What a week

This week was a real roller coaster. I spent a lot of time pacing and unsure of myself. I'm seeing a new therapist regularly now. My previous therapist helped me do the research to find the tools I need to use to make myself better, this new therapist is going to be "pushing my buttons" to try and break me out of my shell and put those tools to work. Easier said than done, is what I say, but I know it's what must be done. I had a session with him Tuesday where he was pushing my buttons a little bit, and I reacted by feeling guilty that I'm making all of these problems up in my head, and I started having suicidal ideations again.

I'm also going back to a regular weekly group session again, and we're discussing some issues that really cross my boundaries in those sessions.

this weekend I have two big parties to go to for the holiday, and I'm using a lot of positive thinking to convince myself that it will be all right for me to just relax and have a good time rather than focus on the fact that I usually get very anxious and start to depersonalize at parties and such.

gaining weight :(

I was just going through some pictures of me taken less than a year ago and it hit home how much I've gained weight. I've gained 35 pounds in the past few months, my clothes are starting to shrink on me lol. I guess I have to start exercising. I'm attributing the weight gain mostly to the Zyprexa, which is a common side effect. I notice also that lately I hardly eat at all during the morning or daytime, but during the evening I get overly hungry. I'm borderline hypoglycemic, so I should be eating small portions consistently through the day, but I'm not. I'm having a hard time keeping any kind of schedule, whether it be eating, sleeping, or whatever. Hopefully, my therapist will be right about me just needing a stimulant type of medication and this will help me get the ball rolling, we'll just have to see next month after I get my brain scans done. I also noticed that I do seem to be cycling less often without the Prozac.

Feeling weird

I'm feeling pretty weird, feelings of depersonalization, like things aren't quite real. I'm also feeling a little paranoid. I accidentally slept through taking my morning dose of Xanax, so I just totally missed that dose, which may be part of the reason I feel this way.

I forgot to mention in my last post that the reason we switched from Symbyax to just plain Zyprexa was to decrease how often my moods swing. The theory is that an anti-depressant can cause faster cycling for bipolar people.

Update

I saw my psychiatrist yesterday, and he told me that I should go down by half a miligram a week from now on that I'm getting to the lower dosages. We also switched from Symbyax (a combination of Prozac and Zyprexa) to just plain Zyprexa, but at a higher dosage (10mg, where I was on 6mg with the Symbyax)

I had a real good group therapy session today, I was able to talk quite a bit and it felt good. My therapist is trying to get me to take more of a "fuck it" (his words) approach to the way I react to things in my own head. Kind of as a way of not letting the past control my present.

For the most part I'm still spending a lot of time in bed avoiding things. Before my group session today I was cleaning my room and that brought up a lot of past things almost like post-traumatic shock, I kept hearing in my head people telling me I wasn't doing good enough and even while vacuuming I got the paranoid feeling that someone was going to stab me in the back, which happens to me usually when I'm vacuuming for some strange reason. I kept feeling like I was going to be beaten like a little kid if I didn't clean my room last night. It really sucks being 30 years old and still have this stupid trauma holding me back.

low attention span, getting angry easy

I've noticed lately that my attention span is getting smaller, and that I get angry or bitter easier, usually about things that occured years in the past that I wake up remembering. I'm not sure if this is due to lowering my Xanax or not. I was going through acute withdrawal symptoms a week ago so my doctor upped my dosage back by another 2mg to help me out and then told me to go down by 1mg a week.

I'm starting to get to the point where I'm sick of meds all together, whereas before I was willing to accept that I'd probably be on meds for the rest of my life. My therapist and I are thinking that the next med we'll try after my brain scans will be a stimulant like they use for attention deficit disorder.

Commenting Feature added

I've enabled a commenting feature to my posts so all of you out there can comment on what I write. I'll be tweaking the feature as time goes on.

Carpe Diem

I haven't been very out-going lately, since I've been sick with some kind of flu (finally got some antibiotics for it), and my moods are changing like rolling the dice, it's hard for me not to get caught up in the past or worry about the future, I know I need to focus on the moment, carpe diem style, but I get trapped in this circular thinking mode too easily. I tried using my relaxation techniques again but they seem to make my anxiety worse, not better. I'm worrying about paying bills, about my ability to just stay stable emotionally long enough to live up to any of my real life obligations, but, like I've been told, I just have to try and focus on the moment and leave things in God's hands. Can you believe I just said something like that? Yes, I'm trying to be more open-minded about the whole God thing, too.

Sick

I've been getting sicker, got flu like symptoms. It sucks, but being sick like this is making me sleep alot and overall is keeping me from having major anxiety attacks, so I'm taking the good with the bad.

Friday, I went to the mental hospital to try and get into their program for coming off of benzos, but they won't accept my insurance. Major bummer. Basically, I just have to slug it out coming down from 8mg of xanax a day in about one month, when I should be doing it over the course of a few months or more. An online friend sent me this link about benzo withdrawal: Benzodiazeines: How They Work & How to Withdraw

Thanks to my family and everyone else for being supportive of me as I go through this.

Going nuts

I'm going totally nuts. I'm like in a constant state of withdrawal, I've got the shakes, I feel like I'm going crazy, I'm scared to even respond to simple emails or phone calls. I really wish I could stay in a hospital until it's time for my brain scans, so they could keep an eye on me becuase it's really hard not to take an extra pill or three to try and make it through this. I just get so sad and scared, and I feel like I'm getting sick as well. I'm trying my best to stay a little active and still eat healthy but in between that I'm staying in bed most of the time trying to sleep so I don't have to feel this way.

It's a constant fight

Well, yesterday I went to karate and felt a lot better after that, I'm thinking about going for another lesson later today as well, my anxiety is fairly high. I made a bunch of appointments with one of my therapists and some group session meetings to help get me through this tough time while I'm going off my meds before getting my brain scan. I think if I can just get my self in the shower and psyched up a bit I can make it to another karate lesson, then tomorrow I've got a vocal lesson and a bass guitar lesson, then the next day is both an individual and group therapy session, so I'm starting to get my schedule more booked in a fight to keep me occupied and upbeat.

Can't seem to stay out of bed

I can't seem to stay out of bed lately. I've been really depressed and my anxiety levels are up. I did go out for a few hours Saturday to help with this Walk For Life cancer funding thing, but it got me all freaked out being around all those people so I left. I'm supposed to go to my karate session in a few hours and I'm fearing even that, even though I know I felt good after doing it last week.

I've been really sad and missing my old friends, the good old times when I was having a lot of fun. I wish I could just move back home to Michigan.

I've even been thinking occasionally of admitting myself to the hospital but I know that won't do any good since they'd just up my medications, when I need to be going off my medications to get these brain scans done. It just sucks, I feel like I'm going nuts.