Me, 1974-75. And pretty accurate view of how i see the world today.
Dear Internet,
It was pretty easy.
I grabbed some hair, measured what I wanted to cut and using the scissors bought specifically for events like these, cut my hair.
I ran my hands around my head, measuring and eyeballing what needed to get cut and what was going to stay. I kept this up until my hair, combed wet, was nearly dry and then stopped. Once satisfied with my work, I jumped in the shower and shaved the rest of my body. A hairy body is the sign of not being in control, and we can’t have that, now can we?
I could make the argument the impromptu cut I got at a chain salon a month ago, now having grown out resemble a mess, was to blame — and that would, at some level, be true. But cutting my hair is just one of the many fail overs I use to soothe whatever fire is in my head.
I can’t control what is going on in my brain, so cutting my hair is one of the myriad of ways I assert my own control over my person.
I will take control. I have control. I am in control.
Since I had disclosed the sads had returned two weeks ago, their manic cyclic behavior has been taking a huge toll on my mental health in addition to my personal and professional lives. It is taking every bit of my energy to not fuck shit up, to not let important things lapse, to not let this thing, whatever name I want to call it, rule over me so completely.
The cycles in the past have been pretty prolonged but this time is different. They have returned with fierceness that is humbling and often catching me unawares. I can be high for hours and then down shift into depression within a blink of an eye – it hit so hard while grocery shopping last week, I felt like I was going to faint from its sudden impact. It lifts for a few hours and then BOOM, we down shift again into another bout that can be and will be as dark as its brethren.
Drugs would have smoothed this out, sure. But the drugs don’t work when you can’t tolerate them and they, in my case, make things worse. At least here — in this space — I know that it will lift at some point. It will, as Stephen Fry says, get sunny one day.
Here are some obvious things about the weather:
It’s real.
You can’t change it by wishing it away.
If it’s dark and rainy it really is dark and rainy and you can’t alter it.
It might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row.
BUT
It will be sunny one day.
It isn’t under one’s control as to when the sun comes out, but come out it will.
Stephen Fry
Even though the world looks dark, and I would do anything in this moment to rip my skin from my body in order to not be me anymore, I know this will pass. It will get better.
It has to.
x0x0,
Lisa
Dear Internet,
Earlier this year, there was a brouhaha all over Facebook and Twitter about how “disgusting” and “sexist” the new UK version of the 50th anniversary cover for Sylvia Plath’s seminal work, The Bell Jar. Here is the offending cover:
There are obviously several “chick-lit” cover tropes in play:
Stock image of a woman applying make-up
Vintage coloring scheme
“Girly” cursive font
Given this context and novel’s content, everyone and their sixteen cousins are in a tizzy about the nature of this cover:
“If Sylvia Plath hadn’t already killed herself, she probably would’ve if she saw the new cover of her only novel The Bell Jar.” via Jezebel
“How is this cover anything but a ‘fuck you’ to women everywhere?“ via Dustin Kurtz, marketing manager at Melville House
Awesomelycomicallyhistorically inapprop’ via Andy Pressman, graphic designer (in response to Kutz)
“The anniversary edition fits into the depressing trend for treating fiction by women as a genre, which no man could be expected to read and which women will only know is meant for them if they can see a woman on the cover.” via Fatema Ahmed, London Review of Books
Ms. Magazine, Salon, and The Guardian also weighed in, but kept their content more neutral, while Chicago Tribune and Huffington Post UK wrote the usual knee jerk reactions you would expect for the sole purpose of link baiting. Interestingly, the controversy was never addressed in publications with consistently reputable book coverage, such as theNew York Times, USA Today, Washington Post or Slate. What’s even more interesting is the cover was released in October of 2012 and only in the UK. A few souls bemoaned the inappropriate nature of the cover at the time, but it did not become WW III until someone at Jezebel decided to get their tits up about the topic. At which time, it became a feeding frenzy of OH EM GEE, WE MUST AVENGE SLYVIA PLATH.
So there is that. Here is something to think about. No professional writer, blogger, or Internet commentator of note, made ANY kind of comment in the defense of the cover as a representation of the mentally ill, or fuck, did not make a single noise that it was recursive against the mentally ill. No, no, no – it was all about feminism, how Plath got jacked out of literary respectability because of the lurid colored cover and the overly female image, and her work has now, so say them all, been degraded to some emo representative chick lit that completely belays her importance.
So isn’t it funny that when it comes to someones idea of what a graphic designed cover of mental illness could look like, we decide to reject that notion on the basis it is disrespecting our vaginas? I mean really? And listen — can someone put Jezebel out of their misery because they have become a hyperbole unto themselves? I do not get how it is seemingly appropriate for them to rail against the man in regards to feminism while seemingly having zero problems making insulting and stereotypical commentary about mental illness in the same breath. So sayeth my comments to the article:
“I’m varying degrees disgusted/ashamed only a small number of people called out the fact Tracie is an insensitive and obnoxious asshole for making disparaging commentary about mental illness and suicide. I tried to commit suicide when I was 17, my mother attempted twice in her 50s. Maybe next time we’ll just come to you for suggestions next time we want to off ourselves since you seem to have all the answers.”
What’s next, Tracie? Commentary likening Sylvia’s use of gas to kill herself to that of the Holocaust? Maybe somehow tie it in into ” exacerbated by the suffocating gender stereotypes”?
As a woman, who is bipolar, I don’t see the cover as “adjusting her make-up” or as some tricked pony of a color scheme to get more readers, or some flippant visual remark that the story is “chick-lit”, or being oppressed by the man for my gender (as you stated so eloquently).
What *I* see is what I see everyday in my OWN mirror: A woman with two faces. The public one I have to keep adjusted lest my illness be known, and the private one that is wholly different. The cover actually says A LOT about how much women need to carry more than one persona just to survive on a daily basis, even before the mental illness is added in.
It seems to me, that most people crying out “This is sexist bullshit!” or “That it’s an insult to women!” have never dealt with or experienced mental illness, which is far more stigmatizing for a woman.
And that fact has not changed in 50 years. Me, in response to the Jezebel article
So we come now, nearly a year later. We continually don’t want to talk about or disregard any representation of mental health in the media, even if that representation is wrong or misguided, if it goes against something else we place a higher value on, such as women’s rights.
But you can’t sacrifice one for the other. In an attempt to do so only reinforces whatever tropes and misguided notions exist whether the outlier is mental illness or something else entirely. And to reject a book cover under misconstrued ideals of what feminism looks like or that it is a rejection of contemporary ideologies — and remember, the baseline of what feminism is is the right to choose and portray our own lives — is just as hurtful and hateful as the projections everyone is attempting to claim the book is representing.
You cant’t have it both ways.
xoxo,
Lisa
Medieval dentistry, from the Omne Bonum (England – 1360-1375). Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Dear Internet,
It is said eating chocolate causes the brain to release endorphins, the chemicals known to make us feel good. I have concluded this is a lie as I just ate half a thing of brownies and I’m still in a murderous rage.
Somewhere between dinner and shopping Saturday evening, a conversation triggered my mood and I spent the remaining time out with TheHusband in a kill zone. A hushed argument in the middle of the bakery, a near silent 15 minute drive home (he was breathing very loud!), and an even quieter rest of the evening couldn’t shake this whatever it was I was fuming on about. Because honestly, I don’t even know.
I knew my good run of a somewhat semi-happy existence for the last month was coming to an end late last week when I started to feel the clawing pull of the sads as the week wore on. It seemed no matter how much I fought it, brief thoughts flicked across my mind that I don’t want to be here, everything sucks, I need to leave, no one loves or gets me, and the whole world can go to hell. I wish there was one event or fuck, several events that tripped me this week but there was actually much good news and excitement (some of which I cannot reveal just yet) so I’m chalking it up to my moods flipping again.
This is how the disease works, without warning the mental anguish swims against your skin, the rapid train of thought in its varying degrees of self-hatred and self-doubt become your daily mantra. The easy willingness to give up on what you’re working on or for because somehow it will make your life easier (it won’t) and will save you from potential ridicule (the only ridicule is in your head), and of course the ever present sads that seem to always cling close to your brain like a child hugging a teddy bear.
It is during these days, the struggle to remain upright and living becomes harder and physically exhausting. Just putting myself together to get through the day is sometimes the best victory I can ask for.
x0x0,
Lisa
Bipolar skull by Taiyo85 on Deviantart
Dear Internet,
As the kids say, I’m full of all sorts of feels today.
In addition to the sexual harassmentshenanigans going on, I received an invite from my mother this weekend to dinner at her place for Thanksgiving with the words, “It is time to forgive and forget. Sincerely apologize” scribbled on the card. There is a metric fuck ton on that topic I need to write in regards to our estrangement, but not today.
No, today we’re going to skip talking about my pussy and boobs and my mother issues and talk about my brain.
Tonight I had a fairly final appointment with my medicating shrink, Dr. H. I’ve been Lithium free, bipolar and ADHD drug free actually, for nearly a month and feeling pretty damn good about the whole thing. In a lot of ways, I feel like I moved over the hurdle of the mess that had become my life, sought help and while the drugs did not work, found some kind of manageable world that I can exist in the moment and not think of what could/may/potentially happen in the future.
Being bipolar is a fucked up diagnosis. You’re either vilified as being a fucking lunatic and you’re expected, thanks to the media, to accept the condition they present to the masses or treated as the ultimate muse who can spin spiderwebs of creativity at the drop of a hat.
I’ve stopped watching Homeland because I got tired of them treating Carrie’s bipolar as this alternate superhero trait and presenting that anyone with bipolar can go on a sexy times bender, complete with smooth jazz, which warrants a good reason for her demise. Another particularly interesting insight they like to allude to is at ANY TIME Carrie can go bat shit insane! And poof! She’s carted off to the psych ward and given ECT. Against her will.
(I have made TheHusband promise, no matter how bad it ever gets in the future, he will not allow them to give me ECT. Not in a fucking million years. No.)
Life doesn’t work that way, especially when you’re chemically imbalanced. Not by a long shot. When my mother tried to commit suicide a decade ago, getting her checked in to a psych ward was fucking paper work galore – because isn’t it always? The endless amounts of paperwork when your mother has OD’d on insulin is kind of astounding and makes concrete two things I hope to do in life: Not go to jail or get checked into a psych ward.
(They also had Carrie eating Lithium like its candy and IT WILL REACT THIS VERY SECOND. Lithium takes weeks to get to a medicating level and then you have to take into account the blood work involved and the cannots that could dampen the drugs effectiveness. Lithium, when it works, is a miracle drug if you’re willing to give up alcohol, pain relievers, your sex drive, and are prepared for the amped anxiety and ADHD like symptoms to name a few lovely sideeffects.)
I also get twitchy reading these stories about people who do major things in their life — lose a million pounds, conquered a major disease, overcame their illnesses. We’re only given these tiny snapshots of their insular world in these pieces and golden road after golden road on how much better their life now is! Which is fine, but it’s so hard to relate to someone when they gloss over the details and give up this facade of a mirror under the guise of “I get you.” No, you don’t get me. This is why being crazy is well crazy. Every diagnosis may have a blanket term, but how individually we are under that diagnosis varies as widely as the color spectrum.
TheHusband will tell you living with me while going on and off the drugs, was a goddamned nightmare. What Lisa was he going to end up today? Was I going to put clothes on and go to work or would I call in sick because the thought of getting out of bed was too much to fucking bear? Would I refuse to eat for random reasons or cry for hours because of images of baby elephants triggered that particular spell on that particular day? And I haven’t gotten into the mania yet which transfers, sometimes for me, into excessive shopping and long periods of not sleeping. I’m talking days of going on a few hours of sleep and lots of caffeine.
Sometimes, both at the same time.
Being crazy is ugly. You lose friends who can’t handle the mood swings; you lose jobs, lovers, your sense of self-worth, your dignity, your grace. One minute you’re high on the world and the next, you want to burn it all to the ground and salt the earth. Sometimes the highs last for a really good long period, when the world seems that much sharper, in focus and BOOM! Without warning, it flips and you’re huddled in week old clothing why you can’t bother to get up to shower. You can track my entire adult career in education, jobs, and relationships on where exactly on the spectrum I was for my mania or depression.
Being crazy is lonely. People turn away from you, friends wander off, lovers break up with you, you have no real outlet to say, “This is me. This is who I am. There are going to be some really amazing days and some really awful days, but if you hang on, it’ll be okay.” Because you have, in a sense, said this before at the last break-up, the last phone call, the last email to someone. They’ve heard this story before — just get some help, they will tell you. Get some help, put your world back together. But what if, like in my case, the help that is supposed to set you free actually imprisons you? I cannot physically take the drugs for my disease. I have tried numerous times and each drug cocktail has shaved off days, weeks, months, sometimes years of time that I will never get back from all the lost time of experimentation. Now what? There is no handbook for this sort of thing, how am I supposed to put my world together if my world is so fragile, the smallest of changes can send it shattering into a million pieces?
Being crazy is exhausting. Whether from the drugs or the pure, raw sheer strength of keeping yourself together during the hour, day, or even the minute. The constant on guard of your feelings, emotions to make sure they don’t explode over everyone you meet.
Today I am neither ugly, lonely, or exhausted. Today has been a good day, as was yesterday and as I hope tomorrow is. Being free is knowing I have done everything under my control to keep this disease in check, to as prepared as much as I can for when the next wave hits, and hope that it will all be over soon.
I end this with a quote from one of my favorite philosophers:
There’s no point to any of this. It’s all just a… a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know… a Quarter-Pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle… and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt. Troy Dyer
Dear Internet,
This morning, in between telling TheHusband to continue smacking the snooze button so I didn’t have to quite get up, I watched the sun rise from our bed. Half propped up on pillows, for about 45 minutes I just watched the sky change from brilliant red to a deep orange to a medium pink and finally fading into lemonade yellow. I thought of nothing as I watched but I was also struggling between being fully awake and the call of dreamland and our fantastically cozy bed. When I was close to being 100% lucid, I enjoyed the spectacular sight that was ever changing in my window until I had to absolutely, positively had to get out of bed.
Ages ago when I was hopping on and off Weight Watchers, I remember in the beginning one of the section leaders giving a lecture about personal love. Not just sexually, but remembering as we struggle with our challenges, regardless of what they are, to always do something for ourselves which can be as tiny as reading in a hot bath with favorite scent in the water to buying a new THING or could be on a much grander scale, like a trip or a large purchase.
The point being is to always remember to love you.
A few years later when I started dialectical behavioral therapy, much of the same concept applied — you need to create a room, a space, a THING to soothe you to bring you back from the edge of whatever it was you were feeling frantic about. This is kind of the underlying architecture of DBT, with the idea of changing one little thing and creating a safe haven for yourself can create a whole new world.
This is something I think everyone struggles with regardless of the state of their mental health; the ability to actually say to themselves in the mirror, “I love you.” And mean it.
——————–
The weekend had a potential, much potential, which at least gave me some breath of hope. I’m now on day 4 of no Lithium and so far, I feel okay. The worst of the side effects, with the Lithium and the tapering off, have passed. I don’t feel like I’m floating, face up, under water as much as I have been. Even if the days are not extraordinary, the more the drugs are emptied from me, the more hope for them to become extraordinary increases.
I’ve started collecting moments of the day to create touchstones to reach back to when things start getting rough. Watching the sun rise in bed, smiling randomly at a stranger, a particular outfit that works well, or writing a random note to someone just because. If I create a fortress of these touchstones, then nothing can stop me as I battle this disease, this taker of life.
And I will win.
x0x0,
Lisa
Street words on the side of a church delivery door.
Dear Internet,
This morning I cried because I couldn’t put on a pair of shoes.
The inability to put shoes on is not an uncommon thing, but it is a frustrating one. Over a year since my first surgery and six months after the second, I still unable to fit anything beyond flip-flops or Chucks on my feet, with the occasional foray into a ballet flat. This is made even more difficult as my right foot post-surgery is now an 11.5W while my left is a 10.5B.
I’ve been piecing out my shoe wardrobe to keeping only what fits or I absolutely positively love rather than keep everything. While I was never really a heel girl, even the ones I own and loved are almost useless to me at this point and into the pile they go. A recently purchased and rather expensive pair of flats I got at 75% off, talked into buying them via a beloved shoe courtier who silkily promised they most assuredly would fit, turned out to be a “thank fuck I did not buy these at full price” mistake. Several wearings indoors per their instruction and then the eventual public airing of the shoe found they were, after an hour or two, almost unbearable. How a pair of flats could cause so much issue with my feet is beyond me. I do not blame the shoe courtier for the pressure because they do fit at slip-on and comfortably so at that; I blame my feet for their rebeling at being fashionable.
My current obsession is finding a pair of dress boots that are flat heeled (more due to height than comfort) and can accommodate my tennis calves and odd feet. Boxes have been arriving from various vendors for me to try on — funny how I never thought of the shipping of shoes from Zappos and the like to Throbbing Manor to be similar to the receiving of gifts from my subjects but there you are — and again, the frustration at mismarking and advertising of wrong sizes and widths is causing more stress. Last winter, after the first surgery, TheHusband counted I had purchased and returned a dozen pairs of everyday boots before finally finding a pair by happenstance at the mall.
The crying this morning was not simply over the fact my shoes don’t fit, but more about this bottom of this often never ending and seemingly black oil pit I find myself in. Yes, it sucks I couldn’t wear my walking shoes to go on a walk and had to opt for flip-flops, but it’s not the end of the world. Yet to me, it was and also rather symbolic of everything going on in my life.
As I continue the tapering down of Lithium, in fact today is the first day I’ve been Lithium free, my moods have started shifting like a radiograph, even more rapidly in the last week. I started bawling yesterday reading Facebook and then proceeded to go into a several hour depression that quickly, and shockingly, emptied me of life. The black clouds descend so quickly and with such force, I felt powerless. TheHusband spent a couple of hours walking me through my feelings, which continue to be a catalog of everything I feel are to be truths:
Nobody loves me
Everybody hates me
I will never be happy
Everyone leaves me
I will not amount to anything
I will have never accomplished X,Y,Z
I will never have the kind of life as seen by X,Y,Z
I am too old
I am too young
This has been the same laundry list since I could remember keeping track of all of my demons.
TheHusband got me calmed and by bedtime I felt relatively able to sleep with peace. This morning however, when I woke, the black cloud was back and circling with a vengeance. Since we woke at mid-morning, the sun had been up for several hours and our bedroom was bathed in light which was even more depressing. This blinding happiness depressed me more as the idea of staying shut in all day while the day glowed like the summer. Toss up: Stay indoors and become more depressed because everyone is seemingly having some kind of life, the world looks shiny and new OR go outside, even against your will, to at least experience what it feels like. Which will hurt more?
TheHusband made the executive decision we were going to walk Wednesday and then talk a walk ourselves. Chop-chop, wash your face, put on a sports bra and let’s go. He tempted me with treats from a local bakery conveniently located around the corner from our house if we did at least a quick jaunt around the neighborhood. Instead, we found ourselves roaming farther and longer, and the quick jaunt turned into a four mile walk in flip-flops, which ended with breakfast at a local place and some Gerbera daisies for the dining room.
We made half-heartedly plans for the afternoon, but found ourselves hiding in our offices while I read and wrote and TheHusband played video games. I was also opposed to the idea of having to put on pants for some reason, but that is not a black cloud thing, that is more of a sensibilities thing. Because, well, pants.
On occasion there will be days where I’ll get a glimpse of happiness, where I know that even at the darkest hour there will be a snap and things will become stable again. That as is before, as in the future, and as is the now, I will climb out of this slick pit of despair and change something. It’s hard to remember the positive in your life, when you’ve gotten so used to the idea that happiness is fleeting. HOW DARE YOU NORMAL PEOPLE HAVE HAPPY LIVES? Which is why I cry at Facebook. And stalk some people’s lives online because I find it so fucking hard to believe someone could legitimately be happy. SURELY, they must be faking it. Or projecting it. Or something. The world is unreal, ergo, what I am seeing is also unreal.
It’s hard to remember not everyone is like me, that feelings are felt and gone so fast, their tail is often the only reminder they are there. It’s hard to remember often what I’m seeing in other people is really a projection or a sum of their life, I don’t know everything going on in their world. All I do know, their happiness reinforces my lack of having any. It’s hard to remember a trigger by something sending me into a spiral, should not be reinforced by swimming in that sea.
And even harder to remember, no matter how prickly I may be, I am not unloved.
Dear Internet,
It’s the 272nd day of the year or the end of September, whichever is easier to remember. As I quipped to TheHusband today, my favorite time of year for it’s one of the few months we’re not running our boiler or the central air, ergo the electric and gas bills are down.
And here I bet you thought I was all seriousness and no fun.
I’ve been purposely withdrawing from a semblance of social life as I meter down on the Lithium. I’m currently taking 900mg a day (I started out at 1500mg), and have found that this particular dose is working well for me. At the advice of Dr. H., who suggested if I found a level that worked for me to stay there so I’m heeding his request.
Most of the problematic side-effects from the higher doses have gone, which has been a tremendous amount of relief. As I don’t know how I am going to respond on the lower doses, I thought it best to curtail anything I don’t need to be actively involved in. This includes but was not limited to withdrawing my volunteer work with a few local comic cons happening this fall, my application for a part-time job at a new local comic book store, a few classes I was going to take, sponsored by Grand Rapids recreational department, and a few more things.
If my absence around town before was due to mobility, before that to some sort of depression, this time for a fairly sensible reason: my mental health. Some of the scariest moments this year was going on a new ADHD drug and having it take over my life. When I sampled Adderall and Focalin, I was living in emotional hell and the strain of being “normal” for everyday things took its toll.
I became a sketch of a person who only seemed to exist in novels or on a television show.
This is always the part that never seems to get discussed: the ramifications of going on/off controlled substances and how if done wrong, can fuck with your life in many serious ways. This is the reason why I write about because I want others to know they are not the only ones going through this particular hell. I also noted to my small support circle of those who also were gifted with being Bipolar my tactics and plan and they also agreed what I was doing was sensible.
This entire year has been exhausting. And I feel incredibly vulnerable, tender, and weary of the world at large.
My session with my talking therapist, Dr. P., have been ramping up pretty well. A year into our therapy and I’m finally revealing more about the inner core of me than before. I’m realising more so than ever talk therapy may be one of the few drugs I have left in my arsenal and I don’t want to waste it on discussing stupid things. I need to get rid of the burned husks and lay it bare.
I’m still solidly working on my archives, bouncing through different back-ups to add back in here at EPbaB. TheHusband often reminds me the back-ups I pulled from former SQL tables, still chock full of injected code, can easily be cleaned up by him. I then explained there is something Zen in the grabbing the data I need and cleaning it up myself. It can be so automatic but at the same time, soothing. There is sense of accomplishment to the act his fancy scripts cannot give me.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in 2003, mainly working through the entries where I found my high school sweetheart when I moved back to GR and what happened after. In 2008, he would track me down to my place of work to try to rekindle something, and follow up with the same move in 2011.
Reliving that extremely short period of 2003 has been much more painful than I would have imagined even a decade removed. I was so absolute and sure about our relationship even though he failed me over and over again. I was smart enough in 2008 and again in 2011 to recognize the bridge he was trying to sell me was never, ever going to materialize. It also didn’t help matters after 2011 connection, I found out he was still living with his girlfriend of many years and has a long rap sheet for various offenses. Politically, we’re so far apart it’s laughable and his various social media streams indicate he’s one step away from writing a manifesto while solitary living on the mountain.
In 1989 we were not an ocean apart. By 2003, no matter how much our hearts begged to be joined, our differences outweighed us. By 2008, I had no idea who this man calling on me was for he was not the man I had fallen in love with 20 years prior. By 2011, I was just tired of the ping ponging and the lies.
It is like a bullet has been dodged multiple times. The 17 year old me weeps for the death of someone she had loved, who had died many, many years ago and instead now sees just the shell of a person she used to know.
But it is finding those lost moments of time, which are ripe in their honesty and candor, so appealing as I go through my archives. They remind me I would not be here today without these events happening, the decisions and sometimes the regrets I have chosen. My personal history may not have world changing moments, but there is a richness to the layers of my struggles, pain, and happiness that helped define me as a person and charted the course of my life.
And it helps to remind me, as I come off the drugs, all of that is inside of me. That life, no matter how monochrome it may feel, can always randomly burst into technicolor.
x0x0,
Lisa
Electrode locations of International 10-20 system for EEG (electroencephalography) recording. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Dear Internet,
I learned today that one cannot tweet when one is having electrodes placed on their skull. But then, you’re so tired from the sleep deprivation, the last thing you want to do is lean over and grab your phone to tell the world you’re beginning to look like the Bride of Frankenstein.
The EEG test required me to be sleep deprived, so I fell asleep at midnight and woke up at 4AM. No caffeine. At 7:15, I woke TheHusband up for us to head to the hospital where the procedure was going to take place. I was feared I was going to end up getting amped up on adrenalin that would prevent me from falling asleep during the procedure. I also feared of falling asleep while driving. There are times when having a husband is useful.
The EEG testing unit is buried in the bowels of the hospital, a set of complicated instructions arrived in the mail, but we got there will little delay. After I checked in, I was called back by one of the techs who was admonished that “Donna has to learn patience. I have to finish checking her (meaning me) in before Donna can have her.” More conversation. I’m told to sit back down. Then stand back up to follow the not Donna to the actual testing area. The not Donna kept apologizing along the way for what has just transpired. There seems to be some drama fraught at workplace.
I meet the Donna when I’m led into the room where the testing is going to take place. Donna goes through my paperwork and seems perplexed as to why I am here after I answer her questions. I document my seizure history, starting when I was 3. She then wants to talk about “my other issues,” which she means my mental disorders. These I had already mentioned to her earlier questions and I notice she has a hard time saying their names, her mouth seems crippled. I say them clearly, for her to make sure we’re clear: Bipolar I, Borderline Personality Disorder. ADHD. General anxiety. I explain, again to her since she seems confused, some of the symptoms associated with one disease is duplicated across other diseases. For example, the tremor in my right hand and leg, which happens rarely, is from the Bipolar, not neurological.
Donna’s seemingly reluctance at my answers is making me anxious. I find that slightly hilarious so I giggle while she finishes up my paperwork.
Prior to the placing the electrodes, the not Donna measured my skull and gave Donna seemingly random numbers that sounded like some sort of key, “6. 5.8, 6, 6, 5.8” and would act slightly intrigued when something came up as a “7.” “Are you sure?” the elder would ask. “I’m sure. It’s a 7.”, the junior responded.
I still have no idea what they were talking about.
After my head was measured thoroughly, and marked all over with red grease pencil, they began placing the electrodes on my head, using a heavy glue for the attachments. I’m assured the glue, another sticky product, and the grease pencil are all water soluble.
Donna and not Donna start working on placing the electrodes me, one obviously more confident or has been at her job far longer than the other. Donna’s confidence in what she was doing overshadowed the other tech, who while as agile with her fingers, often seemed to pause or was hesitant about what and where she should mark. I was getting annoyed with the confident one as she marked and place the electrodes on my skull, she had a habit of pulling my hair just enough to make me cringe for a nanosecond, but not so much that it actually hurt. Since her counterpart managed to not do this, I took it as some passive aggressive act about her job. This was cemented when one of the electrodes seemed to apparently not be working correctly, as she worked on fixing it, she had no problems being rough with moving and cleaning the electrode around my head, pulling my hair roughly a few times about with the shift.
After I was wired up, my head was wrapped with several rolls of gauze and I was told to lay down.
The room was sterile and devoid of any comfort. I was wearing a cardigan, sports bra, tshirt, and yoga shorts and I was shivering. The not Donna asked if I wanted a blanket, which I gladly took. I couldn’t get warm and I tried not to be scared.
There were several tests that were performed, the first of which with my eyes closed, various patterns of flashing lights were pulsed in front of me. Some flashings did nothing to me, others caused my eyes to rapidly move. Was that normal or was I having some sort of non-epileptic seizure? Another test was a breathing test where I breathed out, from low in my diaphragm, for three minutes. Harder than it sounds. The final test was the sleeping test, in which my brain waves were measured as I slept for 20-30 minutes.
Apparently I conked right out, because one minute the Donnas are talking to me and the next, I’m being woken and informed we are done. I was uncomfortable in the room, cold still. I’m a side sleeper, something I couldn’t do for the test with my head wrapped in electrodes, thus the fact I slept was surprising.
The Donnas spent a few minutes unwrapping me, taking the electrodes out. The not Donna hands me a comb similar to the one we used to receive in grade school on picture taking day to run through my mop to get the electrode gel out and I laugh because my hair would break such a comb. I run it through anyway and it pulls and tugs but does not yet break, that it is easier to use my fingers to hunt of gel bits. Once I’m made somewhat presentable, I’m let free and taken back to the waiting room where TheHusband waits.
I’m told I will hear in 7-10 days from my neurologist.
Me, personally? I’m betting it’s what the doc said: I was epileptic when I was a kid and now the symptoms I’m thinking are epileptic are actually non-typical migraines.
We went to breakfast and came home by 11A where I slept for a few hours and TheHusband went right to work. I spent the rest of the day lounging, keeping up with my RSS reading and TV watching.
In other news, my appointment on Monday with Dr. H., the medicating doctor, went as I had hoped. He agrees to take me off of lithium, which will be much more involved process than I had hoped. I had already taken myself down from 1500mg to 1200mg, so I’ll remain at 1200mg for the rest of the week. Then I’ll go down to 900mg for a week, then 600mg for a week, then nothing. Dr. H. also cautioned that if I felt good on a particular dosage, to stay on that dosage and call and let him know. So if the crazy is tempered by 600mg as opposed to my 1500mg, then bully for me. I’m willing to do this, but if things don’t work, I’m not staying on it. Period.
I can almost taste the mental freedom and it will taste delicious.
x0x0,
Lisa
Henry Fuseli – Hamlet and his father’s Ghost (1780-1785). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Dear Internet,
TheHusband and I were set to go up to Throbbing Cabin last night but opted to stay home to circumvent the potential traffic bomb of travelling on a holiday weekend. Our plan, then, was to leave this morning and stay at Throbbing Cabin for the rest of the weekend, coming home on Monday morning.
This morning, however, had other ideas
When I woke up, I went into a massive panic attack where I refusing to not just not leave the house, but I was not going to leave our bed, or even get dressed or any thing resembling personal care. I became so agitated over the prospect of leaving, moving, interacting with people, I started to get into manic mind mode. TheHusband, who had been out walking the dog when the attack started, returned back to our bedroom to my meltdown.
When I saw him, I immediately burst into tears.
Needless to say, we’re not going anywhere this weekend.
TheHusband has learned to stop asking me what is setting off the panic attacks because I never know. Sometimes it’s mental, sometimes they are physical. Sometimes I can ward them off, and others, like today, I’m overwhelmed by their sheer control over me.
The attacks, or in this instance the need to shelter myself from the world, has become more intense over time. I often feel hyper sensitive to the outside world. People. Situations. In my head, when plotting a set of errands that require me to leave the house for long periods of time, I attempt to sort them to make them least painful and less having to interact with anyone. Sometimes, more often than not, I lie to get out of situations because the thought that I would need to be around other people, or more rightly in places that are not familiar, makes me anxious. My house is my touchstone and if I cannot have things set up the way I need them to be set up to function, then things start to break down.
While my depression in the past has been the cause for decrease in sexy times, the drugs have amplified sexy times, along with everything I have just explained. I’ve always had voracious attitude towards sex and with nearly a year on Lithium, it has dried up like an October leaf. I was telling a friend of mine recently, who was newly diagnosed as bipolar himself, I could have Alexander Skarsgard naked on a chaise reading a book in front of me, and I’d be, “Eh.” I don’t want to touch myself, let alone my own husband, and I could not even summon the desire for a naked Alexander Skarsgard. Or James McAvoy. Or any of my fictitious husbands. I used to be the girl who wanted to have sex every where and with everything, and now I would just like to put the kettle on and have a good pot of tea.
And yes, I have a fairly healthy vibrator and dildo collection that is currently gathering dust. Which is a shame as some of them are expensive and were gifts.
At my last medicating appointment, Dr. H. was absolutely positive that by taking Klonopin at night would help some of my issues. The idea being if I take the drug at night, I will get a sound sleep. If I get a sound sleep, then I will feel rested in the morning and more at ease.
Except that didn’t work. After trying this for a week or two and still feeling exhausted and pent up, I told Dr. P. who suggested I take the Klonopin earlier in the evening, say 7PM instead of 10PM. The reason is that Klonopin releases slowly so if I’m taking it later in the evening, by time I wake up, I’m groggy because the drug is still working. Then I start amping up on caffeine to get over the hump and the cycle begins again.
Dr. H. gave me a prescription for Wellbutrin, and after several weeks of circling it like shark, I bit the bullet and got it filled. Numerous friends of mine with similar brain issues have all reported good things with Wellbutrin and as it was not a SSRI, I figured it was worth a shot.
The first few days of Wellbutrin, I was downright cheery. I didn’t feel the energized pep that several friends reported, but I was honestly okay with all of that. By the end of the first week, the dark clouds started to form and for the entire second week, I was hell on wheels. It was not so bad that other people knew, or commented, but it was so bad that I picked up all the signs that this was not going to end well. My meltdown this morning was the final straw and I stopped taking the drug.
Some medicating therapists will have you push on through these periods because after the drug settles, it is smooth sailing. I can’t do this, emotionally, physically, mentally, or financially. My brain chemistry is such that what takes someone 21 days to metabolize a drug, it takes me 7. I may have a fight on my hands with Dr. H. this week because he’s going to report back to me my lithium levels are still in the therapeutic range and I’m going to tell him that regardless if they are, I need to get off that drug in a safe manner because I’m done with this experiment. A year ago when I called Dr. P. to get my life on track, I was open to the idea of drug therapy because I wanted the pain to end. I wanted a way to chemically fix what was broken if talk therapy didn’t work enough. and to fix what behaviour modification could not fix. Dr. P. recommended Dr. H., who confirmed the existing diagnosis of ADHD, Bipolar I, Borderline Personality Disorder, with a top up of anxiety.
The idea was to get my mood stabilized with lithium, then start adding in the ADHD drugs to control that. Once we found the combination, everything would be grand! Well, not so much.
Reading through some of those old entries, a lot of patterns begin to show. The drugs, mood/ADHD, are clearly not working. I can’t afford to emotionally keep putting my life into upheaval every time I go on something new to see if it works.
This nine month experiment, while peppered with good intentions, has crippled me more than I could ever imagine. Feeling myself hit the wall, time and time again, the disappointment I’ve laid on myself when something didn’t work, the guilt I built around me when I couldn’t complete a task, and the friendships I lost because I was not the person they thought I was.
The constant stress of wondering who I was going to be that day when I woke up, and how that affected work and personal relationships.
I’m done. I don’t want to be this girl anymore, who hides in her bedroom afraid of the world. I’m done not living a life because I feel too medically incapacitated to do so.
The new plan is to get weaned off of Lithium, and start a diet and exercise routine because literally, every book on bipolar talks about the lessening symptoms if you do these two things. Continue to see Dr. P. for talk therapy, once a week as current or more if he warrants it.
Anything has to be better then the now.
I want my life back and it looks like, I’m the one whose going to have to go get it.
x0x0,
Lisa (Day #36)
Liberal Unionist poster, circa 1905-1910. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.
Dear Internet,
Dr. H. has become pushy, for him at least, on what drugs I am and am not taking. I should not fault him too much, because interaction could mean death. But he’s been pretty insistent my Metformin script is causing the havoc with me as of late, and I have to say, he may potentially have a point. I was pulled off of Metformin, after being on it for years, last winter when my GP and I were attempting to figure out if I was diabetic or not when I was going through all my ankle surgery woes. I use Metformin for my PCOD, but since it’s original intent is for pre-diabetics and diabetics not on insulin, it made sense to pull me off of it to make sure my blood work was not throwing up false negatives.
This, of course, all starts before Dr. H. and I start meeting and I’m off of Metformin for months. I think I finally went on it back in March when I got the all clear from the orthopedic surgeon on my ankle and my GP that I was not diabetic. Hurrah! Shortly after I start taking Metformin again, it was around that time when the sleepiness and other bi-product of lithium would appear and then disappear a few days later.
Since my sleepiness has been ebbing and flowing the last few days, I decided to do an experiment of my own by taking myself off the Metformin and see what happens. Oddly the day I stop taking it is the day I start my period, and I hope ultimately this doesn’t end up as a choice: regular, pain free periods OR less crazy.
Dr. H. wants me to start Wellbutrin this week as he’s also pretty convinced this will save my soul, thus once I’ll get my prescription filled, the regime will be:
500mg Lithium, 3x a day
1 mg of Klonopin, night (during day as needed)
Wellbutrin, morning
Daily vitamin, morning
Glucosamine Chondroitin, morning
Metformin, morning (On hold)
I’m ending the Glucosamine Chondroitin as it doesn’t seem to do anything for me anymore. I need to do more research into the vitamin shenanigans before giving that up completely. I’d like to get myself off as many drugs as possible in the end. Too much evidence is showing me a healthy diet and serious exercise regime is much more therapeutic rather than dosing me up with chemicals. Except for Klonopin, as that is the savior to everything.
In so far as exercise, TheHusband and I walked two miles yesterday and today I did entertain the idea of rowing, so there is that.
I’m not terribly sure if it is because I stopped the Metformin today OR if my period started, but what I do know my sleepiness is not as terrible as the day has progressed as it has been for the last few weeks. This morning I still had coffee and later, a 12 oz Red Bull, but I felt like I kept my shit together while I worked and I did drink a lot of water, which later supplemented with a bottle of coke. Maybe my caffeine intake is spiked and I need to adjust that more? I did stop drinking caffeine when I was on the legal meth for my ADHD and didn’t really miss it. I’ve also done routes of stopping caffeine after say noon to help me sleep better.
Right now this is not so much as planning as it is talking out loud to myself. Like I said, the boring bits of every day life but one I would like to track with gusto.
Dr. H’s idea behind the Klonopin is if I take it at night, every night, then a lot of the stress and other triggers that seem to randomly come and go will be squashed. If I can sleep a full night’s sleep, deeply, without fretting then I own’t be tired in the morning, and if I’m not tired then I’m not mainlining caffeine of of a hooker’s ass, and well, you get the picture. The number that is counting up after my name in all these recent posts is the number of nights I’ve taken Klonopin before bed, so that I could keep track in some form.
After a week of this inhaling of my wonder drug at night, and still feeling like death warmed over on a daily basis, Dr. P. suggested I take Klonopin earlier in the evening, say between 6-7PM so that the entire life of the drug would have cycled through before morning. The reason why this is important is because by taking it at my usual time (9-10PM or so), by the time I get up in the morning, the drug has such a long half-life, it would still be feeling the zombie effects come morning.
Makes a lot of sense.
Even with all of the Klonopin inhaling, I am still having panic attacks. Nothing to the extent like they used to be, but they are still there. One popped up an said hello today at around lunch time, so I popped half a Klonopin and did some breathing exercises to exorcise that demon. No one has time for that shit!
My social feeds have been abuzz about Night Vale, the podcast that is eating up the airwaves. Told in the format of community updates of the small desert town of Night Vale, it is the most delightful podcast. The show has been on for over a year now and one of the lovely things about finding out about something long after it has started is that you can gorge on the episodes. I would highly suggest you checking this out.
Finally, after weeks of trying to make this happen, TheHusband and I were able to make homemade pizza for dinner tonight and I did not die! As I’m allergic to cow milk and I can tolerate sheep and goat milk, how would I fare with buffalo milk? Namely, buffalo mozzarella?
Apparently, in all of Grand Rapids, the locations to get true buffalo mozzarella are minute. Once we found a place, I grabbed some gluten free crust for me and made a wheat based crust TheHusband. Below is the gluten free version.
http://instagram.com/p/csNwGivJDP
The taste? Not bad. I like thin crusts so that worked out well, the cheese didn’t spread as much as I had hoped, but as we bought only a single container, we weren’t sure how much would last for pizza. TheHusband made the sauce, which was sweet just as I liked it. Overall, probably the best version of pizza I’ve had since being diagnosed with my allergy and the ability to at least get gooey cheese was orgasmic. We will be making this again.
x0x0,
Lisa (Day #13)
