I’ve been feeling pretty ill lately–waking up with a headache and feeling pretty blue. Last night I barely slept–fell asleep on the couch before my kids even went to bed, then couldn’t sleep after that. I called in sick to work today–had the worst headache and just knew that I wouldn’t be able to perform. I ended up sleeping in until about 12:30 (off and on) and felt like I could have slept all day. I wanted to is my point. The only reason I got up is because my kids are home on spring break and I felt guilty ignoring them. I haven’t talked to my doctor or my therapist because I just feel like they’re probably at their wits’ end with me–not knowing what to do/add to help me. I feel like I’m missing something, but there’s no one and nothing to miss.
Due to an insurance/pharmacy f***up, I’ve missed my Lamictal for three days and am really feeling it. I don’t know if it’s because I’m off work (for vacation), or PMSing or what, but I’ve been feeling really anxious and blue and at loose ends. I should be working, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do it. It’s funny because my doctor just gave me the thumbs up not to see him for a couple months, and my therapist agreed that I could go without seeing her until I need her, and then of course I start feeling like this.
I saw my doctor a couple days ago and convinced him that I’m feeling pretty well. He doesn’t want to see me again for two months. Whoo hoo! It might have something to do with the fact that my spring break starts on Friday, but…whatever. The only thing that’s bothering me now is my weight, but he insisted that all of the medications I’m on right now are “weight neutral”. It’s not as though I’m insisting that the medicines are making me gain weight without some contribution on my part; the problem is that I’m hungry much more frequently than I’d like to be, and not full as easily as I’d like to be.
We decided not to increase my Lamictal, so here are my meds:
Morning:
150 mg Wellbutrin
25 mg Lamictal
3 capsules green tea extract
Evening:
40 mg Geodon (has been hard for me to get up on time lately, though…)
25 mg Lamictal
1 table Klonopin to sleep (could that be why I’m waking up so late?)
I feel so dull. I should be grading papers, preparing for classes, or outside playing with my kids, but instead I’m doing nothing–wanting to be online with nothing much to say.
I just read my (Virgo) horoscope on Facebook and it said
are as though reversed, and set like traps around themselves,
keeping us inside. That there is something out there
we know only from the animals’ countenance,
for we turn even the young child, forcing her
to look backwards at the shapes we make,
not outwards into the open, which is reflected
in the animals’ eyes.
Free from death. We alone see that.
For the animals, their death is, as it were, completed.
What’s ahead is God. And when they move,
they move in timelessness, as fountains do.
Never, not for a single day, do we let
the space before us be so unbounded
that the blooming of one flower is forever.
We are always making it into a world
and never letting it be nothing: the pure,
the unconstructed, which we breathe
and endlessly know, and need not crave.
Sometimes a child loses herself in this stillness
and gets shaken out of it. Or a person dies
and becomes it. For when death draws near, we look beyond it
with an animal’s wide gaze. Lovers come close
to the open, filled with wonder,
when the beloved doesn’t block the view.
It surges up behind the other, unbidden. But it’s hard
to grasp, so it becomes again the world.
Ever turned toward what we create,
we see only reflections of the open, overshadowed by us.
Except when an animal mutely looks us through and through.
This is our fate: to stand
in our own way. Forever
in the way.
If the confident animal, coming toward us,
had a mind like ours,
the change in him would stun us.
But his own being is endless to him, undefined, and without regard
for his condition: clear,
like his eyes. Where we see future,
he sees all, and himself
in all, made whole for always.
And yet in the warm, watchful animal
there is the weight of a great sadness.
For what at times assaults us
clings to him as well: the sense
that what we strive to reach
was once closer and more real
and infinitely tender.
Here all is distance –
there it was breath.
After that first home
the second feels invaded, and windy.
And we: always and everywhere spectators,
turned toward the stuff of our lives, and never outward.
It all spills over us. We put it to order.
It falls apart. We order it again
and fall apart ourselves.
Who has turned us around like this?
Whatever we do, we are in the posture
of one who is about to depart.
Like a person pausing and lingering
for a moment on the last hill
where he can still see his whole valley –
this is how we live, forever
taking our leave.
Translated by Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows
I’m looking for people to talk to about my illness. I started a forum, (which you can get to from this site), but there aren’t really many people on there. I started a thread and no one responded 
I’m lucky that my husband is really supportive, but every once in awhile if I’m acting a little rebellious, he’ll ask me, “Are you taking your medicine?” Other than that, he’s really a good reality check for me and really loving (even though I’m at my fattest non-pregnancy weight right now). I feel really lucky to have him.
As far as the illness goes, through therapy, I’ve just learned (after 18 years) that I am not my illness. I guess I’ve been symptomatic for so long that I just think of myself as extremely moody and mostly depressed. I’ve had a couple of manic episodes, and I’ve found them to be, at best, exhilarating, and, at worst, scary as hell. I’ve resisted medication at times and ended up either severely depressed or manic–not speaking is what happened to me the last times I was manic and then depressed. I was suicidal last year and fantasizing about hanging myself (this is when we were living up north with little to no sunshine). Now that I’m living in a sunny place, seeing a good doctor who really knows his medications, I’m doing pretty well (other than being fat as hell). My therapist says not to call myself fat because that implies that I can do nothing about it. Yet, my seven-year-old and my nine-year-old were talking about how big my butt is the other morning. Great to hear when you’re desperately trying to find something to wear that doesn’t make you look big.
Hoping there’s someone out there who can be helped or help me through this site.
Read about using green tea extract to help lose weight–I started it today. Also taking Sudafed to control appetite–boy does that sh*t work. Not sure what the long-term side effects are. I’ll look into that.
Meds:
A.M.
150 mg Wellbutrin
25 mg Lamictal
P.M.
20 or 40 mg Geodon
10 mg Klonopin
I’ve gained 20 pounds since I started Abilify, so I talked to my doctor about changing back to Geodon. He gave me the ok, so I’m now down to 5 mg of Abilify and 40 mg of Geodon.
Meds:
150 mg Wellbutrin (morning)
25 mg Lamictal (daytime)
25 mg Lamictal (bedtime)–>supposed to go up to 100 mg once I finish this bottle
40 mg Geodon (7 pm)
5 mg Abilify (bedtime)–ready to cut it out completely
1 tablet (dosage?) Klonopin to sleep
I’m feeling pretty good–able to function at my job, concentrate on reading, laugh, the usual
My biggest problem is what my doctor calls (I think) “persistent self-doubting thoughts”. I find myself questioning whether the person I’m talking to is testing me to see if I can detect that they’re lying or making up stuff. For example, a colonel in the JROTC at my school told me that his great, great grandmother was a slave. He also told me that his mother is Jewish. In my mind, I was wondering, “Could his great great grandmother be old enough to have been a slave? or is he full of shit?” I didn’t have the presence of mind to calculate her approximate age, so I just nodded my head, smiled, made the appropriate comments, tried to converse, and prayed that he would just go away.
At other times, I’ll be at a meeting of teachers, and they’ll be talking about some concepts that I’m unsure of, so I’ll just pretty much keep my head down, grade papers, or otherwise involve myself in something other than what they’re talking about.
Sometimes in class, I get this near-panic attack feeling that the students think (know?) that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.
My doctor thinks these are symptoms of OCD that can be controlled with medication. I’m not so sure. My therapist has basically only given me the strategy of putting up a giant, imaginary, red stop sign and just stopping myself from having what she calls “distorted thoughts”. I’m still wondering if this low self-esteem is just a carry-over from having a hyper-critical father, who–according to my sister–was the antithesis of what a supportive parent is supposed to be/do. She’s pretty much over it, and so is my brother, so why can’t I be?
I call these “twinges” of paranoia, and getting off of some meds has helped to some extent–Prozac made it much worse.
Once again, I’m left with questions: can medicine help with these low self-esteem issues? Can therapy? Does much of it come from the fact that I’m fatter than I’ve ever been in a non-pregnant state? Fuck.
20 mg Abilify (the increase of 10 more mg has me falling asleep on the couch at 7 pm, waking up at 11:00 and then unable to sleep again)
150 mg Wellbutrin
just started 10 mg Lamictal (said to take 6 weeks to increase dosage and see results)
10 mg Klonopin to sleep
Medication
Morning:
10 mg Abilify
150 mg Wellbutrin
40 mg Prozac
Night
20 mg Geodon at 7 pm (3-4 hours later puts me to sleep for about 5 hours, no grogginess in the morning; taken any later than 7:00 and I have trouble sleeping).
1 mg of Klonopin to sleep (prn)
Some days at work I have these twinges of what I think of as psychosis, but which my doctor says are obsessive compulsive self-doubting thoughts. My therapist says I experience them when I’m under pressure–that’s true, but I can’t eliminate pressure from my job.
Once again, I’m wondering whether this is just something I have to cope with, or if medication can eliminate it.
I’m taking a buttload of medicine, but I’m finally feeling better, despite having gained 25 pounds over the last year.
The trick was Abilify–unbelievably fast and uplifting results.
I’m now taking
MORNING
10 mg Abilify
150 mg Wellbutrin
1 capsule Prozac (just increased to 2 today)
NIGHT
20 mg Geodon at 7 pm
Sometimes a tablet of Klonopin to sleep
I hung a picture of Katherine McPhee in a bikini from the cover of Shape magazine on my refrigerator, plan to start drinking diet drinks instead of regular, more water, Wii Fit at night. I’m hoping to lose 25 pounds–I’ve gone up 4 sizes over the last couple of years and weigh more now than I’ve ever weighed while not pregnant. (Bummer).
My brother saw me recently and reported to my sister, “Yeah, she’s gained a little weight, but she’s happy, so, so what?” I don’t feel my best unless I’m a lot smaller than this, so wish me luck, guys. (Also, let me know if you know any good tips for weight loss…)