Thinking it may be time to make the dreaded call: another med combo failure. Dr. H agreed with me that my negative side effects from gabapentin were likely masking any positive effects from 3 weeks on Effexor so last week she said give it a week, then call her nurse and report. It is with great chagrin and disgust that I must report…I feel as lousy now as I did 4 months ago. So…zero progress with Effexor after 4 weeks and a dose increase. This does not bode well. I am disappointed, to say the least. And I am having a really difficult time with the basic task of making phone calls. My anxiety is so enormous, just dialing a number is daunting, let alone actually interacting with other humans and assorted necessary nastiness. Case in point…
State insurance went the HMO route but because of the move, I failed to change any plan info and haven’t receieved any forwarded mail so as it stands…I have no idea if whoever the state lumped me with will cover my shrink as a secondary. I made the necessary hellish calls, wasting a good two hours of phone talk time, only to be told my account ‘has a hold on it’ but they couldn’t tell me why and referred me to another number where I was #94 in the que. Yep, I couldn’t afford to waste time cos prepaid means you pay for your phone talk time and I can’t afford $15 just waiting two more hours…So let the chips fall where they may. I am such a beaten down pup at this point…meh.
The weather has been hellish and YES, as much as people loathe using a mental health diagnosis to label weather…BIPOLAR. It’s spring already and we got 3 inches of snow for bloody Easter. And lots of gloom and rain. NOT helping lift my seasonal depression issues. And you know for all my griping about lack of understanding and empathy for depression itself…I find, even with my new shrink, that season-relate depression is as illegitimate as a child born out of wedlock 60 years ago. Do the professionals really think this is how I choose to feel simply because the weather is icky? Hell no! This is an oppressive blanket quashing all positive sentiment even on things I love. That is clinical depression, not some “I’m uncomfortable because it’s snowy and cold” affectation. Depression is depression when it goes on long term. Inability to ever feel true joy or contenment even with that which previously consoled you in worse personal circumstances…DEPRESSION, BITCHES.
I’ve done a lot of soul searching on that topic. Determining what is situational depression versus clinical. Because, hell, yeah, I have lots of things dragging me under right now. I don’t like the town where we live and maybe if I didn’t literally live three blocks from my dad’s house, maybe just maybe, I’d hate it less. But it is what it is and I feel self conscious, uncomfortable, watched, and judged. I keep trying to tell myself it’s all in my head, I am being ludicrous…then my stepmom informs me she had a chat with the post office clerk about why I’m getting two different power bills to the same address. Seriously, wtf, postal clerk? Ever heard of being professional and not gossiping? And duh, I have an old power bill from our former address (paid) and a new one for this place (also paid) but still…it’s no one else’s fucking business. That is a ridiculous invasion of privacy. Not to mention stepmonster asking how much is your water bill, why didn’t you get yours the same day as me (she has a p.o. box, I get mine delivered at home, day delivery discrepancy, again NOT her damn business.) I just mumble and say I dunno cos I am all about not making things worse with some absurd family war. Still…SMALL TOWNS SUCK.
To digress. I have looked back on many periods of my life: up, down, gutter, manic, stranded in Bumfuck, living in town, with a partner, without one, with my kid, without one…And this isn’t mere situational depression and anxiety. This is a condition essentially allowed to fester and metastasize because their nurse doc is color-by-numbers noob and their lack of staff put me on hold for months…I can remember being a 14 year old stranded in pop 144 Flannelville, bullied within an inch of my life, unable to go anywhere since the nearest town was 7 miles away and I couldn’t drive, had no money of my own…And I had very up periods when by all accounts, I should have felt doomed and low.
Aside from not being able to afford trash service (again, tripled monthly costs really cut into a disability check) or internet…we have a different home, in better shape, with different (better) furniture, we got a washer and dryer as Easter gifts (except dad’s gift means I have to use my car and gas at 6 in the morning to run their errands, but oh well)…we have a different, better car. We have food, our cats, we’re getting free tv stations cos of those free digital antennas I got at the shop…In so many ways aside from locale, we have it 100 times better here. Ya know, in quality of our home, possessions, transportation. Maybe oweing my dad’s faction brings me down but it never used to bother me so I have to wonder if the depression is making me hyper aware that I am in debt as opposed to other times when I calmly accepted I owed them and it would take time to get square.
This depression is clinical, no matter how many situational things may impact it. Fact is, I look forward to sleep. That’s about it.
And the other night sleep even became a living hell because for the first time in ages..I had the sleep paralysis dream I’ve had since I was a child. As a kid, it was this unable to move terror where I saw the mustached butcher at the grocery store in my aunt’s sewing room and he wanted to hurt me. Now, I don’t see him, but I do get that ‘nodded off but not quite dead to the word, terrified, let me wake up, omg, I can’t move” nightmare thing. I am literally paralyzed. It was awful and terrifying and horrific and I was up at 5 a.m. Easter Sunday cos I couldn’t bear nodding back off to ‘that’ state.
Right now, Spook is playdating with dad’s faction. They didn’t ask me, just told her they were ‘kidnapping’ her for the evening. I love being treated like I don’t exist and she isn’t my kid. Love it. NOT. Ass trash.
I keep going but I am pushing that boulder uphill again and the thought of calling the doctor’s office to admit to another med failure is as horrific as sleep paralysis nightmares.
I just want to feel better, to want to wake up, live life to the best of my ability, and go to bed at night not hating myself for hating being alive.
I don’t know that that made any sense but I swear it did in my own mind.
Yeah, yeah, I should sue my brain for non support.
