zeptember

I did get some more homework done. By 3:11pm, I finished and emailed one of the three Rationale papers that are due this month.

I decided to have some lunch, and called my Ma to wish her a happy birthday. The phone call turned into a technical support session, because she could not figure out how to send me photos from her new phone to mine. And I actually didn’t know how to do it, either - I realised that I’ve not sent photos from phone to phone since my last flip phone. And now I have a hand-me-down first generation iPhone.

I literally could not take the pressure of trying to explain things in very simplistic, over-enunciated terms to my aging mother. I could not even handle the idea that my mother is aging. She is 66 years old today.

I began crying and told her it was too much to expect of me right now, that I’m under so much pressure from school and trying to get the homework done so I can get the final grades and thus the nationwide certification I’m after.

I immediately popped 1mg ativan. This means I’ve had 1.5 ativan today.

I told my ma that I never thought I’d be like Aunt M, who can’t handle any tiny amount of stress without running and locking herself in the bathroom all day. But that’s me, that’s pretty much where I’ve been emotionally for the past seven years.

When I hung up, I couldn’t let the matter drop. I looked it up on the web, and then texted my ma, my brother and my sister-in-law the info on how to send a photo through one’s phone to another person’s phone.

Of course, no one texted or called back to say whether they’d gotten the test pic I sent, and I haven’t gotten a re-send of all the pix they said they’ve been trying to send.

Still trying not to cry, I went and laid down for nearly an hour. I think I dozed a couple of times, but for the most part, I was uncomfortable and freezing. Then my phone rang. In the kitchen. I got up to answer it and it was some woman who’d found me on Yelp.com and wanted to know if I was available for babysitting during the day on a regular basis. I had to turn her down, saying my school year as an assistant teacher starts back up next week.

Then, my cousin D texted me and wanted to know if I know of any programs that can make his computer run faster. *sigh* more tech support. I replied that he either needs more memory installed or needs to clean the viruses. He replied that he’s been browsing craigslist.org and that’s all.
DUDE I HAVE NO IDEA. TALK TO SOMEONE LOCAL TO YOU IN FLORIDA.

I’ve been freezing and starving all day. The house got up to 70°F today, but I still feel like I’m freezing to death.
I have two pairs of slipper socks on, long pants, a tee shirt and a fuzzy sweater over that. I’m sitting on the couch with the laptop on my lap and a heating pad turned to “medium” heat on my back. I’m still shivering.

I have to make up one or two days of class this week. I missed ‘Day 4′ of Language Arts class back in July, but the teacher would prefer it if I showed up for ‘Day 3′ and ‘Day 4′ this week to get all the info I need and to turn in my homework (3-ring-binders).

The make-up days begin TOMORROW at 8am.

I am already ready to flake on tomorrow and only do Thursday. But then, george is due Thursday. I’m hoping he’s a day late. Just show up on Friday, plz.

Ok if I think about this any longer, I’m going to full on FREAK OUT.

Yesterday I needed 3 ativan to get through the day. It wasn’t because I was having panic attacks, though. I was seriously manic and scattered. Both of my legs bounced all day, the likes I have not seen since I was taking SSRIs back in 2000-2002.

Working on the papers I have due for school was very difficult. I have not worked on any illustrating for the classes in a week. I get nauseous just thinking about it.

I took my first 1mg ativan around 10am, the second one around 2pm, and I had no relief from the mania. My externalised babble kept at it. My legs bounced just the same. I flitted and paced through the house, but could barely get anything done.

I called my Magellan health services representative and left a message urging her to pre-authorise a psychiatrist for me, and said that I don’t think I need the anti-anxiety meds - I also need mood stabilisers or something to calm the mania. I said the anti-anxiety meds are not touching the mania.

I took my third 1mg ativan sometime around 6pm I think… and that wiped me out for the night. I loaded the dishwasher, made dinner, watched an episode of Carnivale with my husband, and then went to try to do some Tibetan Relaxation, which turned into leg lifts because I STILL had restless legs and scattered energy and no focus going on.
Then the full force of the last ativan kicked in, and I crawled into bed and fell asleep.

When I woke this morning, it was before my alarm went off, and it was because my lower back hurt so bad that I wanted to cry. This is the same pain I get every month right before my period.
I got up and moved around, and the pain eased up, but then the mania returned. My legs are back to bouncing, my brain is back to not being able to focus on anything, and so I decided to take the ativan. I only took .5mg this time, though.

And I wait for my Magellan rep to call me back…I called her again today but she’s out of the office. Go figure.

I refuse to go to emergency ever again. I’ve been once when I was in a car accident and they forgot to sew up my knee. I’ve been there when I cut myself cutting salmon and they charged me $1,100 to put one stitch in my finger after trimming off the protruding fatty tissue from the wound. I’ve been there in severe pain when the dilaudid didn’t stop the endometriosis pain, and they let me sit for an hour and a half to ride the pain and bleeding out in a dark room, then rushed in and forced a pelvic and sent me home because they did not know what to do with me. I screamed that they put me in pain all over again but they didn’t care. I had my surgery papers and diagnosis and everything. Just thinking about that experience makes me want to cry. And then I went to emergency when my throat closed up and got all sticky after a co-worker’s perfume gassed me out, and I was branded an anxiety case. They didn’t believe me, but gave me three shots; benadryl, epinephrine, and ativan…and sent me on my way, high as a kite, not caring that I could barely see or walk straight, I was so high from the injections.

So if you think I’m going to go to ER on a psych emergency for my continued mania, you’ve got another think coming.

I will fall through the fucking cracks and wait for the fucking call from the fucking representative to authorise me to see a fucking shrink to put me on the proper fucking medications.

Of course, the proper fucking medications will probably take three or four rounds before they figure out what works best for me.

I’d like to think a padded room and a permanent vacation from my reality would work best for me, but my husband doesn’t quite agree.

Wow. You see that? You see how that all just went? You see the progression to crazy that just happened?

I feel like I’m standing outside of myself, having just witnessed the crazy. And the hypoglycemia that precedes menstruation every month is not helping with the current depersonalisation and depression issues. The hypoglycemia brain fog started even before I took the .5mg ativan.

I want to walk into the water like Edna Pontellier did. This is not the first time in my life I have wanted to follow her out into the water. I remember vividly back in college I wanted to. And well, I almost did, in a manner of speaking, cuz I got into a near-fatal car accident. I bowed out the windshield with my head.

If I ain’t been right my entire life, I sure as shit ain’t been right since the accident.

OH, my gods.

I’m crazy just like my mama.

She admitted her wild depressions to me just yesterday on the phone. I know it was a big step for her, but I had to tell her that I already knew about it, and that I have the same.

Is it a learned environmental thing? Is it hereditary? If only I knew what form of depression my mother suffers from, I might know the answer to the question.
Is ma bi-polar like me? If she is, then yes, it’s hereditary. I’ve been suffering from profound depression and suicidal ideation since the age of ten. It is documented in my diaries and loose notes I scrawled to myself and kept all these years.

…triggers…

The first trigger to my current state of profound depression and on-again-off-again depersonalisation was going to school this summer and falling under a stress-load that was too much for me to bear. And not just me - several of my classmates were sobbing messes of stress every week for the entire run of the summer session. I don’t know how many of them recovered. I haven’t, so far.

The second trigger was the financial situation - we thought we had enough money in the joint account to cover all my expenses for going to school this summer, and we didn’t manage the money correctly. We overran the budget by well over $1,000. I still owe money for the last class, and I still owe money for a shared hotel stay with my co-worker.

Those two triggers were all it took to make me padded-room-worthy.

That means I am not very robust, emotionally. But I already knew that. You probably didn’t. Now you know. I’m not very robust, emotionally. In fact, I’m a quivering pile of freakout much of the time. It’s a wonder I can even hold a job at all.

Job.

It starts for me again next week.

I haven’t started homework today.

My vision and head are still fuzzy from hypoglycemia. My legs are both still bouncing.

…

After my last sentence, I got up from the laptop and jogged in circles around the house for a full ten minutes. My left shoulder hurts somewhat, now. I was holding both arms at right angles in front of me, like runners do. Ah well.

My left leg is still bouncing.

I think the brain fog is lifting. I might be able to do homework.

My appetite has been way up, lately. Two hours ago, I ate two bowls of cereal, a homemade 16oz goat-milk yoghurt smoothie with bananas and strawberries, and two gluten free waffles with cinnamon and gluten-free, dairy-free buttery spread. And I’m already hungry again.

My cousin D texted me around 11:45am to say “Have to keep going forward. Time goes by whether we want to or not.”

I always love his wisdom snippets.

He’s been in school this year, too. He’s in his third semester in college. I am so proud of him.

I’m gonna go attempt some more homework.

Holy crap, I think I know what led to my psychotic break.

On July 26, I tried Cannabidiol orally (”zero” sized capsule filled with medical grade CBD in a sesame oil base) for the first time, to try to manage the endometriosis pain. Three days later, I was a basket case. Two days after that, I took some more cannabidiol to try to silence the brain weasels, and spent the rest of the week manic, bipolar, psychotic at times, sobbing all the time, and ended the week getting stupidly puking drunk.

I spent part of this afternoon researching the link between “cannabidiol and depression”, and “cannabidiol and psychosis”. There are some studies out there on the Internet which corroborate my gut feeling as to what happened to me between July 29 and August 10.

It has been 13 days since last consumption. It has been two days that I’ve been feeling better, emotionally.

My next step now is to get a current and definitive mental diagnosis, to see what stuff I CAN take for pain management, and what psych meds I might also have to be on, and making damned sure the two play nicely together.

The Dad News
Father-in-law is doing somewhat better. We spent a few hours with him in hospital. He’s still not able to eat solid food without vomiting, and he has been officially diagnosed with a “porcelain gallbladder” - it’s totally calcified.

Communication issues continue to abound at Kaiser. He had no tests run today, although he’s slated for three or four tests. Ugh. His wife is getting all the accurate hospital lingo and whatnot put together to file the complaint about the induced heart attack. We got to watch him get a dialysis treatment while we were there - it won’t finish til 5am cuz it takes 10 hours. Yeesh.

We gave him two books to read, and tonight, fortunately, he’s all set up with some of his favourite teevee programs.

The Financial News
My husband got paid on the 10th, so now the financial crap is getting better, which gains me back some sanity points. Even better, I was able to talk rationally with Aetna and Magellan to get all the medical bills straightened out - the outlook is not nearly so grim as I had originally thought. I also talked to the crazy psychologist I saw yesterday and we agreed it didn’t work out (him because he wants to get paid NOW and me because, well he’s more neurotic than me, but I didn’t tell him that). The next challenge is to find out whether Magellan will continue to allow me to see the pain management psychologist at the $30-per-visit co-pay rate, or if it is now jacked. I left a message for the shrink today, to see if she’s submitted the second visit to Magellan, yet, and whether it was rejected, paid at 90%, paid at 70%, or what.
I then called Alameda Hospital and got on a payment plan to pay off the emergency room bill I acquired back in June, when a co-worker’s perfume (Chanel No. 9) snapped my throat shut without warning and then when I could breathe again, my throat felt swollen and sticky. I got a shot of Benadryl, Epinephrine, and Ativan that day in the E.R., and I am now the unfortunate owner of an Epi-Pen. But anyway, I am happy to report that we can pay down the $300 in monthly installments over the next four months…which is better than being forced to pay it all right now.

My Emotional State
My mood was stable all day, thank [insert deity here]. I got several more illustrations done for my stupid homework. Tomorrow I am taking a break from illustrating the stupid binders, and I’ll be working on the Rationale papers, instead. Good gods, there’s just way too much homework. I have notified my teachers, and all of them have replied in a supportive manner, so that’s good.

My Gynecologist office even called me back today to check on me, and said that it is entirely possible that if the endometrioma on my left ovary is still growing, that it can knock my already shaky hormonal “balance” further off kilter. She’s scheduled me to come in for the followup ultrasound as soon as my famous GYN gets back from Greece. It’s still a month wait, but it’s better than nothing. I just have to get through the next month intact, sanity-wise.

The Cat News
My male cat has been peeing on stuff since last November, as I’m sure I have mentioned. His last bad behaviour was yesterday. We have tried the following:

• shoving his nose in it and saying BAD KITTEH!
• spraying him with vinegar
• when that didn’t work, we tried being even more loving despite the bad behaviour
• getting a second litter box
• cleaning the litter boxes more frequently
• using Nature’s Miracle to clean up the stains
• using Feliway pheremone wall plug-in
• using Anti-Icky Poo to reclean the stains
• allowing him back into the bedroom during the day so he stops howling outside the door
• anti-depressants

This cat has refused every method of anti-depressant administration so far. I have pushed the pill down his throat, I have used a pill pusher tool, I paid extra to get the stuff compounded so I could squirt the liquid form of it down his throat. All of this resulted in mass quantities of vomit throughout the house, so we stopped trying until yesterday, when I decided to try to put the liquid meds in his wet food.
He took one sniff and chose not to eat.
But at least he didn’t puke, which is a good thing.
In the last 24 hours, he has not peed or pooped on anything outside of the catbox, which is also a good thing.
I do daily and nightly black-light patrols throughout the house now, checking for cat urine and cat feces.
It’s good that I didn’t find any today. I gotta say it was a good day.

I will be taking Ativan before bed again tonight, because I know I’m still stressed out, and I don’t want to wake up feeling like I’m having a heart attack again like I did a few weeks ago. I thought I was handling all the stress of school and of not pulling a paycheck this summer, and then I woke from a dead sleep feeling nauseous, tight in the chest, hard to breathe, racing pulse - all the things I don’t NORMALLY experience when having a panic attack. My “usual” panic attack is a flutter in the throat and the need to run from something, and the desire to scream gutturally over and over and over while attempting to run out the nearest door or window.

So uh, yeah. Don’t wanna chance any form of panic attack. I’m totally using the Ativan as a crutch right now. I am so glad to not have had to take any of it today so far. Bedtime I will take it.

*sigh*

My poor husband has now sunk into depression. First he had to see me lose my mind, then his father nearly died. B got drunk and was hungover this morning, so half of today really also sucked for him. My poor honey. I have been giving him lots of hugs and kisses. And ice cream. And a worry stone. And just small little things to try to help him get through the day.

Again, I pray to [insert deity here] that I have another emotionally stable day on Thursday. Two for two, let’s do this!

Thursday, July 22 - pre-menstrual pain so bad that I spent the last half of the last day of Cultural teacher training class sobbing. Friday and Saturday, I felt a little better, go figure. The cramps were moderate on those two days.

Sunday, July 25 to Wednesday, July 28 - spent four days in a hard wooden chair, because for some reason, my body was in too much pain being on the soft couch or bed. Lots of Tylenol 3 and Advil for the endometriosis pain, which stayed constantly at about a 7 on the scale. Heavy bleeding. Tried cannabis edibles which gave me long, unwanted mind trips and did very little for the pain.

Thursday, July 29 - Was about to head to my pain management appointment at UCSF when I checked the joint bank account and found it EMPTY, with several bills waiting to roll through. Panic ensued. Woke husband, who said he had no money to spare. Argument ensued as to how he thought he was supposed to take care of of me financially this summer for school and pay all my bills when obviously there was a giant error in calculation. More panic ensued. Immediate dangerous depression, as money issues are a huge trigger for me, emotionally.

Friday, July 30 - Slept 11 hours. Tired all day. Blamed post-menstrual body detox from spending a week on Tylenol 3. Also very depressed - dangerously depressed, due to the financial situation. Did not leave the house.

Saturday, July 31 - What can only be described as a psychotic break. Did not leave the house for my own protection. Spent the day alternating between crying, babbling, rearranging the house, and finding all the old cat piss that I hadn’t found previously - my male cat has been targeting my stuff to pee on since last November.

Sunday, August 1 - Continued “mixed episode” - bipolar with psychotic features. Did not leave the house. Cat resumed peeing on my stuff because I’d moved furniture around.

Monday, August 2 - Spent the day crying and trying to get homework done. Did not leave the house for my own protection.

Tuesday, August 3 - Did not leave the house. Did homework for much of the day. In the late evening, songs triggered memories of old friends, caused me sorrow and fully distracted me from getting further homework done.

Wednesday, August 4 - Forced myself out of the house - I went to an art store in Berkeley. After buying fresh coloured pencils for my homework, I was witness to a parking lot collision. This set off triggers of a near death accident in 1994, and when I got home, I sobbed for much of the rest of the day.

Thursday, August 5 - Went to local doctor for anxiety/depression. I got 1mg Ativan prescription and promised to see a psychologist. I did another thyroid blood draw, hoping something would come up to explain this terrifying depression. Did not leave the house for the rest of the day.

Friday, August 6 - Mid-cycle pain for much of the day. Game night that night with friends. Promised everyone I would not get drunk, and proceeded to get MOTHERFUCKING drunk. The night ended in puke and tears. Guilt over that drove me further into depression.

Saturday, August 7 - Spent the day hungover, in an Ativan haze, and sobbing for part of the day. Decided to pick my personality apart and kick out the Bad Ztepf. Found out B’s dad had also spent the night puking, and was in the hospital with complications due to a bad virus and his diabetes throwing his blood sugar up near 500. Spent the day waiting for each next call from dad’s wife.

Sunday, August 8 - Visited B’s dad in the hospital. Ate fast food and watched TV with B. I fell asleep on the couch, then woke up after midnight with a real, actual hot flash. I tore off my blanket, socks and hoodie and ran around on the cool bare wood floor for a few minutes, then dove into the cool sheets of the bed and fell back to sleep.

Monday, August 9 - Was awakened before 9am from a company called Magellan, who told me I cannot see the psychologist my local doctor wants me to see, because he’s not in-network. I said he’s listed on the Aetna website. Magellan had to explain to me that my husband’s company has Aetna for health care, and Magellan for mental health care. I replied that I have access to all the mental health stuff on the Aetna website, which is confusing. I expressed distrust for these Magellan people. They told me not only could I not see the dude I was referred to, but the UCSF pain management psychologist I’ve seen twice and have paid co-payments to is ALSO not on the Magellan network, and so I OWE money to Magellan and/or UCSF.

This was first thing in the morning. This was hitting my financial panic trigger. I broke down in tears immediately and spent the rest of the morning curled up on the floor at the end of the bed, sobbing and becoming suicidal.

B was working from home that day, and did not want to leave me alone, so gently insisted that I come with him to visit B’s dad in the hospital again. We went around 1pm I think.

After that, I sobbed for most of the day - part of it was worry for B’s dad, most of it was continued WTF IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN crying. Took a total of 3mg Ativan. Suicidal ideation turned into mania and I moved more furniture and stuff around in the house. Then I started updating my will, which didn’t last long and turned into making a list to give everything away so I could run away and start over, which turned to kicking out Bad Ztepf and crying over her departure. Wow, what a headspace….

And today…

Tuesday, August 10 - I woke to find that my male cat had once again shown his displeasure with me moving HIS stuff around in HIS house. He scooted his poopy butt all over the computer room floor, leaving two shit kibbles on the floor, and then he’d hopped up on top of my desk and left a big shit kibble on my desk.

Despite my goddamned cat, I was feeling a little better - I had gotten up early to go to the psychologist appointment that Magellan did not want me to go to, but that B insisted I go to. The dude called last minute and said he’d double-booked, could I show up at 3pm instead? Sure. I needed to clean up after the damned cat, anyway.

I was just about to leave the house to run some errands, when Magellan called again.
Magellan told me again not to see this psychologist, that he’s not covered, that I will owe money, etc and so forth. They also said they checked, and for sure I owe money to them and to UCSF for daring having seen a pain management psychologist such as is listed on the Aetna website.
I yelled obscenities and broke down in tears immediately. I told them to where to go, how to go there, and said all sorts of things. I told them they were ruining my life. The woman reacted by threatening to send a squad car over and lock me up on 5150. I told her my husband was home and taking care of me, and that yesterday he’d lodged a complaint against Magellan.
I dictated to this woman that Magellan, the company B works for, and Aetna needs to get their collective asses together and communicate effectively to their employees and patients, because this is UNACCEPTABLE.
I spent the rest of the morning sobbing uncontrollably.

I went to the banned psychologist at 3pm - I went on my own despite B offering to go with me. I wanted to assert some form of independence and stability in all of this. I made it to the appointment on time, met the guy, and …

Turns out he’s a spaz, and drops the F-bomb a lot, and swears in general (mental patient swearing okay, mental health professional swearing - NOT OKAY - just so we’re clear). At several points he got the gist of my mental state WRONG. At one point he tried summing up the mess I’ve gotten my brain into, and said, and I quote, “WOW, YOU’RE FUCKED!”

And lastly, while I was encouraged to talk about my family and was describing my relationship with my parents and sibling, the shrink interrupted out of the blue to panic about how he will be paid for this session, since he’s not in-network, and wow, with all these triggers and emotional fucked-upness, I will likely be REALLY mad at HIM and will hold shit against HIM, THE SHRINK, if he charges me the full amount, but he HAS to be paid you see….etc etc.

I broke down in tears to explain to him that I thought he was on my side, he was referred by someone I trust and like - that being my local doctor. And therefore I trust HIM and therefore I won’t be upset with HIM and I KNOW he has to be paid. I promised him my husband would call him tomorrow and suss out the payment. I left confused, because the shrink had said repeatedly before the appointment not to worry about payment on the first visit, that he could bill me, and we’d work out out with the insurance company.

I got home, cried a bit more, told my husband all the gory details about this shrink, and we agreed HE’S fucked in the head, and that I won’t be seeing him again. But now guess what, we owe $130 for that visit, which we have to file a form with Magellan for, to hopefully be reimbursed at 70%. So, more money woes.

My husband went off to band practice tonight, which was BAD (i’ll let him tell you about it), and when he got home, his dad’s wife called to say that Kaiser caused his father to have a heart attack by giving him potassium in his IV, and now his heart is damaged, and they don’t know how badly.

I had just stressed on Sunday over them fucking up his heart, because they wanted to give him a CT scan with contrast (dye), which carries serious risk to damaging the heart in sick and at risk patients. It wasn’t the CT scan that did it, though. They were giving him his dialysis and decided he should for some reason have potassium added in, when he wasn’t supposed to.

KAISER ALMOST KILLED MY FATHER-IN-LAW.
Thankfully his wife has been keeping copious notes, and will be filing a complaint, if not a lawsuit.

Motherfuckers.

In closing, I’d like to say I have only had 1mg Ativan today. I’m taking one more right now before I go to bed.

My husband is worse for the wear, now. He’s been hitting the bottle(s). I am letting him. He’s also taking a mental health day from work tomorrow, or at the very least, working from home again.

I pray to [insert deity here] that I am emotionally stable tomorrow. I haven’t done homework in what, four days? And my husband is the one who needs me to be emotionally sound, right now.