All mixed up and no place to go...

Another mixed state. That's what my medical team are diagnosing my last episode. Partly psychotic, partly hypomanic, partly irritable. But I'm emerging now and that's the main thing.

Today is the first day I have taken only one Lorazapam to dull my constant restlessness. I simply couldn't sit still, my thoughts were racing a million miles a minute, but unlike my previous hypomanic episodes I felt irritable and annoyed. It was an intensely unpleasant experience.

So my meds have been changed, my Lithium increased, and I feel SO much better. I have switched seroquel for olanzapine. Both antipsychotics, but the olanzapine doesn't zombify me. I wake up and feel like I've actually slept. I dont think I realised how tired I was until I came off the seroquel.

But there is still a part of me that hates the drug regime. Lithium, desvenlafaxine, olanzapine, lorazapam, seroquel, tamazapam...all for me? The pharmacists know me by name, and dole me out my plethora of pills in weekly supplies. I feel like a drug addict. When people ask if I have ever done drugs I just tell them I don't need to. I get natural high's and I get my pills for free at the pharmacy ;)

I will start cutting it down again, once I am full recovered. I'm grateful I have found drugs that work. It's just sometimes I wish I could walk around without pills rattling inside me ;)

A recent photo of myself ;) 

They say the episode was brought on by stress. Your body reacts to stress through chemical changes which can skew the happy chemicals in people like me. I don't really care. I'm enjoying being able to sit down and actually write. To read a little. To not feel like running a marathon 24 hours a day.

And I'm ok. I truly am. I feel somehow that I had a negative energy that needed to be purged through this mixed state. And now the tears have dried, and I have room for positivity again. That black feeling in my chest has gone...and oh how wonderful it is to breathe.

How wonderful it is to be me again.


p.s. Did I tell you I finished my thesis draft? :)

Purple People

“Susanna: I am a crazy girl. Seriously.

Tony: You've been in a hospital?

Susanna: Yes.

Tony: Do you see purple people? My friend, he saw purple people. And so the state came and took him away. He didn't like that. Some time went by and, and he told 'em he didn't see purple people no more.

Susanna: He got better.

Tony: Nah, he still sees 'em”.

-          Girl Interrupted

So apparently I am psychotic. My own clinical knowledge says the doctors are right. But my own intuition convinces me they are wrong. Honestly, I feel fine. This so called ‘delusion’ of mine has been going on for a good decade or so. And although it isn’t terribly pleasant at times, I’m coping fine. It doesn’t affect anyone but me. I’m functioning. I’m a good mother. I’m not socially inept (well not completely anyway ;)). I don’t feel that I have lost touch with reality. It’s not like I am running around town in a bed sheet proclaiming to be Jesus.

But that’s what they always say about crazy people. They always think they are sane.

I had an emergency meeting with my new psychiatrist; Dr. Very Long Name, and my psychologist on Monday after the revelation that I could be mad. I sighed heavily during the interview “Oh I knew I shouldn’t have told anyone about this...now you all think that I am crazy!”. “I don’t think you are crazy”, Dr. Very Long Name replied “I think you are psychotic”. Well. That’s comforting ;)

Interestingly they have now assigned me to this “Hospital in the Home” program. I don’t know the details, but apparently nurses will be visiting me daily. Now this is interesting because as I said before. I feel fine. I have lived with this ‘delusion’ for a very long time. Truly, I’m ok.

Yet when I wasn’t ok, when I was desperate for help I didn’t receive it. It’s a strange world.

They have got me on a new drug. An anti-psychotic. Abilify. Worst drug ever! Imagine being so tired you can barely stand up. Then imagine being so restless you can barely keep still. Then chuck a few achy joints into the mix. That is Abilify. I took it for two days then gave up. I have a toddler to look after, a thesis to write, and a goddamn life to lead. I’d had enough of that bullshit.

I don’t believe medication will stop this ‘delusion’. Mostly because I don’t believe I am deluded. I’m wondering if the only way to get out of this is to claim recovery. Perhaps I will have to pretend that I can’t see purple people anymore.

Some Days Are Easier Than Others

I have to say I am struggling at the moment. Not in terms of depression or mania. Not in anxiety or stress. But from pure exhaustion.

I’m struggling to understand whether the exhaustion is mental or physical. Medication induced or cumulative from the hell last year was. All I know is that I crave my bed at times of the day when I shouldn’t. The early morning enthusiasm I have always possessed has deflated into a bleary eyed being going through the motions. Sometimes, and I know this is bad, I choose not to eat because the very thought of preparing lunch exhausts me.

I’ve tried experimenting with my medications. The anti-psychotics are my biggest suspect. Naturally, though, when I skip my dose I end up awake all night. My insomniac ways back again. This I could put up with, but the symptoms of dissociation the following day I can’t. So I take the pills again, and continue wading through my days.

This just wont do though. Despite the fact that I have an active toddler to care for and a house to run, I also have a thesis to write. Yet I stare at the page, immersed in a cloudy brain fog, wondering if I will ever possess the mental strength to finish it. It annoys me. All that time spent researching, waddling into uni eight months pregnant to meet participants, meetings, leaving behind my eight week old baby to run classes and collect data at uni, hours fighting with my statistical software, ....all that goddamn dedication, and now I can’t find it in me to do the best, easiest, most rewarding part!

“You” my supervisor said a few months ago, “have worked so hard on this. You have put much more work into this than the average student. Now you just need to get your act together, write the darn thing and get the mark that you deserve”.

Ok, so she didn’t tell me to get my act together, but I’m sure she was thinking it. ;)

I’ve made a start I suppose. I sat down today, reread the 19 pages I have already written. I read a few key journal articles. Corrected a few mistakes. Forced myself to sit at my desk, put on my glasses (because that surely means business!) and just get on with it. I haven’t achieved much, but it’s more than yesterday, and I suppose that is what counts. I’ll chip away at it. A bit here, a bit there, and hopefully one day I will be surprised to find a finished product.

Over the last few years I think I have tortured those around me enough with my thesis. “It’s hideous! I actually think it may kill me”, punctuated with a dramatic flop onto the floor (much to the alarm of the family dog). An epiphany three hours later where I talk with great excitement about “the most interesting thing I have learned all week. Potentially all year. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet.” Yes, it’s a love hate relationship. A bipolar state within itself. I’m not the first and won’t be the last to feel this way. Enough is enough, and I must get it done.

As for the exhaustion, it’s still here. I’m hoping it’s merely a medication glitch that can be dealt with at my next appointment. If it’s a psychological thing – I guess I just have to keep riding this wave.

Oooops!

So here’s a word of advice for anyone taking psychoactive medication. DO NOT SKIP DOSES. EVER. I’ve always wondered what would happen if I didn’t take my medication. Well now I know.

Yesterday for some bizarre reason I forgot to take my morning meds, and didn’t realise I had forgotten until the evening. My doctor had warned me against doubling up on doses, so I just took my evening dose and figured I’d be ok.

Boy I was in for a shock. My sleep was strange and fitful, full of nightmarish dreams and dreamy nightmares. I was flying to the moon, then falling back to  earth.  I woke up more tired than when I went to bed. And then the agitation started, then the irritability, then the despondency. I was frightened...these symptoms seemed all too familiar. Eventually the agitation lessened but I was hit with terrible nausea, headache and fatigue. I curled up on the couch under a blanket cursing myself for being so stupid.

It’s only now, almost 36 hours after my last dose that I’m finally starting to feel ‘normal’ again. On one hand I’m angry that I’m so chemically dependent. But on the other hand I’m so relieved that I have medication that works so well for me.

 Needless to say I will not be forgetting my dose tonight!