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Borderline Personality Disorder Blog. Bipolar Disorder Blog. BPD. DBT. Cleveland. A Fragment in Orange.

2.16.2011

Emsam patch

I should have done some research.  I was so excited by the possiblity of trying something new, hopefully The Fix, that I didn't do a price check on the Emsam patch.  $500/3 months supply.  What do I do now?  That's big money for me. 

Is it really possible -- the solution to my psychiatric predicament in a medication I've never tried before?  I remember eighteen years ago.  Right before bed.  About to take my very first anti-depressant.  Prozac.  I just sat there looking at the little green capsule in the palm of my hand, thinking "This is it.  This will fix everything."  I'll never forget that moment.  And here I sit eighteen years later, a day or two maybe before starting the Emsam patch thinking Wow, maybe this is it.  Dumb dumb dumb.  Medications just don't work that way.  At least, they haven't for me.  The best result I've had from a psych med is that things become a little less horrible.  Big freaking deal.   

I'm angry and I feel let down.  I'm tired.  Tired of being tired.  I just don't know what the point of anything is anymore.  Not in a woe-is-me I'm about to jump off a cliff kind of a way.  But really -- what's the point?  Tired.  I just said that.  Really really tired.  I wish I could . . . something.  Sometimes it's just too much, you know?  I just wish that I wasn't.  Or weren't.  I wish that I was nothing at all.  A lifetime is just so very long.

2.14.2011

On Vacation -- Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

I'm on vacation in Arizona.  Big whoopdeedoo.  I'm supposed to be having a good time.  Supposed to be enjoying the weather.  Enjoying my parents' company.  I am doing none of these things.  I miss my bed at home -- pulling the covers up over my head and crying myself to sleep.  Here I have to get dressed.  Sit upright (sometimes stand!  and walk! egads!).  Stay awake for hours and somehow occupy that time.  Pretend that I'm somewhat normal.  I am counting the days and the hours and the minutes until I get back on a plane, back to my normal life of unconsciousness.  I miss that dark place. 

Suicidal.  And pissed the fuck off that something as simple as not taking a medication for ONLY SEVEN DAYS can take me to this place.  Two more weeks and I start a new antidepressant.  Yippee.  I am SO sure that it's going to cure me.  That I'll miraculously bid farewell to the mental hell I've been in for the past twenty years.  Yeah, I'm holding my breath on that one. 

I don't know how I'm going to manage the next four days of vacation.  Vacation -- what a joke.  But hey, it's Arizona -- I could always impale myself on a cactus.  Good times.     

2.13.2011

blowing out the candles on the cake

I wish that I could erase myself.  Fully.  Completely.  Gone.

1.19.2011

A change in meds, Again.

I had a good chat with my psychiatrist yesterday.  I think that he understands a little better who I am as a person, and what exactly I struggle with.  I feel less pigeon-holed.  But now he's questioning my bipolar-ness.  AGAIN.  I swear it's psychiatrists that are bipolar.  Make up your mind!

So maybe I'm not bipolar.  Fine with me.  He also suggested that maybe I don't have borderline personality disorder.  He asked "You don't cut yourself when a relationship ends, do you?"  Well no, not anymore.  But that's a pretty limited "understanding" of what BPD is.  It's got me thinking, is this a good doctor or a not-so-good doctor?  Who do I trust?  How many psychiatrists do I have to see in my lifetime before I feel I've got a really good one?  For now I trust him.  Because he's not pleased with where I'm at in life (and neither am I) and is really pushing change.  Previous psychiatrists were fine with the status quo of me being miserable.

Lots of changes to come:  Stop the Abilify.  Stop the Serzone.  Start Trazodone to deal with stopping the Serzone.  In March, after all the weaning from my anti-depressants, start using an MAOI.

I'm scared to go off the Serzone.  If I miss a dose I get these weird acid-trippy hallucinations.  Dr. H. suggested I take some time off work while coming off my meds.  Yeah, like that's an option.  I'm scared that once I'm off all the anti-depressants I'll go into a major depression.  That my panic attacks will come back.  That I'll lose my mind.  But.  I'm excited by the potential for good change. 

1.14.2011

Exorcise me

For the past two weeks I've been taking a hard look at my binge-eating problem.   I've tried to stop the binging altogether.  But take away a self-destructive "coping" mechanism and the body and mind scramble to find something to replace it.  I've been trying my hardest to not replace the binging with a negative something else.  Meanwhile, in marches the foul mood, the self-loathing, the desire to do anything and everything bad to myself.  I swear, the devil resides WITHIN me.    


I have an appointment with my psychiatrist next week.  I'm going to beg going off the Abilify.  I'm convinced that it's the culprit for the rise in my blood pressure and weight.  It ain't cheap either.  I'm not sure why my doctor is so pro this drug.  The wean off Effexor is still slow-going.  From three tabs to two to one to a half and now down to a quarter last night.  And I still feel a bit of dizzy.  I'm interested to see what shrink-o comes up with at our appointment.  A brain transplant perhaps?

1.03.2011

I Hate January

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the very worst day of my life.  Compared to most peoples’ worst day it’s kind of lame.  My house didn’t burn down with my dog inside.  My legs didn’t fall off.  My mom wasn’t abducted by aliens.  For the worst day of my life it could have been a lot worse.

In January, five years ago, my husband announced that he and my very best friend (of twenty years) had secretly fallen in love and were moving across the country two days later to start their new life together.*  Never to be heard from again.

Needless to say it was a shock.  I’m still shocked.  In retrospect it all makes sense.  I still don’t like it, but I get it.  I’ve forgiven.  Forget forgetting though.  And moving on?  It just hasn’t happened yet.  Five years later.  FIVE YEARS. 

The average non-psychiatrically-challenged person would have a hard time getting over something like this.  But for someone with borderline personality disorder it’s damn near impossible.  I already have the abandonment issues, the extreme sensitivity, the tendency to live in the past.    

I’ve done what I can to get over it.  I do what I can.  Hopefully one day I can lay the two of them to rest.  Whoops, that sounds sinister.  What I mean is that hopefully one day I can lay this pain to rest.  And hopefully it won’t take another five years.  Or the rest of my life.

*There’s a lot that I’m not saying here.  There are definitely two sides to this story.   Maybe one day I’ll write about all the fucked up things I did during my marriage.  How it was already over way before he left.  How I didn’t value what we had until it was too late.  How I failed.  But not right now.