listen to the ocean and do the things that feel good and not the things that bring me down. today i'm getting a haircut. i am going to pamper myself and go to the beauty salon. self-soothe. it's a dbt skill. i emailed my dbt therapist from the bay area yesterday and told her i have missed her and she told me she has missed me too. my therapy did not go well today with my therapist here because i missed my dbt therapist and kept comparing my therapist to her. also my therapist has concerns about me going off my meds. she is concerned i might have a rough time if i do. in my experience, antidepressants haven't neither helped nor not helped with my ups and downs and emotional impulsivity. i don't feel depressed anymore and my anxiety comes and goes. that's why i think i can get by with short-acting anxiety pills like ativan for the times i'm feeling really worked up. anyway, i have to get going. i will write more later about the cymbalta.

cymbalta update

2006-08-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

cymbalta has been okay so far. per my psychiatrist's instructions, i started on 30 mg. after the first week, on sunday, i will go up to 60 mg. the only side-effect i have noticed so far is increased sweating, especially at night when i'm sleeping. last night i woke up feeling really hot and sweaty. when i was on zoloft, i also experienced increased sweating but i didn't feel hot. i was just really drenched. on cymbalta, i feel hot and sweaty but not really drenched. i was on the maximum dose of zoloft, 200 mg, but the increased sweating at night was also the only side-effect i experienced on it. i switched to cymbalta from a combination of paxil and wellbutrin. i also used to be on a combination of zoloft maxed at 200 mg and wellbutrin at 300 mg. i actually liked the zoloft/wellbutrin combo. there were times when i'd feel a little high, giddy, etc. anyway, sometimes i feel a little paranoid about taking cymbalta. i heard that it can really work your liver. but i heard that about wellbutrin too. anyway i am not taking a heavy dose of cymbalta. 60 mg is supposed to be the therapeutic dose.

i don't know if i'm really truly majorly depressed. i don't feel that cloud of depression that usually signals a major depressive episode for me. maybe it's because i'm medicated. i don't know. i have been more stable though since i moved back home. i haven't had major suicidal ideation since may. and no cutting episodes since march. i do think about suicide and cutting almost everyday though. today i was late to work because i couldn't wake up on time. i was supposed to wake up at 6:30 but i stayed in bed until 7:00. then when i was at work i was in such a bad mood for most of the day. i didn't want to do anything. i was a bit agitated after lunchtime and had to force myself to calm down. i thought about dbt, and made myself use a skill, and drank some hot chocolate. it reminded me of the hospital again, because when i was hospitalized, i would make some hot chocolate from the kitchen or sometimes i would select it from the menu for breakfast. i can't stand my hair. it's too long again. i want to cut it off. instead i will go to the beauty salon tomorrow and get a haircut.

anyway, i don't know if cymbalta is going to help me feel better or not. i think my life sucks. and i'm not happy. and i don't know if an antidepressant is going to change the quality of my life. it's supposed to change the way i perceive life, but i don't know if it's possible. i've lived this way for a long time. my doctor told me i have 28 years or so of behavior to fix. i was in dbt to learn new coping skills but i don't have dbt anymore. sometimes i look in the mirror and hate the person i see. i am a poor human being. i'm only half alive and all i want to do is sleep. i guess i'm feeling depressed today. i wouldn't mind some ativan. lol.

not a mental patient

2006-08-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

my therapist told me today that i am not a mental patient and not to see myself as one.

cymbalta

2006-08-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

wow, i am in a better mood today. i have a temp job starting monday doing some data entry for payroll. my account exec was really cool and hooked me up with a temp job real quick. she liked my test scores i suppose. 80 wpm and 10,000 kph alphanumeric and numeric data entry, and 86% in word.

so i spoke with my psychiatrist yesterday and he suggested i start cymbalta. so i picked up some cymbalta samples this morning at his office. i completely stopped the paxil and wellbutrin since i was on the lowest doses of those meds. i didn't have to taper off. i'm kind of excited about starting the cymbalta. i hope it works for me. i think if i go into it with a positive attitude i'll see better results. the county job probably didn't work out for me because i was so negative about it. i didn't think working for the county was the right environment for me. it felt so confining and limiting. and i guess i couldn't see myself being stuck there. well, i didn't want to be stuck there. i wanted to have options.

i saw my therapist this morning as well. we talked about my impulsivity (which is a totally borderline trait) and how i tend to act on my emotions instead of thinking things through. so she told me that i should tell myself that quitting isn't an option, neither is killing myself and cutting. she wants me to stay at my new job through the week and not thinking about quitting at all, just to push my mind away from those thoughts. she said that antidepressants can help to turn away the kind of negative thinking that i have. she thinks i put myself down all the time and see myself as a failure. she wants me to think the opposite, that i can do it, i'm capable, i have things to live for, and it's okay if i don't belong or if i don't like the job, what matters is that i can do it.

my therapist also had another assignment for me, to work at least half an hour starting on monday on the revision of my novel. she wants me to get in the habit of writing, and seeing my day job as just a day job and not see it as my whole life and getting depressed from seeing my day job as the end of everything. she sees my writing as my real work and my day job as a way to pay the bills. which is how i tend to see things anyway.

well, i definitely think that i wasn't on a therapeutic dose of the paxil or the wellbutrin because my negative way of thinking hadn't improved, and i couldn't think myself out of quitting. i definitely need to work on my thought process and be more of an adult so i can support myself financially and not rely on my parents all their lives. they want to retire when they're 66, which is in the next 7 years, so i need to become financially independent before then. i really felt sorry for my parents when i quit the job because i wasn't thinking of them when i did it. i wasn't thinking at all. i was just so emotional and impulsive. my last therapist used to tell me i had mood-dependent behavior. i have to learn not to act out on my emotions all the time. when i'm emotional, sometimes i just forget completely to take a break and think things through before making a decision. this is where dbt and cbt is supposed to help. i should have done my pros and cons worksheet from dbt before quitting the county job. oh well.

i like to think that everyone deserves second chances. so i can still start over and just work harder to do the best i can to make a life worth living.

i'm sorry i quit the job

2006-08-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

i quit the job. i didn't like it. it just wasn't for me. and i didn't think i would be happy or good at it. i tried it for four days. it is the longest i have done a job this year. i feel guilty. and i feel bad for my parents because they're paying my bills right now and i worry about them not being able to afford it. i think my mom is upset about my decision. she told me that now that i'm not working i can spend my time losing weight. i don't know why she said that. i didn't think it was nice of her. my dad was better. he told me it was okay, i can find something else. tomorrow i will go to a couple of temp agencies. hopefully i can get some work soon. i just want to make some quick money i guess. do some data entry or something. i like data entry. it's easy. i just need enough money to cover my end of the bills, since i'm probably not going to move out anytime soon. my psychiatrist left a message today and told me that we should discuss alternatives. he mentioned cymbalta. so i guess i will start a trial of cymbalta soon. i will call him tomorrow.

my mom has my dad on the south beach diet. i'm only eating the salads for dinner, but during the day i eat basically whatever i want. i'm not that hungry at night anyway. i have lost some weight since my mom started the diet. my size 12 pants fit me again. i feel like such a coward for quitting the job. i feel guilty like i should have tried harder. but i really want something else. the problem is i don't know what i want. well, i do know, it's just not realistic. i want to write novels, and i try damn hard to write, and write well. writing occupies my mind. it is such hard work. it's been hard this week to write and go to work at the same time, especially dealing with depression which makes everything seem twice as hard.

i was talking to my friend donna about starting another antidepressant. i wondered if i'm really that depressed to need to be on antidepressants and she said that i definitely need to because i'm pretty low, i'm not happy, and my symptoms were worse than hers. she remembers me as being really crazy in php, laughing and crying at the same time, and i couldn't sit still, seriously, i kept walking out of groups. i was really unstable at that time. she couldn't believe it's been almost a year since then, since we got out of the hospital and met in php. it both happened to us in september, our depressive episodes. except mine was worse than hers. she was only in for five days. i was in for fifteen.

i hope i find a job that i'll like soon. at least something i'll be satisfied with for the time being. i don't need something with a lot of responsibility or even pays all that much. i want to work on my novel too. i think i can get something decent out within the next six months if i work really hard. i can shop it around to agents. maybe i can realize my dream to be published someday soon. but it is going to be a struggle. i need to work harder to recover from my depression and think positive and act positive and be more active and alive in the world. i need to try harder to push away negative thoughts and tolerate distressing emotions. i need to try harder to manage my thoughts and emotions, so that i won't enact negative behaviors, like quitting jobs i can do but don't have the confidence for or want to do. i just didn't like the job. i didn't want to do it. i don't know if that's a good enough reason to quit, but people say if you don't like the job, you won't be happy, and you won't be able to give it your all and you'll just create a bad environment.

i have quit jobs in the past and didn't feel guilty about quitting. but that was when i wasn't depressed and when i felt like i had more options. now i feel the pressure of having to pay bills and knowing that i'm depressed and it's hard to get jobs because i'm not well so i have to take advantage of the opportunities that come my way. i just feel bad and guilty about quitting a county job. the benefits were good, and the county retains their employees pretty well. oh well. i will just have to do the best i can to get myself a new job. i will have to work harder.

whiner

2006-08-02T23:12:00.000-07:00

i am such a whiner. i used a dbt skill (Wise Mind ACCEPTS) and used distraction skills to get my mind off my depression, frustration, irritability, anger, moodiness, etc., and now i am feeling better. all i have to do is try, and generally, i will feel better, because emotions don't last forever. i always forget that. i was feeling desperate earlier and ended up calling my psychiatrist and leaving a message asking him if there was anything else we could do for my depression. i think i'm fiending for more of a happy pill, more of a lift, because it takes me a long time to return to baseline. i'm borderline, and that's one of the symtoms of my illness according to marsha linehan. slow return to baseline... i was in a bit of distress and it took me awhile to calm down and feel normal again. i'm still having difficulty regulating my emotions. my last psychiatrist thought i should be on a mood stabilizer instead of an AD/AP combo. i actually wouldn't mind trying one, but i think my current psychiatrist isn't really feeling my axis ii diagnosis. he's focusing on the depression and anxiety. it's weird. i feel like i'm more depressed in the daytime when i have to face the public and more me, normal, writing and future-looking in the evening when i'm chilling in my room in bed with my laptop or watching tv. maybe it has to do with stress and anxiety. i bring myself down when i'm in stress-inducing environments. and it takes me all of the day to recover.

stupid meds

2006-08-02T19:36:00.000-07:00

i'm tired and feel depressed and i don't think the paxil is doing it for me. i want to try something else. i don't see my psychiatrist for another two weeks. i'm thinking of asking him if i can discontinue the paxil and he can suggest another medication. i heard the withdrawal symptoms of paxil can be really bad. they're supposedly the worst of all the ssri's. maybe i'm just tired or stressed out from work. it's just hard trying to function normally in public. i am around a lot of people now. i have trouble concentrating and paying attention to instructions. my mind keeps wandering. i feel like i should be on a stronger antidepressant or something. i want something that gives me a little lift. i am really frustrated right now. i'm supposed to work on a story i'm revising but i don't feel like doing anything. everything i write is depressing. i'm depressing. i have a hard time remembering to smile. i have to push away my si and sh thoughts. i have to try harder. i think i just don't want to be on the paxil anymore. it is tiring and takes a lot of effort for me to act freaking cheerful. i hate it that i'm not laughing and smiling more. god i just hate myself right now. i hate being on the freaking paxil. i want another drug. lol. i wish i could be on zoloft again. and i haven't seen my therapist yet this week. we were doing twice a week sessions but since i started work i won't get to see her until saturday. i don't seem to care about anything else but myself. i'm so wrapped up in my depressed little mentally ill world. i can't seem to think about anything else except my stupid meds and my depression.

i feel like calling my psychiatrist and asking him if we can try something else for my depression. maybe i need to try exercising again. i haven't gone to the gym in awhile.

jesus songs

2006-08-01T17:44:00.000-07:00

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.

cutting back

2006-07-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

i've decided to cut back on paxil to 12.5 mg and left a message for my psychiatrist telling him that the increase of the paxil hasn't helped much and i'm still feeling sleepy and tired and yawning a lot. i don't like the way i feel. i hope he doesn't get mad at me for cutting back without getting his permission first. but i am an adult. lol. i just hope i don't piss him off enough that he'll want to drop me as a patient. i don't like screwing around with meds, but i really can't stand the way i feel. if i knew my psychiatrist better i'd probably feel more comfortable making changes, but i feel as if i hardly know him. i only see him once a month. i don't know how my depression is going. i don't know if i'm still depressed. i do know that i'm less depressed than i was three months ago, and i'm taking way less meds for depression. i used to be on a combination of 200 mg of zoloft and 300 mg of wellbutrin. now i'm just down to 100 mg of wellbutrin and the paxil. so i have to think i'm doing better. i'm still not quite motivated and i think of death and dying and suicide and cutting almost everyday. i still think of s. a whole lot. i still generally feel hopeless about my situation. but at least i'm not actively pursuing suicide or cutting or making any plans. and i'm not crying every day i'm in therapy. the crying has improved a lot. i haven't cried in awhile. i used to cry all the time in therapy. i had so much worry and anxiety. well, i think i am nervous about starting work tomorrow. i feel sick. sick to my stomach and just overall not right.

friends

2006-07-29T12:50:00.000-07:00

this morning two of my friends from the bay area called me! they woke me up. then i went right back to sleep. lol. i was glad they called. it was nice chatting with them again. jeff is still having problems with his sleep and not having energy to do things. his psychiatrist decreased one of his sleeping meds, but he's still feeling sleepy and wiped out during the day. he's also been feeling sick to his stomach these past few weeks so his psychiatrist told him to get his liver checked. i hope there's nothing going on with that. donna finally got her steroid treatment for fatigue. so she was a bundle of energy this morning and went out of the house with her dogs. she got her steroid treatment late because she recently switched insurance after she finally got hired permanently at her job. however, she also just found out that the company that bought the company where she now works is going to keep the company for probably 1-2 years, so she thinks she'll have to look for another job in a couple of years. but she's been able to save up and she's going to keep saving up in case she has to move apartments or get another car if her car breaks down. she's doing good taking care of herself. she doesn't feel happy but says the zoloft keeps her from feeling depressed.

this morning i skipped my dose of paxil. i'm going to take it at night instead. i think i'm a bit overmedicated actually. i'm not on a lot of paxil, but i think i'm on more than i need to be. i don't think i'm in any danger of relapsing or having another major depressive episode. i feel well mentally. i think the increase was a little too much. i wonder if i should take the 12.5 mg instead of the 25 mg. i want to take less because i really don't like the feeling of being medicated and sleepy during the day. i have a hard time getting out of the house as it is. all i want to do nowadays is stay in bed and sleep. i'm so unmotivated.

my parents are out of town today, so i have the whole house to myself. i don't have any plans today except to fill up my tank and go to the bank and get something to eat. other than that i am just going to chill. yay! lol.

no changes still sleepy

2006-07-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

well, i've been taking 25 mg of paxil for about a week now and have not noticed any changes. i'm still feeling sleepy and tired during the day. i'm still waking up late. i don't have much energy. all i want to do is sleep. sometimes i wake up, get out of bed, check my email, take a shower, etc., then take a nap. maybe i feel like i have nothing to look forward to. i don't know. i have to get my sleep cycle on track because i start work on monday and i have to learn how to wake up early again. i'll have to get used to working five days a week, eight hours a day. i haven't had a regular full-time job since 2002. i did work three weeks last year but quit the job due to depression and anxiety. i had a hard time holding down jobs last year. the depression led me to be hospitalized, etc. and since then i haven't had a steady job. in fact, i've quit jobs on the spot from panic. this new job is going to be a challenge for me. i hope i'll be able to handle the stress and work hours and not be too physically exhausted and worn out. i'm sure the first couple weeks will be a struggle because i haven't done this much work in awhile. but i've done work even though i was medicated. i worked at target for three days in april, and i was on 2 mg of risperdal at the time. although i was on a higher dose of wellbutrin. i can't figure out if the paxil is making me sleepy during the day. i felt a little bit more in charge of my life and my decisions when i was living on my own. now that i've moved back home, i feel less motivated. well, the only thing motivating me is the hope that i'll be able to live on my own again someday. it just seems so far away. i won't make enough money at the county to get my own place. i'm in so much debt from grad school. oh well. i guess i take it one day at a time.

so for now my medication regime looks like this:

paxil cr 25 mg
wellbutrin sr 100 mg

i also take diltiazem cd 120 mg for my heart arrhythmia.

i talked to my therapist today about my mom, who has been making comments about therapy and my medications. basically, my mom wanted to know what i was doing today and i told her i had an appointment for therapy. then she said that she didn't think i needed to see a therapist twice a week because it was a waste of money and she didn't think i needed therapy anymore because i was doing okay. my mom also said the other day that she didn't think i should take my heart medication anymore and wanted to know how long i was going to be on my antidepressants because she said there are all kinds of side-effects and they could damage my organs and she doesn't want me to be on meds all my life. but what if i have to be on meds all my life? and what if i feel like i need therapy for awhile, maybe all my life, for however long i'll be here because i don't know how much longer i want to be here anyway. anyway, my therapist told me i should stand up for myself and just tell my mom thanks for your concern but i don't agree. i don't see what difference it will make. my mom is still going to say what she wants. my therapist said i had to do it for me. but i have in the past and it doesn't make me feel any better. maybe my therapist is trying to motivate me to be more assertive and feel more like an adult even though i live at home. i feel trapped. i'm not where i want to be. this isn't the life i wanted. but it's what i got and i chose it. i can't blame anyone but me. although my therapist tells me that i can't blame myself, because it wasn't my fault i got sick.

increasing paxil

2006-07-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

i saw my psychiatrist today and told him i stopped taking the risperdal. he was okay with it. he wants me down to just one medication. right now i'm taking paxil and wellbutrin. i think he wants to cut out the wellbutrin eventually. but he's still trying to find the right medication for me. if the paxil doesn't work, he's thinking of something else like zoloft or cymbalta. i told him that i've been feeling a lot sleepier lately and sleeping in. he said we had a couple options but he wanted to try increasing the paxil to see if that gave me more energy. if it made me feel more sleepy, then we'd have to try something else. i feel really tired today and sleepy. i went to my psych appointment at 10:30, came home, lay in bed and took another nap, got out of bed around 1:00. anyway...

regarding exercise, i want to go to the gym more, but it's hard to motivate myself to go. last weekend, i went swimming. yesterday, i took a walk at the beach, put my feet in the water, listened to the waves. i was practicing mindfulness.

my new job is full-time. i haven't worked a permanent full-time job in a few years. i've done some temp work in the past year, but nothing long-term. so i am kind of nervous about the whole thing. i don't want to screw up.

today i'm going to a baby shower for my cousin. i don't know why i feel so tired and sleepy. i actually don't know if i want to go up on the paxil. i feel rather medicated.

i got a job and now i'm stressing

2006-07-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

had therapy again, but didn't feel too happy about it. i was lonely. i missed everyone up north. my after care groups. my dbt skills group. my dbt therapist. my psychiatrist. my friends. felt all alone. i found out yesterday i got the county job. i'm supposed to start on the 31st. my mom wants me to go back on the south beach diet so we're starting on sunday. i feel rather overwhelmed. i don't feel like i have much support around here. everything seems hard to do. i feel fat. i'm oversleeping. i feel tired. i'm scared about starting a new job. i don't know if i'm ready. i'm afraid i'll be overwhelmed. i'll panic. i'll quit on the spot. or i have another depressive episode from the stress of the job. i'll start feeling suicidal and end up in the hospital again. i haven't started the job and i'm already stressing. i'm stressing about going back on the diet. i'm stressing about having to make decisions about what kind of food to eat, what i'm going to wear to work. i'll have to practice getting up early and making myself get up at 6:30 every morning. i get tired just thinking about all the things i have to do. i still don't know how my therapy is working out. sometimes i don't feel connected to my therapist. she's nice but i feel like sometimes she doesn't get me. today it felt like she cut our session short. i guess it was maybe because i wasn't talking much. i was really closed in. i didn't want to open up. i was in my own world. all i want to do is lay in bed and avoid things. sometimes i fantasize about going back to s. again. i threw away all my zoloft, but i didn't throw away my risperdal or prn's. i have some ambien and klonopin. i also have three tabs of depakote. i keep that stuff because they make me sleepy. i'm supposed to tell my psychiatrist about my little stash. lol. i kind of wish i had a closer relationship with my therapist and my psychiatrist around here. i worked really well with my last dbt therapist and psychiatrist up north. i miss them a lot. everything is so strange and unfamiliar here. i only see my psychiatrist once every 4-5 weeks. and i can't call my therapist for coaching. i miss the phone calls. i miss having someone there for support. i was sad today in therapy. i feel all alone.

sleep

2006-07-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

all i seem to want to do is sleep. i didn't get out of bed today until 11:30 a.m. i went to the library to do my volunteer job even though i didn't feel like going. i am thinking about going on the south beach diet again. i don't know why but it seems too hard this time. everything seems hard to do. i think about suicide almost everyday. i don't think i want to do it right now, but i contemplate it. sometimes i think about threatening to commit suicide so i can go back to the hospital again. sometimes i feel like i just want to be drugged out of my mind and sleep all day. i feel like i want to avoid reality and responsibility, but i know i shouldn't. i have to start waking up at a decent time and being more active and getting out of the house more. i only get out to do my volunteer job and go to therapy and my psych appointments. i should do more, make myself be more active. i should have more of a schedule. i should exercise. i should get a job. my dad wants me to take accounting classes. i think i'm going to sign up for intro to accounting at the community college. as far as my writing, it hasn't been coming along very well. writing should be fun. but lately it's just been frustrating. i miss having a support group and skills group. it's too bad i don't have the same kind of support around here. i miss the bay area. again.

stash

2006-07-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

my therapist wants me to flush my stock of extra meds, i.e. the ones i'm not using. i've been stashing them. i don't have much but i like to keep them just in case. i don't want to flush them. it takes awhile to build up a stash. she said if i don't flush them by friday she's going to call my psychiatrist. i'm really not suicidal. i just like to have them around. i'm feeling really lame, unenthusiastic. i don't feel creative. i'm having trouble writing again. i don't feel interested in doing much of anything. i wonder if i should go off meds altogether because i don't feel passionate or lively about anything. i feel emotionless, uninvolved, uninterested. i feel like my life is meaningless. but i gotta say, at least i'm not in lebanon right now. the news is just depressing.

stop

2006-07-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

i don't know why, but i got my period twice this month. that is perhaps too much info. oh well. i am so frustrated because i haven't been able to write. i have spent the past few hours staring at my computer screen, typing words and sentences trying to make meaning but being unsuccessful. i feel like i have no creativity. i feel like i have no meaning in my life. i have been complaining all week. i hate it when i feel sorry for myself. i feel so disconnected from my surroundings, from my life, from my emotions. i can't feel anything. there's no passion or energy in my writing. it's lifeless. i don't know if my meds having anything to do with the way i feel. or if it's depression. the borderline in me. i don't know. but i know for a fact right now i am not living a full life. i went swimming yesterday to try to make myself feel better, but i could barely sense the rhythm of the water, the lapping waves, the weightless sensation. i kept trying to put myself in the moment fully, to participate, but it felt like the water was so far away, like my emotions were far away. i wonder if it's the paxil. i felt numb and disconnected in my interview on friday as well. i wonder if i'll ever be able to write again. people used to say i had potential. instead i feel like i've lived as much of life as i can already. i feel as if there's nothing much left for me. god, i'm morbid today. i've been this way for the past few days. this needs to stop.

swim

2006-07-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

tuesday afternoon i bought some razor blades at the drugstore, but i didn't cut so yesterday i threw them away. i had told my therapist about them and i didn't want to spend all session on friday talking about them. she'd probably attempt to convince me to throw them away, etc., and talk about the pros and cons of keeping them and cutting and all that. i've felt like cutting a lot lately. i think i'm lonely. i don't feel a close connection with my current therapist. i haven't been working with her that long, only three weeks, so i guess i can't expect us to have a real connection yet. i don't know. therapy is okay but it doesn't feel "special" the way it felt with my previous therapists in the bay area. could it be because my needs are different now? or maybe i don't need as much therapy as i did before? well, i still think about killing myself. today i've had some pretty serious suicidal thoughts and fantasies. mostly about overdosing on my meds or jumping off a tall building. i have a stash of meds. i don't throw my meds away if i have extra. i save them. this afternoon i called the voice mails of my previous therapists and psychiatrist in the bay area. i miss them all. i'm lonely today. i think this is why i'm thinking self-harm and suicidal thoughts. i don't consider myself suicidal though. i'll know when i'm suicidal. i'll know when i'm having another major depressive episode. lately i've been feeling really disconnected. i didn't do too well in my interview yesterday. i had a hard time acting enthusiastic and positive about the job. i called a friend today but i couldn't think of what to say. my thoughts felt sluggish. and i've cut back on risperdal, so i don't know what is going on. and i went for a swim today. i'm trying to be active. i'm using the "opposite action" dbt skill so i won't think of killing and hurting myself and i won't feel the urges as much. but they come back. i feel so empty. sometimes i want to get a bottle of wine, drink it all, and forget about things. i want to take all my risperdal so i can just go to sleep. i fantasize about driving up north and renting a hotel room, cutting up my arms and overdosing on my meds and alcohol. sometimes i fantasize about driving up north and admitting myself to s. again with cuts all up and down my arms. i want to do my legs too. i feel sad and all alone. oh well. i don't know what i'm going to do tonight. i'm thinking of watching "bridget jones's diary" again or "grease" on dvd. i finally got my tv hooked up. i can watch reruns of "grey's anatomy" although it's on twice a week now. i can't wait until i see my psychiatrist next saturday. he's a bit difficult to talk to. but i feel like i have a lot to talk to him about. i wonder if i should try another therapist. i've seen three different therapists since i moved here in may. i don't know what i want out of therapy, but i do know i want someone i can talk to. someone who really gets me. i miss my dbt therapist so much.

fight

2006-07-13T10:46:00.000-07:00

i'm cutting back on the risperdal. i didn't get the job i interviewed for last thursday. i have another interview tomorrow. lately i've been feeling tired and wiped out during the day. risperdal does tend to give you a stoned out feeling. i want to feel more alert and energetic. i've got to fight to take my life back. i can't be so passive about my recovery. i've been doing well since i moved back home. i haven't had any serious suicidal thoughts since may. i haven't had an episode of severe suicidal ideation since april. i haven't done any cutting since march. except for the one episode that landed me in emergency psychiatric services (eps) for nine hours, i haven't been in the hospital since december. eps is like an er not a hospital. so i count eps out. i started this blog because i didn't have anyone to talk to about eps, and i really wanted to talk about it. i've been blogging here steadily for the past three months. so i guess i've gotten a bit better. last night i cried though. it was kind of hard seeing my brother last weekend. he reminded me of all the things i left behind in the bay area. he's doing so well with his job up north, and i am a bit jealous that i wasn't able to do as well. i feel like such a failure. i guess i just felt sorry for myself because i'm not doing as well as i should. i don't have a career. i'm in so much debt. my writing is crap. i haven't gotten published. i guess i just need to work harder. last night i didn't do much writing. i was so tired. i haven't talked to my psychiatrist about tapering off risperdal. i left a message for him two days ago but he hasn't called me back. oh well. when i see him next i will just explain that i don't want to feel like a mental patient anymore. i don't want to feel fogged up during the day. i want to be more lively. i want to be up and fighting.

sleep

2006-07-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

i want to get off risperdal. lately, all i want to do is sleep. it must be depression. i feel kind of frustrated. my life sucks, etc. yet i don't seem to want to do much of anything to make it better. i live a meager life. last weekend, i went to my cousin's wedding but i wasn't really present. i didn't "throw myself in," a dbt skill meaning to participate fully. i wasn't enthused about being there. i didn't feel like mingling. i felt totally self-conscious. it felt weird being in a social situation around normal people. i felt so different. i felt disoriented. i miss my dbt skills group because i was around people i felt normal with. around people who really understood what i was going through. last night, i called my friend jeff because i needed to talk to someone who shared my experience. i can talk to jeff about meds and therapy and depression and what it feels like to not be normal around normal people. when you're in public, there's more pressure to act a certain way to be a certain type of person. but i couldn't be that way. i haven't been my usual self in a long time. maybe this is all i am now. at least, i'm writing. i've been working on my novel about the psych ward again. it's told in little scenes that can stand alone but are interconnected. it's all i feel like writing right now. maybe i'll try some other stuff later, but this is what i've got. i have to go to my volunteer job soon. i don't feel like going. all i want to do is stay in bed. oh well.

treading water

2006-07-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

dear eclipse, thanks for the positive feedback. i feel like i'm out in the ocean treading water and trying not to drown. -kb

had another session with my therapist. we talked about my goals and came up with some new ones. she suggested i write something everyday because i don't have a writing practice. meaning i will spend hours staring at the computer because i can't think of the right words. she suggested i write an hour a day about whatever so i get in the habit of writing, instead of trying to write a short story or novel revision in one sitting. that sounds like a good idea. i honestly feel that if i can get my writing on track my life will improve. there's nothing else i want to do with my life but be a writer. that's the kind of living i want. everything else just pays the bills. i don't have a career. and i'm currently jobless. i take what i can get.

my heart has been beating really weird lately. it feels like it's skipping beats. i can feel it beating and get a bit lightheaded. it's uncomfortable. it goes on like this for hours, mostly in the late afternoon and evening. i don't know what is causing it. my psychiatrist told me that the paxil doesn't cause palpitations and won't be bad for my heart, but i have been feeling these weird beats ever since i started it. i also read in the leaflet that i got at the pharmacy with my prescription that paxil has a possible drug interaction with risperidone. so i don't know if the weird beats is because of the combination of meds that i'm on. i am a bit paranoid about my medications, but meds are some serious stuff. and i've heard that people don't really know for sure how they work.

oh well. it's another day. btw, my interview yesterday went pretty well. i just might have gotten the job. i don't think i'll know until next week though.

missile launches

2006-07-05T14:55:00.000-07:00

went to therapy today. not sure what i want to do. my therapist seems to think that i should have as a goal to move back to the bay area. but i don't know if it's a realistic goal. i don't think i can afford it. maybe someday i will be able to but not in the near future. so for homework she told me to make a list of my short-term goals for the next month. i suppose i can do that. it seems like a hard thing to do. after therapy i was thinking of going to the gym, but instead i drove over there and kept on driving. i just didn't feel like going. it is one of those things i have to force myself to do. today i didn't feel like fighting. the missile launches in n. korea are upsetting. i feel like i should be working on my writing. i think as one of my goals i should finish a chapter of my novel or complete a draft of a short story. another goal should be go to the gym at least once a week. take my meds as prescribed. go to therapy. build mastery by applying for jobs, or if i get the county job, by going to work and not quitting. figure out what i want to accomplish in therapy and what i want to do with my life. i think figuring out what i want to do with my life is a big thing. i don't think i can do it in a month. but how about work on figuring out what i want to do with my life. i should do more writing. i don't think my therapist understands dbt. i don't know how i feel about my therapist. dissatisfied maybe. i guess i just don't feel real connected to her yet. i don't feel connected with any of my providers here in the area. especially my psychiatrist. i don't know if i should look for another therapist. the fact that i'm even thinking of it makes me wonder. i'm so damn indecisive. i've been thinking of cutting a lot. i feel like cutting, but i don't do it. i guess that's a good thing. sometimes i wonder if i really want to get better. i must be unhappy with my life. i must want something to change since i'm in therapy and getting medication. i must want to get better, feel better. i must want to be helped. or i'm looking for someone to rescue me. maybe i just want someone to talk to.

my negative outlook

2006-07-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

life is depressing. i owe $80,000 on my student loans. i owe $12,000 on my credit cards. i don't have a job. i live at home. i had to leave the bay area, my dbt therapist and dbt skills group because i couldn't afford to live on my own. i had to move out of my apartment. i had to leave my home. now i live with my parents. i am 32 years old and i have no career. i don't know what to do with my life. i just want a job i can live by. i want to get my own apartment. i wish i could move back to the bay area. i feel like such a failure. i feel sorry for myself. i know that feeling sorry for myself is an ineffective coping skill. i should say i could be in a worse situation. i could be homeless. i should be grateful and count my blessings. antidepressants don't change a person's attitude. times like these, i feel hopeless. i miss the bay area. i miss my skills group. i miss my dbt therapist. i miss my old psychiatrist. i miss my old apartment. i miss my old neighborhood. i miss my old life. i regret not being able to hold down a job. i regret not working on my skills. i regret missing out on my opportunities and not taking advantage of the good things i had. i wish i were a better writer. i have such a negative outlook on life. i am overweight. i don't know how to dress. i have trouble finding the right clothes that will fit me because of my size and weight. i am ruining my life. one day, i'll probably do it. end it all. four years from october i can buy another gun. maybe i really will do it then.

residual anxiety

2006-06-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

i talked to my psychiatrist today. i told him i've had less anxiety this week but more palpitations. he said the palpitations are probably from residual anxiety. i don't know if it's my arrhythmia acting up. but he said that paxil wouldn't hurt my heart. so he's keeping me on the low dose of paxil. my medications now look like this:

paxil cr 12.5 mg for anxiety (and depression)
wellbutrin sr 100 mg for depression
risperdal 1 mg for sleep (and anxiety)

i've been feeling a little sad about being so lonely and just feeling hopeless about life in general. will i ever make enough money to have my own place. will i ever write my novel and get it published. will i ever be able to live in the bay area again. i feel so isolated and alone. will i meet people again that i can relate with.

i've been missing my dbt therapist too. i don't think my current therapist gets me yet. she believes that medications really help but my dbt therapist believed that medications aren't everything. dbt is about using skills to help you cope and not relying just on medications to feel better. dbt is a lot of hard work. it teaches you to be self-reliant.

paxil

2006-06-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

i spoke with my psychiatrist on friday. he recommended paxil for my anxiety. i stopped by his office on saturday to pick up some paxil cr samples and .5 mg risperdal tablets. i am a little bit wary about going on paxil because i heard the withdrawal symptoms aren't good. but i do have this major anxiety issue and i want to get better. i haven't been taking risperdal consistently. i wonder if my anxiety feelings have anything to do with the medications and are more chemical than behavioral. oh well. who knows. my anxiety though is so damn uncomfortable. i have trouble sleeping, and in the morning when i wake up i feel so awful. it's like a prickly or burning sensation under my skin. up my back, neck, shoulder, arms. my legs are so tense. i have trouble relaxing. i was really hoping zoloft would work for me, but i've been on zoloft before and i can't say for sure if it helped or not. i don't know how antidepressants work. i used to be on 200 mg of zoloft and 300 mg of wellbutrin and my depressive symptoms weren't much relieved. i remember i still thought of suicide a lot and frequently felt hopeless. i think my main problem is that i don't have very good coping skills and when i'm stressed out i get incredibly anxious and overwhelmed. i'm quite a worrier. i'm so tired. i hope i tolerate the paxil well.

float

2006-06-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

my anxiety went way up, so i had to call my psychiatrist. he told me to stop taking the zoloft and call him in a couple of days when it's out of my system. i also met with a new therapist today. i think i like her. she's cool. we had a good talk about my anxiety and psych history. she seems to advocate for her patients. she's even familiar with dbt. she said she knew i was borderline before i even told her. i guess telling her i was in dbt gave it away. lol. i think i will like working with her. she seems very knowledgeable and intuitive. i feel like she understands people. i think she can understand me. now that i'm going off zoloft, i am all worried about what kind of meds my psych doc will want to put me on now. i don't know if my anxiety reaction was from the zoloft or my worry or fear about going on zoloft. i worry that i'll have anxiety if i try another medication too. i was thinking that my depression wasn't that bad and that maybe i won't need to change meds but now i am worried that i won't be able to handle my depression and anxiety if i stay on the low dose of wellbutrin that i'm on now. i'm scared about my medications and my illness because i don't want things to get worse and i don't want to lose control. tomorrow is a big day, my interview... i hope i do well, but at the same time i'm trying not to stress out over it too much because if it's meant to be it will be. also i don't know if i'm ready to work, but i know that if i can just control my emotions i can do it. i have to be calm. i hate having anxiety. i would love to swim in some calm cool water right now. to float on my back. that would feel so good.

anxiety

2006-06-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

i am having some major anxiety. i don't know if it's me or the zoloft. if this continues, i will call my psych doc and go off the zoloft. i had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. anxiety sucks. i don't know if i'm going to my volunteer job today. i feel awful. i'm so tired. i'm shaky. i'm so full of worries. i don't know if going back on zoloft is right for me. i want to get better so i won't have to stay on meds for that long. i really want to get better. i want to be normal. i want to feel normal. i don't want to be a psych patient anymore. i want to live a normal life and one day get my own apartment. things seem so hard to do. i need to keep doing. that's what normal people do.

zoloft

2006-06-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

saw my psychiatrist this morning. he gave me some samples of zoloft. he said he'd wait to write a prescription until about a month when zoloft comes out in generic. i'm going to start on 50 mg in the morning and then in a week go up to 100 mg. i've been having problems with anxiety lately, feeling anxious and nervous in the morning when i wake up. i hope the zoloft works well for me. i was doing good on it three or four months ago. my psych doc is keeping me on 100 mg of wellbutrin. i have plenty of it. i don't like wellbutrin that much but i was doing okay on a combination of wellbutrin and zoloft, so i guess we're going to try that out for now. i'm also going off the risperdal. i'll take one more night of it and if i'm feeling okay on my nights off, then i'm stopping it completely. i think i'm doing fine in terms of my sleep. my psych doc said that if i could get a calming effect with zoloft and good enough sleep then i wouldn't need the risperdal. he told me if i get the opposite effect with zoloft then i should call him immediately because i'd probably have to go off it. but i took it before and did fine on it. the only side-effect i noticed was increased sweating, epsecially at nighttime. so here i go again with drenched sheets. lol. i'm kind of glad i get to go on zoloft again. i liked it when i was on it. it felt like a safe medication for me.

therapy

2006-06-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

i fired my therapist. lol. he was nice, but i just didn't feel comfortable working with him. so i told him i wanted to talk to other people and see if i could find a better fit. i don't know why i need therapy. i just feel so lonely and want someone to talk to. some of my issues are resolving. like i don't cry as much as i did when i was up in the bay worrying about money all the time and quitting jobs and cutting and thinking of suicide almost everyday. i don't want to die but sometimes i wish i could go to sleep and have all my problems go away. i still miss the bay. but i don't have much of a choice. i guess i will have to call around and try to find another therapist i can work with. i want the kind of relationship i had with my doctor at s., or my last dbt therapist or the therapist before that. but i remember one of the nurses at s. told me i need to make relationships outside of therapy, i should make friends and not rely on therapy so much. i don't know what to do. i have a hard time motivating myself. all i want to do is stay in bed.

exam results

2006-06-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

i scored 93.00% on the written exam for the county job and have an interview next thursday. i'm nervous about the idea of working again. i don't know if i'm ready to work. well, first, i have to go to the interview. my interview skills aren't that great, but the good news is that i'm not as medicated as i was two months ago. so i should be a bit more responsive and relaxed in the intervew next week. if i do get the job, i hope that i will be able to handle the stress and responsibility. i know that all jobs have some stress, and i know that i am still depressed.

last week, i had to register at the job center and put my social security number on the form. ever since, i have been feeling paranoid and worrying about people stealing my identity and all kinds of stuff. i need to stop thinking about s. and going back to the psych ward over there. i know it's part of my illness to like the attention i got when i was there, but i think it's more because the people were nice to me and treated me well. but i wouldn't want to be in a locked psych unit again. after awhile it gets boring. the more you stay in places like that the more people make decisions for you. it's important to have your freedom so you can make your own decisions and live the kind of life you want.

i have to remind myself of all the good things i can have in life and i need to strive to attain them. like one day i would like to have my own apartment, pay off all my debts, and maybe move back to the bay area. i loved it there. i was crying last night because i missed it so much. my parents' place feels limiting. but i think maybe i limit myself. so last night i signed up for a membership with the writers club and offered to volunteer. i also signed up to be on the mailing list to volunteer at an adult literacy program. i am going to try to keep myself busy while i'm here. i hope i can meet people i can really relate to. i want people i can talk to. it's hard. i feel so lonely.

last night i called one of my friends in the bay area. i had met her in a partial hospitalization program. she has ms and depression. her white blood cell count is low, so she's always sick with colds and stuff. right now she has something called necrosis on her leg, dead skin or something, which she says really hurts. she gets an iv steroid treatment once a month and injects herself with some other meds for her ms every other week on monday, wednesday, and friday. i always feel better when i talk to my friends in the bay, because they've been there. i met donna in php on the peninsula and jeff in php in the south bay. we all have depression. jeff's on a whole bunch of meds too. trazedone, risperdal, neurontin, nardil, klonopin. donna's on zoloft. i'm on wellbutrin and risperdal but i'm planning to go off risperdal soon and the wellbutrin and get back on zoloft.

i'm going to talk to my psych doc on saturday about starting the zoloft especially if i start working again. i think the zoloft helped with my anxiety and was pretty good with the depression as well. i was doing well from january to march when i was only zoloft and wellbutrin. i think i got worse when i was taken off zoloft and put on risperdal. anyway, i hope i will be able to get back to work and move forward in life. it will take me 10-25 years to pay off my student loans. it sucks. if i live at home for the next 10 years i could pay off my student loans. 10 years is a long time. my future seems depressing. i need to make more money but i don't know how. maybe i'll write a best-selling novel. LOL. LOL. LOL. i wish. but i definitely think i should spent more time on my writing. it's always been my dream to make a living as a writer.

gift

2006-06-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

therapy was okay. i shared my discharge summary from my first hospitalization at s. with my therapist. i talked a lot about my doctor. i talked about how much i miss the bay, my dbt skills group, my dbt therapist, my apartment, my old life. and about how said i feel that i wasn't able to make it out there. i talked about how much i miss my doctor at s. and how i wish i had been able to express how i felt, how i wish i had cried, told him i didn't want to leave, said something when we said goodbye. instead, all i said was, "it was nice working with you." i guess this is why i'm spending so much time writing my story, because i want to say all the things i didn't say back then. my therapist and i talked about how my relationship with my doctor couldn't have existed any other way. i couldn't have had the relationship i had with him if we had a relationship in the real world. it wouldn't have been the same if i saw him outside of the hospital. what made our relationship special was that he was my doctor and he took care of me in a way no one else could have. my therapist said that i was lucky to have that relationship and that it was a gift. i feel sad because it's gone. i think a lot of my depression has to do with feeling sad about the things i lost. i have a hard time appreciating the things i do have. i feel heartbroken.

i've been waking up late each morning, waking up around 9:00 a.m. and each morning i feel anxiety about waking up, and not knowing what i'm going to do with myself when i get out of bad, and knowing that i face another day of pain and longing. i worry about bad things happening to me and losing control of my life. today i have a commitment to work at the library for a couple of hours. i hope i can do my job without feeling too depressed. last night i didn't take any risperdal as my doctor ordered. i don't know if that has anything to do with how i'm feeling today. i'm just tired today and depressed overall. i hope i feel better because it sucks to feel the way i feel. i feel all alone today. i need to keep myself busy and distract myself from feeling the way i do.

dependencies

2006-06-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

just spoke with my psychiatrist on the phone. i sort of complained about the risperdal and asked him when i could go off it. he asked me how my sleep was and if i'm feeling tired during the day. my sleep is okay. sometimes i feel tired. sometimes i don't. it's a toss up. so my psychiatrist told me to alternate days, take it every other day for the next week. so only take it four times. if i'm doing okay on the days off, then i can stop taking it. we didn't make any changes to the wellbutrin. i really would like to switch back to zoloft. he said i'd go on it later down the road. also, it was the medication i was prescribed at s. i have a certain fondness for zoloft. i suppose i have some psychological dependencies or something going on. anyway, my psychiatrist only makes one change at a time. and i see him on saturday. i guess i can approach the antidepressant question with him then.

i'm feeling a bit dizzy today. i don't know why. i don't feel like going out or getting out of bed. i've been surfing the web and reading my favorite blogs and blogging and writing in my bed. i've been working on my stories about s. and dr rosse again. i think if i'm more busy then i won't think about him and s. so much. sometimes i have fantasies about going back to s. only in my fantasies i'm older and close to the end of my life and maybe wanting to end my life at that age and going back to s. where people can take care of me when i die. i still have fantasies about attempting to commit suicide and being admitted to s. and being taken care of there and just being able to rest in one of the beds there. the people were nice to me when i was there. i must not feel very well taken of in my life outside of the hospital if i keep on thinking of going back. there's something missing from my life.

today i'm practicing a dbt skill called improve the moment by taking a vacation. i don't know if i'm just avoiding things or what. but i really don't feel like doing much of anything today. life seems hard to live today. i don't know why i feel this way. i don't have that many responsibilities at the moment. i'm just living, but the problem is life feels meaningless. i'm not doing anything important or really worthwhile. if i don't get the county job, i'll restart my job search, put myself out there, i have nothing else to do. i've been writing though, you know, and it's something that should give my life a little meaning and purpose and value. i miss dbt skills group and my dbt therapist. i couldn't find anyone doing dbt around here. here's another dbt skill: count your blessings or comparisons. although i think my life generally sucks, is empty and meaningless, i know there are worse things in life.

session

2006-06-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

i had another session with my new therapist today. our second. it was a bit difficult. i was pretty self-conscious and worried that i was boring him. i wondered if he was the right person to work with. i felt like i wasn't getting what i needed or wanted. the connection wasn't quite there. he said it would take a few sessions to know if i could work with him. i know how therapy works. it takes time to establish a rhythm. but i think you can tell from the first meeting if you'll be able to establish a connection with the therapist and if you want to. i think this new guy is okay. he's smart and experienced. he's been working for twenty-five years. he's smart. he gets things. he wants to help.

i miss my old folks though. i miss my psychiatrist at s. i miss my dbt therapist. i miss dbt skills group. i still feel all alone. i feel sad because i had to give up so many good things because i didn't have the money and i wasn't well enough to do the things i wanted to do. sometimes i still regret my decision to move back home but i feel like i had no choice. i couldn't keep jobs, i kept quitting, i kept thinking of suicide and wanting to hurt myself. i wasn't making any money. it didn't feel right to keep borrowing money from my parents. i don't think they can afford it. i felt trapped. like i didn't have any options. except to move back home. except i'd been living in the bay area for four years. it had felt like home to me, and i had my own apartment. i had my routines. therapy, dbt, after care group. the only damn problem was that i wasn't working. if only i had done better, worked harder to get a job and keep the job, maybe i wouldn't have had to leave.

oh well. i will just have to do my best and try to make the most of my situation now. i have to get a job. i actually took a written exam for a county job this morning. if i scored well on it, i'll be invited to the interview. i think it would be good for me to get a job and be productive again. i would like to be in a positive environment where i can meet people and make friends. i would like to be a part of a community as well. i have begun volunteering at the library. it's a nice distraction from my worries and thoughts. i would also like to work on my writing. i would like to share my experiences because they were meaningful and valuable to me. it's also my way of expressing my love and fondess and caring for the people in my life. in general i have trouble expressing my feelings. sometimes i didn't say what i really felt to someone because i didn't know what i felt. i have always had difficulty processing my emotions and am scared in general of expressing them in person.

i've been trying to work on the novel about s. but it's hard, really hard. i want to write well so i can get published, but i've been having difficulty finding the right words. sometimes i feel so miserable and hopeless. i have to tell myself that things will get better, there's still hope. i miss my doctor at s. a lot. i miss having someone who cared for me. i miss our talks. i feel sad and lonely because he's not in my life anymore. life is hard work. living is hard work. i am trying. i am working hard to keep myself busy and focus on getting better and making meaning and purpose in life. i think i will try to look for a writing group in the area. and do more volunteer work. maybe i can volunteer as a literacy tutor or teach creative writing. and after i get experience volunteering to teach creative writing maybe i can apply for a teaching job in the future. i have to keep dreaming because i have to find a way to live.

fiesta

2006-06-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

talked to my psychiatrist today over the phone. he told me to stay on 1 mg of risperdal and go down to 100 mg of wellbutrin as i am less anxious this week. i don't know if or when i'll be going back on zoloft. he said something like later on down the road. if i have to be on an antidepressant i'd rather be on zoloft than wellbutrin. i slept better on zoloft. i've been reading my discharge summaries from my prior hospitalizations at s. i still miss the place, although i wouldn't want to be locked up again. only at s. lol. i still miss the people, the staff, and especially my doctor. i don't think i'll ever see him again though.

i feel sad. yesterday i tried to be social. i went to the fiesta and tried to work at the booth a little but i wasn't really into it. i didn't feel a connection with the people there and i missed my old support group up north. even my aunties and cousins came over yesterday and i still didn't feel happy or content. nothing seems like enough. maybe it will take time to build new connections and for now i will just have to tolerate these feelings of emptiness and aloneness.

i did however reconnect with my friends up north. i spoke with donna and jeff over the phone. and i chatted with laura on aol. these are people who i met in partial programs. i met laura in the hospital. and jeff and donna in php (not the same ones though). they are people i can talk to about depression and meds and doctors and all things related to our mental health. jeff still can't find the right combination of meds to help him through the night. he's on a bunch of sleeping meds. laura doesn't have a therapist or psychiatrist at the moment and isn't on any meds at all. donna thinks the zoloft is finally working. she's feeling better.

i'm trying to work on a novel told in a series of short stories all about my growing up and depression and psych hospitalizations and s. and boys and men i loved and didn't love. and the ones i left behind. i still don't think i'll ever be capable of being an adult in a relationship. i don't know if i'll ever find a partner. or have kids or get married. i'm not interested in sex for one thing, and that's what most guys want.

psych appointment

2006-05-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

my psychiatry appointment went well. my new doc seems like he knows what he's doing. he explained to me how neurotransmitters work and basically told me my meds might not be hitting the right ones. i knew there was something screwy about my meds. i have just been feeling weird inside, like my nerves are fried. doc said that the meds i'm on increase the anxious feelings i've been experiencing. so he told me not to take the evening dose of the wellbutrin and in about two days decrease the risperdal to 1 mg. i was so relieved. it looks like he's going to taper me off the wellbutrin and risperdal and put me back on zoloft, which is what i was on when i first got out of the hospital. i think i'm going to feel even better when i'm back on zoloft. i slept better when i was on it. i haven't been sleeping well lately. doc says it's probably because i increased the wellbutrin.

as far as the dbt group is concerned, i checked out the place in santa barbara but i wasn't impressed. it didn't look like a healthy place at all. i didn't feel comfortable there, so i left. i have to look for a new therapist now. i have been making phone calls. tomorrow i'm going to check in with the therapist i've been working with so far and see if she has any news for me. she said she was going to help me find a new one. she heard this other guy might do dbt, but i highly doubt it. if there were a dbt group in the area, i think more people would know. my last dbt therapist was a licensed dbt therapist. but i don't know if the guy here is. anyway, i hope i find a good therapist soon. i need someone to talk to.

dbt group

2006-05-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

i have an appointment with a psychiatrist on tuesday. i hope he's the right one for me. i have had too many med changes and just want to be stable on my meds. i hope he'll want to work with me. i am having all kinds of anxiety that he might think i'm a lost cause and turn me away. the therapist i've been seeing here told me that she doesn't think she's the right therapist for me. she said she doesn't have the skills to help me. i was kind of sad and disappointed, but i will just have to look for another one. i found a dbt group in santa barbara, which is a 30-40 minute commute for me. i hope it's a good fit. i am going to meet with the director of the program and the dbt instructor on tuesday. the dbt instructor also does coaching, so maybe i can work with her. it's so hard being borderline. i've been nervous and anxiety for a whole week already. i hate these feelings. i just want to be normal. i am so tired.

risperdal

2006-05-22T23:47:00.000-07:00

i didn't take my risperdal last night, because i was thinking of going off it, but i haven't been able to sleep much all weekend, so i took it tonight. i felt a little weird at first. i know you're not supposed to just stop and start especially at 2 mg, but i wasn't thinking and just did it. i miss my therapist. it's really hard moving and being separated from your support network, especially being separated from my therapist. i miss her. i also miss my psychiatrist and dbt group. i feel all alone. i knew i would regret moving, but i didn't have a choice. i couldn't afford it anymore and i kept quitting jobs. i feel like my life is all screwed up and i don't know if i'll get it back again. will i always be unemployed? i feel hopeless. i feel like no one understands. i want to go back to s. i feel like my meds are all messed up. i am so sad right now. i feel so lonely. sometimes i wish i could go back to s. i fantasize about driving up there and admitting myself to the er for a psych eval so they can get my meds right. well, at least i know what's causing my depression now. it's fear and anxiety and worry. there's a dbt saying, everything is as it should be. i hope that's true and something good will come out of this. i want to have a future. i want to live.

road

2006-05-19T18:43:00.000-07:00

well, they didn't put me in inpatient, thank god. i don't need to be there. however, i also don't know if i need to be in php. i've done a good job of staying away from hospitals, inpatient and outpatient, and i don't want to go back down that road. the problem is though that i still feel depressed. i'm trying real hard not to feel the depression and find ways to distract myself. it doesn't work all the time. but i'm trying, i'm trying hard.

misery

2006-05-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

i'm scared of going to php because i have this fear that they'll think i'm suicidal and put me in the inpatient unit. i've been to enough psych hospitals and don't need to be in another one. s. was a palace compared to others i've been to. in fact, there was one room that they called the palace at s. because it was bigger than the rest. i guess longer term patients got that one. i remember this one girl emilie was roomed there because she was having her meds adjusted. she was bipolar and really sick at the time. i roomed with her the last few days i was there.

i remember what it was like being in a locked facility like good samaritan at mission oaks or emergency psychiatric services at valley med. i had tremendous anxiety when i was there. it was hard. i know i'm not that sick. when i was at s. i was really sick but i'm on some okay meds and pretty stable. when you're not sick and you go into a locked facility it really tests you. you could almost go crazy if you weren't already. i heard someone say once that he was worse coming out of eps than going in. i know exactly what he meant because i'd been there.

i don't think my therapist is trained that well in dealing with borderline personality disorder. we reach for suicide and self-harm because we don't have better coping skills. i miss my dbt therapist and dbt group. i think i might have to use my dbt skills to get me out of this. i thought moving back home would make things easier, but the issues that i thought i left behind are still with me. i still don't have effective coping skills. i still have difficulty using dbt skills. i'm still scared, anxious, worried, and depressed. i still think of self-harm and suicide as options.

i need to find a way to make a life worth living. and once i find that way i need to practice it over and over again. i can't live in misery all my life.

php

2006-05-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

well, therapy kind of sucked. my new therapist thinks i ought to go into another partial hospitalization program. i don't know if this is a good idea but i'm not all that emotionally stable that's for sure. it could be my borderline personality issues. i'm not sure if a partial program will help. i think i ought to get a job instead. i am kind of disappointed. i am feeling really dissatisfied about therapy. i wish i could work with my old therapist again, but i don't have a home there anymore. i miss s. i really do.

razor blades

2006-05-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

i bought razor blades yesterday. i am thinking of cutting again. i just don't know when. i was in a real low yesterday morning, and last night cried for at least an hour after reading my medical records from s. they only sent me the discharge summary. i wanted all of it, including inpatient notes because i know they took a lot. this morning my mood started out quite normal, but sobered up a bit when i read my records. i am feeling an increase in adrenaline. i don't know if i am anxious or excited. i feel like i am about to be a bit hyper. my thoughts are flowing a bit faster than yesterday. i feel like doing something. i am thinking of asking for another increase of the wellbutrin. go up to 400 mg and switch to xl instead so i only have to take it once a day.

commercial

2006-05-17T20:15:00.000-07:00

whenever i see the eli lilly commercial for cymbalta on tv, i think of s. i associate it with s. because the music sounds similar to the music in the s. hospital & clinics commercial, which runs all the time during commercial breaks up north. sometimes i wish i could go back to st. i don't know why but i miss the place. i miss the doctors, staff, even the damn food. i miss the way i was treated and taken care of. before i left for southern california, i thought about admitting myself again because i've been feeling like crap for awhile now, but i didn't want to go because i was afraid that things would change or i'd be disappointed, and i didn't want to be treated differently from the way i was treated the first time i was there. i feel like crap. i really do. i don't feel motivated to do much and have to push myself to do anything. i force myself to write, i forced myself to go to the women's gym today although i couldn't commit to signing up. i was thinking about cutting, and i tried to apply a dbt skill called opposite action to make myself drive to the gym and get out of my car and talk to a fitness advisor about the gym. but when i was talking to her, i had such a hard time summoning any kind of enthusiasm. i told her i lacked energy, she asked me what's going on, and i said i had depression and she said she knew, she could tell. i asked her if it was that obvious. she said it was.

glamour

2006-05-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

this week, i increased my dose of wellbutrin from 200 mgs to 300 mgs to help with the depression. my new therapist is cool. i like her. she's very knowledgeable and even has a copy of marsha linehan's skills training manual. so far i'm seeing her twice a week, but i was thinking that maybe we might need more these first few weeks of getting to know each other.

i still have frequent suicidal thoughts and fantasies, which lose their glamour when i think of how much pain i could cause myself especially if i don't succeed. sometimes i still wish i had never been born. i don't know what i'm going to do with my life. how am i going to find satisfaction. will i always be this sad.

the good news is that i started writing again. i started revising my second novel because i couldn't finish it the way it was. i got stuck. so i had to start over. it's a nonfiction novel as far as i can tell because i really don't know if it's a novel at all. maybe it is a novel, it's just a different kind of novel.

i'm going to talk to my psychiatrist next week about going off the risperdal. it helps me sleep but i feel pretty much apathetic throughout the day. increasing the wellbutrin seems to help a bit, but i'm still feeling listless and uninterested in things. i have to push myself to do things. it's hard. most of the time i feel tired, but i'm doing it.

i still think of s. and miss the hospital a lot. i don't know why. perhaps it's because i felt taken care of there. they treat patients well. they even have a courtyard where we'd used to go for patio breaks. i was on level 1 fifteen-minute watches so i didn't get to go out the first ten days i was hospitalized. i was so grateful to have some fresh air again.

it's easy to take for granted the small things.

move

2006-05-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

i still have to go back to my old apartment to pick up a few things and clean. my parents and i are driving up there on thursday. it's a long drive... five hours... i can't wait until the whole move is over. i had some difficulty driving i think because of the meds. i felt over-sedated so i made an appointment with a psychiatrist yesterday to get a prescription for a lower dose of risperdal. i'm now on 2 mgs instead of 3 mgs. i feel a little better but still a bit sedated in the morning. i'm not sure why. the wellbutrin is supposed to be activating but i don't think it works. maybe antidepressants don't work for me. zoloft made me sleepy. i used to take it before bedtime.

anyway, i made an appointment with another psychiatrist but i won't be able to see him until june 2nd. i didn't like the office of the psychiatrist i saw yesterday because it was on the 11th floor and i'm scared of elevators. also, the psychiatrist's office wasn't well-maintained. i didn't have much choice because appointments fill up quickly and i really needed to see someone yesterday. i still don't feel stable on my meds and wonder if i should be taking any meds at all. i definitely feel that i should be in therapy. i have to figure out how to deal with my anxiety and worry. i haven't learned how to cope with my fears so i can do the things i want to do.

so i have an appointment with a new therapist on friday. she sounded nice on the phone. she even gave me the phone number of the local psych hospital. she asked me if i knew what to do in case i feel suicidal between now and our appointment. there aren't any dbt therapists in the area, but i feel okay about that. i was having a hard time learning and practicing the skills anyway. the nearest therapist is in the l.a. area. that's an hour to an hour and a half drive for me depending on traffic. also, l.a. is a big place so i'd have to deal with the stress of finding the place as well as traffic.

my parents are already nagging me, but i expected that. it's just hard. i've only been here three days and already i'm crying. i've cried everyday so far. my parents want me to get better and work on my presentation because they don't think i look good of course and that's why i can't get a job, but i can get a job. i worked four jobs since march but quit two. i was doing okay. i don't know what's wrong with me. i just have so much anxiety and keep quitting jobs. i get depressed and anxious just thinking about working.

i think i want to focus on therapy for now and getting better. i guess i'll take a couple months off and then start looking for work again. i will try to work part-time first so that i can ease back into the workforce, and then when i'm feeling better i can try working full-time again. of course if i could actually finish my novel and get an agent, i wouldn't have to worry about working again. i'm so much in my emotional mind nowadays. i'm having a hard time relaxing.

depakote

2006-05-03T17:04:00.000-07:00

at the suggestion of my psychiatrist, i tried depakote for about three days. we were about to get to the bottom of my illness, trying to stabilize the mood swings, but i have since decided to pack up my bags and leave the bay area for hopefully greener pastures, i.e. i'm moving back home and staying at my parents' place for awhile. they live in southern california.

things have just been too hard for me to manage. i haven't been able to keep a job. i don't do well in interviews. i'm still overall depressed. i'm also not as interested in doing dbt (dialectical behavioral therapy) as i was when i first got out of the hospital last september. i'm not working well with my therapist either, i.e. i've been dissatisfied with our working relationship.

i like my psychiatrist a lot though and i will miss working with her the most. i feel that she is really interested and involved in my case and genuinely wants to help me. i just can't afford to live here on my own and the loneliness is more than i can handle. i need to make life less complicated as i continue to recovery. getting a job is twice as difficult when you're as depressed as i am.

so i suppose instead of getting support in a residential program, which would have cost me more money, i'm getting the support by moving back home. it is a less expensive treatment, but it will not be without its disadvantages. i don't know how long my parents will be able to deal with my depression and i can expect them to nag me if i'm not improving fast enough or if don't get a job soon enough or if i'm overall just not well.

i've already scheduled an appointment with a new psychiatrist, and i just have to talk to my cardiologist about transferring my prescriptions to another pharmacy, or getting a new prescription in the mail. i'll have to pick a new primary care physician as well. but most of all i have to pack. just thinking about packing is overwhelming enough. i don't even have the energy to do dbt right now.

maybe my new psychiatrist will put me on something else. i wouldn't mind taking zoloft again. it really did bring me up sometimes. problem is, my psychiatrist thought i was too up. oh well. at least when i move home i get to see my dogs again. i miss them very much.

a happy face

2006-04-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

on monday, my therapist suggested that i go into a residential program since i still haven't been able to get my suicidal thoughts out of my mind. so this week, i've been calling around to see if i can be admitted to the program and if i can get my health insurance to pay for it. the residential program isn't contracted with my health insurance carrier so i had to file an appeal. i have put in a couple of calls to schedule an assessment but still haven't gotten a call back. it's a bit frustrating, well, more than a little frustrating. i don't know what's going to happen, but i figure if it's mean to be, it will be.

i feel as if no one wants to work with me. it's hard to be positive, especially when you're depressed. and it's hard to change years of behavior you've had since you were a child. when i was an inpatient, my first psychiatrist told me that i have essentially twenty-eight years of behavior to fix. i've always had dark moods and i've always found it hard to be sunny and bright. when i'm especially worried about something, it's hard for me to remember to be positive or put on a happy face. i have to make a concentrated effort to act the opposite, as they say in dbt, to act contrary to my mood.

i get frustrated in dbt when my therapist gets frustrated with me for not learning a skill fast enough. it's hard because most of the skills require me to literally act the opposite of behaviors i adapted over twenty years. my inpatient psychiatrist told me that my illness developed between age 0 - 3. the behaviors i've learned are so deeply embedded trying to change them now is hard. how do you unlearn twenty-eight years of learned behaviors? how can you reverse those behaviors? and how long will it take? the skills in dbt are new to me, and some of them are harder for me than others.

for instance, thinking positive, putting on a happy face, practicing deep breathing, these are hard for me because my instinct is to resist them. i often feel conflicted in dbt because a lot of me is resistant to change. i'm also resistant to being pushed. i can be stubborn, especially if i'm pushed by parental or authority figures. i respond well to men, especially men whom i consider attractive or whom i'm attracted to. i'll change myself for them because i want them to like me. i'll be more likely to change if i want someone's approval.

i like my therapist a lot, and i think i'm more apt to change my behavior because i want her to like me too. i know i'm supposed to do things for me and not for anyone else, but that is the damn truth.

bipolar

2006-04-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

i saw my psychiatrist again thursday night. she's keeping me on 3mg of risperdal and 200mg of wellbutrin. she's thinking of putting me on lithium and/or depakote and/or trileptal. she wants to get me off the antidepressant and put me on a mood stabilizer.

i asked her if she thought i was bipolar. she said that there's some indication i could be because i've been taking meds that treat bipolar disorder. she said that her initial diagnosis was major depression rule out bipolar.

i think it might be a good idea to try something other than antidepressants because they don't seem to do much of anything for me. i still get depressed and i have frequent ups and downs.

we know for sure i have a mood disorder, but i guess we're not sure if it's bipolar or unipolar. i can't wait until i'm stable on my meds. i've gone through so many medication changes since i was hospitalized last september.

i quit the part-time job i started yesterday after two hours of training. i was panicking with all the multi-tasking i had to do. so i told my supervisor that it didn't feel like a good fit for me. i was crying in therapy again because of the job, but i just couldn't tolerate it.

then my dad sends me this email about how he thinks i'll be better off moving back home and how he didn't have to ask his parents for help and he doesn't know how my mom is coming up with the money to help me out.

he also said he's skeptical about my therapy and treatment and that the reason i'm "weak" is not only because i'm not getting enough rest but also because of the medications i'm taking. i was naturally upset.

so i wrote back and told my dad that if i'm cut off from my support network and discontinue my treatment, then i could relapse. i also said that i wasn't in a good state of mind to move home anyway after reading his email.

now of course i feel guilty. my mom called me today to tell me not to worry or pay attention to what my dad wrote. and my dad said he was just concerned because he doesn't like seeing me sick like this.

well, i don't like seeing myself sick either. the good news is that i haven't self-harmed at all even with all this stress and worry. i'm trying real hard to not think suicidal thoughts and to push away my self-harm urges.

dosing

2006-04-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

yesterday in therapy, we went over my chain analysis and talked about having my mom come to therapy for one session to go over money matters. my money worries are a constant problem. i end up doing things i'm not supposed to do, like cut or drink or contemplate overdosing. the problem is that i don't know where the money will come from week to week.

my therapist talked to my mom at the start of dbt about how important it was that my parents commit to my treatment, because i don't need additional pressure from worrying about money. i was doing good until i started working again. after a month of temping at fast-paced silicon valley companies, i ended up back in the er.

on friday, i start a permanent part-time job as an administrative assistant at a non-profit organization. the pace seems slower there and the hours are great, 8:30 - 1:00. being able to work part-time relieves the conflict i felt about having to choose between making money and attending therapy. now i can do both.

still, i don't think the money is going to be enough, so i'm thinking of picking up another part-time job doing shift work at target. i don't like borrowing money from my parents. i feel guilty and worry about them not being able to afford it. and it forces me into a relationship with them that isn't exactly easy.

last night i had an appointment with my psychiatrist. she wanted to know how she could help me. i told her my main problems were depression, anxiety, and sleep. she didn't want to increase my antidepressant because she's concerned about me becoming too manic. but she did suggest some solutions to my sleep problem. one was a new sleeping medication that worked on melatonin, something that started with an "r."

another possible solution was going on seroquel, which i had taken twice when i was at s. i'm still a bit scared of seroquel and wasn't ready to try it. the solution we settled on was increasing my risperdal from 2mg to 3 or 4. last night i went up to 3. i slept but still kept waking up and was still paranoid about people hurting me and had to sleep with my light on again.

i'm thinking of going up to 4mg of risperdal tonight just to see if i sleep better on 4 than 3. i want to make sure i get my sleep stabilized before i start work on friday. i know i probably won't have all the answers by then, but at least i might be able to settle on a good dose. i'm still having pretty vivid dreams, and they aren't all good.

eps

2006-04-16T20:15:00.000-07:00

yesterday morning, instead of taking my meds, i drank an 8 oz. cup of merlot and started on a second cup before calling my therapist. i had promised to call her at 9am to check in. because i wouldn't dump the wine and had told her the night before that i wanted to take all my sleeping pills at once, my therapist called welfare to check up on me. the sheriff was at my apartment in less than 15 minutes. sheriff called amr (american medical response) who bussed me to eps (emergency psychiatric services) at valley med.

everything seemed to happen so fast. probably because i was a bit buzzed. i only had one drink. my blood alcohol was under the legal limit at .029 but because i'm on psych meds it seemed as if i'd been drinking more. let me tell you, eps is no fun. since most of the patients in there don't have health insurance, the environment can really put you on the edge. my patience all about wore out after six hours. i was freaking out, crying and laughing like crazy from anxiety i had to request an ativan to calm me down. they ordered me a 1mg tab. thank god.

i had heard stories about eps from other mental health patients who had been taken there and then hospitalized at valley med. one patient said he came out worse after his hospitalization. one mental health professional, a nurse at s., called valley med a zoo. eps is like an emergency room exclusively for psych patients. you get evaluated by a psychiatrist and you're put on a seventy-two hour hold. in my case, i was discharged after nine hours because i suppose they didn't believe that i was a further threat to myself and i was stable enough on my meds.

all i wanted to do was sleep and relax because i've been so tired lately. i wasn't really trying to kill myself. it's been hard going back to work, even if i'm just temping. it's taken a lot out of me to function in the real world. it feels as if i've been relapsing again. but i think in reality if i just had more friends, if i weren't so lonely and isolated, if i felt like i was around people who cared about me, a social network, people who could catch me when i fall, then i wouldn't be so depressed.

tonight i talked to my aunt and realized i miss being around people who love me and like to hug me and tell me how wonderful i am. my aunts are usually always happy to see me. maybe i should talk to them more. maybe it would help me to feel a part of a family. things have been different since my grandmother died. and since i moved up here to the bay area, i haven't been able to spend time with my relatives as much. it helped tonight to talk to my aunt.

i still miss my doc at s. a lot. writing the novel is hard work. but i hope someday i can make my place in the world again. i hope someday i'll get published. someday. someday soon.