OK, I have mastered phase 1 of distress tolerance, most of the time. I can get upset and not have to take a klonopin, cry half the day (maybe half an hour)- but I survive. What I haven't figured out how to do is to be upset and to function. And really, that is what it is all about. If you can't live your life, what is the point of tolerating distress?
I am upset because I am hypothesizing, time travelling as my therapist says. Projecting the worst. I am having some kind of heart arrhythmia. It really started a few months ago, when my mother was sick, but I couldn't deal with it then so I just ignored it. And then I got into the habit of ignoring it. Until a couple of weeks ago because it is happening more frequently. And then I decided to lower my Effexor. No difference. Stop my thyroid. No difference. And then Friday I finally got a new blood pressure monitor- my old one broke- and I saw that when I feel my heart pounding it is 138 at rest. Which scared me. No, really scared me.
My mom had A fib at a very young age and had a stroke in her 50's. So it could be that. My dad also has A fib, but he got it when he was older like most people. My half brother also has A fib. But it could also be my meds. Lithium causes arrhythmias. Possibly Provigil. And almost all psych meds cause QT-interval prolongation. Will I have to stop meds? Will I have to stop Provigil? Will I be able to keep working if I stop the Provigil? Will life be so hard that I won't even want to keep working or living if I have to stop it?
So now I am freaked out. Afraid that I have A fib and will have to go on blood thinners (no more backpacking), or that I will have to go off of my Provigil. And also afraid that doctors won't be able to figure it out. I take too many meds!
Monday morning I will call my GP. Probably I will go in and have an EKG and my heart won't be doing it. Most of the time it is not. Then my guess is referral to a cardiologist for a holter monitor.
Meanwhile I have things I need to do. Except that I can't function. I should go into work and do notes. I should do a load of laundry, I can't even do that much. I should go to the gym. The grocery store.
This week I have had a lot to deal with including my car needed repair, a delay in the final stage of my dental implants (it seems like it will never end), and a tremendously busy work week and getting behind on notes. Yikes. And I have been so tired.
I've been thinking about trying to come down on the lithium even before this. It helped with the depression, but not with initiation- and I need a ton of help there. I would have expected anything that helped my depression to help at least a tiny bit with initiation, but I don't think that it did.
Maybe that would be the easy answer- that this is coming from my lithium and I have to come off of it. Except the last time I was taken off of lithium cold turkey I went insane.
