Two journal entry days in a row, hot damn! Must be a blue moon;
don\’t expect this to be a regular occurrence because I\’m just not a
regular person, I\’m rotten with schedules. Today warrants an entry
though, because a lot went down today. Kinda crazy day. I
didn\’t write any journal entries back in the fall that talked about
my life because I was almost never at home with my computer. Just to
back up and have this entry make sense, I\’ll explain why. (Note to
self/readers: I have noticed that when I am in a "good"
mood, good being anything between manic, positive and even, I write
for the readers, to the readers. When I\’m in a bad mood, I write to
myself and for myself, and don\’t always post the entries here. (I
have a lot of post break up entires from the past year to one day put
up.) Kind of weird. Or maybe not. Anyway.) To make a long story
short, last May during my mania I decided to move to Pittsburgh. Then
I met Koala Monkey Doodle while visiting Pittsburgh before moving.
Koala Monkey Doodle and I got together despite my knowing I wasn\’t
ready for a relationship. I moved to Pittsburgh in August despite
knowing I wasn\’t ready for it, but determined to just once follow
through on my plans. I picked a huge apartment. I didn\’t know it had
a horrible mold infestation. I didn\’t see it when I toured the
apartment. I am highly allergic to mold. I became extremely sick
living in the apartment with the mold. When I first got sick, I
thought it was just allergies. By the time I got to the doctor in
late October (and I got sick as soon as I moved in on the first day
of September) I had developed pink eye, an ear infection, a sinus
infection, bronchitis, strep throat, mono, tonsillitis, and a
bacterial blood infection that had set into my kidneys and liver.
Great, huh? My landlord denied there was any mold in the apartment
and refused to clean it up. The longer I stayed in the apartment, the
sicker I got even with medication. I was sick for so long that I had
milked all of my savings and gotten myself into debt. I couldn\’t
afford to move and to put a security deposit on any new apartment.
During all this my mental health had declined rapidly to the point
where I was an outpatient (despite medical urging that I be an
inpatient) at Western Psychiatric hospital, but not yet on meds. Then
Koala Monkey Doodle and I broke up in mid-December, causing my
precarious mental health to get even worse. Events that night led me
to decide (really, my parents made the decision for me and I was too
far gone to protest) to move back in with my folks and get help, get
my feet on the ground again. So back to D.C. I came. I suppose all
that background info wasn\’t really all that necessary, but as none of
this has appeared in my journal before, I figured why the hell not.
Back in D.C., I started seeing a psychiatrist and a therapist here. I
was put on Zyprexa for Bi Polar disorder with psychotic episodes
(ahem, hence the decision to move back to D.C.), and three weeks ago
I was also put on Remeron for depression between bi polar episodes.
(BTW, the Remeron is working beautifully, in case you can\’t
tell from the change in journal entries.) That\’s the mental health
background. The physical health background is that since returning to
D.C., I\’ve been on antibiotics for mono/strep throat/tonsillitis
three more times. Which brings me back up to date. I was sick all
weekend, causing me to miss class on Friday, miss Bliss on Saturday
and hanging out with Chris (not my ex, a different Chris) and a DRADA
meeting on Sunday. I went back to the doctors today, had all kinds of
cultures and blood work done, and surprise surprise, there\’s still a
bacterial infection in my blood. New, stronger antibiotics to try and
kill it. I also still have tonsillitis, and I have it so badly that
they have decided that my tonsils must come out. Surgery. Whee. I
find out more about the surgery later this week. I have to go to a
ear/nose/throat specialist and then she\’ll line up a surgeon or
whatever, and the doctors will then have to confer with my
psychiatrist as there is a good possibility that I can not be on
Zyprexa and go under anesthesia, which means I\’ll have to go off my
Zyprexa for about a week, which means I\’ll turn into a loony tune,
which means I\’ll be a loony tune while in bed in the hospital anyway,
which means there\’s a good chance that they\’ll ship me up to floor
six (the psychiatric floor) while I\’m being loony, and convince me to
sign myself in as an inpatient. Can you feel the dread I am emitting?
No? Allow me to emit harder… I\’M A LOONY TOON WITHOUT MY MEDS AND
I\’M GOING TO BE BED RIDDEN IN A HOSPITAL AS IS. FUCKING A. Mel
(that\’s my therapist) told me during my session today that it would
be a good idea if I could get friends to come visit me while I\’m in
the hospital for two days (two days because off meds to do the
surgery they have to keep an eye on me when I go back on the Zyprexa)
to keep me hopeful and occupied. And I said "Mel, what friends?
I don\’t think any of them are going to fly/drive into town to see me
for three hours." And he says "it\’s too bad you don\’t have
a boyfriend, someone special to come in and be with you then".
And then I burst into tears and laughed like an idiot at the same
time. "A boyfriend? That\’s the last thing I need right now."
"A boyfriend? Yeah, I want one too." Mel then says "well
in light of everything else, it is a good thing you don\’t have a
boyfriend right now, though it would be nice for you while in the
hospital". I like my therapist, for he can give as mixed of a
message as I feel. Anyway, my therapy session today was really
groundbreaking. After discussing the surgery ordeal and my current
dislike of needles in my veins (STICK IT IN MY VEINS, put stuff in,
don\’t take blood out, no no no, drugs BAD uh huh) we moved on to what
we ended Thursday\’s session on: how I get depressed and occasionally
suicidal whenever I try and take an outside job, go to school, be
involved in a demanding project with other people, etc. Especially
when there are critiques, deadlines and comparisons. We traced my
anxieties and depressions as far back as when I was eight years old,
palms sweating, breathing shallow and heart racing as I try to
remember my times tables for a game in math class. Being terrified of
giving the wrong answer, even though I knew my times tables
flawlessly. It was going beyond perfectionism and performance anxiety
even then. I stopped playing music (drums/bass) around people the day
my father told me that Jamie was a better drummer than I. I was 12,
and it killed all dreams I had of playing in a band. I stopped
singing in public (three times in the past year excluded) when Doee
told me I had a bad voice, even though I was in honors chorus. I
stopped dancing in public up until this year when I tripped and fell
while dancing when I was 12 at a school dance. I took down all of my
poetry from my website when someone in my guestbook said it was
awful; I was 17. I stopped trying to succeed in school my 9th grade
year when I got my first F on a test taken after missing three
consecutive weeks of school due to depression. Seeing a pattern? When
there are expectations, I panic, I run, I hide. It\’s easier to fail
due to lack of trying than it is to try and fail and know I wasn\’t
good enough. In the past I was diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. This was in
the mid-90s before a whole lot was known about other learning
disorders. Mel thinks that since I already exhibit co-morbidity
with Bi Polar/PTSD/BPD, that it\’s highly likely I also have a
learning disorder, especially as I show all the symptoms and was
diagnosed with ADD, which used to be a catchall for learning
disorders. I\’m really fascinated by co-morbidity at the moment,
though that\’s another story. Anyway, now that I have health care, Mel
wants me to undergo psychological testing (versus all the psychiatric
testing I\’ve had over the years) to determined whether or not I do
have a learning disorder. If I do, it immediately explains my
recurring behavior over the past nine years, all of my cycles. I
start to build my life, something goes wrong, and no matter how
little I start to question and second guess and worry and get
depressed and lose all the ground I\’ve covered, all my progress, all
my friends. I lose everything, end up lower than I was when I
started, and then have to start from scratch. Over, and over, and
over again. My BPD (borderline personality disorder) probably grew
from this, as it\’s a learned behavior. And learned behaviors can be
treated and made to go away. Six years in talk therapy
and zero progress made. All these years spent treating the reaction
instead of the illness. Once the finger is pointed at the right
illness and attention is focused and efforts put forth in the right
place, I can get better. Hear that? I can get better. This
isn\’t all Bi Polar (duh!). I don\’t have to be like this for the rest
of my life! I can move on! I can learn to hold down a job like a
normal person, to go to school like a normal person, to have
relationships like a normal person! To not fuck up everything I
touch! I thought it was impossible, that I was just stuck being me,
and it was all me and stupidity. Now I find it may be more. I\’m
really, really excited about this. Getting better, truly better. Wow.
Just utter, utter wow. For once, I am speechless. I\’ll write more
when I have a surgery date or results from the psychological tests,
or if something else happens.
