In case you were wondering
Dec. 10th, 2003 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeSince I left on a more or less not-uplifting note yesterday (apart from the two silly posts), here's a wee update.
I am now on more meds. Yay.
Neurontin is up to 1600mg (800 in the morning, 800 at night).
I also get Clonazepam (I forget the non-generic name) to get me to chill the f*ck out. The meds doc thought I was a little "speedy" in his estimation when I saw him yesterday.
I'm absolutely fucking exhausted. My brain won't shut up and let me sleep. It's like having constant static or white noise in there: the thoughts aren't very clear, but they circle and swoop and dive in and out of my mind like seagulls. There's a word I'm looking for but I can't think of it... just thought of it in French: raze-mottes. It's when small planes fly really really close to the tops of sand dunes and "shave" off the top.
I've managed to keep a lid on the worst part of all this when I'm out with people or with my mother, although I snapped at her a lot today (as I did on our entire trip). It's very hard to be civilised when you have ten million things going on in your head at the same time that you can't really hear and that skitter elusively into the shadows when you try to listen more attentively. I think I may have snapped at Prospero's Daughter or some of the others tonight at Game Night and I feel kind of bad about that. :/
I think I managed to be pretty quiet, though. I'd been fidgety all day, but I made an effort to keep things under control. The caffeine from the tea I had with my mother helped. Somehow caffeine helps with the worst of the ticking.
Oh, that reminds me, I should add![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sandman7 to my friends list.
To his credit, the meds doc didn't immediately pounce on the phone to call in the men in white coats when he found out about the mildly paranoid delusions from a month and a half ago.
He was, however, concerned that I hadn't called him right away (well, if I'd been thinking clearly I *would* have, but I wasn't, and then afterwards I told myself that I had imagined the whole thing and that I would be wasting everyone's time by bringing up petty little things like that, etc.). Very, very hard to be lucid when in the middle of a manic break.
So I'm taking Clonazepam every night until Sunday, and then every two nights until I see him again. He's told me that if things aren't better in a week I should call him immediately and he'll see me that week instead of in two weeks the way it's planned right now. The cool thing about having a Jewish doctor is that he volunteers to work on Christmas. ^_^
So, yeah. If I start getting the impression that my thoughts aren't my own and that someone is clearly implanting them in my head, then that's a Bad Sign™ and I should call right away.
*sigh*
Have they perfected brain transplants yet? *looks around hopefully*
In the meantime, I'm hoping the new meds work. Clonazepam is basically an anti-anxiety deal like Valium or Xanax, and I'll be taking them for the next week, and then I'll alternate every second day unless I see that I'm still climbing the walls.
I'm just very afraid that I'm starting to slide again, back into that place where I would hallucinate about the room filling with water, when reality stopped being what I thought it was, when I stopped sleeping for months, when nothing made any sense. At least at that time I didn't realise anything was wrong, and it was kind of exhilarating. Now I'm conscious on a certain level that things are out of my control, but there's nothing I can do to stop it.
I guess that would explain why my anxiety levels are so high.
I'm really fucking terrified. I want this to stop. Two weeks ago I was ready to kill myself. I keep hanging in there, keep convincing myself that I haven't exhausted every single possible avenue that might help me, but I'm really, really scared that one day I'll decide that I don't have the energy to fight it anymore.
One of these days I'm going to have to write out in full exactly what it is that happens in my mind during these different episodes (I don't really like that word —makes me think of TV programs). Maybe it'll help me sort it out in my mind better, no pun intended.
...
I'm also noticing a disturbing trend of suicidal thoughts on my friends list.
*hugs* for everyone. Hang in there, 'kay?
I am now on more meds. Yay.
Neurontin is up to 1600mg (800 in the morning, 800 at night).
I also get Clonazepam (I forget the non-generic name) to get me to chill the f*ck out. The meds doc thought I was a little "speedy" in his estimation when I saw him yesterday.
I'm absolutely fucking exhausted. My brain won't shut up and let me sleep. It's like having constant static or white noise in there: the thoughts aren't very clear, but they circle and swoop and dive in and out of my mind like seagulls. There's a word I'm looking for but I can't think of it... just thought of it in French: raze-mottes. It's when small planes fly really really close to the tops of sand dunes and "shave" off the top.
I've managed to keep a lid on the worst part of all this when I'm out with people or with my mother, although I snapped at her a lot today (as I did on our entire trip). It's very hard to be civilised when you have ten million things going on in your head at the same time that you can't really hear and that skitter elusively into the shadows when you try to listen more attentively. I think I may have snapped at Prospero's Daughter or some of the others tonight at Game Night and I feel kind of bad about that. :/
I think I managed to be pretty quiet, though. I'd been fidgety all day, but I made an effort to keep things under control. The caffeine from the tea I had with my mother helped. Somehow caffeine helps with the worst of the ticking.
Oh, that reminds me, I should add
sandman7 to my friends list.To his credit, the meds doc didn't immediately pounce on the phone to call in the men in white coats when he found out about the mildly paranoid delusions from a month and a half ago.
He was, however, concerned that I hadn't called him right away (well, if I'd been thinking clearly I *would* have, but I wasn't, and then afterwards I told myself that I had imagined the whole thing and that I would be wasting everyone's time by bringing up petty little things like that, etc.). Very, very hard to be lucid when in the middle of a manic break.
So I'm taking Clonazepam every night until Sunday, and then every two nights until I see him again. He's told me that if things aren't better in a week I should call him immediately and he'll see me that week instead of in two weeks the way it's planned right now. The cool thing about having a Jewish doctor is that he volunteers to work on Christmas. ^_^
So, yeah. If I start getting the impression that my thoughts aren't my own and that someone is clearly implanting them in my head, then that's a Bad Sign™ and I should call right away.
*sigh*
Have they perfected brain transplants yet? *looks around hopefully*
In the meantime, I'm hoping the new meds work. Clonazepam is basically an anti-anxiety deal like Valium or Xanax, and I'll be taking them for the next week, and then I'll alternate every second day unless I see that I'm still climbing the walls.
I'm just very afraid that I'm starting to slide again, back into that place where I would hallucinate about the room filling with water, when reality stopped being what I thought it was, when I stopped sleeping for months, when nothing made any sense. At least at that time I didn't realise anything was wrong, and it was kind of exhilarating. Now I'm conscious on a certain level that things are out of my control, but there's nothing I can do to stop it.
I guess that would explain why my anxiety levels are so high.
I'm really fucking terrified. I want this to stop. Two weeks ago I was ready to kill myself. I keep hanging in there, keep convincing myself that I haven't exhausted every single possible avenue that might help me, but I'm really, really scared that one day I'll decide that I don't have the energy to fight it anymore.
One of these days I'm going to have to write out in full exactly what it is that happens in my mind during these different episodes (I don't really like that word —makes me think of TV programs). Maybe it'll help me sort it out in my mind better, no pun intended.
...
I'm also noticing a disturbing trend of suicidal thoughts on my friends list.
*hugs* for everyone. Hang in there, 'kay?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 09:28 pm (UTC)Amen!
I wish I could come up with a way to make people understand that. Whenever my mother harps about my tone of voice or my snappishness I just want to cry, "I'm sorry but it's so busy in here that I can't keep up!"
*hugs* I hope the new meds help hon.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 09:53 pm (UTC)Just one more test.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 04:50 am (UTC)Bad trends
Date: 2003-12-11 08:21 am (UTC)Hang in there, darlin'. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 02:32 pm (UTC)I take Clonazepam (which I usually refer to as "klonopin" in my journal) occasionally as needed for my bouts of anxiety. My meds doc told me that it is also frequently useful in pulling folks out of a manic episode, so it sounds like your doc may be using it for both purposes. I find it very helpful, personally. It's a dangerous drug if used in high doses over long periods of time, because it has narcotic addictive qualities, but in small doses (for example, I take .5 mg/day when I take it) over short periods of time, it can be good stuff.
It's very hard to be civilised when you have ten million things going on in your head at the same time that you can't really hear and that skitter elusively into the shadows when you try to listen more attentively.
Wow. I just wrote about this exact same experience in my own journal within the past couple weeks. I described it as feeling like those "white noise" thoughts were actually phantoms, because I have such a hard time getting a grasp on them and following through with any individual thought. I just have the constant sense that there are a million thoughts I should be thinking right now this very minute, and they're all hovering right on the edge of my mind. It's pretty damned uncomfortable. But in my case, klonopin (Clonazepam) actually did help with that problem.
Good luck with it all, sweetheart. And please feel free to email me (and even poke me about logging on to AIM if you want to chat) about any of this stuff.