Delicious Placebo

And I remember who everyone is!  The anesthesia has worn off, and my head is out of the fog.  My headache is gone.  I had a three hour nap when I got home which helped a bunch.  Two ibuprofin can really do wonders. So… I think there’s a good chance that it will be business as usual tomorrow at faire (except I can’t drink).  Thank you all for your good thoughts for me today.

It’s set in stone now.  On Friday at 1:30 I’ll get my first zap.  I will try to post Friday night to see how coherent I am.  If I can’t, then I’ll have Lumpy post an update.  I am bound and determined to be at faire this weekend.  I don’t know how long we’ll be there, or how how late we’ll arrive, but dangit I’ll be there.  Good vibes on Friday are much appreciated.

Today in our last group we had a creative writing instructor come in to help us all work on expressing ourselves. We played a few games with word association, did a mad-lib, and did phrase association. Then he gave us a sentence and our goal was to write something short that started with this sentence. The group read theirs aloud, and mine was the most morose of them all. I felt a little bad after reading it because this somberness seemed to fall over the group. It was nice though that several of them applauded for me after I read. I got a bit choked up trying to read it but I ended up getting it all out. Here it is, for your enjoyment. The first sentence is the one given by our instructor.

The sunshine at Ocean City was brilliant that day. It was the last day I remember being happy. The sunshine now seems like a distant memory. A lie from a life I once lived. Now all I see is the clouds, the darkness, and the shadows. Going back to the ocean only serves as a painful reminder of how I used to be able to feel happiness so freely. Happiness that now slips through my fingers like sand through an hourglass. My thoughts fill with dread, as if the world is closing in on me. Will I ever be able to find brilliance again?

I never thought it would be me.. but it is.  I’m going to be getting my brain zapped.  No, it’s not like what you used to see in One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest.  It’s a lot more civilized now.  I am not sure how to feel about it all.  On one hand, I’m very excited that something new might work for me and this makes me very optimistic.  On the other hand, I’m terrified of the side effects and don’t know what is going to happen.  I guess the unknown is always scary.  So I should be starting my ECT on Friday if all goes well.  This means that at faire, I may be a little “off.”  I’m not sure at all how I’m going to react.  If I get my first one this week, I will make a post so that people have some idea of how to react to me when I forget their name or just totally forget that I know them.

Wish me luck.

Woke up crying.. didn’t get much done today… now I’m at work and having another melt down. I give up.

Well, today is my second day back at work. I am working half days this week and next week it’s back to my 8 hour days. They have moved my shift from up at the hospital in Baltimore, down to Columbia. It has added an extra 30 minutes of driving. Driving alone for long periods can be bad for me. When I’m in one of my moods, all I can think about is ways to drive my car off a bridge or something. Please note, this is not where I am mentally right now so don’t panic. It’s just something I’ve realized as I was driving to work yesterday and today. I did have a bit of a breakdown before I came in today. I was in the shower getting ready to come in and just started crying for no apparent reason. I felt like I was going to die of panic if I left the house. Well I didn’t die, and I did leave the house. It wasn’t fun though. Being at work is very difficult. I’m not even sure how to describe these feelings. Luckily, I’m still alone for most of my shift. Everyone leaves by around 5PM. I really wish I didn’t have to work. I just don’t have any hobbies I can do from home that would make me money and I just can’t afford to not bring in a paycheck. My job is easy, so it’s not a matter of finding something less stressful. Just being out of the house and having any demands on me is more mentally taxing than I can possibly describe. You would think that with all the new meds, I wouldn’t be feeling like this any more. Oh well. Whatever.
On a totally unrelated note, I’ve been working a bit on my website so there’s a possibility I’ll be abandoning LiveJournal. Maybe I will cross post? Don’t know how ambitious I can really be but I know people hate not being able to just look at the friends list to see what’s up with people.

Ok, yea thats it for now. Back to work

Well it’s week.. 3? 4? I can’t even remember.  The Shepherd Pratt intensive outpatient program isn’t bad but it’s not great either.  I’m learning a few things, but overall it’s all stuff I already know.  With 5 group therapy sessions a day, you’d think I’d be getting more out of it.  I’m still rating pretty high on the blah scale (from 0 to 10, with 0 being no blah feelings at all, I’m at about an 8).  So today they added yet another pill to my cocktail.  Now I have 6 pills a day to take, plus the one pill that is “as needed.”  I have heard people say they have gone off their meds and they did really well.  I hate taking all these damn pills.  Why can’t I be one of those people?

Oh and I just found this out about the new medication: Lamotrigine prescribing information has a black box warning about life threatening skin reactions, including Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis. (which causes your outer and inner layers of skin to separate)

Week number two of no work for me.  My psych appointment got delayed another week so right now, I can’t even be cleared to go back until after the 8th.  I don’t qualify for disability until I’ve been absent for 30 days so right now I’m using up all my sick, vacation, and personal days.. and then asking others to donate days to me.  Oh joy of joys.  Isn’t it great when you’re so obscenely stressed that you cant work and then on top of that you have extra stress because you’re not working?  I’m finding that everything in life is just one giant catch 22.  I’m eternally damned if I do, and yea, if I don’t too.
Oh, and I broke our new blender tonight.  I am so awesome I can hardly stand it.

Well.. I guess it was only a matter of time.  I stopped taking my meds back in May because I didn’t like what they were doing to me.  I also don’t like the idea of having to take them every day for the rest of my life.  I guess I really need to come to terms with this idea though because I’ve gone downhill and now I’m off work pending an evaluation and treatment.  I had to call the emergency EAP counselor on Thursday night at work because I was sort of freaking out or having a panick attack or something.  The woman who evaluated me today said “your paper says you are OFF duty.. but we didnt know for how long, so we left it open ended.”  Basicaly, I can’t go back to work until they can prove tht I will be able to function at my job.  I have to burn all of my sick, vacation, and personal time in order to get paid something while I’m off.  I can look into short term disability but don’t know if that applies until after you’re gone for 30 days.  Who knows.  Right now I just want the people in charge to tell me what to do so that I don’t have to think.  I’m glad I have some time off.. maybe it will help.  I don’t know if I could take losing another job (lost my last one in a very similar situation).

I’m feeling so off.  Everything at work is sucky – it’s too hard to readjust to switching shifts.  Stuff is missing from my PC.  One of the techs in the room wants me to install and configure a proxy for him (why he cant manage this on his own, when he is a PC tech, I don’t know).  I didn’t want to get out of bed today.  I wish I had a magic teleporter machine so I could zap away to somewhere snowy and quiet.