Felt sick- went to yoga anyway

I felt really bad physically, today, especially as the day wore on. I don't know if I am coming down with something- or if there is something more serious going on with me, as I periodically think. I have had a lot of blood work that is all negative, but today I had a hand x-ray for the joint pain I have been having. And my doctor wouldn't give me the one blood test I wanted, for hemochromatosis. Perhaps if the x-rays show anything she will. Or I will just have to find another way to get tested.

But I went to yoga, although I wanted to collapse. And although it wasn't my best session, I survived, and felt a little better afterwards. It also helped with the afternoon/evening downward mood swings that I have been consistently having. I don't know what to do about those. They are really bad- and the reason I haven't been able to reduce my Zyprexa dose back to 5mg. Because if I try to lower the Zyprexa, then these mood swings become even more unbearable. 

Other than the joint pain, my physical symptoms are so non-specific. Severe, intermittant fatigue and weakness. Stomach pain- but that could be the irritable bowel syndrome. Sometimes I feel like I have a low grade fever. And pain in an increasing number of my small joints, but it comes and goes. Some people say they just want an answer. No- I want it to be something fixable! And not too terrible a cure. 

I recently found out my dad is a carrier for hemochromatosis. And so I have latched on to that. It explains a lot. And it is fixable. You just get bleed, like in the old days, to get the iron taken out of you. Well, not entirely fixable- whatever damage to joints and organs that has already been done is unlikely to reverse, but you can stop or at least greatly slow progression. 

Of course it can also cause mood symptoms, I have read. That would be incredible if I have this, and it has been causing some of my "mental illness."

But I am probably just being a hypochondriac. 

Sometimes it's not enough

They say that half of life is just showing up. But that is only half of it. Sometimes it is not enough. I get myself there, but I can't get myself to stay there.

I had tried to lower one of my medications last night. This morning I was depressed. But I was also determined that if nothing else I was going to visit family, as some people were in from out of town. After much inner battling, I sprayed some dry shampoo in my hair (great for when I am too depressed to shower), managed to brush my teeth, throw on some clothes, and run out the door before I could think of another reason not to go.

I am glad I went. I was glad to see them. But the gnawing in my stomach just kept growing, and finally I could ignore it no more, and I had to leave. 

There was a time when I was listening too much to the cognitive therapists, and I thought that I "should" feel better if I made myself do something positive. They would want me to rate my mood before and after... Which to me meant that if I didn't feel any better after doing something, it was a failure. It is not a good way to think about things.

Things are worth doing if they are worth doing. Yes, how it makes you feel is part of the package, but only a part of it. 

The one thing that should definitely make you feel better is your psych meds, if you choose to take them. I can't figure out what to do with mine right now- but I see my psychiatrist next week so maybe he will have some answers. 

I also have a problem which is freaking me out- it looks like the site I get my provigil from overseas is no longer reliable. And I can't afford to buy it in America, even though it is now generic- the price has still not dropped very much. And my insurance company has denied it for me. So I don't know what to do. Maybe try the amphetamines again- my doctor had once mention Vyvvanse, but I haven't always done well on the amphetamines. 

Maybe I should tell my health insurance company that I need to go to detox to get off of provigil if they won't pay for it! Maybe then they would pay!

What I don't understand is why it is so expensive, especially now, when it has been generic for a few months. I'm not asking for it for free, I'm willing to pay a couple hundred a month if I have to- but not what they are asking. 

Yoga I love, Pilates not so much (but I need it)

I went to my first Pilates class on Wednesday. I can't say I loved it. It was more like climbing a difficult mountain, and mid way up you start wondering why you are doing this and maybe it would be nice to stop. But at the end, you are glad you did it.

It was really hard as I have really weak abs and my quads aren't too strong too, apparently. We were working on quads on the mat. And then it came time to stand up- and my right quad just said no! I wondered if people sometimes got stuck on the ground. I managed to get up by putting my weight on my left leg. But then we did some standing work, and every now and then my quads would just start shaking, and I started wondering if people ever fell in class...

No, I did not fall. But I can still feel my quads, even today. Enough to remind me that I need more than just yoga. I need to do Pilates. So I will go back next week.

So I have three evenings a week spoken for, my early work nights. Yoga, pilates, yoga. Maybe I'll eventually get really ambitious and do a weekend class. But I'm not pushing it. Yet. This has only been a month since I started with the yoga.

I still hate Mondays

Yes it was a Monday, yes I was in a terrible mood.

Sometimes I think that, on all the meds I take, I shouldn't feel this bad on a Monday morning. And then sometimes I think that this is a good thing- it means I am not too drugged to notice or to feel!

Because the purpose of meds, for me, is not to stop me from feeling. Just to help make it manageable. Unless I am drugged into a coma, I will still have bad days. But, a day made better when I was able to stop doing my work and head off to yoga class at the end of the day. And a day made better by reading my kindle this evening while eating mashed potatoes (gluten- free comfort food).

I had a lot of little and maybe not so little things today that got to me, got on my nerves. They will be there tomorrow. But tonight, I am feel.

Meds help. But so does keeping perspective. Trying to stay mindful. And telling myself that I can only do what I can only do. Wise mind, in DBT.

Tomorrow will be a better day. It won't be a Monday!

Meanwhile, Amazon has started profiling my reading habits quite seriously since I got my kindle (and crazy downloading a bunch of book). First they figured out I like sci fi, and they have been sending me lists of best selling sci fi. Then last week I got a list of best selling hi tech sci fi. Then this weekend I got a list of post-apocalyptic sci fi. They have figured me out- they already know me too well. Scary.

What I like is sci fi about earth's future. Speculative fiction, in a way. Much of it winds up being post-apocalyptic, but it doesn't have to be for me to read it. I used to like to read about space travel and aliens and all that- but that came to an end when I went to college to and studied physics and learned about relativity. I learned that first, we are not going anywhere. And secondly, neither are the aliens. So if they do exist, the speed of light limit will guarantee that we never meet.

I still do like my stories with alien and space ships, but not the same way. Not like when I was a kid.

Still liking yoga, still not sure what to do about Zyprexa

I've been going to yoga 2x/week. I am starting to look forward to it! Who would have thought! I usually have to drag myself to just about everything I do- even if I wind up liking it. I am used to that little layer of depression making me not want to do just about anything. I go because I think I should, or the hope that maybe I will enjoy it, but not really expecting it. But I am so used to the battle, and I am having fewer of those battles with myself these days. And next week I am signed up for a Barre Amped class. I want to try that out.

I still didn't get myself into work this weekend. Well, what did I expect, a miracle? I had planned on going late afternoon- but that was when the depressed/anxious feeling started kicking in. It is happening every time I try to drop my Zyprexa dose, I start feeling really bad by mid-late afternoon. And klonopin strangely doesn't fix it. And so, even though I feel more out of it on the higher Zyprexa does, I am actually more productive on it. I had tried cutting down by a quarter of a pill last night again, but I'm not feeling good again. Just like last week.

And so I have been going back and forth over the past few days. I don't know which to try to wait out: the spacey feeling from the higher dose or the bad feelings late in the day at the lower dose. Obviously I'd rather be at the lower dose, but it is getting to the point that I almost don't care which. I just want a dose to be working and feel good on it.

It is really hard to make medication changes when you are working. Really hard. Withdrawal effects that I might otherwise be willing to put up with, even if while in bed under the covers, until they went away- now they make me panic. I don't know how long they will last. How will they affect my ability to get to work on Monday, to treat my clients, do my paperwork.

And I have been on disability, and I was always going on and off huge doses of meds- often in hospital- and had all of these side effects- but I didn't have to function. And I one time I got off of meds (including Zyprexa), I literally put myself into a coma to do so (not the intended purpose, that was to die).  I overdosed on my mood stabilizers, it took me 3 days to come out of the coma, and I spend another week in a regualr medical bed, getting only ativan. I was surprisingly ok. I felt very alive, very sad, but that seemed quite appropriate to me. But I couldn't sleep. Without the zyprexa, even the ativan they were gving me that week before they transferred me to the psych hospital, I didn't sleep,

Unfortunately, I was not a voluntary patient (they didn't even give me that option). And they wanted to put me back on Zyprexa. I asked if this drug could be dropped from my regimen. The doctor said that to do that, I would have to stay longer. Now, I knew I wasn't so crazy that I could be kept there forever-  but I wanted to be out before graduate school started up in a few weeks, I had a time table.   But I did talk then down to a lower dose (partially by lying). They also had wanted to put me on the exact same meds that I had been on- that I had been so depressed and agitated on that I wanted to kill myelf on! So I had to convince them that my doctor was about to change my meds (I had figured out by then that he was unlikely to ever call), and get myself at least on some new things and not on the same drugs. Except for the Zyprexa.

I did get out in time to go back to school. And my voice, which had been damaged during the intubation process, came back just a couple of days before classes, I was so scared it was damaged for life. And even the bruises on my wrists and ankles from the restraints in the ICU started to recede just about right then. I was very lucky. And I finished my degree, double lucky.

But that was the coma method for getting off of Zyprexa. There has to be an easier way.

First bad day in a while- or- Don't Panic!

Don't Panic! The words on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

It is my first bad day in a bit. I am really tired, have no energy, I'm anxious and depressed.

It is just one day, so I am trying not to panic.

I know some of this is lack of sleep- didn't get enough last night. Some of this is work stuff. And I continue to feel like I need a bit more Zyprexa towards the end of the day. 7.5mg is too much, but 5mg I'm not sure is quite enough. Maybe I can alternate doses?

But it wasn't such a bad day- I found out I don't need a root canal. That's always a good thing.

And I finished reading "Shift" on my Kindle. I can't wait for the next book- due out later this month.

The interesting thing is that I do not remember that I already pre-ordered it- I just tried to pre-order it again. I really need to stay away from computers- and now apparently my kindle as well- after I take my ambien. This isn't the first time I have ordered something late at night before falling asleep, after taking my ambien, and having no memory for it. It hasn't happened a lot, and I haven't ordered anything too extravagant, but still- it is another reason to want to get off of the ambien.

My first hand experience of relativity

I pulled into the Dunkin Donuts parking lot to get an iced coffee after my morning's yoga class. I turned off the engine. And suddenly, the car started to roll forward! I jammed on the brakes, thinking I must be in neutral, and nothing happened, the car kept going. And then I realized, after a moment's panic, I was not moving at all. The car next to me, that I had been looking at just a moment ago, was backing up. I was standing still.

It was a very new age Saturday. I had a yoga class in the morning, and went to a drumming circle in the evening. In between, though, I didn't do very much except nap and do laundry.

I am amazed when I am able to do anything without a major battle with myself. I am so unused to that. It really makes me realize how depressed I have been for so long, even when I thought I wasn't particularly depressed. I feel like I am slowly thawing out. I feel like it is going to take a long time, but it is coming. Parts of me are still frozen, still locked up, but I am slowly thawing out.