zeptember

I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of my menstrual cycle and mental stability surrounding the menstrual cycle for about four years now.

Recently, I’ve splintered off another spreadsheet just to record mental stability alone.

Going back through the past five months, May is thee most stressful month I’ve had thus far, hands down.

I’ve had 15 total depressed days out of 29 so far this month. Of that total, I went through 2 days in a row, then 5 days in a row, then 3 days in a row, then another 3 days in a row of depression throughout this month so far.

I had 11 instances of panic attacks - the highest so far this year (and honestly, I wonder if it’s the highest figure in the last three years, but I’m checking on that).

The causes for my panic attacks have been related to job search/interviewing, money, car and home-hunting.

I won’t lie to you - two days in a row earlier this month, I’ve also had suicidal ideation.

Last night, I went out with a friend to dinner and a movie. Towards the end of dinner, a couple at the next table over started talking to us. My face flushed because of social anxiety. I was not prepared to be talking to anyone else besides my friend, and suddenly we were engaged by a couple of strangers. They were “our people”, meaning they were freaks/subculture like us, but it didn’t matter. I hurriedly paid our bill and we left the restaurant. I could tell they knew I was uneasy. It didn’t help matters because I knew I couldn’t explain why without getting redder in the face.
(I’m glad my boyfriend wasn’t with me - he always announces that my face has turned red, thus turning even more attention on me, and leading me to want to flee in a panic).

After the movie let out, my friend and I discussed the movie on the way home, and how impressed we were with it.

After dropping my friend off at home, I was suddenly overcome by the stress of the day - having gone out to be social with one single friend, and an unexpected couple at a restaurant - was all it took to get me babbling gibberish all the way home because of the social anxiety.

Fed up with this goddamned gibberish that happens to me when I’m stressed out, I sat up til 1am researching various keywords in Google searches, looking for anything that might match what I go through. Let me first start by saying that I didn’t have this condition until after my near death auto accident, which caused a major closed-head injury in 1994.

The closest keywords I have come up with so far are “Glossolalia” and “Logorrhoea”.

According to Wikipedia:

Glossolalia comprises the utterance of what appears (to the casual listener) either as an unknown foreign language (xenoglossia), meaningless syllables, or utterance of an unknown mystical language…

Logorrhoea is a language disorder present in a variety of psychiatric and neurological disorders including aphasia, localised cortical lesions in the thalamus, or most typically in schizophrenia with catatonia.

Examples of logorrhoea might include talking or mumbling monotonously either to others or more likely oneself. This may include the repetition of particular words of phrases, often incoherently. The causes for logorrhoea remain poorly understood, but appear to be localised to frontal lobe structures known to be associated with language.

While doing my research, I also happened upon another term that is VERY relevant to me, but not related to last night’s anxiety. I will discuss it here anyway because it affects me every day, and I know that it too is tied to my brain injury from the car accident.

Nominal aphasia (also known as anomic aphasia) is a form of aphasia (loss of language capability caused by brain damage) in which the subject has difficulty remembering or recognizing names which the subject should know well. The subject speaks fluently and grammatically and has normal comprehension, and the only deficit is trouble with “word finding,” that is, finding appropriate words for what they mean to say.

Anomia is caused by damage to various parts of the parietal lobe or the temporal lobe of the brain. This type of phenomenon can be quite complex, and usually involves a breakdown in one or more pathways between regions in the brain.

The last time I had medical coverage for a sustained amount of time was when I was at my last contract job. I tried to tell the doctor about my car accident, brain injury and glossolalia/logorrhoea issues, but she said she’d have to refer me to a neurologist, and under my shitty HMO health plan, that would be damned near impossible for her to pull off.

Before that, I was part of a study at Stanford University on anxiety. During the initial interview where they administer the Psychological DSM test, I made it known that I had brain injury from a car accident, and I told the psychologists point-blank that I talk nonsensical words that sound slavic in nature when I am suffering from anxiety or have flasbacks of embarrassing experiences or thoughts.
One psychologist spoke to a neurologist, who told her he didn’t believe my problem was neurological, but was instead emotional. I disagreed vehemently to no avail. This was just a study on anxiety, and they couldn’t help me with my other issues.

Now that I’m covered on my boyfriend’s Domestic Partner health insurance, which is a PPO health plan, perhaps I can start the process again to get a neurologist to look at me.

Lastly, on the anxiety front, while writing this post, the garbage collection truck arrived and began repeatedly banging the dumpster to fully empty it. My second floor windows are open because it’s a warm day, so I had to plug in my earphones and crank up some Industrial music because I was ready to start shouting AAAGGGGHHH STOP IT!!! and clutch my ears from the garbage truck banging noise. It’s nerve wracking in a way I cannot describe, but Nine Inch Nails cranked up several decibles is not…
I was so disturbed by the garbage truck noise, that my eyes crossed and I felt a wave of panic, and I felt like my soul went sideways in my body and wanted to come out.

How’s that for sounding like a lunatic?

Now, after reading all of this, you may wonder if I’ve ever been medicated for my mental illness.

The answer is yes.

Back in 2000, I was ejected from a five year relationship. Three of those five years had been hellish, but we had stayed on to torment each other because we were co-dependent.
I was suicidal so I went to the doctor and requested to be put on anti-depressants. I had to sob and beg not to be committed to a mental hospital. After about an hour, the doctor relented and sent me home with some Zoloft, which I told her I had been on in college.
It’s true, I had tried Zoloft before - but I’d obtained it through a friend who didn’t want her pills anymore. I’d only taken a couple of pills, and I couldn’t remember the dosage.
I was put on 25mg of Zoloft in 2000, and within 11 days, I became schizophrenic. I was broadcasting - everyone could hear all my thoughts. I panicked one day at work, ran into the bathroom, and sat in the stall with my hands clamped over my mouth, silently screaming as tears streamed down my face, because people could hear my thoughts.

I went back to the doctor, who put me on Paxil. I got severe leg cramps and joint pain, and was numb to any emotions whatsoever. But it didn’t stop the suicidal ideation. My dosage was reduced to 12mg and then 10mg, and then they put me on liquid Paxil so I could adjust the dosage from 5-10mg as needed. The joint pain persisted and I ended up having to go to physical therapy.
Then I had a panic moment on the way to work one morning, where suddenly I had no idea what time of day it was. I had no idea what year it was. I had no idea who the President was. I turned on the radio, and they talked about George Bush, so I thought ok, George H.W. Bush… but I still didn’t know if it was 6am or 6pm…and the freeway I was driving on didn’t look very familiar, but I’d just passed a sign for Warren Avenue, which I know exists in Michigan. And then I looked out my driver-side window as I drove in the rush-hour traffic and I saw MOUNTAINS. I freaked and started hyperventilating. THERE ARE NO MOUNTAINS IN SOUTHEASTERN LOWER MICHIGAN.
Then, slowly, my memory started to come back and I realised what time and year it was, and who the correct president squatter was in the White House.

I tapered off the Paxil and got on Celexa, after that.

I took Celexa from 2001 to 2002, along with anti-anxiety medication. But the Celexa was too mild to combat my depression. At higher doses, the Celexa gave me the same leg cramps and joint pain that the other two meds had. So I finally said screw it and went off all my meds in 2002, and vowed to regulate my depressions through diet, exercise and vitamin therapy, instead.

I’ve had people since 2002 tell me that newer and better anti-depressants have come out on the market.
I am too afraid to try experimenting with drugs again, legally or illegally, thank you.

I don’t trust anything the pharmaceutical industry has to sell to me. I’ve read numerous studies of people dying in clinical trials of drugs for everything from pain medication to anti-depressants.

And then there’s the stigma. If I go back to shrinks and start getting medicated again, I get labeled. I get discriminated against.
What if I have to go on government disability for my mental issues? To be eligible for governmental financial assistance, I have to have commited myself to a mental institution, or have been forcibly committed, and I have to be on medication and in therapy. All of this labels and stigmatises me for life and prevents me from getting certain jobs.

HAH. Jobs. I can’t even get a fucking job. I’ve been unemployed for 4 months and I’ve received four rejection letters. Two were from companies I’d interviewed for. The other two rejected me just based on my cover letter/resume.

And don’t even talk to me about how devastated my father would be if he found out how mentally fucked I am, especially if I go the state aid route.

And yet, what happens if I don’t try medication again? What happens if I don’t commit myself for awhile?