I live in one of the most geologically uninteresting places in the world. We are nowhere near a fault line. We have no volcanoes. No mountains. No canyons. We are near no oceans. What do we have going for us? Glacial lakes. And these lakes are full or rocks that have no business being here. This huge whopping variety of stones of every kind and size. Worn smooth and round from being ground beneath massive ice sheets. Left behind as the ice melted. Leaving us with thousands of lakes made from their retreating icy foosteps. I love rocks. I no longer know anything about them without looking up the information. But I still love them. Spouse humors me. Children make up their own names for different kinds of rocks they find. (I accidentally leave stones in my pockets. They rattle around in the dryer making sounds that for some reason do not disturb me.)I love rocks. I no longer know anything about them without looking up the information. But I still love them. Spouse humors me. Children make up their own names for different kinds of rocks they find. (I accidentally leave stones in my pockets. They rattle around in the dryer making sounds that for some reason do not disturb me.) What has been on my mind lately? Rocks. Stones. Pebbles. Sand. Okay, I don't really think about sand. It just gets stuck between my toes. I may or may not have decided that I need to bring most of the rocks that I find home with me to live in my garden. I mean to relax. I really do. And I kind of am. But I cannot help but weigh down my pockets with handfuls of volcanic rock... quartz, granite, agates, slate, bits of talc, petrified wood... and think of the ridiculously long history they represent. First to be formed... countless eons. Then to break into ever smaller pieces. More generations. The time out of time that it toook them to travel here beneath their icy transport. We are so young. My mood today was not up, not down, but somehow not quite normal-feeling. More just grey. Grey and rocky. Grey and walking alone staring at the ground. Grey and worried about missing a glint of light from a hidden crystal half-burried in sand. Grateful Crap: The songs that 3yo makes up and sings to herself "I am in the vehicle... I am in the vehicle... I am in the vehicle..." right now she is singing "The sun is going down... the sun is going down... the sun is going down..." Daily convexions: talked with a friend took meds (150mg venlaflaxine, 450mg bupropion) but not until 4:44 pm time outside time with family time with rocks... rock on. What if I don't know what normal feels like? What if what I think is normal is not normal? Does this matter? Is it inevitable that mood-swingy Depression must be part of the bipolar disorder spectrum? Is it the necessary conclusion that mild bipolar episodes will worsen if not treated? Also: why isn't there a fricken' fracken' blood test for any of this crap!?!!!! It makes it hard for me to believe in a diagnosis that requires me to self-report. Because what if I'm wrong? What if I'm lying? What if I just plain don't remember? Depending on what mood I'm in when I talk to psych person I might give very different answers. Does a diagnosis hinge on a single turn of phrase? And what if the person I see has never seen anyone with non-unipolar Depression? Will she be more inclined or less inclined to make a complicated diagnosis? Also, what if this is all just crap and I am unipolarly Depressed with bouts of sleep-induced energy? Limbo sucks. And will I be out of limbo on the basis of what one person says? Probably not. My friend with a bipolar diagnosis has someone she recommends. She might be a good person to seek out if I am left in limbo after meeting with psychiatrist in about a week. Maybe I should bring someone with me who is more reliable and has known me for some time. I don't know. I'd rather just hide under a rock. Grateful Crap: Nice weather; time with family Daily Convexions: took meds (in the morning. 150mg venlafaxine and 450mg bupropion) This afternoon I found myself pulled back to the rock retaining wall project. I had applied bright blue nail polish last night in the hopes that a fresh manicure would keep me away from rock-hauling. Nope. On the plus side the wall is now DONE. No more hefting stones. Post wall-building I found myself feeling a bit off. A bit down maybe? A little clay-faced? Not sad. Not really. Just not available to many emotions. I should chart my moods. I don't know how to do that. But I bet it would be helpful for my next visit with psychiatrist. I could probably even look back over posts and get a fairly okay-ish idea about a month worth of moods... we'll see. Okay, I just charted my moods (each month marked whether there was Depressive episode, Manic episode or Mixed episode...) and I must say that reading through my blog posts I come out with at least one dip into Depression and one blip into mild manic and/or mixed state. Naturally I spent too long reading the posts and looking over things so the online mood tracker did not save my data. Blast. Must do it again. Another time. Not now. Okay, so I did it now. And here is the interesting thing that I noticed... EVERY MONTH since I have been blogging (beginning in May 2013) I have had at least one hypomanic or mixed episode. Yup. I pointed this out to spouse, but then I realized that he has lived with me for a while and has probably noticed this. Yes, he has. These energetic or anxiety-filled bursts of super-powered projects are NOT typical of unipolar Depression. I have also dipped into Depression every month. Not for weeks at a time always, but at least a few days of Sad or Clay Face or just Down. Interesting. Grateful Crap: being done with that (*#$%&*@(!! wall Daily Convexions: took meds (closer to morning) time outside time with family When I applied to college I wrote in my entrance essay that my career goals included cloning myself so I would not have to narrow my field of study. Then one clone could go off and be all sciency. Another one could write novels. And one would teach. Another invent stuff... Then I ended up studying Music Education with an instrumental emphasis, East Asian Studies with a Japanese language emphasis, (also thought about getting a geology minor, but that just seemed silly)... On to grad school where I got certified to teach English as a Second Language to children grades K-12, an ABE licence to teach adults, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (where I could not choose between fiction and poetry so I did them both). So, it tickles me that in studying the varying types of bipolar-type mood disorders, the one that seems most descriptive of my experience was once described as a "mixed state." (The new DSM-5 changes how things are described and diagnosed and I'm not sure what the implications for that are.) With the now-obsolete "mixed bipolar state," depressive episodes and manic behavior are locked in a hideous marriage. Forget euphoria, eleveted mood and grandiosity. Instead you get high energy levels, racing thoughts, trouble sleeping... with negative emotions, irritability, agitation and anxiety. Ah. Good times. Note #1: Slept poorly last night. Read a scary (horrific, really) mystery novel right before bed and then had trouble getting to sleep. When I woke up I felt clingy and weird and made up stupid stories that were not true. Not weepy, but shaky. Note #2: today I built a stone retaining wall by hand to cover some ugly orange sandbags. This strikes me as the kind of thing I do when I am experiencing whatever the heck it is that I am experiencing. I thought I could stop with just one side of the wall done. But the only way to avoid completing it was to avoid being there. Tomorrow, I will be sore. Did I mention I used to throw the shot-put in junior high? Grateful Crap: warm bath, anti-inflammatories Daily Convexions: forgot to take meds yesterday morning; took them at night forgot to take meds this morning; took them in afternoon Did you know potatoes have fruits? They look like little green tomatoes. I have encouraged the family not to eat them, since the potato is part of the nightshade family and I am fairly certain that potato fruit is not edible. Right. I am patting myself on the back right now for one main reason: I have been doing a pretty good job of not letting other people's crap become my crap. Thus, the teflon. So much better than I'm rubber and you are glue. This way crap just doesn't stick to anyone. Just falls to earth and contributes to compost, presumably. I have the month of August mostly off... just some meetings here and there but no daily teaching. It will be nice. I will not try to get everything done. Trying to note when I am engaging in "hypomanic" behavior. I might not notice. Local folks, if you do, can you let me know? Nothing today. Just time outside with family. Mostly relaxy. Accidentally sunburned, which was not the plan. I did slather my glow-in-the-dark children with sunscreen. Just forgot that my olive-complexion is not so olive as I think it is, and the decollotage is surprisingly susceptible to sunlight. So there. Grateful Crap: Really nice weather Daily Convexions: took meds time outside time with family The kids love pajama days. Days when they get to sit around and play games and not have to go anywhere and just totally relax. When I have a pajama day it is an excuse to skip the shower, stink up the whole house and wander around in a daze. It is not relaxing. It is not a good plan. So I have put it on my list to allow comfy-clothes days, but I don't get to stay in my pajamaas even if I have nowhere to go. It puts my head in a bad place. This, in case you could not tell, was a pajama day. Done. Grateful Crap: something good Daily Convexions: took meds time outside something else In a grand case of unsurprisingness... the psychiatrist that I saw today did NOT give me a definitive diagnosis. So I lose the dollar or two that I bet you that she would tell me I had atypical Depression with some bipolar tendencies. Nope. Instead she met with me for a while, I read her the symptoms that I had recorded on my blog previously. (see this post) In general I did not plan this day well and it involved much driving around in circles. Drop off kids at friend's house. Drive to work for meeting. Drive back to friend's house for lunch. Drive children to beach with friend. Drive to psych appointment. Drive back to beach to retreive children. Drive home. Drive to work-related party. Drive home. Bonus? My younger two had a great day and my older learned that a steady diet of video games, sugar free candy and water will make you feel kind of crappy. I have no illusions that this is a lesson that will not be repeated. Many, many times. Okay, back to the psych visit, which was the part of the day I was most anticipating. I filled out forms. I answered questions. I confused her a bit because although I had done a lot of research I was not trying to diagnose myself. What makes you think you might be bipolar? I don't really. Friends and family wondered and I thought it would be prudent to first talk to my regular doc and she recommended the appointment since the question came up at all AND I had the experience of antidepressants pooping out on me. Here was the main problem... when she asked me when I first noticed the hypomanic things starting I couldn't give her a date. Because I don't remember not having them. I just didn't call them that. Also, when she asked what I had tried to stop a hypomanic episode I told her nothing... because I hadn't seen them as the problem. The Depression was very clear-cut for me. It sucked. It was a major problem. Even when I was convinced that it was imaginary and I should just snap out of it. But the Ups? Until I started noticing that I was physically injuring myself while engaging in recreational hypomania I didn't think of the Ups as a problem. Except that they also started interfering with my social engagement with friends. Did they interfere with work? No. But keep in mind that I work nowhere NEAR full time. So even when the Depression was bad I only missed two days of work total. Because I could psych myself into a three-hour teaching stint. Much much easier than figuring out how to handle an 8-hour day. And then during the Sad, I could just come home and collapse at 4:30 pm and sleep until morning. In the end she decided that I do fit many of the characteristics of Bipolar... but that it just isn't as clear-cut as either of us would like it to be. She is hesitant to put me on medication for bipolar because she doesn't think the side effects are worth the trouble if the Ups aren't terrible and if I haven't even tried anything to manage them. My main concern, I told her, was to make sure that whatever antidepressant I was on was not going to worsen the Ups to the point of them being a problem. If I am the one making them a problem, then I need to figure that out. Here was the bad news: it looks like it is even MORE important for me to eat well, sleep well and get regular exercise than if I were a neurotypical individual. Crap. However, that no longer seems unattainable. I am due to meet with her again in two weeks when we both will have done more research and she will try to hunt down some more specific questionnaire-type things to help with a differential diagnosis. I don't really care what it is called. Whatever this thing is. I just want to treat it appropriately. Grateful Crap: NOT experiencing manic episodes. I'd like to keep it that way. Daily Convexions: took meds time outside socializing with colleagues |
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |