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Daily Archives: August 25, 2015
A Blog Worth Blogging
Several times in the past the topic of finding my purpose in life has come up in therapy. Sadie once said that a person’s purpose is usually related to her skills, so mine would probably involve writing. I’ve never really nailed down my purpose, but today in DBT group the topic came up again in […]
Posted in Read Along
bipolar disorder in africa
Molweni apha. It’s time for another bipolar linkdump, but this time the links aren’t solely South African, there are some from the rest of Africa too. I went through a tribal exorcism in Senegal that involved a great deal of ram’s blood and that I’m not going to detail right now, but a few years…
Posted in Read Along
Feeling Buggy
I’ve reached the point in my anxiety cycle where I feel like I have bugs crawling all over me- skin, scalp, blood stream. There’s nothing there. I know logically I am perceiving it incorrectly. Yet I still have hives and itch like a mofo and on top of my normal overactive histamines…It’s maddening. Anti histamines, calamine, soothing skin lotion-nothing fixes it or even lessens it. If it gets much worse I am gonna be ripping my own veins out searching for the bugs in there driving me mad. Do I sound nuts? Good. When I snap, I want my followers to launch a lawsuit against my doctor for being so dismissive. This is bad juju.
Thus far today I’ve already yelled C*NT in traffic because some dumbass decided to stop in the middle of the road to talk to someone in the car on the other side of the street. I was, of course, halfway in the intersection of a busy strip, unable to go anywhere due to this douchebag. This goes beyond inconvenience, irritation, or being high strung. That fucker should have been cited for nearly causing an accident with a child in the car, stopping abruptly like that for no better reason than to jabber. I managed to steer around and go another direction but I was furious and panicked. Seriously, how many breathing exercises and shiny happy mental voodoo can I do, when I am dealing with fucking idiots and I’m the one who has to constantly adapt?
And THERE IT IS. WE, the mentally disordered, are always expected to adapt. Meanwhile those around us, without mental imbalance, get to remain their asshole selves and we’re the ones being unreasonable and overreactive. Can we control the thoughtless actions of others? No. But to constantly have our JUSTIFIABLE feelings invalidated feeds my outrage and resentment. Just once it would be refreshing to hear, “Oh, I know, right? These people drive like maniacs!” Instead…”Do you think you may be overreacting because it caused you anxiety?” Fuckest thou.
I bit the bullet and folded the Mt Vesuvius of laundry yesterday and put it all away. That’s an accomplishment for me. I was irked when I got my child support papers back. Not enough postage on it. WTF, fifty cents for a stamp and it doesn’t even cover an envelope and three sheets of paper? Assholes. R gave me another stamp so hopefully it will go out today, unless of course they insist on gold plated envelopes sprinkled in pegacorn dust, in which case I am gonna take the pegacorn to the post office and have him headbutt those fuckers to a bloody pulp. (Anger issues? Me? NOOO.)
Today, I need to return my Sister’s pet taxi (which we packed the new cat home in, and Oh, Socks isn’t a good name, this thing is hyper and trying to destroy my home, it’s fucking Catzilla!). I need to go to Aldi. R wants me to pop by the shop. It’s always a “couple of minutes” which turns into a Billy Mays commercial…”But wait, there’s more I want you to do for me!” Sorry, but sorting out his on line account hack really isn’t my job, his wife should be helping him out with that. On the other hand, when I fell on my sword yesterday and asked him if he could put gas in the car so I could get Spook to school this week…He did it, no fuss, even came over and gave me his credit card and watched Spook while I went out ‘cos that car was on frigging fumes and I didn’t want her with me if it sputtered to empty. I gotta start paying more attention to all that he does for me instead of all that he does to irk me. But still…no phone call when you have made plans…Unacceptable. I can handle forgetful, emergencies,etc…Rudeness is a choice, cannot handle it.
(Oh, god, the crawling bug sensation is driving me mad and I know it’s just the fan blowing my hair but as it’s school/lice season I am paranoid as fuck.)
Spook channeled Satan yesterday, raising her fist to me, knocking things out of my hand, yelling at me…Those are the really bad days that get me down. I do everything the so called pros and other parents do and it does no good. We had war over supper because I baked the chicken instead of nuking it. Just never ends and by the time R did pop by, I was so cranky and impatient, I bet he thought, “Give the kid a break.” I think once a kid has hit you in the gut, you’ve earned your exhausted irritation. Plus supper didn’t sit well and my stomach was a mess. I was tired, sleepy tired, and just wanted him to leave so I could curl up in bed. So of course he stayed two hours, an hour of which he was on the phone trying for the fifth time to get the retailer to refund his money on the hacked orders. Then his wife called and they’re freaking out cos they may not have a DJ for her son’s wedding. (Oh, problems of the well off, tragic.)
By the time I got to curl up in bed…Yep, too rattled to sleep. Then came the spawn coming to my bed, Voodoo head butting me for cat food refill…I couldn’t move easily cos Arsenic and Absinthe lay on me constantly and I’m afraid if I roll the wrong way, I’m gonna crush little kitty bones.
Throw in the sudden drop in temp and my mood is sinking like the Titanic.
At this point…facing the school pick up (which took twenty minutes yesterday because of the traffic jam on the one side they allow pick ups and I was fucking furious…) I think I am gonna give myself permission to do nothing. Maybe it’ll spark me to do something.
Back to my imaginary bugs as well as my normal itchiness. Soo not what I had in mind when told to pick up a new hobby. Digging at one’s own flesh is not fun.
What if I say I will never surrender?
Well, hey there.
Here I am.
It’s been a while so I will play catch up tonight, before writing about the more pressing things I have had on my mind.
A large part of why I have not been writing is that I have been in the throws of fertility treatment (which really deserves its own special place in hell). In between hormones and appointments and stress I haven’t had the emotional capacity to write. Though, lord knows I have tried.
Over the past few months I have learned again and again, that my body is doing it wrong. I am running out of eggs. My immune system is killing pregnancies. I have endometriosis. Ovarian cysts. Polyps. “Doctors appointment” to me, is synonymous with “Doom”.
On the plus side I now know more about human reproduction than I ever anticipated. So ya know, if I ever get a chance to go on Who Wants to be a Millionaire and there happens to be a question on zygote development or hormone production; I may be in with a chance for the big bucks. Don’t worry. I won’t let it change me.
One of the more interesting aspects of my treatment is the intralipids. Basically once a month I go into hospital for the day to have an IV of some soy/egg concoction. I am banned from taking steroids (according to my immunologist) due to the whole rampant psychosis thing. So the intralipid treatment is another way to suppress my immune system to allow a pregnancy to progress. Apparently anyway.
Intralipid infusion. 20 minutes after the nurse ’tissued’ me, and my hand blew up like a balloon (which sadly, I don’t have a photo of).
I also had a laparascopy surgery to treat my endometriosis, which wasn’t too bad. I have a history of waking up like a wild combative beast after a general anaesthetic, so my anaesthetist told me she was going to sedate me before I woke up. It must have worked because when I woke up there was no sign of a struggle, and my nurse seemed uncharacteristically relaxed.
One thing that really struck me was how NICE the nurses were. I’m used to nurses barking at me or being profoundly unsympathetic. After my hernia reconstruction (which was a fairly large operation that I spent a total of 7 days on a surgical ward for) I had the audacity to ask a nurse for some painkillers. I was told – in a rather snippy tone – that I HAD to expect SOME pain, and was very reluctant to offer me relief. I was an involuntary psychiatric patient at the time, with my own psychiatric nurse, and I half wonder if she thought I also had some sort of substance abuse problem as well. But even if I did; 24 hours post open surgery you hurt. You need painkillers.
Anyway, this time, during the night after surgery I was in a lot of pain. I left it for about three hours before, out of desperation, I pressed the call button and waited to be told off. Instead this lovely nurse came, and looked at my chart and dosed me with oxycodene in a rather maternal manner. I promptly got high (which was odd as I used to take the stuff 3 times daily and never felt remotely stoned) and then fell asleep. My sheets were changed. I was spoken to in a respectful manner. I was given options not orders. I was not a psychiatric patient, nor was my psychiatric history deemed particularly relevant. I was treated better. It’s hard not to make assumptions.
Of course, things never run smoothly in our household. So a few nights after the surgery Hubster and I woke to Master D coughing in an exceedingly ominous manner in our bedroom. Seconds later he threw up. Fifteen minutes later he hurled again. In an effort of self preservation I escaped to the couch – because gastro after abdominal surgery? HELL NO. But the damage was done, and we all went down with a despicable, no doubt Kindy acquired, stomach bug.
In the middle of everything I started to feel very negative about everything. I felt like we had too much on our plate. I had too many appointments. Too many health concerns. Every week I seemed to spend most of my time in hospitals or doctors waiting rooms. I felt drained.
So when Hubster announced he was going to Sydney on business I booked tickets, packed bags for Master D and I, took some of my annual leave and went with him. It was the most wonderful week spending quality time with Master D, seeing the sights of Sydney, and getting the hell away from everything that was going on. Only marred by reacting to some food, getting sick, and then having dreadful anxiety problems. Because autoimmune diseases never take holidays.
When we got back I saw my psychiatrist who put my back on Seroquel for the interim. I hadn’t slept properly in weeks, was having constant panic attacks, and was getting more and more unhinged. The med change seemed to help and I began sleeping again and my anxiety has subsided somewhat.
So here I am again. Just about to start another round of fertility treatment. Fighting to keep my autoimmune disease and mental health stable. Juggling a plethora of appointments. Trying to fit in a full time PhD and part time work in the mix.
I’m doing ok.
Each day at a time.
It takes a lot for me to surrender.
What a cup of tea taught me about bitterness
I have to admit it – I love a nice hot cup of tea. There’s something about being forced to stand quietly, waiting for the kettle to boil that seems to calm my spirit. And don’t get me started on the lovely feeling of a warm cuppa nestled in my hands.
When I have time – and have someone to share a cuppa with – I love to get out one of my favourite loose leaf teas and use my favourite red teapot. The English have it right – a cup of tea and a good chat can fix almost anything.
My favourite red teapot – a gift from my hubby.
I was standing by the kettle just now, fixing myself a cup of tea (sadly, a cup-for-one with a teabag), when something struck me. It doesn’t take much to turn a cup of boiling water into a cup of tea. Within seconds of dunking a teabag, the water has been infused with the colour and flavour of the tea – turning it from clear to murky brown.
Watching my cuppa change colour just now has got me thinking. I wonder how much the bitterness I’ve been feeling about having to live life with a mental illness has been tainting my life?
It’s not fun having a mental illness. It’s not fun dealing with the side-effects of various medications. And I’ll be the first to admit that somewhere, deep inside me, I still hold some bitterness about the cards life has dealt me. Sure, I can now see a bigger purpose for my life – complete with my bipolar diagnosis – but that doesn’t mean I don’t still sometimes struggle with accepting it.
Most of my friends and family will say that it’s perfectly ok to feel bitter about being diagnosed with a mental illness. The only trouble is, it’s been almost twenty years now since my original diagnosis. And these feelings of bitterness have a nasty habit of acting like a tea bag: infusing me and my life with anger and regret.
The effects may not always be obvious… but this bitterness got a nasty habit of bubbling to the surface when I’m feeling at my lowest and want something to strike out at. It’s not something that I want my kids to see in me.
And so, I’m left with a choice.
Do I allow this ‘bag’ of bitterness to continue to colour my life? Or do I make a conscious effort to finally accept my diagnosis – acknowledging that it will have an ongoing impact on my life and that I will most likely need to continue taking medication for the rest of my life to keep it under control?
It’s a difficult choice.
And yet – looking at the effect tonight that one small teabag had on my big cup full of crystal clear water, I’m determined to not let my diagnosis taint the rest of my life. Sure it’s almost certainly always going to be part of me – but it’s not going to affect who I am – or the life I was created to live.
Mariska xx
Do you feel bitter or angry because of your mental illness or something else in your life? Have you had to take steps to deal with your bitterness? I’m sure other mums would love to hear about and learn from your experience.
What a cup of tea taught me about bitterness
I have to admit it – I love a nice hot cup of tea. There’s something about being forced to stand quietly, waiting for the kettle to boil that seems to calm my spirit. And don’t get me started on the lovely feeling of a warm cuppa nestled in my hands.
When I have time – and have someone to share a cuppa with – I love to get out one of my favourite loose leaf teas and use my favourite red teapot. The English have it right – a cup of tea and a good chat can fix almost anything.
My favourite red teapot – a gift from my hubby.
I was standing by the kettle just now, fixing myself a cup of tea (sadly, a cup-for-one with a teabag), when something struck me. It doesn’t take much to turn a cup of boiling water into a cup of tea. Within seconds of dunking a teabag, the water has been infused with the colour and flavour of the tea – turning it from clear to murky brown.
Watching my cuppa change colour just now has got me thinking. I wonder how much the bitterness I’ve been feeling about having to live life with a mental illness has been tainting my life?
It’s not fun having a mental illness. It’s not fun dealing with the side-effects of various medications. And I’ll be the first to admit that somewhere, deep inside me, I still hold some bitterness about the cards life has dealt me. Sure, I can now see a bigger purpose for my life – complete with my bipolar diagnosis – but that doesn’t mean I don’t still sometimes struggle with accepting it.
Most of my friends and family will say that it’s perfectly ok to feel bitter about being diagnosed with a mental illness. The only trouble is, it’s been almost twenty years now since my original diagnosis. And these feelings of bitterness have a nasty habit of acting like a tea bag: infusing me and my life with anger and regret.
The effects may not always be obvious… but this bitterness got a nasty habit of bubbling to the surface when I’m feeling at my lowest and want something to strike out at. It’s not something that I want my kids to see in me.
And so, I’m left with a choice.
Do I allow this ‘bag’ of bitterness to continue to colour my life? Or do I make a conscious effort to finally accept my diagnosis – acknowledging that it will have an ongoing impact on my life and that I will most likely need to continue taking medication for the rest of my life to keep it under control?
It’s a difficult choice.
And yet – looking at the effect tonight that one small teabag had on my big cup full of crystal clear water, I’m determined to not let my diagnosis taint the rest of my life. Sure it’s almost certainly always going to be part of me – but it’s not going to affect who I am – or the life I was created to live.
Mariska xx
Do you feel bitter or angry because of your mental illness or something else in your life? Have you had to take steps to deal with your bitterness? I’m sure other mums would love to hear about and learn from your experience.
What a cup of tea taught me about bitterness
I have to admit it – I love a nice hot cup of tea. There’s something about being forced to stand quietly, waiting for the kettle to boil that seems to calm my spirit. And don’t get me started on the lovely feeling of a warm cuppa nestled in my hands.
When I have time – and have someone to share a cuppa with – I love to get out one of my favourite loose leaf teas and use my favourite red teapot. The English have it right – a cup of tea and a good chat can fix almost anything.
My favourite red teapot – a gift from my hubby.
I was standing by the kettle just now, fixing myself a cup of tea (sadly, a cup-for-one with a teabag), when something struck me. It doesn’t take much to turn a cup of boiling water into a cup of tea. Within seconds of dunking a teabag, the water has been infused with the colour and flavour of the tea – turning it from clear to murky brown.
Watching my cuppa change colour just now has got me thinking. I wonder how much the bitterness I’ve been feeling about having to live life with a mental illness has been tainting my life?
It’s not fun having a mental illness. It’s not fun dealing with the side-effects of various medications. And I’ll be the first to admit that somewhere, deep inside me, I still hold some bitterness about the cards life has dealt me. Sure, I can now see a bigger purpose for my life – complete with my bipolar diagnosis – but that doesn’t mean I don’t still struggle with accepting it.
Most of my friends and family will say that it’s perfectly ok to feel bitter about being diagnosed with a mental illness. The only trouble is, it’s been almost twenty years now since my original diagnosis. And these feelings of bitterness have a nasty habit of acting like a tea bag: infusing me and my life with anger and regret.
The effects may not always be obvious… but this bitterness got a nasty habit of bubbling to the surface when I’m feeling at my lowest and want something to strike out at. It’s not something that I want my kids to see in me.
And so, I’m left with a choice.
Do I allow this ‘bag’ of bitterness to continue to colour my life? Or do I make a conscious effort to finally accept my diagnosis – acknowledging that it will have an ongoing impact on my life and that I will most likely need to continue taking medication for the rest of my life to keep it under control?
It’s a difficult choice.
And yet – looking at the effect tonight that one small teabag had on my big cup full of crystal clear water, I’m determined to not let my diagnosis taint the rest of my life. Sure it’s almost certainly always going to be part of me – but it’s not going to affect who I am – or the life I was created to live.
Mariska xx
Do you feel like your diagnosis with Bipolar Disorder has influenced the way you feel about yourself or life? Do you worry that your kids will look at you and see someone who is bitter or angry because of your mental illness. I’d love to hear from other mums.
Flashback Post
My last post touched on me growing up to being a sensitive soul. I remember listening to songs and just crying because I could relate so much to what was said in the lyrics. Here’s one example of a song that choked me up every time (still does). It’s sung by Julio Iglesias and features […]
Posted in Read Along
The Pain Game (for real)
When thinking about writing this post, the title was already in my mind, because of the content.
But I thought, this title is too obvious and catchy. There must be a book by that title…something S&M related, surely…So I Googled it, and found, not a book, but a stupid reality show. In Dutch. There are probably English versions, but this one was in Dutch.
What I want to talk about, is, in effect, sadistic. It causes a LOT of pain, and down the road it will cause even more.
It seems that from 1999 to the present, there has been a four-fold increase in the number of deaths due to overdose on prescription opioid pain pills. This includes unintentional and intentional overdose on medicines were either prescribed for the person who died, or were obtained in other ways such as borrowing or stealing from someone else, or buying on the black market, or buying in other countries where some forms of opioids are legal over the counter.
These numbers are certainly shocking, and no one denies that the epidemic of fatalities needs to stop.
Now jump cut to my last visit with my spine doctor, a physiatrist, who, although I have seen her many times, has never laid a hand on me. She did look at my MRI report, though, so she knows I have spinal stenosis. I have bony growths in my spine that are squishing the nerves and my spinal cord itself, causing pain and clumsiness.
I did not share my psychiatric diagnosed with her, not wanting to muddy the waters (“somaticizing,” would then be the diagnosis, or perhaps “malingering”).
I went to her with the idea that I might get a new spinal pain control modality, which is a pump device much like an insulin pump for diabetics, only this one uses a tiny catheter that goes into the spinal canal and has an external pump that delivers an eensy-weensy continuous dose of morphine directly into the spinal canal, where it blocks the pain signals without causing any brain symptoms like grogginess, dizziness, addiction, etc.
Oooooh no! She was adamant that she wasn’t going to prescribe morphine for anybody! Instead she insisted that I get a steroid injection into my neck, with a not-insignificant risk of ending up a quadriplegic. When that didn’t work, she prescribed a pill that made me so dizzy and uncoordinated that I fell down a flight of stairs, injuring my back and causing such a jolt to my neck that I literally wanted to cut my head off from the pain.
I had to beg for some Tramadol, which at that time wasn’t even a scheduled drug. She grudgingly gave me thirty tablets, and warned me not to ask for refills.
Now jump cut to Laura the doctor.
I compulsively haunt the physicians-only version of Medscape. I learn all kinds of interesting things. Plus, I do maintain my medical license, in the vain hope that one day I will be healthy enough to return to medical practice (no danger of that), so I keep up on my continuing education hours.
One day an article caught my eye:
“Heroin use up 10,000%! (OK, only 400%.) Many users are pain patients cut off from their pain meds based on addiction and overdose fears! Prescription pain meds gateway drugs to heroin!”
Huh?
People with chronic pain are being denied their pain meds because their doctors are:
1. Afraid of being disciplined by their state medical boards, which have established Macchiavellian standards for how many opioid scripts any one doctor can write;
2. Afraid of getting sued if someone does die;
3. Genuinely convinced that treating genuine pain with opioids is dangerous.
So….
It happens that there is a large, cheap, and easily obtained supply of heroin in the United States at this time. My son tells me it’s all the rage with the high school crowd. That’s a scary thought.
But people who are in genuine chronic pain, who are either refused or cut off from prescription pain medication, will naturally seek relief where they can. And if they can buy relief from the neighborhood heroin supplier, well, that is one way to relieve their pain.
Of course heroin has its downsides (irony font here). I don’t have to list them; you know what they are.
For me, this is insult piled upon injury. First they take away the pain meds, in knee-jerk fashion. Then, when people desperate to get out of pain turn to heroin for relief, they shout, See, we told you! Prescription pain meds are a gateway drug to heroin abuse!
Can someone please tell me how people with minimum eleven years of post-high school education cannot identify flawed logic when it’s biting them in the arse?
I’m grumpy as hell (if you haven’t yet noticed :-D) because my nerve pain is radiating all the way into my hand, and the Crohn’s Disease that was found on biopsy but isn’t “bad enough” to treat is acting up, and I do have a small stash of pain meds, but I’m saving them in case I fall when I’m out in the wilderness and break a bone. That has happened to me twice already, and I’ve been glad to have the meds since the places I haunt don’t get cell reception, and it’s nice to have a little relief while trekking to the nearest hospital–that is, if it’s something I can’t splint up myself. A bad habit, I know, but you can’t take the doctor out of the doctor….I can just hear my therapist saying, “What was that you just said about logic?” Yeah, yeah. I know. And these are decisions I make on my own behalf. I don’t penalize an entire population of people who need relief from pain.
Next edition: Why are so many people hurting? And why are so many people hurting so much that they’re dying?
Posted in Read Along
Coming Out Again
This post has been eaten twice by my new computer. I am trying my best I think I will go for brevity.
I posted to my grad school colleagues about being bipolar today. I inserted it into a discussion about what is appropriate to put out on facebook or twitter and how the wrong things can ruin your life. I hope they will take it in the spirit it was said and will understand why I mentioned it in the context of the discussion. I’m always a little uncomfortable doing it, but I think I said the right thing
I’m glad I have this safe space here to post on such issues. I thnk however I will post from now on on the desktop because this laptop is giving me fits. Hope everyone has a good day.
Posted in Read Along
