Had a small case of the shakes at night and a larger case of clinginess in recent days. Some sort of sinus/tension MASSIVE headache. Spouse stayed home and allowed me to sleep a lot and get rest that I needed to recover.
But I am not sure what the ratio of physical to mental illness was. Because while I definitely had physical symptoms (horrendous headache, fatigue, body aches, chills) I also just really really really want to go into my room, line the walls with something soft and never never never come out. Really. And I still don't wanna go out of the house. Or go to work. Or see anyone. Or talk to anyone. And I don't want them to see me either. Or want to see me. I listened to the parents at the preschool making small-talk with one another and connecting socially with one another. And I felt sad that I was not making these connections and that I had no desire to make the connections. What is the point? I'll just know them for this year and maybe a few of them next year, and then I'll never see them again. Why invest the emotional capital in getting to know them. Just call me Little Mary Sunshine. I don't think that having two weeks from my regular routine is a good plan. And I also think that the amount of time I spend in my room is a good indicator of my teetering on one polar opposite or the other. It has been more on the Depressed side. Here is a really good joke: I called the psychiatrist office to see about tapering down the venlafaxine starting NOW instead of waiting for the Spring. They called me back and said that since my psychiatrist was out of town, the on-call doc was not willing to make that change since she didn't know my case history etc. She also mentioned that we are just entering into the worst part of winter. Fine. I think that is probably reasonable and responsible. So I did not taper down the level of venlafaxine. Which is also responsible and completely unlike what I have done with my medications in the past (pre-blog days) Here is the punchline: after I got off the phone with the people who said I couldn't taper of my antidepressant, I felt super sad about it and have been edging more toward that end of the spectrum since. HA. This morning I was having very maudlin thoughts about our Place in the Universe and why the bloody heck do we think we are the pinnacle of existence and maybe I'd really rather be a tree. Writing it down, it sounds absolutely ridiculous. But it just felt achingly sad at the time. A teacher of mine noticed (pre-blog) that when I do my detailed beading projects I turn ever more internal-- I am not available to people around me. I shut them out. This was in a group class with much social interaction. When I knit or sewed in class I was a much more animated participant. It was in part her observation that led me to realize that my Depression was not well-controlled. I explained that the withdrawal was the cause of the beading and not the other way around. As I find myself engaged in ever-more-detailed bead embroidery projects with seed beads on leather, I wonder... is this a symptom? Things I have noticed (the harbingers of Depression):
Not fine, not really. I will be. I have faith in persistence and support and pharmaceuticals and the fact that the stupid things that my brain tries to convince me of are horrendous lies. I just need to keep track of how many days these symptoms have lasted so I can share info with my therapist. Frelling hell. I teach tomorrow. That should shake me out of my shell. And the new semester teaching at the college begins on Monday. So I am almost guaranteed to swing back in the hypomanic direction. Definitely feeling the fugliness of Bipolar Disorder today. Comments are closed.
|
Archives
May 2020
Categories
All
K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |