Archive for the ‘The Crazy’ Category

Today has been an off day.

I woke up at 3am to pee. Nothing about that is unusual. I wake up around that time every day. I pee, I take a Zofran so that when I wake up 3 hours later, I am able to get out of bed without dry heaving. Pregnancy, it is glamorous. This morning I had a bit of a stomach ache, again, not terribly abnormal. But instead of just taking my Zofran and going back to sleep, I suddenly felt anxious.

So, I did what I do whenever I’m anxious at night (which again, is not a totally foreign thing) I put on an episode of Friends and drifted off to sleep. I fell into a dream that we had the baby but kept forgetting to feed him. I woke up an hour later, again, in panic. I fell back to sleep and had another baby dream and again woke panicked. This happened several times and finally at 5:30 when my husband’s alarm went off, I decided I had done enough of the fitful sleeping for the day. And if you know how much I hate mornings, you know that the anxiety must have really sucked for me to make that decision.

It took a solid 30 minutes of distraction (Facebook, twitter, emails, etc) to get myself calmed down and from there, I was able to get up and move on with my day. There was nothing in particular that seemed to be driving the anxiety, but I could feel it upon me all day. I wasn’t anxious about work, in fact I was excited to get there because I knew once I got going, I would be okay. And as I assumed, I was fine as long as I was occupied, but as soon as there was a down moment, the anxiety crept back in.

I have struggled with anxiety for a long time, but I have been able to manage it well for the past several years. And the few times I couldn’t manage it well, I had medication. And it wasn’t that I didn’t manage it well today, it was just that it wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t a panic attack that lasted 30 minutes or an hour and then left, it was this full day low lying anxiety. Even as I drove home for the day, I still felt like my skin was crawling, like I was buzzing with anxiety that I couldn’t shake.

I am home now and I decided to forego the couch and just move right into bed since my husband is on call tonight. I’m not going to sleep, but I just decided that comfort was key, and finally, I am feeling a little more like myself. I have some concerns about tomorrow, but I know that I can’t tackle those yet and that I need to cut myself some slack and relax. Coping with this kind of stress on little sleep is exhausting.

Today was a difficult and weird day, but if anything, I proved to myself that I can handle it, on my own. It doesn’t mean it’s going to feel good or that I’m going to love every minute of it, but I can tackle this. I can choose control and while it’s not the same floaty feeling as the medication, it is powerful.

I can handle this. I may just need to be reminded of that from time to time.

I have a confession to make. Try to hold your judgment of me as a terrible person for at least a little while. You see, I recently realized that I have a problem. It might even border on an obsession, but an unintentional and pretty inconvenient one.

I can’t not see typos. Like, I can’t ignore them, I can’t pretend like they’re not there. I get obsessed with them.

I can’t explain it. It’s not normal. I see one and then I cannot see anything else or read any other word around it. It doesn’t matter where it is. If it’s in a handout, I read and reread the sentence, and I usually underline the error, I’m not really sure why, but I always do. If it’s on the internet, I’ll read the sentence over and over until I can make some sense of it and then it takes effort to move on.

It’s literally an obsession.

And I don’t judge people for making typos (well, okay, sometimes I judge people who don’t know the difference between loose and lose, because come on now), but I get stuck on them. I reread my own blog posts and it doesn’t matter how long after I posted something, if I find a typo, I have to fix it. If I send a tweet with a typo and I notice it right away, I’ll delete and type a new one with the word spelled correctly. If I send an email with a typo, I’ll send another just to correct it.

It’s a sickness guys.

And it’s not just written stuff, it’s the same for when someone misspeaks. As soon as I hear it, I start perseverating and I miss everything else that they say, which is especially problematic in class because I miss the entire point of the lecture. Well okay, maybe not the whole lecture, but definitely at least the slide we’re on. This also works out really well in arguments because no matter how hard I’m trying to listen, all I can hear is that my husband said that something happened tomorrow when he meant yesterday and that makes no sense. And in case you wondered, husbands don’t much care for being corrected during arguments.

And before you all think I’m a horrible person, I rarely if ever, correct people for their mistakes. I sometimes point out typos to my friend in class and I’ll rarely tell my husband when he says something wrong (mostly because he never believes me), but otherwise I make it a point to not make people aware of their typos because no one wants that pointed out. I’m not a monster.

Just a crazy person. Note the difference.

And the spelling. Please, for the love of God, note the spelling.

It’s sometimes hard to sit down and write things out that you don’t even want to acknowledge in your head. But for me at least, sometimes this is the first step to figuring out how to deal with them. So I’m just going to lay it out here.

I participated in this really amazing thing at the Curvy Girl Guide called Project Getting Real and it was a movement we started this week where the writers and many readers sent a picture and put their weight and even pants sizes in some cases. The whole point was to encourage women to stop being ashamed of what we weigh, to stop hiding it like a dirty secret. But the weird thing is, sharing my weight and watching all these brave women share their pictures and intimate life measurements just made me fall farther and faster.

I have gained 5 pounds since last summer. At points in the past 6 months, I’ve been able to shed a few of them, but for the most part, they have been impossible to remove from my body. I’ve been trying to cut myself a lot of slack, this year has been busy, I’m getting more exercise (when I’m healthy) and I’m doing the best I can to try to lead a more balanced life. And even though I was very aware of those stupid 5 pounds, I was coping alright.

And then these past two weeks happened and I honestly don’t know how, but I’ve managed to gain 2 and a half pounds more. I’ve been on my feet all day at my clinical, I’m not snacking, I’m eating healthy meals, getting enough calories but not too many, and yet, I just keep putting on weight. My pants don’t fit well, my shirts look too tight and for the life of me I cannot seem to figure out why this is happening.

I feel like each night I go to bed feeling even more heavy, both emotionally and physically. It’s like no matter what I do, I cannot seem to get in touch with my body to pull the brakes and stop this gain. It doesn’t seem to matter how many or few calories I ingest, when I ingest them or what exercise I do to try and remove them, I just keep slowly, but steadily, gaining weight.

And it makes me want to scream.

I want it to not bother me. I want it to not be in the forefront of my mind at all times. I want to not see those stupid 5 pounds every time I look in the mirror because I know there’s more than just that. I want to stop caring so much about the numbers but that doesn’t seem to make any difference. I can’t seem rise above this even though that’s what I really want the most.

It’s so frustrating that 7 and a half pounds can totally break me. That 7 and a half pounds reduce me to a small child who was made fun of for her weight. That it can reduce me to the anorexic girl I was 9 years ago. It takes away everything else I am, everything else I can be.

I want to be free from this, but I truly don’t know how. And I wonder if that’s even possible.

(This is totally related to nothing, and I know that, but I have a post syndicated on BlogHer today and I’m really excited, so go check it out if you have a minute.)

So my husband got a gift card for a sporting goods store from my mom for Christmas because he needs a helmet for our ski trip this weekend. We decided to meet at said sporting goods store tonight since my husband will be working late the rest of this week and we leave for skiing early Friday morning, weather permitting. When I left our apartment, I took a different route than usual because the longest light in the world had just turned red and I didn’t feel like waiting. And then I happened upon something unusual in our sleepy suburb.

All along the opposite side of the street (which is a MAJOR street, by the way) were police cars parked bumper to bumper. They flanked an entire big open lot at the intersection of the street I live half a block off of, and a street about a half a mile north of us. Which is to say, really, really close to our apartment. And behind the police car wall was a lot of police tape, and behind that, some sort of crime scene. To top it off there was a police helicopter flying overhead.

And then my mind went into action, because all the books I’ve read so far on vacation? Murder mysteries.

I immediately determined that it must be the scene of a hideous murder of a college student because we live about 11 feet from a college, which, incidentally, is not far enough to not have to hear their music at all hours. It was probably a girl, because most of these situations are, she was probably extremely nice, active in her community. Either that or she was a prostitute. Those seem to be the only people who are killed.

The morbid brainstorming did not end after I drove past the scene. For the next 30 minutes, I continued to think about the scene.

Maybe there’ll be a curfew. Maybe I should go stay at my sister’s since my husband is working late, leaving me alone. Maybe I should carry a weapon around with me, except that I absolutely hate even the idea of guns, and am mostly sure that the only person I’d ever injure with a knife is myself.

I eventually met my husband at the store, helped him select a helmet and then while he drove back to the hospital to return a pager he accidentally brought home, for the second time in a week, I went shopping. Then we met again for dinner and headed home.

And wouldn’t you know when we drove past the scene that time, there was a “mobile command center” and big lights illuminating the lot. Traffic was blocked on said big street and there were a bajillion cop cars. And of course, when I got home and searched there was NOTHING on the news, nothing on the internet. It’s as if there’s no crime at all.

Which obviously means that this is some sort of big case, and they’re trying to keep the media out of it, because if the media knew, there would be the same kind of pandemonium as there is in my mind right now. Clearly, the police are staying tight lipped in hopes of preventing copy cats and avoiding media contaminating the crime scene or the investigation. James Patterson could hardly write it better.

Mostly I’m hoping there’s more information in the morning so I can appropriately scale my total freak out over this (and of course I’m hoping that no one was hurt. That should probably go without saying, but then I re-read what I wrote and holy morbid post, batman). But until then, I’m just going to go back to my book. Which obviously totally isn’t a murder mystery. Except that it totally is.

Someone needs to save me from myself.

Since I started this headache medication which, sidenote really isn’t working all that well for my headaches anymore, I’ve been amazed at how much happier I am. I was already having fewer panic attacks than usual when I started the meds and since starting it, I haven’t had to take a single fast acting anxiety pill.

This is by far the longest I’ve gone without one in 6 years

But, even in the absence of the all consuming panic attacks, I’ve noticed that my mind is in a constant state of worry.

I don’t hyperventilate, I don’t sweat and shake. But I can’t turn off the fear. All week my brain has had this background noise of worry about driving home. The combination of the almost non-stop rain in California, driving at night, and having to get my younger sister there safely scared the hell out of me. All I could think about was all the different ways I was going to crash the car and kill us both. If I didn’t find a way to occupy every single moment of my time, that fear is directly where my mind went.

I made the drive last night and yes, it was scary, but we made it. And seamlessly, my mind has switched from worrying about my drive to worrying about my husband driving up here on Friday, even though there’s no predicted rain or any real reason for worry. I can’t stop thinking about what would happen if something happened to him.

It’s almost as if things are going too well in my life right now. It’s as if my mind can’t just be satisfied with the idea that it’s okay to relax and enjoy this. Instead, I have to think about all the ways it could go wrong. I’ve tried to turn it off, to relax and quit worrying, but I can’t. The worry is on perpetual loop in my brain and nothing I do can stop it from continuing to play.

I just wish there was an easy way to pause or mute it for while. To take a break from fear. To let my mind rest for a while and enjoy that life is going well, instead of worry about how it’s going to come crumbling down.

Yesterday in the last lecture for one of my classes, the professor gave us some statistics. He likes to try to open our eyes with stuff like that, so it’s nothing new.

-66% of Americans say they are in “excellent” or “good” health.
-64% of Americans take medication.

And then he went on to say that if those people were truly healthy, they wouldn’t need any medication medication.

I sat with the pen shaking in my stupid shaky hands, and I was pissed. Because medications and physical fitness are not mutually exclusive. And to assume they are means that very few people in this world can ever be physically fit. But my anger was deeper than that. It wasn’t just at my professor, it was at myself, it was at something bigger than those numbers and that sentence.

I take a tricyclic antidepressant for my headaches, which also has had an added benefit of making me feel genuinely happy and stable. I take anxiety medication, I haven’t taken it a single time since September, even before I started the anti-depressant. I take nausea medication because I get nauseous frequently and if I want to be a productive human, I have to make that stop whenever I can. I take antibiotics when necessary and I take vitamins every day.

And yet, if you did a blood test, or if you looked at my physical overall health, I’m pretty sure I’d be considered in good health. I had strep throat last year, but aside from that, it’s been nearly two years since I’ve had an infection that warranted antibiotics. I’ve had colds like everyone else, but my physical health is pretty freaking normal. But I take medications, so apparently that negates everything else.

There is a big distinction that I think needs to be made. A distinction my professor is doing himself a disservice by ignoring.

There is nothing wrong with medication.

There, I said it. I’ve fought against this for most of my life. Every time I’ve had to take pills for depression or anxiety, I’ve been ashamed, I’ve made excuses. I’ve sworn to myself and others that I’d get off of them soon.

There is nothing wrong with medication.

I can still celebrate going longer without anxiety medication, but if I need it, I will not be ashamed to take it. I take medication so that I can be functional. Medication my doctors have prescribed, medications I purchased through a pharmacy.

I will not be ashamed of that. And I’m tired of people who have never experienced depression or anxiety making me feel like I should be.

Be grateful if you’ve never had to take medication or go to therapy for psychological issues. Be grateful if you could work through psychological issues without pharmaceutical help. But don’t assume that those of us who can’t do that, who take medication, are not productive, are not capable of being healthy, are not normal people just like you. Because we are.

And we are doing the best we can, just like you.

It’s sort of perfect that I’m writing this the day after the brain surgery post. And by perfect I mean annoying.

I got up this morning, peed and started the shower like I do every morning. While the water was warming up I began brushing my teeth. And something felt wrong. My teeth were fine, by my arms and hands and legs and just kind of everything felt weak and off, for lack of a better word.

I went and laid down for a few minutes to see if that would help and while it did help the anxiety that was crawling up my spine, things still felt weird. I went about my morning, a little slower and lazier than usual, but I managed to get on the road towards school.

At school I noticed that my handwriting was different, and more difficult than usual. And the arm weakness was just not letting up.

It wasn’t until I got home at 1:30 that I finally figured out that it wasn’t weakness, it was shaking. Whenever I do anything requiring fine motor coordination, that is, using my fingers to do something other than just stay straight or stay bent, my hands and arms shake.

It’s a tremor.

My first thought was brain tumor because I am a drama queen. I did a little bit of research and learned about different types of tremor (mine looks to be an intention tremor) and it wasn’t until I was about 30 minutes into research that it dawned on me. I scrambled to check out the common side effects of my new medication and low and behold, tremor is a side effect.

Sigh.

I’m having an MRI done tomorrow anyway so if it is a massive tumor (which I know it’s not), they’ll see it right away. But most likely I’m going to have to call my neurologist if I wake up and it’s not magically gone tomorrow. And then we’re going to have to have a discussion about this medication.

The thing is, it does seem to be helping my headaches. I am having fewer awful days. I am a happier person because it is actually an anti-depressant. I feel better.

But I also shake. I also nearly pass out whenever I stand up.

I honestly don’t know if I know if I want to stop this medication. I’m not sure headache relief isn’t worth the obnoxious shaking.

But then again, this is only day 1.

So. This new medication.

I’m kind of torn. On the one hand, it has not helped my head a bit yet. It hasn’t help me sleep and I have like half of the side effects that are even possible on it.

Everytime I stand up from laying down or even reclining, I nearly pass out, I mean, nearly pass out to the point that I sometimes have to lay down wherever I’m standing to make my vision stop being totally black. It makes my hands and feet feel like they’re on fire with great regularity. It makes my stomach hurt a lot of the time and then there are other things that I’m not willing to type out because contrary to popular believe, I do have limits to what I’ll share.

But, in the 2.5 weeks since starting this medication, I feel a lot more sane. It is an anti-depressant, though that’s not why I’m taking it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I’ve had fewer moments where I close my eyes and see myself or my husband die in a car crash, or our apartment explode into flames. I haven’t taken anxiety medication for almost a month now, which I cannot entirely attribute to the new meds, but I think it has played a part. I am just a generally happier version of myself.

The way I feel now is a really good thing.

But it’s also kind of a not so good thing.

I don’t want to take medication to be happy. I don’t want to have to take pills to not have episodes of crippling anxiety in public. I don’t want this medication to make me feel happy because it forces me to face the fact that I haven’t been happy for a while now. That I need pharmaceutical help to get back to a person that I used to know. That I need help.

And needing help kind of sucks.

I’m currently at 30mg of the medication and I’m supposed to get up to around 50mg at least and see if it helps my headaches. I don’t know if I can tolerate the side effects at that dose, but I am going to try it, because I promised I would.

It’s funny, because a few weeks ago, I was really afraid of starting this medication. I didn’t know what it would do to my body, how I would react, what unintended side effects it might have.

And now I’m kind of afraid of having to stop it, all because of an unintended side effect.

Sleep. It’s apparently not for everyone.

It started as being able to fall asleep without issue, but waking up five and six times a night. Some nights were better, others worse. Nights with especially painful headaches were usually the worst, but sometimes the not-so-painful nights were equally crappy. There never seemed to be a rhyme or reason.

My neurologist (last fall) suggested a sleep aid. It was echoed by friends who had had good success with it, so last December I started taking a pill each night before bed. And some nights it made me genuinely sleepy and then I actually woke up somewhat rested. And other nights, it was almost as if I hadn’t taken anything at all.

In the past couple of months, there’s been a new twist to the sleep nightmare (see what I did there?).

Suddenly, I’m not able to fall asleep. I lay awake for hours and hours. I try not to watch the clock because that only makes it worse. So I lay in bed, keeping my eyes closed, knowing that precious hours of sleep, hours that are already hard to come by, are slipping by.

When I went to see Dr. Yourprovider last week, they realized that this was a big issue. And honestly, it is often as big of an issue as the pain itself. It is impossible to heal, to feel better, without rest. So they want me to get off of the sleep aid and start taking a medication that doubles as a headache prophylactic and a medication that will make me tired enough to possibly sleep.

So I started the medication last Friday, as requested. I also started tapering down the sleep aid (because after 10 months, going cold turkey would be a hot mess). And dear God, this has been among the crappiest weeks of sleep ever. I honestly think I’ve spent more hours awake than asleep.

I am so freaking tired.

I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, several actually. I want to sleep all the time, but the great catch 22 of this is that if I do rest during the day, I sleep even less at night. Which hardly even seems possible.

I’m not giving up on the medication yet. It hasn’t done much, but I’m only on 10mg and the dose they want me on is 50mg, so there’s still hope, both sleep and headache-wise. But seriously internet, I’m so tired I could cry. I need to know that it is going to get better and that sleep will find it’s way back.

Because I’m seriously losing my damn mind.

And there isn’t really enough left to fool around with at this point.

(FYI, there are so far, only 16 entires into the giveaway on my review site. And it’s kind of a kickass prize. Go, read, comment. Seriously, go.)

The more this happens, the more I wonder if this is real life, because, dude. Come on now.

I got another call from You See El Aye today. They needed my insurance number, which they already had, but uh, they needed it again anyways (I’m seeing a concerning trend of miscommunication and confusion. I will probably fit right in there). I casually mentioned to the woman on the phone that despite calling them 2 weeks ago, I still have not received my pre-appointment paperwork. And I’m pretty sure that it’s fairly important.

So, first she asked me if I had a fax machine, which, no, I don’t. I can send faxes from my apartment complex’s fax, but I’m not sure they’d like to become my personal secretary and receive all my paperwork. I’m just guessing here.

And then she decided that I should just show up early for my appointment to fill it all out then. Which is not a problem. Except that seeing as how I haven’t gotten any information like I was promise and I have NO IDEA who my doctor is, I also don’t know where I’m supposed to be going for this appointment. It’s hard to look up the doctor’s office when you don’t. have. a. doctor.

She told me to hold on for a second while she looked up the information.

She came back with an address and some helpful parking tips. And because it was the perfect opportunity, I asked her which doctor I would be seeing.

And as if on cue she responded, “huh. I don’t know. It’s not listed in the information I have.”

Of course it’s not.

Honestly? I’m almost more excited about this appointment to end this mystery than I am for the potential of getting my headaches sorted out. Almost.