The anxiety that I had been dealing with when I last saw my psychiatrist turned into this anxious, irritable depression. And then over the weekend I couldn't sleep. I turned to yet another drug: benadryl, which helped. I finally got a good night's sleep last night and woke up feeling so much better. I didn't even take any klonopin today, I didn't feel that anxiety. It was gone.
I even managed to get two things accomplished this weekend: I took my car in for servicing and went to Costco to pick up my provigil and shop. But these things really drained me.
I confess I am having a few "when is it going to get any easier" moments. This only lasted a week, I should be grateful- but it is so disruptive. How are you supposed to figure out how to live your life when half the time you are not sure you want to live?
But I think I am not just dealing with a mood disorder- I am dealing with the collateral damage from it. I didn't spend my twenties and early thirties figuring out my social identity, finding my soul mate, establishing structure and routines in my life. I spent these years in and out of psych hospitals. There is a lot that I never learned. This makes life that much harder, even when I am not in the midst of an episode. Plus my learning disabilities- that doesn't help either.
I'm not sure how to fix that piece. I thought that therapy might- but it hasn't. I think I need more structure. But I will have to create my own, and that isn't easy.
1 comment:
I understand. And I sympathize. When I was having my longer better spell we worked on a lot of social skills. Between bipolar and my abusive childhood I am lacking skills for so many social situations. I was, somewhat ironically, a good therapist because it was a social situation that I learned to handle step-by-step with my peers and I wasn't behind there. But there have been times that I've found my 3 year old niece is far ahead of me in social skills, especially expressing emotions, and that is really frustrating. But I never was a 3 year old with typical 3 year old problems and so I sometimes need helpl to learn how to handle her when she knows how to handle a situation before I do.
Whether it is right or wrong I gave up on dating and much of a social life a long time ago. If it comes up then I'll deal with it but right now it doesn't. I did want to join NAMI but the contact person was so unfriendly that I kept making excuses to not drive 45 minutes to feel that I was in the wrong place and unwanted. Maybe someday I'll go.
I think that I just was hurt one too many times by letting people in. I am open with people about bipolar because there just aren't people in my life who don't know anyway. But it makes me sad to consider the friendships that haven't survived for reasons varying from my "lack of faith" to "my aunt killed herself and I'm scared you will too" and everything in between. but I can't lie about it or hide it because it is too uncontrolled so that's the way it is.
Sometimes the littler bad times are worse because you can think. Hopefully this is over for you now.
Just Me
Post a Comment