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. Comments are closed.
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |