Why am I still here?

I've been asking myself this more and more frequently, many times a day now. Why am I still alive? Why haven't I killed myself?

The anxiety continues to get worse as well as all the other problems I have. More often now, there is anger accompanying the panic attacks, due to my frustration. If I wasn't the passive, easy-going person that I am, I would be throwing things and breaking things and insulting people. I've gone past depression to shear despair. I don't look forward to anything. Not even the thought of being able to go on a great vacation or winning the lottery or finding the perfect woman sounds like fun.

I've also been thinking about the word "recovery". I have often talked about my attempts to recover from all of this.. but recovery implies that at one time I didn't have these problems, and that isn't true. They've always been there, so there is no place to recover to for me. I am now passed the point where even if my faulty sympathetic nervous system was fixed, I would still be unhappy, simply because... oh hell it doesn't matter so I won't even say why.

So why have I not killed myself? Is it because I hope things will get better? No. I know the truth. I can justifiably say "I'm screwed". After years of talking with doctors and therapists of all makes and kinds, and years of studying and researching the underlying causes and what kinds of things can be done, I know that there is nothing I, or anyone, or anything can do that will cause me to be free of my disorder. At best, I can hope for a slight reduction in the symptoms, but that's it, nothing more. I find myself getting angry with people who refuse to accept that and hold on to their ignorant faith and hope that "there has to be something that will work".

So why have I not killed myself? Because of the anxiety. The anxiety is so severe that my body will do anything to escape that fear, even if it means death... but, the anxiety is what is keeping me alive. Ironic? Actually it makes perfect sense to me. My "fear switch" is turned on all the time. I'm not necessarily afraid of dying, but when I think about suicide, the anxiety gets very severe due to realizing all the consequences that would have. How it would cause emotional suffering to my friends and family, the hassle they would have to go through in arranging a funeral. And also the realization that I'm not the only out there suffering like me. I still have one hope - it's a long shot by far - but my hope is that I can convince some researchers to study people like me who have had the disease since birth, and who are treatment resistant. I've searched and searched, my psychiatrist has as well, and we can not come up with any studies that have been done on long-term treatment resistant people such as myself. It's really sad that no such study has been done. All the studies I see of anxiety related disorders only observe the subjects for a time measured in weeks... not years. And that maybe, many many years down the road, such studies could eventually lead to a cure for this. This would mean altering genes. Something that the government is currently against and many people are scared of.

So, I'm pissed off. The anxiety won't let me live, and it won't let me die. And I don't have the funding at my disposal to do the long-term invasive research that so desperately needs to be done.

Still don't know what day it is...

Well, gosh, what day is it again? I'm still having trouble keeping track of the days... they go by without me really noticing them with my odd sleeping patterns... and I seem to be less aware of what is going on around me... and my moods have been wierd, almost like frequent emotional trauma without any real external source for it... and I'm starting to have more level 9 and 10 panic attacks.

Anyway a reader of the site sent me some links about Benzodiazepines, a class of medicines frequently prescribed for short-term anxiety relief that also have side effects of addiction, withdrawal symptoms, and... as with many other medicines for anxiety, the risk of making anxiety worse and not better. Sucks, don't it?

Anyway, if you want to learn more, here are the links:
BENZODIAZEPINE DEPENDENCY AND WITHDRAWAL
Frequently Asked Questions
BENZODIAZEPINES: HOW THEY WORK
AND HOW TO WITHDRAW

I also recently read the full unabridged version of Flowers for Algernon... and boy that book just really struck me, I can see so many parallels to my own life... from my point of view the book tells the story of a young man struggling to balance his emotional maturity and his intellectual maturity. It's the kind of book that I think most people can get something from.

hmm... What day is it?

Boy I didn't realize it's been about a week since I last posted... where have I been? Mostly groggy, heck most of the time I don't even know what month it is...

My psychiatrist and I decided to stop taking Gabitril cold-turkey in an attempt to alleviate the hyper-somnia and grogginess. My fear is that I will return to where I was before the Gabitril - severe insomnia, which I hated as much as I hate this grogginess. We're frezing my levels of Xanax at 7mg a day, and we'll wait and see for a few weeks how things change.

Since I can't afford the nutritional/herbal/mineral/etc supplements I've been on, my psychiatrist suggested a "free" method that may help.

Check out www.solarhealing.com to find out more about what he's asking me to try.

To sum it up, I'm supposed to stand barefoot on the ground and loot directly at the sun during the 45 minutes before and after sunset and sunrise, each day for nine months in gradually increasing amounts of time. The theory is that this will alleviate hunger, physical ailments, mental ailments, and also bring about spiritual growth. I'm keeping myself from making a judgment on wether or not this is all just a hoax, and keeping an open mind and willing to give it a try. Problem is with my current hyper-somnia I haven't been able to actually be awake during sunrise and sunset.

Unlearning Fear: Lessons From Mice

Link: Unlearning Fear: Lessons From Mice
Interesting this article was published on my birthday...
Anyway it talks about a subject I feel was beat to death in my psychology courses in college, that of conditioned responses, but some of you may find it interesting, although this study doesn't really tell us anything we haven't already known for years.

Antidepressant Side-Effect Gene Found

Link: Antidepressant Side-Effect Gene Found
Something else to consider... why I often see side effects but no relief...

Antidepressants Grow New Brain Cells? What?

Link: Antidepressants Grow New Brain Cells
Aug 7 2003
New research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health strongly suggests that some antidepressants work by growing new neurons (brain cells). The study found that blocking the formation of neurons in the hippocampus blocked the behavioral effects of the antidepressant fluoxitine (marketed as Prozac and Sarafem) in mice.

Studies had already demonstrated that depression and anxiety can cause loss of neurons. Other studies have shown that antidepressants can trigger neuron growth, termed neurogenesis, in the hippocampus; but the significance of this was unclear.

This is very interesting, as I have been reading for quite some time about how chronic sympathetic nervous system activation destroys neurons in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is like a switchboard that encodes and decodes conscious memories.

The article claims that Imipramine, after being used for weeks, actually causes those same types of cells in the hippocampus to grow (meaning new cells, not fixing the old broken ones).

hhmmmm... I was on Imipramine for seven weeks, and it had no noticeable affect on me at all, which is why we decided to stop taking it. I would like to see more research on this, because as my memory conitnues to get worse, any hope of being able to grow new neurons in the hippocampus is a big plus item for me, so I will have to remember to discuss this with my psychiatrist when I see him next week. If there is agreement that Imipramine will create new neurons in the hippocampus, then it would be a good idea for me to take it even if it doesn't help with my anxiety.

Just a note to all you out there, these tests are done on animals, usually mice, never on humans, because unfortunately to really test these theories on humans would require invasive procedures on the brain that would kill the patient. So as with all theories it must be taken with a grain of salt.

The issue of loneliness...

I've been pretty lonely lately. I've been quite lonely many times, and birthdays usually bring this issue to the fore-front for me. I have many friends and family who are supportive and encouraging, but I'm lonely for that special person that I can be close with who can truly relate to how I feel, and with whom I can have fun with, hang out on a regular basis, and talk about things both important and not so important. Someone who has a deep empathy for my condition, someone who is walking in my shoes.

There's two parts to this problem. First, my condition makes it increasingly difficult to go out in social situations such that I could find such a person. Secondly, even if I were to get out and be available, the person I'm looking for would be facing the same problems and most likely wouldn't themselves be out there to be found.

It also brings up a moral issue for me. I've had some good relationships in the past, and in retrospect I can see how my condition caused these relationships to deteriorate. And I've decided long ago that I don't want to bring another person into my life close enough that I might unintentionally hurt them or burden them. I would never do such a thing intentionally, but due to the nature of my condition, I easily become withdrawn socially and emotionally, am very needy, and that is not good for a healthy sustained relationship.

I've tried to accept the fact that I will have to live with this type of loneliness for a long time, and in the meantime I'll have to be my own best friend. It's not easy, and often very difficult to not slide into a deep depression because of it.

One therapist suggested that I should go out and start dating just for the sake of practice. But I have a moral problem with that, it sounds too much like using people.

Some people suggest a spiritual solution to this problem. I do agree that having a faith and relationship with a higher power can alleviate some of this empty feeling, but it can't fully take away the basic human need I have to be close to another human being who can identify with what I am going through and with whom I can be with most of the time.

I've met some people and made some distant acquaintances with people through support groups and on the internet, but what I really need deep down is someone close at hand who I can share my days and my intimacy with.

So it's a catch-22 in a way. I probably won't be able to find such a person, and if I do I risk hurting them or burdening them with my problems, or becoming codependent. And as I look into my own future, I see many other catch-22s.

Happy birthday to me...

Happy Birthday to me! Happy birthday to me!

severely depressed...

I'm severly depressed and I don't want to talk about it. I turn 30 on Tuesday, and there's only one thing I want for my birthday.

Am I asleep?

I'm still having problems where I have really bad nightmares as I awake, and then I spend quite a few hours after that still stuck in this wierd "am I still asleep?" mode, during which the content of the nightmares is constantly replayed in my head, and even taking a cold shower doesn't knock me out of it, I just have to wait a few hours or more and try to get distracted into something and eventually over the hours I eventually forget about the nightmares. It's kind of like a post-traumatic stress reaction, sort of. But still, throughout the whole day, and it's been this way for months now, it's like most of me is still asleep, like a real groggy feeling. Doc says it's mostly due to the meds I'm on causing this kind of thing. I see him on Tuesday, I assume we're going to lower the dosages a minor amount again.

My meeting with SSI went really well, I took my aunt with me for back-up, since my concentration and memory are so shot I can't always keep on top of things, and the guy we met with was really nice and got some of the paperwork straightened out. The next thing I have to do is work on MediCAL for my medical benefits, the application to re-apply (I have to start from scratch since they denied me on my first go-around) is being sent to me, so I should be able to have all of the stuff I need submitted to them by the end of the month. And since I'm not going to bother to ask for retro-active benefits, and since Social Security has already "blessed" my disability, I should get my approval for Medical to go through in about a month or so. So, if I'm lucky, come December I should be able to start getting my brain scans (finally), but I'm not counting my chickens until they hatch.

Financial blues

Well, I'm going through some financial blues... thank God my family is really helping me out. I have a meeting with SSI Thursday, I hope something productive comes from that... and I'm still getting the run-around from MediCAL but I hope to have that resolved within a couple months (knock on wood), but in the meantime money's real tight, trying not to bounce checks. Looking at my budget it looks like I'm going to have to stop taking all my vitamins and nutritional supplements and what not that the doctor has me on, they're costing me like three hundred bucks a month! Even after shopping around for the best price. I'll keep taking what I have left until it runs out, and further hope that after I run out of the stuff that I don't have any problems. Maybe once I get all my disability benefits from the government it'll help me out enough that I can afford the stuff again. I've trimmed everything else out of my budget that I can, I'll just have to get by without them for a while.

My dad and I had a good meeting with my therapist today too, I really appreciate that my family is willing to work with me on this and attend some of my sessions, I really believe in the teamwork approach and giving my family a chance to meet with my doctors and therapist and such so they can better understand things. It really helps a lot to have a supportive team behind me.