Blink

All this rapid-cycling can take it out of a person; I’ve had to desert my working life for the foreseeable future and ‘take a break’ to recover from a crash, ah well, my own stupid fault, etc, etc. Here, just for shits and giggles, is a short run-down.

Stuff What I Did Wrong:

* Laughed off the hypomania of the previous month. Nutter? Me? Surely not – that was just me being happy for once – officer.

* Stopped taking my sleeping pills because I felt entitled to a proper drink and an actual social life for the first time in weeks.

* Chugged my way through two bottles of cheap Shiraz,; proceeded to wax lyrical to total strangers, imagining this as the new start of fabulous, glittering life with mentalist worries and woes well behind me.

* Didn’t sleep at all, went out of my head,  dipped into a huge, sudden hallucinatory depressive swing.

* Threatened suicide with glass to friend.

* Threatened suicide with glass to Crisis Team.

* Had emergency talk with GP who said wordy doctor equivalent of ‘Oh dear, this is bad.’

So, have blood tests for mood-stabiliser coming up, definitely off the booze. Super-short post due to extreme tiredness and total weariness with the whole madness scenario.

Pah.

I didn’t sleep for three days after trying to come off Lorazepam, so now I’m back on it. This is annoying as my body is already addicted, but also kinda important. As my GP said ‘They’re currently not offering any better alternatives.”

See, the psychiatrist wants me to come off lorazepam, but hasn’t given the green light for Lamotrigine yet, so in the meantime, I was left sleepless, increasingly unstable and swinging like a monkey in a gale. Back on the phone to the mental health outreach guy, he and the psych have a chinwag and agree that a higher dose of zopiclone might do, perhaps every other day. 

“What?” says my Gp, “You mean the medication that did shit all last time, on a higher dose, that is just as addictive? Better make another appointment about that mood stabiliser.”

Fair point. Should hear about new appointment soon and whether or not Lamictal is the way forward – I get confused with all these conflicting opinions, I’m just stuck in the middle trying to live.

The Rambles

*Firstly -Hurrah, a full 7 hours of slumber courtesy of benzodiazepine joy! But I am worried about going down to half a mg. The psychiatrist was very keen to get me off these as they are so habit-forming, but I’m under no illusions about what will happen when I do; I won’t sleep anymore.*

Yesterday was a rare day; for once it was full of communication (as I’m someone who usually makes a Trappist monk look like the life ‘n’ soul). All the rest of us in the house pitched together and bought flowers for one of our own, who is having an awful time, and there was coffee and laughter and other normal stuff. However, I washed my bed-linen for the first time in god-knows how long, and the rusty bloodstain from a nosebleed spread horribly, so now my pillowcase is covered with yellowish-brown patches like the huge fingerprints of a nicotine addict. Must remedy, possibly with red pillowcases.

Then, by God, I went out! On a saturday night! To meet people at a club! Being the ferocious party animal you’ve no doubt pegged me as I went home at ten o’ clock but the point is that I went at all, and conversed and debated and flirted and did some of the things you’re supposed to at 23, instead of adopting the foetal position under my duvet, obsessively checking the windows of the people next door, contemplating slitting my own throat or whatever else it is I usually do on a Saturday night.

Indeed, so overwhelmed was I by my social ejaculation into this harsh, vibrant world outside, that I wrote myself a letter as soon as I got home.

Dear ** ****

It has recently come to our attention that in recent months your painting, poetry and general productivity outgoings have far exceeded our usual requirements – giving you a good excuse to stay indoors.

We would like to extend our warmest congratulations on another people-avoidance job well done. Truly, your balance at the Misanthropy Bank must be very healthy indeed. 

Your annual night off on a reality jaunt was well-deserved, and you held your own admirably well amongst the earnest students, rambling drunks, bad dancing, loud music, casual violence, etc. No doubt though, that you are glad to be back indoors on your own.

Feel free to cash this cheque for 1000 back-dated previously-avoided people (inc. unspoken conversations, enforced celibacy, invisible arguments and a multitude of petty, gritted-teeth grievances) at your leisure.

Best of luck with all future endeavours.

The morning after the night before

To be fair, it’s my own bloody fault I was madly awake at 5 in the morning. Alcohol does that to me; and yes I know, I swore I wouldn’t drink on my medication again and yes I’m a weak-willed, wine-swilling social failure and yes I KNOW.

Still, I spent the best part of the night in a full-body pink panther costume talking intense philosophy with two men dressed as a bumblebee and Anthea Turner respectively. What was I supposed to drink, lemonade?

Bollocks

It is 4.54 in the morning…again.

Psyched.

So, I had my appointment with the Recovery and Independent LIving team psychiatrist. Prepare to be amazed: it was nowhere near as bad as I was worried it might be. Not only did he take me seriously despite my clean hair, neat appearance and ‘normal’ manner (it’s always the same isn’t it, a raving nutter until I actually see a member of the mental health outreach team when I transmogrify into someone who can look after themselves), but also didn’t make me feel like some NHS-draining sub-being for being bi-polar. I actually felt listened to; we talked about treatments seriously, he thrashed the diagnoses of that other total bitch who said that my hypomania ‘didn’t qualify clinically’ and put ‘rapid-cycling’ in big letters for the idiot to see.

So, psychotherapy is happening, I’m slowly coming off Lorazepam and, God willing, not having to take Lamictal or Lithium, but they are there officially as the next step in medication. After nine years of being ignored, mis-diagnosed and given the wrong drugs I’m finally feeling a glimmer of real support. 

Long may it live.

What?

According to my blog stats one of the top read posts is titled ’61′ which is interesting because I haven’t written a post titled 61 and clicking the link gives The Man from WordPress, he say No. Well not exactly, I wish it did. It takes me back to home page.

Have also, on today’s trawls through the heaving spawning-ground of Google Search, found a particularly appalling ‘cutting-clone’ site (meaning yet another profile that has ‘WS – wrist-slitter’ in the About Me section, and is chock full of ‘the beautiful rich red morphine flows from my pale wrists like crimson tears weeping for my wretched soul’ bollocks) by some idiot describing her extra-curricular activites as… ‘Self-Ham’.