anxiety and trance-like states

Wow, my internet connection is actually up at the moment, hope it stays up long enough for me to type in this entry and get it posted.

I've noticed my anxiety slowly increasing in intesity over the past two weeks or so. My guess is that I'm again growing tolerant of the Xanax. But, no panic attacks yet.

Over the past couple days, and especially yesterday and today, the conversations that I have in my head have been increasing in length, but also in terms of how much they take over the focus of my thoughts. Today it's occured to me to describe it as a trance-like state. I've snapped out of it enough at least for a while to be able to look back and think about it.

Take yesterday, for example. I got home from my visit with my therapist a little after 4pm. I immediately began to have a hypothetical conversation in my head describing in detail my entire life's story. Pretty much next thing I knew it was about 6:30 am and I fell asleep even though I wasn't tired. I was basically unaware of the passage of time, of the sun going down, getting dark, and the sun coming back up. I was only vaguely aware of the fact that I was moving from room to room in the house. Basically only vaguely aware that I was in a different room sitting in a different chair, not aware of actually moving between the rooms. Thankfully the cat knew when I'm supposed to take my medications, he would meow and distract me enough to know to take my meds and give him his food and his antibiotics.

My guess is that the Provigil may be causing these conversations to expand in length. I've had complex conversations constantly going on my head pretty much all the time, but I usually don't go into a trance like state, I have, but not all that often, usually just the hour after I get out of bed, and these states, in the past as far as I can recall, have never laster longer than an hour or two.

I also feel compelled, when I do snap out of it, to return to that state to finish the conversation, because in that state I can focus on it. Whereas when I'm not in this state, and going about my day, I'm dealing with various intrusive memories and still having conversations with hypothetical people, it's just that it's usually more in the background, and the intrusive memories are pretty much all negative, like a crowded noisy bar where everyone is criticizing me or calling me names or something.

Anyway, it's always been difficult for me to describe just what it's like, but I've made another attempt here, wanting to note the dramatic change, it seems, that has started to occur.

not a new doctor, please!

Well, I went to see my psychiatrist today, but instead of the same psychiatrist I've been seeing for a good year and a half, some new psychiatrist walks into the lobby and calls me back. Doesn't seem like much of a nice guy or very compassionate. First asks me the exact date, including what year it is. Then he asks me what meds I'm on. So, I'm a little miffed, here I am with a new doctor, when I've been working with my real psychiatrist on a long-term plan and we had planned on introducing a new drug this session.

When I tell this new guy I'm on 8mg of Xanax, he says that is too much, he refuses to have any of his patients on that much, and I must instantly lower my dosage to 4mg. I put the brakes on hard then. I've never heard anybody even vaguely suggest that a person should drop 4mg of Xanax in one day. Even lowering by 1mg a week is crazy. When I had to lower my Xanax for the purpose of getting brain scans before, we did one mg a week down to 6, then half a mg a week down to 4mg, where we stopped. Even tapering at that rate, the withdrawals gave me near psychotic episodes. He also flatly refused to put me on a stimulant, which was the plan that the Amen clinic and my real psychiatrist (as well as my therapist) were planning to do. And he wanted to jump from 100 to 200mg of Lamictal. A pretty high jump at once, especially since my moods seem stable, not sure why he would want to do that. He also said the reason my hands shake is because of the Xanax. He wouldn't listen to me when I said my hands have been shaky my whole life (they always called my klutz in school since I always dropped things), long, long before I started any kind of benzos.

Anyway, trying my best to be polite, I insisted that I see my real psychiatrist. Eventually this new doctor said he would try to see if my psychiatrist was available. While he did that, I went back to the front desk and asked why I was seeing this new guy when I was scheduled for my real doctor, and they said that my real doctor was trying to help out the new guy by giving him some new business.

When I finally got to see my real doctor, he mentioned that he kind of wanted to have this new guy give a fresh perspective on things. Well, this new guy sure doesn't act like a fresh thinker.

Anyway, before I complain more, I'm now on Provigil, which is a stimulant, but not an amphetamine like Ritalin or Adderal (Adderal was what we were originally planning on trying). I'll start my first dose in the morning. Provigil, from what I've read, is used more for people who have narcolepsy to wake them up, and in general to allow people to be awake and alert for longer periods of time. Not many side effects from the sounds of it, but it's still a fairly new drug. Hopefully it should be good for me, since I've been really groggy lately, even more so than normal.

We're also still increasing my dosage of Lamictal. Not really sure we have to do that, since my moods have been pretty stable.

In any case, my therapist and my real doctor have been gradually telling me I should think about cutting down on the Xanax. I told them I don't mind that, as long as we do it very, very slowly. In some of my correspondences with other people who have been on high dosages of Xanax, it's been suggested to go as slowly as one quarter miligram a month. Granted at that rate it would take me 32 months to get completely off of it. My other argument is that we'll need some anti-anxiety medication to take its place. And there aren't many anti-anxiety medications we haven't already tried without success.

So, I hope I can continue with my real psychiatrist and not this new guy.

Anyway, on to other things, I've got a stray cat living in my bedroom now, one of the strays we take care of outside the apartment, he got into a fight and got a nasty infection, so he's living in my room until he's done with his regimen of antibiotics. It's nice to have a cat, I miss the cats I used to have back home. It'll be tough putting him back outside to live.

Tired and my mind is numb, lacking motivation

Again, I haven't been posting much lately. Just haven't felt that I have much new to say. Lately I've been very tired, falling asleep easily throughout the day. Around 11pm, my mind starts to really wake up, then a few hours later I get sluggish, but unable to actually fall asleep until around 6am. I then sleep until the afternoon, and I am very sluggish the rest of the day until late at night.

My brain seems to work a lot slower, which my therapist and I attribute mostly to the tranquilizing meds I'm on. My moods continue to be pretty stable, and I haven't had any real panic attacks either. But on the flip side, I'm almost completely lacking in any kind of motivation, most days seem like a mindless blur.

I sent in my application to the nearby university. I'm not sure if the paperwork will process in time for classes starting in September, I'll just have to wait and find out. This will be my biggest attempt yet to re-enter the "real world" and see if I can get stimulated and motivated enough to not only finish my degree(s) but also see if I can take it a bit farther and work on my social skills and just plain "get out" more. Getting out isn't something I'm interested in doing, to be honest, but I know I'm supposed to try. Truth is, I'm don't see much point in this whole life thing. I'm not suicidal, but I don't see much point in even trying.

I think a better way to explain it is, in my humble opinion, I've already done pretty much everything I've wanted to do in life. There isn't much that excites me. When I think of something to do, or someone brings up something to do, I either have a "been there, done that, it's boring now" attitude, or it just seems like too much work for too little gain.

The only real fun I have is dreaming, these wonderful, vivid dreams that are like grand adventures... my dreams sometimes are more real than reality, I wish I could sleep and dream forever.

I spend most of my time, while I'm awake at night, either reading, browsing the internet, watching movies, or playing video games.

So, in summary, my lack of motivation is partly due to the tranquilizers (meds that alter brain activity through chemicals), and partly due to events in my history that have left me with this attitude.