Daily Archives: September 12, 2013

It may be just me but some days I wake up not in a mood, but with an attitude. Today was one of those days. Ya know, doing what you have to do for your peripherals, kids, pets, house, et al…But pretty much ignoring your own needs outside having a pee, fetching a drink, and smoking a cigarette.  I knew I had to leave by 8:10 am…7:55 am comes and I am still sitting at my desk listening to Wednesday 13, no pants on, no hurry to go dig some out of the clean  but not folded laundry…Just this “fuck it, give me points for being awake” attitude.

And I was out the door on time, with pants. Some days it feels good to not be under self induced pressure “Better do this, I gotta do this NOW, omihgod the world will crumble if I don’t have my socks and shoes on by 8 am…” I wouldn’t mind waking with that attitude  every day.  But the tides turn too swiftly for there to ever be any constant in my world.

I fetched my kid from school and took her to mom’s so I could serve my time here at the shop. And Mom told me Rick (friend of the family) got his kids taken out of his home last night by the cops because one of the kids’ friends (an 8 year old) claimed he was raping the girls. No investigation, no proof, never mind his girlfriend’s constant presence because she doesn’t work and he is technically NEVER alone with the kids…An  8 year old said the right words to the right people and now three girls have been yanked from the one parent who has actually been there for them since their worthless mother abandoned them years ago.

This started a panic attack that is still running an hour later, not to mention setting off my anger issues and out of control paranoia.

Everyone says stupid shit like, “Oh, they don’t take kids away for no reason, he must have done something.”

Bulllshit. I was present back when R’s ex wife had his kids taken from him based on lies, he was guilty til proven innocent. (And I know they were lies because I was present for all the stuff she claimed happened, none of which actually happened.) This shit scares the shit out of me because I have witnessed that the system does not fucking work.

Losing my kid would be the one thing I could not survive.

So knowing this shit has happened, finding out it is still happening, and knowing the venomous little brats my daughter has befriended could say anything they want about me if I displease them by not letting them set my house on fire or whatever…

The panic is crippling.

And it’s been all damned week. Nothing has significantly changed in my stress level or situation except for all this flux with my meds. The doctor told me going off Cymbalta would give me sleep problems. She never mentioned that the panic disorder would somehow metastasize. And it has become like a cancer, devouring me this week on a daily basis, causing me to hyperventilate, to sweat, to tremble, to feel dizzy to the point of passing out. I am accustomed to the low level frequent panic attacks, those are just my life. But I have had at least six major panic episodes this week, which is more than I’d had in a six month period.

Panic, paranoia, brain zaps, side effects, and a cloud of terror of losing my kid hanging over my head…is making me feel like I am cracking up.

I keep telling myself it’s the meds in flux, hang in there, et al.

I think 80% is the med situation.

But I think a central issue is that I live in terror of some circumstance taking my kid away from me. It’s not enough to be a good parent when anyone at any time can make some crazy statement and the wheels of the system start turning. Now that she is in school and has friends, I have basically opened myself up to walking target status, waiting for someone to take a shot by taking issue with some aspect of my parenting. And as a mentally ill mom who also has some serious personality quirks…

It feels like the start of open season.

And I want desperately for it to be some facet of the mental disability, corrupt sensory input or something making me feel paranoia and terror.

But I keep thinking of what mom said, about how those three girls were doing their homework and the cops knocked on the door and removed them screaming and crying from their home….

My terror is not a mental illness, it is very very real.

And I am very very scared.

Because it is not about whether you’ve actually done anything to harm your child. It’s about who claims you have. Mentally ill or not, I think the prospect of “guilty until proven innocent” is scary as fuck.

Several years ago my therapist gave me a memory test. This took place when I was in the midst of despair and my pdoc and I were working together to find the medicinal cocktail that was right for me. Naturally my test results were abysmal.
One part of the test involved my therapist listing 10 words out loud and I was to repeat back as many of the words I could recall. At no time was I able to repeat back more than 2 words. During this same period it was next to impossible for me to carry on a conversation. I would get halfway through a sentence and have no idea what I was talking about. I would struggle to recall what I was going to say. Rarely was I successful. As a result I became more withdrawn and either avoided personal contact or would join a conversation which did not require much of a response from me. Heaven forbid I join a conversation that required me to actively listen.

I was excited, a few months ago, when my therapist said it was time to do the memory tests again. I knew I was going to do much better, and I was right. Not only did my scores improve, but I surpassed the national average for men in my age group. This was such exciting news that I stood before the congregation at church and announced my success. I received much applause and a few even gave me a standing ovation. There is just one problem – I still struggled with my memory. I can’t deny there hasn’t been vast improvement. Stopping mid-sentence and forgetting what I was talking about does not happen as much. I am able to be an active participant in conversations. But there is still a black hole where a large amount of memory is falling never to be seen again.

When I expressed my concern with my therapist, he told me that in all likelihood the memories that had been lost were likely to remain lost. That made some sense to me. I decided I’d adapt and went on my merry way. I began to feel less merry when it became obvious that I still am forgetting more than I should. Sure, as the test results showed, my short term memory is doing well, but beyond that my memory is shot to hell. I brought this concern up with my pdoc. I told him about all the recent movies I never heard of, but learned I had recently seen. I brought up recent conversations, places and activities that I could not recall even after Maurice would explain them to me. My pdoc’s response was that it’s a normal part of getting older. I wasn’t buying it. Sure we do lose some memory as we get older, but the problems I am having are above and beyond normal in my opinion. Hell, I won’t even be 50 for another couple of weeks. I love my pdoc, but the man is older than God. No wonder he thinks this is normal.

Well, I have my agenda item for my next therapist appointment as well as my next pdoc appointment. I want to find out what is going on and how it can prevent it. If I’m told it’s a natural reaction to my medication, I can live with that. I can accept that answer, adapt, and get on with my life. What I’m not willing to accept is being told is huge gaps in memory loss are normal for a 50 year old man.

Yesterday I felt pretty well mentally. Avoided the shop, hung out at home, stayed cool…Then my kid’s friends came over and it all went to hell in a handbasket because she turns into Damien around those two girls.

Today…I was just flustered from the get go. (What kind of mom forgets to brush her kid;s hair and sends her to school with rats?) I needed to make a phone call and had such a violent panic attack doing it (I;d put it off for two weeks just to avoid this panic) that my extremeties were vibrating with the tremors. My head got so dizzy I had to sit down. My heart beat so hard I thought it was bruising my chest cavity. Yes, I survived and yes I was relieved once I had done it but…

I will take a gaping wound over that level of panic attack any day.

My mood seemed to run the gamut over the course of the day. I am having some wicked side effects from the Lithium. My scalp feels like it is crawling with bugs and from the research I have done, that’s a lesser occurring Lithium side effect. Which means if I mention it to my shrink she will dismiss it as impossible. Apparently, they are only legit side effects if 99%  of people have them. Never mind us oddballs who react differently.

The nausea, even though I have been eating in small increments to stave off the weight gain from increased appetite, is a bitch. I feel like I am going to throw up eighty percent of the time.

It’s been in the 90′s here all week. Lithium tends to make on feel dehydrated no matter how much liquid you drink and for whatever reason, it makes the nausea worse for me.

My head’s been aching.

R called and he wants my presence tomorrow, blah blah blah. He kind of made my mood crash. I will be there, of course, as I still owe him for fixing the car exhaust, but I do not look forward to it. There are some people who simply have such an oppressive or stressful impact on me that avoiding them is the only healthy thing to do. Him and those satan kids would be prime examples.

Now…it’s 11 opm and I think I have had all I can handle for one day. But first I need to hand feed my kittens. The mother has rejected them, refuses to care for them, and I can’t watch them die. So the woman who can barely remember to brush her own teeth is hand feeding three week old kittens in a desperate effort to keep them alive.

It;s shit like that that confuses me. How people can tell me I am cold and heartless and a bitch and only care about myself…

But I am handfeeding two kittens whose own mother rejected them…I can’t be too evil.

Oh, ouch, brain zap. They are gone for the most part. The short ones, anyway. No I get the longer brain zaps.

Hopefully this is the end of the Cymbalta bullshit. Calling it withdrawal is such a misnomer. I don’t want another dose, ever again. Whatever these withdrawal affects are, it’s not some cracving that a quick hit would fix.

I can’t think straight. Bedtime.

Getting off the bipolarcoaster for today.