It's been a strange week for me. The kids and I spent Sunday through Thursday at my parents house in the country because I've been feeling really unwell and home has been pure stress lately. I needed a break. I needed some help. I needed some rest and few days to do nothing but read and create without feeling guilty for being "idle".
I've been having serious pain in my right side again but a trip to the emergency room provided no answers and only minor pain relief. After that was when I needed a few days away from as much stress as I could get away from. A lot of people think that mental illness is all about your thoughts and feelings but that's not true. High levels of anxiety for extended periods of time will absolutely wreck you physically as well. It will change your appetite and sleep patterns which will result in fatigue, stomach and intestinal distress, headaches, dizziness, chest pain, all manner of discomfort. When you feel like this for a while it becomes really hard to practice self care. Rest seems impossible even though you feel exhausted. You forget to eat or just don't eat because you know it will just make you sick. Currently, if never eating again was an option I would absolutely take it. I've not eaten anything that hasn't made me feel ill on weeks. I'm dropping weight and sure that's not the worst thing considering my size but I'd much rather be fat and happy than lose weight like this. The bigger problem is that sleep and regular meals are vital to my mental well being. If I mess up either of them I spend the time until I'm back on track fluctuating between high anxiety and crippling depression. It's an incredibly shitty cycle to get stuck in.
Wednesday was three months since Bryn's suicide. I wanted to blog about her. I wanted to talk about her as I knew her but I just couldn't. Somehow there were too many things to say and not enough words to say any of it the right way. I loved her so much, I can't stand the thought of not honoring her the right way. One day I will. One day I'll have the words. But I don't yet.
When we came back to Lexington on Thursday I had an appointment with a specialist my therapist referred me to. She's a psychiatric nurse practitioner who specializes in women's mood disorders specifically related to hormones, and I love her. I went to see her about my PMDD in hopes of finding some sort of treatment so that I don't want to kill myself two to three days a month, every month, until I go through menopause. Within five to ten minutes of talking with her she could tell I was bipolar. She was amazed that I had never received that diagnosis before because evidently it's pretty obvious. I had a doctor in the past mention that it was a good possibility but I was never started on treatment for it. The specialist started me on mood stabilizers immediately and seems pretty confident that I can get better with monitoring and the right medication. For the first time in a while I have reason to be hopeful that I may not always be an emotional train wreck.
Yesterday was the four year anniversay of my pulmonary embolism. I usually refer to it as my clotiversary. That blood clot turned my whole life upside down and fucked up all of my plans. If it wasn't for that clot I'd probably being playing with radiation in a hospital by now, probably hating my job but making a good amount of money. Things would be a lot easier for my family so I would grin and bear it. I guess that wasn't to be though. That freak health occurence made me see myself and life in a different way. Some people would come away from it thankful to be alive and hopeful and with a renewed appreciation for life. I'm not wired like that. Sure, I have days like that sometimes but mostly I came away scared. I came away doubting myself, not trusting my body, seeing myself as weak and damaged, and completely lacking the ability to cope. I'm still working on overcoming all of those things. And some days it's amazingly hard.
Today I'm exhausted. I didn't sleep much and when I did my dreams were violent and dark. I woke up, I don't know, distressed may be the right word. Nights like that just make me ruminate all the next day. I think about me, my life, the state of the world, the world my kids are going to grow up in, how it all seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. It's hard to not spiral into depression when I haven't slept. So today I'm just working on self-care and trying to not think we're all doomed.
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