Zombie

Today's post is going to be extremely difficult for me, for a few reasons.

First, I feel like a zombie today. My everyday crazy pills, duloxetine, have gone missing. I think I just picked up that prescription maybe a week ago. Fuck. This particular medication has a very short half life, which means that it doesn't take very many skipped doses to know that you've missed it. Sometimes you can just be a few hours late with it and start to have some pretty shitty symptoms. I'm having the spins and nausea pretty bad, I also feel like my skin is occasionally being lit on fire and then it goes out. Adding to the zombie feelings is that I took too many anxiety pills so I could sleep last night and today I am so, so groggy. I'm afraid my typing by the end of this is going to look a lot like the last couple pages of the Stephen King story The End of the Whole Mess (if you haven't read it, do it. It's in Nightmares and Dreamscapes and it's great.)

Second, my crazy is off the charts today. I'm more miserable then I've been in a long time. Every shitty thing I think about myself sometimes is playing on loop in my head very loudly today. I just keep thinking about things that could kill me today where I wouldn't have to do it myself and the list is pretty short. I still haven't ruled out another fluke blood clot or something falling from the sky and crushing me while I rest like Donnie Darko. I'd take either as long as it did the job.

And third, because of the other two reasons I'm having to seriously consider inpatient care, which is something I have been actively trying to avoid for years. Unfortunately I know me well enough to know that there's a good chance I'm not going to get better on my own. In fact I'll probably get worse until the choice is taken away from me and I'm forced to go.

I've been going through a progressively more debilitating major depression since about November 2014. In January 2015, I started thinking daily about stepping into traffic, particularly in front of large truck, on my way home from work. I couldn't do it though because that truck driver never did anything to me and I wouldn't want him to have to remember that for the rest of his/her life. I may have a lot of crazy but I guess I'm still considerate. By March that year (so exactly a year ago) I had a fully formed plan that I've never told anyone about to leave all my identifiable information at home and go sit on the train tracks and let one hit me while my family was away at work and school. Instead of doing that, I started making phone calls to my insurance company and some doctors' offices. I have Bryn to thank for that, but she's a post for another day.

Finding a doctor was impossible. I have a rough history with behavioral medication so I knew a psychiatrist was going to be necessary. This was my fourth major depressive cycle as an adult and it came on harder and faster than they ever had before. I went from feeling like myself to wanting to die in just a couple months. I was pretty sure I was going to need more than a therapist or counselor, I was going to need drugs. Since I couldn't get in with anyone on my own I called my primary care doctor who got me in immediately and started me on venlaflaxine because I had had moderate success with it in the past. She was also able to get me in with a psychiatrist in her office but it would take another three months before she could see me. Three months is a scary long time for someone in my predicament.

I had several medication changes over the summer trying to find one that worked for me but didn't have more side effects than benefits (the venlaflaxine didn't work out because it caused me to have headaches and bruise everywhere). The duloxetine was a game changer for a while and I only had anything negative from it when I didn't take it, which on it's own is frightening because you worry about whether or not you'll ever be able to go off of it. Because of job changes, insurance changes, and city changes I've not been able to get consistent care. I've been trying to find a mental healthcare provider I could see since October, it's now March. I've seen one psychiatric nurse practitioner once for 15 minutes in that time. And I've had a hell of a six months so this is not working well for me at all. I start therapy next Tuesday but today I'm not sure I can even make it that long without some help.

The most frustrating part of all of this is that I recognized when I needed help. I've been trying for a year to get it. It's so disheartening to be in this position when I feel like it could have been prevented. I tried to prevent it. But there's no help. There's no one seeing new patients. How is that even possible? I've called large hospital systems, Ohio State Medical Center, OhioHealth, University of Kentucky, and said I would meet with anyone if they could just get me in. Everyone had a six month wait. Everyone. Dozens, maybe hundreds of professionals, and not one could see me. Do they have any concept of the amount of damage that can be done in six months, in six weeks, hell, in six minutes if you can't find the help you need?