I am halfway through my titration up on the Lamictal. I'm at 100mg, going to 200mg. You have to do it slow because there is a small chance of getting a very dangerous skin reaction- but this chance is lessened if you go slow.
But recently I have been miserable- and I think more miserable than I was before I went on it. But it is hard to remember. I should track my moods more often, especially when I am making med changes. I should create a program that would let me graph mood, meds, and the number of hours of daylight!
As bad as my moods have been, my sleep has been worse. I can't sleep at night- which means that all I want to do when I get home is sleep- and even if I make myself stay up I get nothing done, I have no life. If I take klonopin it is awful- klonopin on top of the higher Zyprexa dose really has me knocked out the next day.
Plus I have been really irritable- which I seem to remember being an issue with Lamictal before. Of course it could be the fact that it is the longest day of the year... my psychiatrist wants to raise my lithium, but I won't. It would just make me too numb. The dose that I am at- it isn't too bad in terms of side effects. I have been on high-dose lithium before- and that was almost enough to stop me from ever trying it again.
I did somehow make it out and to my dad's to visit with family. It wasn't easy, and taking a very necessary shower seemed like an Olympic sport. I can't say that once I got there I felt fine and all was well- I still was really fighting with the darkness inside of me. But I'm glad I went. It was better than staying home with the darkness.
Tomorrow I see my therapist and I don't know what I am going to do. Sometimes I think I stay in therapy because it seems like I am doing something, and that to give up on therapy means to give up on me- although that isn't true.
My last therapist I felt understood me fairly well, if only because of the length of time I saw her and the need I had to tell my story at times. So my current therapist is at a disadvantage. He doesn't get what I struggle with. And I don't want to do the type of therapy that he likes the best: schema therapy. So is there any reason to stay?
I'd like to give DBT another try. I could do it with him, maybe. He does list it as something that he does on his website. I don't think I have the energy to drive an hour each way to the nearest skills group. But maybe I could do it on my own with a workbook. Aren't you ever done with therapy?
1 comment:
There are some good mood charting apps, some of which let you track details about the day. I"m using imoodjournal (works for iphone and android and just sounds like iphone) and you can hashtag any information to it. There's another that is called Optomism that has good reviews but won't work on my iphone 4. I had another that let you track a ton of stuff but it was too complicated and I deleted it. I just downloaded a bunch of programs and tried all of them for a week or so until I was sure I knew which one worked best for me. The only thing I don't like is that I have to send the data to myself and then put it in a spreadsheet and make my own chart even though the program has some fancy charts. I have shown Dr. Mind my phone though so he can see the fancy stuff as well as what I print. He's even found features I didn't know about.
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