When I hear the ubiquitous talk about how social media is bringing an end to the connectivity between people and how much it is isolating all of us, I think about how this has not been the case for me. In fact, without the ability to connect in this particular way (not by phone and not by letter and not in person) has allowed me to have contact with friends even when I am at my least friendly. On days that I could scarcely get out of bed and certainly could not be bothered to take a shower or run a comb through my hair, there was a chance that I might check email or social media or chat with a friend. There was almost no chance that I would go anywhere to be with people. And very little chance that I will pick up the phone (either to call people or to answer when they called.) Although, when I was not answering the phone or listening to my messages, I would look to see who had called (caller ID) and think, "Oh, how nice. They're thinking of me." I had acupuncture today. I have been going twice a week for a while. I should probably note when this started. I can check. Don't worry: this is not an acupuncturist who will try to convince me to go off my meds. Spent time with a friend. In general did not feel panicky. I think two days in a row when I haven't felt off is what made me think that maybe I don't have bipolar and everything is fine. Because it's starting to seem like everything is fine. How cool is that? I have a dream that by the time August rolls around (the anniversary of my diagnosis) I will have a combination of meds figured out and be able to start the school year on an even keel. Dream on, I know. But still... Equatorial Actions: took meds: 450mg bupropion, 200mg lamotrigine, 450mg lithium Also xiao yao wan (Called "free and easy wanderer" in English) prescribed by TCM doctor spent time in garden spent time with friend helped daughter acquire pet caterpillar named "shooting star" Grateful Crap: daughter singing a song to her caterpillar friend including these lyrics - If you flutter back to me, it will be my honor... Bipolar Alphabet: F is for future I already know that I cannot be trusted to either clean or tidy my house without supervision. But this means I need to arrange for regular supervision because otherwise what happens is every month or so (or maybe even longer) I call in reinforcements. And they do a great job of keeping me on task and getting things out of the house (I have at least 4 bags of stuff ready to go at the minute and they are not out of the house. Soon they will be reabsorbed and forgotten...) And that is great. But I think in order to really get things under control I need to have a steady, regular pattern of decluttering. With a boss. The challenge will be scheduling this in a way that works and is not overwhelmingly stressful. So far I have 4 people who have agreed to be my overseer. So if I had one person come each week, that seems like it would be a plan. Perhaps this is not so difficult as it seems. I have a calendar, after all. And then I am not allowed to get overwhelmed and I can just take care of regular maintenance cleaning and tidying on the other days of the week and relegate my AAAGGHHHH! decluttering sessions to the one day a week that I have assistance. I think I feel a bit normal today. Which has been a long time. I mean, I haven't felt "normal" in some time. Probably not since the psychotic episode in December? Or the anxiety of the spring? Not sure. I will just bask in the normalcy for a while. Equatorial actions: took meds spent time in the garden (but not a stupid amount of time) took pictures tap danced (I promise I will. For at least 15 minutes.) called to schedule first of regular decluttering sessions (Another promise) Bipolar Alphabet: E is for ecstatic I planted out the rest of my front garden (not to be confused with the hill garden, the step garden, the garden box or the berry garden). And also got two large containers to grow potatoes in (the same seed potatoes that my son accidentally brought to school instead of his lunch one day-- they were both in brown paper bags.) I feel somewhat less zombie-like in the garden this year than I did last year. But I'm still kinda stuck out there for some time. And not in an enjoyable kind of way. In a driven-to-do-someting kind of a way. Okay, here's for the real news. I went to see Psych NP on Friday (yesterday) and she asked a bunch of questions. Do I feel better now than I did before we started the lithium. I think so. I'm not sure. I think so. Do I have foggy thinking? I don't know. I have made the boys late for school twice since starting the lithium and that did not happen before. But I am leery of blaming drugs for my behavior. Especially since there is the whole temperamental disavowal of time. (It's fake, you know. Made up by the watch companies so we will buy their products.) She wants me to be tested for ADD. This is something that she brought up much earlier, but said that we needed to treat the bipolar first. In my extensive research at Google University, I have discovered that there ADD and bipolar are often "comorbid" and that when that is the case, the bipolar needs to be treated first. And there are all kinds of difficulty in treating because the stimulants that are often prescribed for ADD are typically proscribed for bipolar (get it?). The stimulants can exacerbate or cause manic episodes. Which I could do without, thank you very much. I agreed to the testing, because it is worth ruling out. And she made some compelling arguments. Except then I started to feel like all kinds of conditions were just being thrown at me. Let's start with some anxiety, follow that up with an eating disorder. Okay, now add Major Depressive Disorder that seems to come and go for the next twenty years. Now bipolar. And just for the heck of it, let's throw in some ADD to spice things up. DONE DONE DONE DONE I am tired of trying to figure out how to fix my brain. I just want it to be not problematic. I just want to be able to wake up in the morning and not take a handful of pills before staring my day. I talked to someone who was surprised that a relative of his was only recently discovering that she had a major mental illness. "Wouldn't she have noticed it before now?" No. Because whatever your brain serves up is your normal. And many mental illnesses involve your brain making up very elaborate and convincing lies. Bipolar Alphabet: D is for Doubt Equatorial actions:
took meds (450mg bupropion, 200mg lamotrigine, 450mg lithium) (Note: I sort of got tired of the gradual decrease in the venlafaxine and at some point when I was down to less than pill I just stopped taking it. I don't know when this happened. In the last month.) Acupuncture appointment time in the garden ate a salad made from fresh greens that are growing in my garden posted P.S. I will not stop taking my medication even though I am feeling all resentful of it. I promise. I know I have a history of just going off my antidepressants, but bipolar meds are way scarier and... nope. That's about it. They are scarier. I started out much more organizedly with my garden this year. pretty much. I had decided where I wanted perennials and where I wanted food. (I have little patience with annual flowers other than marigolds.) And for the most part it still is pretty planny. Only I started putting seeds in places that seemed empty. And now I'm not sure which empty places have been used up. Which is fine. It will be a happy surprise.
This year I have planted: MUCH LETTUCE (because I like salads when they are fresh), mustard greens, 3 different kinds of beets (from seed, from seedlings, and from cute little plants), sunflowers, cucumbers, cantaloupe, strawberries, blueberries, honey berry, elderberry, watermelon, (does cantaloupe really have a u? I guess so.), sugar snap peas (all over the place), scallions, onions, garlic, brussels sprouts, fennel, (did I plan cabbage? I don't think so. I should. On the step garden. will do.), TOMATOES... I have (but still need to plant): sweet potatoes, not-sweet potatoes, pole beans, pickling cucumbers, corn (which I can't imagine will work out for us, but the daughter insists), cactus from seed (?), more lettuce, Oh, and eggplant. I'm pretty sure I have an eggplant. So when people wonder what on earth I did with the cubic yard of dirt, that's it. I enlarged my garden a little bit, but as a raised garden it took a surprising amount of dirt! On the living things that are not plants front: I am peopled out. Not all people. Not even all groups of people. But I find that I am very happy that I will have a break from teaching until June 22. Because even facing a group of students seems a bit much right now. Perhaps it was the awards ceremony that did me in. Overwhelmy things include, but are not limited to: end-of-year and retirement and graduation and farewell parties... hmmm. I guess that's it. But there is a great deal of guilt involved in not wanting to attend and in non-attendance in general. So many people are leaving or retiring or graduating this year and it all happens at once. Here's the thing: these parties are not about me. And there will be plenty of other people present. I don't need to feel terrible if I am unable to go to all of them. Ugh. Also overwhelmed: ALL THE CRAP IN MY HOUSE which is mostly mine and just needs to get out of the house right now. Really want to follow through with the plan that we have had since we moved in to the house a decade ago to make one of the rooms in the basement into a bedroom so the boys can move down there. But this plan will involve me getting rid of a lot of crap. Which is one reason (other than the economic one) that the project has not gone any further than the pre-pre-pre-planning stages. Insert more guilt here about forcing my children to live in cramped quarters that make everyone say, "I can't believe you are still in this little house!" with the subtext of "You are a bad parent for making all three of your children share one room." Equatorial Actions: took meds spoke with friend on the phone (honestly this was a big deal. I answered the phone. Not being sarcastic.) bowed out of events where my presence was not essential talked to psych np (later today) Bipolar Alphabet: C is for Chaos Perhaps chaos will exist at both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between. I think there is just something in my temperament that either thrives off chaos or throws off chaos as a byproduct of existence. But the qualities of the disorder and ruination are different depending on which phase I am in. Which face I am showing the world. Waning gibbous, waxing crescent, new... When the scales are tipped toward mania, the chaos is an active, moving mountain of loose items. So many projects are happening at the same time I cannot keep track of the pieces. Or the tools. Or which project I am actually working on. My focus is split. I have trouble staying with anything until it is done without being distracted by something else. Depressive chaos is a more passive accumulation of things. Sedimentary layers of items that need to find a home for themselves because I sure as hell am not going to do so. Excavating the piles of laundry etc. to find clothing to wear rather than washing and folding and putting away. So in the middle is it possible not to be tipped in one direction or the other just by looking at the mess? What do you do when entering your house is a trigger for a mood episode? I need to eliminate all things from my house. Only I need beads and thread and scissors and leather and twill tape. And clothing. And stuff to make food. And other people live with me and they need stuff too. But not so much stuff. I think I need to hire my friend to come weekly and help with this. Working alone I spin off in one direction or the other or both at once. Because prose gets tired. And sometimes the other side needs to come out and play. I am setting a goal of doing one letter per day (as a way to get myself back to the habit of daily posts). Yesterday A was for anxiety. Today B can't figure out what it wants to be.
Today I went to awards ceremony. One of my students (that I nominated) won a scholarship that will allow her to go to college in the fall. The awards happened at the beginning of the program and were followed by a talent/fashion show by adult students from other countries. But after the scholarships were announced, I just cried quietly for the rest of the program. Weepy. I will remember to tell Psych NP that I have been weepy. It is unlikely that this is a side-effect of the lithium. From what I have read, people who are coming off lithium can be weepy. Does that mean that the dose is not therapeutic. I HATE THE FUZZY SCIENCE INVOLVED WITH THIS. Okay, the science isn't really fuzzy. But bipolar isn't like having a broken arm where you can look at the x-ray and then follow a standard protocol to address the problem. It's more like this: maybe you are bipolar and maybe not. We will rely on your unpredictable brain to tell us whether you are bipolar or not. Then we will give you a series of medications which will have some affect on your brain/moods. Or not. And then ask your brain to report back. What if your brain just doesn't know? Or what if it's having a bad day and hasn't studied for the test and doesn't have a number 2 pencil? What if all of my answers are wrong? And then based on those wrong answers, a whole new set of wrong prescriptions will follow. Equatorial Actions: went to acupuncturist put things on my calendar took myself out for lunch took my meds drank a bunch of water Grateful crap: having a minor degree of bipolar that is relatively manageable. The Bipolar Alphabet: B is for... B is for brain. The source of everything good and bad. Firing on all cylinders or none. B is for bupropion. Part of the current cocktail in the unending chemistry experiment in my head. B is for binary. Everything is black and white. It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. B is for balance. The sweet spot between work and play, energy and exhaustion, elation and devastation. B is for boring. Everyone is tired of hearing about your illness. And so are you. And it will not go away. B is for bitch. (You can call yourself this even if no one else can). The manifestation of your mania. B is for bull*hit. Insisting that you have done a great job of taking care of your health. When this is not true. B is for backslide. Think you have things figured out and then life triggers some fresh hell. B is for bungee jumping. Just kidding. B is for bipolar. I will try really really hard to get back into the daily posting habit. But I'm much better at posting when I am in the middle somewhere. And I am not so much in the middle right now. Lithium is not a wonder-drug. I am still having trouble getting to sleep before midnight - although I am tired at least. I get sucked in by the garden. BIG time. I will try to take pictures of it when the weather improves.
(I think the reason that forecasts are so uncertain is that they are told to us by the whether-man) I have been very irritated by very minor things. I wanted to kick a child (not mine) in the head the other day because he was making noise during a concert. And I almost always want to shout at the neighborhood children (mine included) and tell them to stop behaving like juveniles. PUT THE STICKS DOWN! Grateful Crap: don't seem to be having any severe side-effects to taking the lithium. At this point I don't know what kind of effect it might have had. I will ask Spouse before I go see the behavioral psych nurse practitioner on Friday. And I will look at my sparsely posted writing. This week: started tracking food and exercise. Particularly because weight and water retention can be an issue with lithium. Partly because I am feeling ready and able to tackle the healthy eating piece. Which I guess is a big frickin' deal. A is for Anxiety Floating somewhere above all this is a place of calm. Only you can never get there because of the nightmarish clouds swirling between here and there. Dark clouds heavy with rain and the overbearing threat of storms to come. They look like eggshells--the kind of clouds that funnel down to the earth and wreak havoc as chaotic whirlwinds. The horrible menace of random destruction. One building may stand untouched while its neighbor is utterly undone. The wind howls and rumbles like a freight train. The smell of ozone. The windows rattle and the hairs of your arms stand on end. The air takes on a greenish tinge. The smell of ozone. Should you risk taking in the laundry from the line? A neighbor's garbage can rolls down the street. Where is the safest place to shelter? How long will it take for the storm to pass? Will the funnel cloud touch down here at all? It doesn't matter. Because there are no clouds. There is no threat. There is no sky. All these things are concocted by your skittering imagination. And knowing this? Knowing this does not help. Because you can still hear the wind drowning out all other sounds. You can still feel the first salty raindrops. And you are cowering under the stairs with your hands about your head waiting for all this to pass. Feeling marginally better only mood wise alternate between flat affect and ROAR!!! Cannot be trusted in garden stores or hardware stores or farmers markets. They are the thrift stores of summer. Positives: my manic binge spending does not include trips to Vegas and buying a yacht. And gardening is a much better vice than promiscuous sex and illicit drugs. None of which have been a problem for me. More later not from phone Feeling crappy. Bloated and blah. Working too hard in garden. And too long. And losing track of time. Need more sleep. Super tired. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz |
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |