What has changed

It has been 10 years since I have been in the hospital, 8.5 years since I have been on disability.  What accounts for that? I have patients who need to be seen, who need to be treated. That is one major thing.

I ran out of my birth control pill last week- which I take so that I get my period only every 3 months, because that is about all that I can bear. Most of my hospitalizations have happened right before getting my period. And so what should have been 7 days off turned into 11 days (had to call a doctor who was not in, get it filled at a pharmacy that is not open on the weekend- but i forgot to pick it up on Friday, and so on...)

By Saturday I was miserable. But then that night I hardly slept, and by Sunday I was feeling crazy. Yes, crazy. I really don't know a good way to describe it. I tried to go in to work on Sunday to do charts, but I couldn't do more that a couple- I just felt too terrible- alternating between sobbing and rocking and wanting to throw things. I went home, stopped for ice cream (yes, I know, not good), and took klonopin. And I still didn't sleep very much. Of course, I did sleep towards the end of the night- so I didn't get up to go in early, like I wanted to. I went in, but was barely keeping it together. When my last two patients cancelled, I was out of there. I stopped for my my pills at the pharmacy, went home- more ice cream and klonopin, and cried and rocked myself to sleep.

This morning was pretty rough- but I know it would be. A lot of tears on the drive in to work. But I pulled it together in the parking lot. I talked to myself. I can do this. I chose to do this. And really, my patients were great- it was a good morning work-wise. Until lunch.

I decided to check my e-mail- and a message from my boss about my charts that were not done- the ones that I tried to do on the weekend and failed to do. And then I just lost it.

I had to run out of the office, the tears were coming so fast. I went to my car- I started to drive- not to anywhere, just to get away. I sobbed, I screamed, I was screaming that I was going to crash my car, which is what I really wanted to do. I was crying so hard I didn't realize I didn't have my glasses on.

Eventually I found a parking spot, and I pulled in and cried. No, crying does not begin to describe it. I sobbed- I cried myself to exhaustion. And then I wondered what I should do. And my thought ranged from killing myself to taking the afternoon off- but then I remembered. While most of my afternoon's patients could wait, my last patient of the day was a new post op patient who really needs to be moving ASAP, and I have to see him- there is no one else working today to see him. So I had to go back. I had to finish the day.

So somehow I did. I was so exhausted from crying, I don't know how I did. But I did. And I am glad I did. I think.

Because sometimes I am conscious of the small death that it feels like, when I push this big part of me away for the sake of function- even if it is for a good thing. Something that I want to do. That I chose to do. And I wonder how many times I can do it, and what it is doing to me.

But the few times I have really surrendered to the crazy part of me- and I have- and given up on function- that has had a pretty bad outcome. And yet, for a little while, it felt so liberating. I think even that first month I lay on the couch, that terrible depression I really gave up- and gave up on trying to do anything- it felt like such a relief. To just stop fighting for a little while. But the feeling didn't last- and the months got worse and worse. It didn't work out so well. That's how I landed up on Zyprexa.

But I want that feeling of liberation again, somehow. I feel anything but free, now. Even though I am living the life I am living because of my own choices. I could choice something else, but I don't know what to choice. What choice would satisfy all parts of me?

I thought I was exhausted, but it is looking like another sleepless night. I just took half a klonopin, to see if that can do what the Lunesta did not do- get me to sleep.