Manic, Stupid, Something

Trigger warning: Suicide

Some days I really wonder how I’m even alive still.

Tonight I went out for drinks, that in itself sometimes sends me into a scary suicidal state but surprisingly this time was okay. Well, the drinks were. I decided to take some stuff tonight, and I don’t know what I took. It isn’t going terribly, thank fuck, but it really could have. That’s the problem when I’m like this, I’m finding myself thinking less and less about doing something and just doing it instead. 

Luckily if anything the drugs just have me more buzzed and manic. Hopefully the Seroquel brings me down before I start doing anything more reckless. Which I’m 5 hours late on as well, taking the Seroquel that is.

I’m not sure how seriously I am actually taking my health. I can sit here and write and think about it, and realise all these things about myself and what I should be doing to help myself. But when it comes down to it moment to moment, it all depends on the state I’m in. When I’m depressed it’s a bit easier to understand what I should be doing but harder to get myself to do it. When I’m manic, I’ve got the energy but I don’t have the direction anymore.

Speaking of direction, I’ve lost the direction of this post.

I’ve recently discovered that the more I click the more manic I am.

I’m clicking a lot.

Walking The Line

Trigger warning: Self harm and Suicide

I’ve always lived my life at extremes, to one degree or the other. I suppose that’s why being diagnosed with Bipolar made a lot of sense to me.

One moment everything can be clear as day, the next nothing makes sense. I spend 2 weeks too depressed to bother with anything, then I spend 2 or 3 with more energy than I know how to handle. I’ll feel hopeless, then like gods gift to the world. All it takes is a heartbeat and I’m someone else, something else.

I once had someone who was once a close friend, later call me out on not being the person she knew. At the time I was confused, I was exactly the person I thought I was. But I think maybe she was right, I had flipped. Of course while she picked up the change, she wasn’t about to believe a mood disorder was the cause. She believed that in my depression, I just wasn’t picking myself up and getting it done. Getting what done? Life, uni, everything. But that’s not the point right now.

I’m on the edge. I know it. I’m being so much more reckless with where I hurt myself.

When I get really bad I just get into this state where I can’t think properly, it’s like a fog or haze in my head. The only thoughts that get through are telling me I just need a release, something to get me to focus.

In high school self harm was mostly viewed as the person seeking attention or wanting/trying to kill themselves. As a result there was a lot of bullying that went down towards anyone who visibly self harmed. Across the street to the hospital, down the road to the morgue. If anyone just cut across their arm they were bullied about attention seeking behaviour, or bad at killing themselves. Anyone with obviously bandaged arms and a history of finding their way to hospital, well unfortunately they were often told they should have done the job properly.

I was quite good at hiding all of my scars. Thighs, shoulders, arms, hips I tried it all. Sometimes the best way to hide a scar is in plain sight. I learnt early that mostly, people are much less observant than you think. Except the people that care about you, they are the most observant. They also know when you’re lying about why you have that band-aid, or that scar.

Tangent aside, I kind of feel like I’m barely holding on here. I’m so caught up with my companies new direction, my other job and the job I just applied for that I think I’m actively avoiding the idea of hospital. Then I have my head that can basically talk me out of or into anything. Mainly out of hospital and taking my meds on time. Should have taken the Seroquel 2 hours ago, but here I am manic and awake as anything instead.

I just don’t know if I should be in hospital, like maybe my head is right or maybe it’s tricking me. Even when I’m in a state and kind of know, this is the time you call the ambulance I realise - I have a pill that’ll knock me right out in an hour. I’ll then wake up next day, while not fantastic I’ll be alive and I’ll be at least a bit further from the edge than I was. So why, when I get worst at night and have this pill, should I need to be in hospital. It’s not just me avoiding it, I somehow feel less entitled. Like I don’t want to take up a bed that someone else needs more than me. Maybe actually, I’m not really having any problems. I’m alive despite it all, I’m stubborn as can be and I’ve got a lot going for me.

I’ve taken my Seroquel now so it should bring me down in an hour. While they’re so far not really helping with the extremes of my mania they’ve certainly made my bed time far more reasonable. Had I taken it on time I’d be asleep round 11. Even now, a 1am bedtime is far better than my usual 3am onwards. Of course that still happens, though far less regularly.

Clear Headedness

Trigger warning: Self harm and Suicide

Normally I can tell when I shouldn’t be making decisions, when my head isn’t thinking clearly. Unfortunately it rarely works out with me being able to prevent myself from doing anything. I know I’m not thinking right, but I don’t know what the right thinking is. But at least I know, and second guess things sometimes and am able to get someone involved if it’s too dire. Because I know I can’t trust my head.

Until today. I thought I was clearly thinking again after a bad episode, and had escaped with minor injuries no less. I didn’t think I had anything to look out for. It wasn’t like a blurry fight in my head, no shaking or anything. I wasn’t exactly calm, but I wasn’t distraught. I just looked blankly in the mirror for a while, it didn’t even register.

I feel like this heralds a more dangerous era within my mind. More and more I am finding myself unable to trust my own mind. The trouble is, by time I think to question it now, it’s done.

That Feeling

Moods are complicated and feelings are tricky. At least for me anyway.

At one point, I had this large playlist of songs I like, and I was finding some of them were invoking some kind of feeling in me. It appeared to be the same or similar for all of them, but it was strong. I was really depressed at the time, so I think I was identifying with a certain feeling related to that. Anyway, given that I had no idea what this feeling was I put them all in their own playlist titled - “That Feeling”.

While I was depressed I listened to this constantly.

Once my mania started coming into play more, I started making a few more playlists and quickly learned that I only had the patience for certain songs while like this.

That is how “Up There” came into being. Of course the catch being that listening to this only encouraged the mania, but not listening to music seemed the worse choice.

Soon that wasn’t enough, "Destroy Me" came about one night. It’s actually quite like my first in that I had a bunch of songs that struck something similar in me. I find all of the songs in here so beautiful and magical. 

“Tear it Apart” is for me at my worst, when I actually feel like tearing myself apart.

Take As Needed

Trigger warning: Self harm and Suicide

If you’ve read my earlier posts, I think my first one in particular, you’ll know that I already have a tricky history with taking my medication. Let’s just say I have a few months I can’t remember (the bits I do recall are terrifying) because I was taking my meds whenever I felt like (more often not taking them) and as much of them as I felt like. The parts of that month I do remember, I wish I didn’t.

So medication and I have a tricky history. After this ordeal I wasn’t medicated for about 4 years while I tried to avoid my mental illness but that’s another story.

Eventually I started trying medications again, and only really stopped any when I swapped from one particular psychiatrist who didn’t call me back about a prescription problem. But finally settling on my current psychiatrist I’ve stayed on my meds properly and followed any instructions (except maybe take with food, I’m not very good at that one). 

The way it works in my head is that I know I can’t trust myself to judge whether I am okay or not. My head will always talk its way out of it. So, my doctor has prescribed me this, because he knows I need it, so I have to take it. I trust that he knows that I need to take it. So I do, everyday. Unless I forget, that’s a whole other problem I have.

Now, this doesn’t work with when I take it. I mean I have meds I take in the morning, then ones at night. So I take them then. It’s no big deal for the Lithium and anti-depressants. I am fine taking them on time, same time (provided I’m awake etc). But, then there is the Seroquel. Because it knocks me out (in about an hour and a half) I don’t want to be taking it around 10pm every night. I don’t know why exactly, but I just hate it. 

Lately, my mania has been getting really bad at night. I’ll be a mess, and I’ll have this shining option of taking my Seroquel that will at the very least, take some of the edge off but really it’ll put me to sleep. Thus ending risks of suicide and lesser harm. But I don’t do it, my head actually convinces me against it. So I won’t, because while part of me might think maybe I should, this much louder part of me will have me sure I shouldn’t.

So as some kind of safeguard, there are a few people I really trust. If any of them were to tell me that I needed to do something, I’d believe them and do it. Because I can’t trust my own mind, it’s not going to tell me when I need to go to hospital. I thought I was fine right up until the point I was heading there. So if I get told to take my Seroquel already, I will. I’ll stop listening to my head.

Now, I’ve been getting bad during the day lately as well. So my psychiatrist has allowed me to take Seroquel during the day, as needed. I can take 25mg up to 3 times, and if I am having a real bad night, I can take double the night dose.

Now while this is great, I was getting very worried about how I’d get through the days as well with insane mania and suicidal urges, but I’m hardly ever going to take it when I should. Because again and even more so, my head keeps talking me out of it.

“you’ll be too sedated”

“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay”

“You just need a release, not medication”

Maybe they don’t seem so compelling to you. But it’s very hard to make sense of in the mess of thoughts in my head.

But I’m slowly getting better I think, I took one today before work so it’d bring me down to get through it. Not sure I liked the feeling of it though. It felt very forced, like I was trapped. My mood and energy were stuck inside a plastic box with me, and instead of going up they could only fill it more and more till I was sure I’d explode.

Only further compels me to toss the idea of sedating myself during the day. Take as you need, I don’t think my mind will ever accept that I need any of it.

Grandeur, Delusions or Something

Growing up I was always certain I’d be rich and well known even before I really had a grasp on what it was I’d be doing. I just knew that I was destined for great things. It seemed so obvious to me. Why did I exist if it wasn’t to be great. Now you could easily chalk this up being young and not really having a grasp on the world, but my view hasn’t changed at all. (Unless I’m depressed, but I’ll get to that) Right now, sitting here typing this, I couldn’t possibly imagine how I could be anything but.

Now it’s not like Games Design always (or often) turns out to be a pile of money waiting to happen, I just truly believe there is nothing I can’t learn to do and do well. When programming I actually feel like a god of sorts. I believe that there is nothing I could not learn to program. All I have to do is try. And by try, I mean do. Because there is no way I’d fail.

The times that I do finally get a bit of reason in my head are when I’m depressed. As depression goes though, it rarely stays reasonable. It tends to turn into how incapable I am of doing anything. But lately I am finding myself staying in the realm of mania. I rarely (if ever) find myself in the normal range of things. 

When I first started uni, I thought I had beaten depression all on my own. I hadn’t seen it for at least a year, and here I was learning all these new things that I was amazing at. I felt great. I felt invincible.

I was partying hard and leaving assignments to the last minute. Then not sleeping for up to 3 nights in a row finishing said assignments, mostly programming small games. I would often joke about being the god of code when I’d start and finish my game over a 2/3 day stint. I’m not sure I was really joking though. I felt on top of the world. 

When I did go home to sleep it was for maybe 3hrs max before I headed back out to do it all again. I was known for never being able to sit still in class, or anywhere really, and being stupidly happy all the time. I was the last person anyone would guess to have a mental illness. Or even problems at home. I was too happy.

But then I crashed. After months of this insanity, my depression came back full force. I owe a lot to a now close friend who got me to get help and start actually dealing with the depression rather than ignoring it. I could not have done it without her.

Mania didn’t pop up again till much later after being triggered by my Efexor last year, which lead to me actually being diagnosed with Bipolar. It’s only now that I’m considering that that’s what my first year was, an episode of mania rather than just a break from my depression. I really should bring it up with my psychiatrist.

Even now, after writing all this, I can’t stem the thoughts of how great I’m meant to be. I know that they’re probably symptoms on the mania, but I am still so sure that these thoughts are different. That for me, they don’t really apply to this.

Tearing Apart

Trigger warning: Self harm and Suicide

It’s been quite a ride since getting out of hospital. At first I wasn’t so bad, not as bad as I was before going in anyway, but now I think I might be much worse. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

I was put on Lexapro not long after hospital (which I mentioned in my last post), and I expected to have the dose put up not long after. The problem is that the next time I saw my psychiatrist I’d been manic for 10 days straight. Which was a new development. Previously my moods had been all over the shop. 

But now my mood pattern was becoming, well, a pattern. Which I guess kind of indicates that the Efexor was messing me around quite a bit. Which means no more SNRI’s for me. So here I am on Lexapro (SSRI), despite the fact that it did nothing for me before. 

Now Lexapro being the new medication here, naturally my psychiatrist thought it may have been the cause of my 10 day mania streak. That was however quickly thrown out after my mood dropped severely. So to bring me down from such extremes, I’ve been climbing the slow ladder that is Seroquel. For about 2/3 weeks I was sitting on 75mg of it and I was still just getting worse.

I spent those weeks ridiculously manic, full of an energy that I felt was tearing me apart. I could physically feel it, tearing, scraping, it was painful. It is painful. The energy/anger/something that was trapped inside me hurt. Every night I was a mess and I started self harming every day. I won’t get into it, but I was becoming a real mess. 

I couldn’t/can’t stop thinking about dying. Sometimes because it just seems easier than going through all of this day after day. Sometimes in a different more violent way, more angry at myself for being in this mess. Sometimes in a much more disturbing way that didn’t seem to have a reason, just that I should do it.

I couldn’t do games work at all. Most days I just sat in my chair and stared at my screen, or the wall. It wasn’t that there was anything particularly hard about it, in fact I kind of knew exactly what I had to do. But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t make myself focus on it. I couldn’t even fiddle with the program. Some days my head was so cloudy, that despite me knowing what it was that had to be done, I couldn’t work out how to type it, how to break it down, how to actually do it. It became such an effort, that I just sat there instead. Which, actually lead my company to lose the project. 

Luckily for me, there was a lot of understanding about my being unwell, and it was almost better to just be done with what had been a long dragging project. Still we lost quite a bit of money, though no one blames me for it. Except for me, I blame myself quite a bit actually, I should have known better than to overwork myself. I don’t ever really think about whether I can handle/manage/do something, I just assume I can. Not even assume I can. More like, I will manage it - end of story. Except this time I didn’t. Which I’m finding hard to grasp. One of the most difficult things, about having this - is trying to accept that I have limits. I guess I am a bit of a workaholic, and I expect a lot of myself. An indefinite amount. It’s ingrained in me that I can do anything, and any amount of anything. I have never remotely considered limits. Until I ended up in hospital. The way things are going, I may just end up back there.

I gave my psychiatrist a list of these things, a very direct list, so he finally knows exactly where I am with it all. At any rate, I’m up to 100mg Seroquel and now I’m meant to take 25mg up to 3 times a day to take the edge off, if need be. I don’t feel great, potentially relying on medication to get me through each day. Okay, so I’m already doing that, but it’s one thing having prescribed daily medication (which I already hate) and then having take as you need. 

The problem with me is, I’ll convince myself out of ever needing it. That’s what I do, or my head does. I can take my daily medication each day because I need to and I trust my doctor over my mind. But when it comes to me deciding when I need to take something, that doesn’t work. I just can’t tell, my head is too good at talking me out of needing it. I can’t trust myself for these things. I get really bad at night, and a lot of times I could just take my night dose of Seroquel and I’ll go to sleep and be safe. But my mind, it keeps pushing it back, making me think I don’t really need to be taking it yet. I’ll miss out on something, what a waste of time just sleeping. That’s life lost, if you need to do that, may as well just stop living. 

My mind is my own worst enemy. But without it, what would I do anyway. When I say I feel like I’m losing my mind, I’m not losing it, I’m losing control of it. I am absolutely, losing my mind.

Hospital Days

Trigger warning: Self harm and Suicide

I spent most of last week in hospital. I entered the emergency room Sunday at 1/2am I think, I was pretty out of it, and didn’t get admitted till Monday 7pm. By time I fell asleep, loaded with meds, I’d been awake for about 34hrs. The Emergency department is not a great place to fall asleep. Spending time in the Mental Health ED was an experience as well. While the nurses were all lovely, you could tell the room was designed with involuntary patients in mind. I guess safety is the number one priority, both patients and staff. Anyway, I stayed there till Friday afternoon when they released me, with some higher medication and a piece of paper about breathing. I’ll come back to my thoughts on that, I should probably start with how I got there.

If you’ve read probably any of my other posts, you might know I have an intense fear of hospitals. As in, anyone that knows me and that, would never expect to find me voluntarily walking into one to commit myself. Yet, there I was. My physical urges to kill myself got too much to handle. I thought I was going kill myself, I wanted to kill myself. This was happening every day. Everyday I wanted to die. It got so bad one night, I realised that I’d lost my fear of dying. That’s all I had stopping me. I was talking to a good friend of mine, and finally I told her exactly what was going on. She convinced me to let her take me to hospital. Which, I’m really glad of.

My stay didn’t fix me though, I don’t think they really knew what to do. Aside from obviously not letting me kill myself. But they couldn’t just keep me there forever. It actually took a bit of effort to convince them to take me as well. I’m surprised I didn’t just walk away. Apparently the fact that I hadn’t killed myself yet seemed to indicate I probably wouldn’t. It doesn’t help that I am so very bad at explaining myself, or describing any of my problems or thoughts or anything really. But I got in eventually.

The first thing they did when I woke up my first day, aside from my medication and a nurse who wanted to know my story, was sit me in a room with a Doctor, a Psychiatrist and an intern. Then I was asked so, many, questions. Which I answered, in some way. It got harder as we went along, and my brain started doing the thing where I can’t think, so I got to explain that as well.

Since I’m bad at remembering things lately, I can’t remember exactly what the diagnoses was. Bipolar was brought up, they seemed to think only hypomania was happening so I was, type 2 I think. He also brought up something about a personality disorder, which I really wish I’d asked more about. I am hoping it’s in the report they’re sending my psychiatrist. They then decided to up my meds. My Lithium is now 750mg at night and my Seroquel is 50mg. He also wanted to increase my Efexor, but I’d just decreased that to try and stabalise my moods.

Now, I think this was both a good and bad idea. Good because, maybe I do need higher doses to make myself more stable. Bad because, there is an adjustment period with more Seroquel. I was so out of it my whole stay in hospital, so my suicidal episodes rarely showed up again, only sometimes at night before I went to bed. But they gave me my meds at 8pm each night, so I was out by 9 most times. I think this made me look a lot more okay than I was, and didn’t really prepare me to go back to the world and handle this stuff.

The other thing they did was give me a handout on breathing to calm yourself. Standard stuff you’re told when you say you have anxiety. And then a handout on Mindfulness. Intrigued? The exact handout is here. I did try it, do still try it but I can’t grasp my head around it. I just don’t believe in this stuff. I think it’s because I just don’t understand how to get my head to do any of it. I don’t know how to not think about something. Apparently I can’t even focus on breathing without thoughts jumping in.

I am glad I spent my hazy period of a higher Seroquel dose in hospital though. I had nothing I had to do, so it didn’t matter if it took me a minute (kind of an exaggeration) to answer a question sometimes. But now I’m out, everyday is a little bit worse. Unfortunately not really clearer, I don’t think my head has been clear for a long time.

I just started Lexapro today, after finally seeing my psychiatrist who is all filled in now. Though still waiting for that report. He thinks getting me off the Efexor is a good idea, and getting me onto something that won’t do the same thing so he can pump up the dose. I don’t think it’s just my depression causing this though. In fact I think I’m worse when I’m manic. I mean, all my thoughts now revolve around hurting myself, and worse, but I get very very bad when I’m manic. I think. I’m not really sure of anything. Which is the problem when I have to tell someone about it.

This whole thing has cost me 2 weeks of game work now. It’s also made me realise I really need to take better care of myself. I was pushing myself right past my limits, because that’s just kind of how I am. I expect a lot of myself. But I can’t work like that again. I can’t be up till 3am programming only to sleep a few hours and wake up and have to be doing something else. Not eating, not sleeping and no free time. It’s amazing I survived as long as I did. I’m finding it very hard to get back into it, but I’m trying to take it slow. Next week I’m back to my full schedule of work, but I’m going to organise some sort of schedule so that I can’t over do it anymore. And if it doesn’t get done, then maybe I’ll have to accept that my health is more important. Which is very hard for me.

I guess I’ll see. In the back of my mind, I’m kind of expecting to end up back in hospital.

Bipolar?

Trigger warning: Self harm and Suicide

My last visit with my psychiatrist was about a week ago now. Again we talked about my continuing lack of sleep and erratic mood.

About 2/3 months ago my psychiatrist told me that I might be bipolar. Now I don’t think I was producing any new symptoms, but more that they had become more noticeable to me. So I eventually paid enough attention to have something to tell him about. I’m pretty bad at bringing things up in sessions, it’s amazing when I do. And if I do, then it means I am genuinely scared/concerned. And having an ultra high mood that turns into something that just feels insane and then further combined with some scary suicidal urges, well that warranted mentioning. At least partly. I still haven’t been entirely clear on how bad the urges are. The only way I can describe it is that it’s more of a physical urge rather than just a thought. 

To clarify I haven’t ever tried to kill myself, and these bad times mostly result in nothing happening, or some extra scars. Mostly, they are scary as hell. Apparently I have great self control.

Anyway I still find it really hard to describe my moods but I must have done alright describing my highs. I mean they weren’t all bad, some were you know, what you’d expect some light hypo-mania or something to be. Apparently I listed basically all of the things that are tied with bipolar but the jury is still kind of out on which type or if it is for sure. It could be just the Efexor, could be the Efexor combined with the bipolar. Either way, apparently I am getting some real bad unnatural highs.

I remember spending about 3 - 5 months of my first year in uni just in a wild energetic state. Barely sleeping, getting up to insane things, all until I finally crashed into an equally insane state of depression. Since then I’d just been depressed for years, trying out different medications. Till I got onto Efexor, and then things got good for awhile, real good, and then back to depression. So we put up the dose a couple of times. That’s when my mood started getting out of control. 

Next I was put on lithium in the hopes of that stabilising things for me. It’s slow work going up doses though, he wants a blood test in-between each to make sure no damage is happening, see how much is in me and if I need any more. I’m finally on like 500mg day and night. Still not really seeing any change though. But things take time. I’ve been going this long, what’s another year or so.

So my last session. I told him that my mood was just all over the place and that the sleeping pills he gave me didn’t work (Temazepam). So, first of all, he gave me a mood chart. Now, I hate these things. Not mood charts specifically, just, rating things on a scale. I just can’t seem to do it. I am trying though, so instead of me having to remember how many days straight I was what, he can just look at the damn thing.

It’s a bit all over the place, and there is a whole day in which I just don’t know how I felt. The exclamation points are days I had a bad, episode or something. Just a bad time. Still need to figure out how to describe them to my psych, I think that’s my next task. And the dot is a really bad time that I had, well while low on this thing. But in theory I could put a dot up in the high one too. Here I am just adding my own weird system things to what is a fairly standard mood chart. I’m sure there is a way to use this better than I am, but I warned him.

Now, you might notice here, that one of my medications listed is Seroquel. Gee that sounds familiar, yeah I just blogged about a past experience with it and here I am on it again.

I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I just started Tuesday night and it’s meant to help me actually sleep now. As well as hopefully level out my mood. The Efexor has also been lowered, to hopefully stop the really bad highs from happening. I’m a bit worried about that, because I don’t want my depression and anxiety to get worse. I have had so much less anxiety on this stuff, and I really do not want that affecting my life again. Catching a bus/train used to be hell. But the lithium is meant to hopefully take its place, so I guess I’ll see.

All of this mood changing has really put me behind in game work as well. It’s almost harder than when I was just really depressed each day. I mean that was hell too, getting out of bed, sitting down and working. But at least I wasn’t exhausting myself from my thought patterns changing, racing, not being able to sit still, not being able to sit upright. It’s a mess of things. And hard to explain. Well, because I don’t want to explain it I guess. 

I haven’t told many people that I’m bipolar. For some reason, I’m just real worried about what they’ll think of me. I was getting pretty open with my depression. Like I wouldn’t meet someone and say “Hey I’m Francis and I’ve got depression”. But if it came up in anyway I’d have no problem saying that I have depression, I’m medicated and I regularly see a psychiatrist. But, for some reason, I’m not ready to be that open with the bipolar thing. Maybe because I haven’t come to terms with it myself. It doesn’t change me, I’m still who I’ve been this whole time, but maybe it’s the stigma or that I just don’t know what to think yet.

But the people I have told are really great.

Skip Ahead

Trigger warning: Self harm

Now skip ahead a few years, and I’d made it out of high school and was managing to do some further study. It’s frustrating to think back on, because I could have done so much better in my last 2 years. But I was struggling to get day to day, so in the end I am just glad I got through. It wasn’t hard to get into the courses I wanted after either. Getting through them was a mission though.

Anyway, I did end up getting sent to that psychiatrist, I only lasted 2 sessions though. I did my best to convince him things had turned around since I got the referral to see him, I don’t think he ever actually believed me though.

There were a few factors into me refusing to go back. One, he was setup in a private hospital. I didn’t like that at all. It made me very concerned about saying anything, as I might end up not leaving. Two, he wanted me to start some therapy that sounded stupid at the time. All I wanted was for people to leave me alone about it. The last thing I wanted to do was CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). It did not sound like a choice either if I kept seeing him. Lastly, he was expensive. I obviously didn’t have to pay, since I was like, 16. But with neither of my parents working, I was very worried about them paying for this. Now of course they were happy to get me whatever I needed to help myself. But I wasn’t helping myself here, I was sitting in a room and refusing to reveal anything. I didn’t know if I ever would. It seemed like such a waste of money.

So I told them I wouldn’t go back, that I was alright and didn’t need CBT and all that. I don’t think my dad pushed it very far and just accepted that it wasn’t worth forcing me into. After all that I was pretty much left alone on the topic of my depression. I made sure to not concern them in any way, lest they decide to take action again. 

And if we skip ahead to now, I’m in my second year out of uni and basically living the dream. Well I should be, I have the exact job I’ve wanted in games since I was 16 and got my heart set on it. Problem is, I’m still battling with depression.

I’d been hiding it pretty well, and it felt like it had almost gone away. Till about half way through my first year of uni. It started getting really bad again. I had no idea what to do. I definitely couldn’t go to my family. They had enough going on at the time, and I’m just not that close to any of them. One my friends I’d made that year ended up being the biggest help. Without her I’d never have gotten help and I wouldn’t have made it through uni either.

It took me a long time to get to the point of help though. I had to move out first, there was too much going on at home for me stay there anymore, especially with my depression coming back. That helped quite a bit, but it wasn’t long till I was spiraling down again.

A good friend finally hassled me into seeing my first psychiatrist since the high school incident. Seeing a new one is always so hard too. You have to get the referral. Then you have to call up to book in. Then you actually have to go and meet this new person who is going to try to get to know your life. Well, sometimes. The first one I saw put me on Lovan and otherwise didn’t say much. I mean, he’d kind of wait for me to say stuff, but that isn’t how I work at all. I am never going to volunteer information without prompting. I have to get very comfortable with someone first. I mean I can say inane things, but not “hey, I kind of like to hurt myself but don’t put me in hospital, I’d hate that”. 

I did go for awhile, because just giving up would be bad but it really wasn’t working. So, I had to get another referral. Make another phone call. And go and see another new person. Except not at a new place. I was back at that same private hospital I had been to when I was 16. I did not enjoy that all. It brought back a lot of memories I didn’t want. I was seeing someone different though, otherwise that would have been weird. I was then taken off Lovan, which was good because it made me sick whenever I ate anything. First she got me onto Cymbalta, I can’t remember much about it except that it didn’t help. 

I don’t remember when exactly it became apparent I also had anxiety, I think maybe during my visits here I talked about it. So she gave me some samples of Seroquel XR to see if that would help. Since the Cymbalta wasn’t working I had to stop taking it and jump straight onto a full dose of Valdoxan. Shortly after this I actually ended up in the ER, with uncontrollable shaking/twitching/spasms and a lot of dizziness to the point that I basically couldn’t stand. Sitting was even a bit much. The doctor just told me to stop the medications and gave me some Valium that I was to have as much of as I wanted/needed, so it was alright in the end.

I’m still not sure if it was a side effect from how I changed over my medications, or the painkillers (Tramal) I was on for my back that clashed with something, but I try to avoid those painkillers anyway. I was put back on Seroquel, and then Lexapro. Now, the Seroquel did help and it also solved my sleeping problems. (I have big sleeping problems, as in, I can rarely sleep/stay asleep) But, I really didn’t like how lethargic I was. In fact the day after my first dose, I just couldn’t get out of bed at all. I kept falling back asleep all day, I was doped out of my mind, my muscles were actually too relaxed to stand. It calmed down a bit eventually, as my body got more used to it, but still. It’s not a feeling I enjoy getting from medication.

In the end, I actually couldn’t afford it. So that solved that dilemma. I also stopped seeing that psychiatrist. She never called me back about me not being able to get my medication, so I just didn’t show up to my next appointment. I never got a call or anything about it either. Which concerns me. There could have been a lot of reasons for me not showing up, and they never checked to make sure I was actually okay.

The next psychiatrist I ended up going to was from a friends recommendation, I was a bit over trying random ones that my doctor pulled from his list of people. I’m still seeing him now actually, it’s been 2 years. He talks a lot and asks a lot of questions, so it actually works out well for me. I am still no good at talking about things, but I’m slowly getting better. I’m at the point where I will genuinely attempt to describe the feelings I have, but I still won’t talk about my thoughts/past events much. I am very, very bad with feelings. As in, I don’t really understand them, or what feeling it is I’m having in a given moment. It’s hard to describe, for me anyway.

The reason why I don’t talk about thoughts much because I am still convinced I might be hospitalised. I kind of logically know it’s silly, and I’ve asked him what it would take for that happen, he even said he probably wouldn’t do that for me anyway. But, the thing is, he doesn’t know what’s in my head, half the time I don’t. I genuinely worry what people would think of me if they knew what being in my head was like. Anyway, he tried me on Dothep first, we gave it a good go because he likes to go slow and steady, unlike my last gung-ho doctor. But it didn’t work out so next we tried Effexor XR, which is what I’m on now. It did work in the beginning, or appeared to but it’s really not doing much now. Despite trying out a higher dosage as well.

Introductions and the like

Trigger warning: Self harm and Suicide

I’ve been considering starting this blog for about a year now. I never got to it because I wasn’t sure how to do it, whether it’d be any good or if anyone would even read it. But I suppose if no one reads it, then that solves my first two problems anyway. My vague idea of what I wanted this to be came from the grind I went through with my last big project. I’d sit down everyday and have to pull through some tough emotions and mind trickery just to get a simple thing done. So I kind of want to write about what it’s all like, for me living with this and trying to make creative things (or anything really).

Here’s a bit of back story. The way things went down when I found out I had depression really shaped how I dealt with it at first and still. I might have actually gotten real help earlier if things had happened differently, but it’s hard to say.

I’m 22, I was “diagnosed” with depression at about 14/15 and I’ve been struggling with it since then. Of course how I came to be diagnosed was not at all pleasant. My highschool principal came into possession of a note (ergh, 15yr old me was an idiot) that made it pretty obvious I’d been cutting myself. Now this lead me to be pulled out of class and then thrown into what is still one of the worst days of my life.

I had a more than awkward meeting with my principal, who was convinced I might have been cutting the soles of my feet to hide it. Of course I wasn’t that stupid or clever. Legs and wrists for me. She wanted to throw me into hospital right then and there, but thankfully my mum talked her out of it. On the condition I was immediately medicated and thrown at just about every kind of therapist they could find. 

And this is where things actually got worse. My parents had no idea anything was wrong, so naturally they were shocked and wanted to get me better. Problem is no one ever stopped to ask me how I’d like to go about it. I had to at least look like I was getting proper help so the school wouldn’t have to intervene. The whole time the possibility of being hospitalised loomed over me. It didn’t motivate me to get help and get better though. It motivated me to shut the hell up about my problems. If I looked like I was getting better, they couldn’t do anything, right?

I went to my family doctor that day and my mum of course did all the talking. I wasn’t ever any good at talking to doctors anyway, and I certainly wasn’t about to say anything that could make things worse. So I was put on Zoloft immediately. And had a referral to see a psychiatrist in quite a few months. I was then booked in with a psychologist in some youth mental health centre for the mean time.

To say I didn’t like being forced onto medication would be an understatement. For awhile my parents controlled it, giving it to me every night at dinner, making sure I took it. All the while I was saying nothing in my psychologist appointments. I would just sit there. Shrug at the questions and stare into space. I guess I feel bad about that now, I wasn’t exactly pleasant. I don’t like being forced into things. I have a few control issues, that either stemmed from this or is why this was the most painful experience. I did eventually tell her about some of the issues I was having with my weight, but she then wanted to involve some other people and monitor me closely, so I freaked and told my parents I wouldn’t go back.

By this point the school had backed off, I still had an upcoming psychiatrist appointment and was still on medication so they didn’t force me to go anymore. They even left control of my medication to me. Which was a really, really, really bad idea. I don’t blame them for that, I think they were trying to make me feel less like I was being forced into treatment now my school had stopped pressing us about it. They trusted me. Problem is, I shouldn’t have been trusted to medicate myself. I didn’t know that at the time though. It just felt good that I had the control of it, so everything was okay. Of course, Zoloft was not what I should have been on really anyway, it didn’t help at all. I suppose the idea was that it’d be something till I saw someone that could find the right medication.

Now, having control of the medication helped for a little while but I soon started questioning why I still had to be taking it. I didn’t feel like it was doing anything. So I started skipping doses. I still had to make sure my parents saw me taking it some days, but eventually they stopped bothering to check. I started getting really sketchy with taking it. I could go days without then start taking it again, sometimes I might have even taken more than I should have. 

This is where my memory starts fading. I have a very large chunk of time that I can’t actually recall, which I’d say is when I was at my worst. The bits I can remember are terrifying. I was messing with my medication and just spiraling downwards. 

The thing that snapped me out of it was my sister moving back home. I later found out it was for me, to help me with what was going on. We had a tiny house, so I had to share my room with her. I loved my sister, so I was actually pretty excited to have her around more. The important thing with this is that even this didn’t spur me into getting help. It pushed me to hide myself better. I no longer had the luxury to sit in my room and fall into a depressed stupor and do very very stupid things. I did get somewhat better though, other problems that had been taking a toll on me at home where reduced by her being there. She looked out for me. I was still struggling with depression the whole time, but I know I wouldn’t have gotten through school if she hadn’t moved in. Hell, I know I wouldn’t still be alive. I can never thank her enough for that.