Robots Made Me

You know what? I’m not depressed! I’m not actually anything. It just hit me.

I had a whole post planned about depression, and some stuff I’m trying to learn about it. I have tried not to write too much about how I’ve been feeling lately, for various reasons, and today I was going to attempt to overcome that little block.

But now I’m not going to write about it because I’m not depressed. I thought I was but I’m not. Maybe the extra dose of Mirtazapine is kicking in. I’m not hypomanic either, which is probably for the best.

Nope, what I am instead is almost completely detached from life. Devoid of emotions. The drugs are turning me into a robot.

I mean, some really good stuff has happened this week, and I am happy about said stuff, but once the initial smiling and hugging is over I go back to staring vacantly. I am much, much more stable than I was, which is so good, because I am finally able to pull off a whole day’s work without panicking, but still…

I wonder if real emotions will come back soon? You know, where you feel sad when something sad happens, happy when something good happens, that sort of thing. A normal range of emotions. (Normal, ha! What the flying feck is normal anyway?) I’ve gone from having extreme emotional reactions to things, to almost complete detachment, where the only thing worth noting is that I sometimes get irritable easily, and I sometimes get a sort of sensory overload which makes me feel squashed-in and panicky.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I was the one who pushed the psychiatrist into raising the dose of the anti-depressant, and I suppose it’s a good thing that the Valproate stops me bouncing off the walls, but I kind of miss that, you know? Where you can feel excitement and energy coursing through your veins like electricity. Where ideas buzz around your mind and you feel at peace with the whole world.

When I remember that I start to think that maybe I should just come off the meds. Just quit them. We could just pretend that all this never happened. You wouldn’t say anything, right? Or better yet, I’ll just cry nonchalantly, “who cares?” Yeah, so my brain is messed up, but what’s so bloody wrong with that anyway? But see, the thing is, I really don’t think that a brief couple of hours of euphoric hypomania is really worth it. Most of the time I was struggling to sit still, to keep my breathing steady, desperately hoping that my heart wouldn’t pound so fast that it popped out of my mouth. Not exactly fun times.

So blah is better. And I will continue to wait and see what happens next.

Gently Does It

Mood goes up. Mood goes down. Yesterday mood went down very rapidly and left me snivelling in quite a pathetic manner.

I was disgusted with myself about the amount of weight I’ve gained since starting Mirtazapine. Every time I went to the loo and saw myself in the mirror I was confronted with visions of my horrid body. My stomach isn’t flat anymore, my face is fuller, my boobs are bigger. In January I bought myself a lovely pair of jeans that I can’t get into anymore. All the clothes that I stopped wearing last summer because they were too loose on me fit again. They’re snug actually. I think I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. Whenever I’ve gained weight before it has been gradual. This has happened in less than six weeks.

I know that I’m not fat, and I’m tall so I can get away with it, but yesterday I couldn’t seem to stop the thoughts going round and round my head – you’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re ugly. In fact it wasn’t just yesterday, I’ve been doing this for a while now.

Then my thoughts started the beautiful circle of self-recrimination about everything else, and I mean everything. My self-esteem took such a beating in the recent encounter with my husband’s daughter – but all that really did was highlight what’s already there. I’m hypersensitive to the least little thing. I can’t face seeing her because I don’t know how to be around her now.

So I spent the majority of yesterday telling myself that I’m pathetic. I ended up in tears. A lot. I cried on the phone to my dad and then cried on hubby’s shoulder as the same time as ranting a fair bit. Thankfully he’s strong and can take it.

I just felt so fat and horrible, I wanted to scratch my own skin off. And I was being far too hard on myself, as was clearly obvious to all my loved ones. I was disappointed that depression had hit me again and I felt like I’d let myself down. But I really have to stop beating myself up about this. I mean, I’m always surprised when a mood swing hits me, surprised I could ever feel that way again when I felt so different the day before. It’s the nature of the beast. I think the higher dose of Sodium Valproate is taking the edge off the hypomania – so my latest good mood didn’t feel so up, so I thought it was just a normal good mood, I thought I was getting better. Then I felt like an idiot for thinking that. And then all the other crappy thoughts about myself came flooding in, particularly my step-daughter’s parting shot “you’re weak”, banging round and round my head, which just complicated the low mood even further.

I talked about it to my counsellor. He pointed out that I call myself stupid a lot. He asked me if I would talk to a friend like that, or my husband, or a small child. My answer was of course not. So why do I talk to myself like that? He made me cry again.

The upshot to all of this? We’re going to delve into some pretty intensive CBT. See if I can learn to be a little more gentle with myself.

The Wonderful NHS

I went to see the psychiatrist yesterday. It was interesting to say the least. I have been a nervous wreck for the last few weeks, as one person put it, “constantly on red alert”. I kept telling myself over and over again, not long to go now, just two more weeks, one more week, and then the doctor will put me on the right medications and I’ll start to feel better.

Hmmm. Don’t ever put that much faith in the NHS.

Off I trotted yesterday, typically feeling neither too up nor too down – isn’t that always the way with these things? I was greeted by a new doctor. She apologised and said my previous psychiatrist had left suddenly and she was just filling in. She was pressed for time so we squeezed my hour-long appointment into fifteen minutes. Naturally, I became somewhat agitated at this. Foot tapping, hands shaking, tripping over my words.

I tried to say that I need help, my moods are cycling too fast for me to cope with, but she wanted details of this. How high does your mood go? How long does it last? How long does it take to go down? How do you feel when you’re down? Do you notice a pattern to your moods? I just stuttered that I’m having trouble with my memory; as I’m not miserable now I can’t really remember what it was like and the same goes for being high. She asked me when things started to get worse; for example, how was I on Valentines Day? I desperately tried to recall that far back in my head. Then the light bulb came on. I had brought my mood diary with me for the last few weeks! So I found my entry for the middle of February and tried to pull some sense out of the confused muddle of my mind.

Just as I was starting to talk, she moved onto something else. Do I hear voices, do I want to kill myself, or hurt myself? Do I get messages from the television? Do I practice breathing techniques to calm myself down? Do I ever become sexually promiscuous or flirtatious? The rapid-fire questions made me more and more nervous, until she eventually had to calm me down and persuade me to breathe properly to prevent me from giving in to a full-blown panic attack.

The upshot is that she has increased my mood stabiliser as the dose I have been on clearly doesn’t work at all. She wanted to see me again in two weeks time, because she feels I warrant “closer attention” and other meds may need to be changed too. But, and here’s the rub, they don’t have any appointments free until June. JUNE. That’s right, I have to wait ten weeks until my next appointment.

I initially freaked out about this (internally of course, one must never show ones true emotions, particularly anger or aggression, to virtual strangers). My inner panic attack started whispering sweet nothings to me, such as: you’ll never cope for that long, you’re going to break down completely, you can’t keep going like this, etc. But actually, it’s not as bad as it first appeared. This psychiatrist is giving a care plan to my GP so that my GP can further increase my mood stabiliser as needed. Hopefully this will halt or at least slow the incessant ultra-rapid-cycling. Maybe I’ll be able to get her to change other things too, like getting off this sodding SSRI anti-depressant.

However, I am left feeling a little unnerved. This psychiatrist seemed genuinely worried about me, and she only saw me for fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, due to stupid NHS shortages, she was unable to do much about her concerns. I went home after the appointment, took the rest of the day off work, and seriously considered getting blind drunk. I decided against that course of action, and as I was working out what to do instead I suddenly felt incredibly tired. So I lay down, fell asleep and didn’t wake up for four hours. I guess all the anxiety of recent weeks has taken it out of me more than I realised. I felt substantially calmer after my nap, and I still feel calmer today. Bloody exhausted though!

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

I am not in a good mood. No reason for it. I’ve had two days off work because of the snow, I’ve had fun and I’ve watched a lot of ER. But I’m still in a bad mood.

I started the drugs yesterday. I don’t think they can be causing this – surely it’s too soon for the side effects to kick in. Physically I feel fine (apart from tired), it’s just my head that’s on the misery-go-round.

So, for kicks, I decided to have a look at Crazymeds. It looks like I’m going to have a lot of fun on these drugs. I already know that SSRIs kill your sex drive, believe me I know. But apparently Prozac is particularly bad. And then I had a look at the effects for Valproate and look what I found:

Instant middle age, no matter how old you are. Suddenly you’ll be old.

• You’ll get fat.
• You’ll go bald, or your hair will thin or change in some way.
• You’ll always have heartburn, diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain or similar stomach complaints.
• You’ll be tired all the time.
• Your hearing won’t be as good as it used to be.
• You’ll have the shakes a lot. Gee, and this is an anticonvulsant?
• Your liver will hate you.
• You just won’t feel that sexual any more.

Excellent. Now I feel better.