madness

I just got out of the mental hospital so I figured now's a good time to start blogging again, I seem to have a lot of material.

Wait, that's wrong.

We call it the behaviour unit or something now...but it's in a hospital so technically I'm still right. Plus, I'm the one that was in there for a week so I think I get to call it whatever I want.

It was my second time. Different place though.

The thing is I have a lot of diagnoses (some official, some not quite so much but doctors have asked questions and then done that doctor thing where they don't want to scare you so they don't come right out and say you have OCD and agoraphobia and social anxiety they just sort of allude to it and you're like, "yes, this is no surprise to me, I've been living with it as long as I can remember, you can say the words it won't hurt my feelings" but they still think it will overwhelm you so they sort of change the subject in a way that you're still talking about it but in a different way). Most of it just falls under bipolar II and general anxiety.

Also the way we are continuing to learn about all this stuff and brains and biology and psychology changes the way they do the diagnosing and I could say I'm bipolar now but next month they'll have changed the label to "upside-downside syndrome" or "ain't no valley high enough disorder" or something more science-y sounding and people will be all "what is wrong with you?" and I'll just be like "I don't know what we're calling it this week, let me get back to you I guess."

Bottom line, I had to face up to some of this because diet, exercise, prayer, meditation, and all the homeopathic things that had been working for a long time stopped working and I spent my 32nd birthday hiking a mountain and then sobbing in my borrowed bed because I just wanted to take a break from existence for a little while. Very much like cancer, these issues can go into remission, but you're never really safe because just like with cancer a malignant tumour can pop back up, only with depression and anxiety and other psych issues it's just a change in chemistry or a difference that you can't really see in a regular scan...I mean, I'm sure you could get a detailed MRI but you would need before and afters to truly see the change.

So I started taking medication.

And the medication started helping but not quite enough and I had a really bad week and then a really bad day. That day I called my mom and asked her to get someone to help me and they came and they suggested going to the ER to talk to a doctor and I agreed. The doctor there agreed that we needed to adjust my meds under supervision because even though it was only slightly, I posed a danger to myself. I said "yeah, that's fair" and let them set me up in a place that was pretty swanky when it comes to behaviour wards but that I hated because I missed my dog (at the time it was just Lola) and, like I said, I'm agoraphobic and wanted to be at home with all my familiar, particular, and curated things.

Things were working out but I was still having a few manic, impulse control related problems so we added something new. Then we took it away because it made me a slug who kept being just right on time for work because she overslept so much, rolling out of bed at exactly the time she had to leave in the morning. I was sleeping way too much. But we replaced it with something we had to be very careful with, increasing the dose in very small increments to avoid the only side effect, which is a terrifyingly bad rash that has been described to me in detail but I will spare you from the mental images in case you're eating or something (which, it's funny that they don't mind telling me all about some gross rash one in a million people get from my prescription but they don't want to give me all those psychology labels...I wonder if they just can't remember what the labels have been changed to...).

I backslid so hard while on the tiny steps of upping that dosage that I had to leave work early I was having such a terrible panic attack and had to repeat the whole ordeal of calling my mother and going to the hospital. I ended up in a place that wasn't quite as swanky and the kitchen couldn't get my meals right but at least I was more prepared and had plenty of books to read and friends that brought me clean underwear.

And now here we are, opening up about what kind of hospital I was in and why no one saw anything from me for over a week. I'm ready to share and communicate about what it looks like living every day with mental illness and what it takes to take care of yourself.

There will be more, it's not like I'm planning to whine on here about how nuts I am every day. I hope that it will foster some community and help others and create something positive. However, I'm not going to promise this will always be an uplifting spot on the internet. It's hard, not every day is a great leap in breakthroughs and healing...some days are more tiny victories or reaching out a hand because I need something to hold onto.

And that's okay. Here we are, we've made it to today.