it's just the way the medication makes her.

2009-04-23T03:40:00.000-07:00

I have a home again. I moved at the end of March into a smallish basement suite. I haven't lived alone in a couple of years and I was a bit nervous about it - what happens if I get really suicidal or fall apart and there's no one sane around to notice? Or as concrete a fear - what happens if I have a bad vertigo attack in the shower (answer: I have a plastic stepstool that I can take into the shower if I'm feeling nervous so I have something to sit on while I get clean). Thanks to the Seroquel I'm also more or less remembering to eat on a regular basis (but still losing weight! I can now fit into a pair of jeans I haven't been able to wear since 2006).

A very long radio silence

2009-01-21T22:51:00.000-08:00

I have spent most of the last year+ attempting to be a "normal". Well from November 07-June 08 anyways I was working full time and getting sicker by the millisecond. On my way to my job in early December I fainted on transit (something about standing up on a vehicle in motion that activated previously latent vertigo). Sadly, that became more and more prevalent and branched out to also fainting at work. I had a FULL work up of blood tests that determined my:

*cholesterol
*blood sugar+
*thyroid
*and more stuff that they took blood and I have no idea why

were are all NORMAL. No medical cause for the vertigo. As soon as I stopped working, MOST of the vertigo went away (but unfortunately it's still very present on public transit which has led to some VERY awkward moments where I've had to politely tell people with canes that I am unable to give up my seat to them...) and so did a lot of the exhaustion. At that point I was taking a 2 hour nap after work just to have the energy to socialize with my boyfriend or my then house-mate, eat dinner, have a shower and do stuff in the evening. Otherwise I was completely dead exhausted. The over-tired is partially being treated now with Wellbutrin but a lot of it did go away when I stopped working (psycho-somatic much?).

I am almost all the way through my application process for being determined a Person With Disability (PWD from now on) for my PTSD and "mood disorders". My doctor has been very cooperative with me and the disability advocate who is working on my case, and he has filled out pretty much exactly what we hoped he would (aka the stuff that would get me the most help and overall life assistance), so that is hopeful. All that is missing now is a permanent address for me. I am officially homeless as 99% of my life went into a storage locker while the laptop and I go couch surfing but I am a LOT of subsidized housing waitlists (and working with a housing advocate) so hopefully in the next month or so....

+besides being previously diagnosed as hypoglycemic

radio silence

2007-08-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

I swear I'm not in the psych ward - I've just been busy with packing up my life and putting it into storage, and when things settled into a dull roar I reinjured my knee (3 days of hopping around and various degrees of limping) and while *that* was healing, I came down with a case of strep throat that took me 4 days to get treated.

Yeah not a lot of energy to write with a fever of 103 :-\

Thank goddess for small mercies

2007-08-02T17:19:00.000-07:00

I am down to 4 tablets of Celexa left, and praise be to Goddess, I was able to get the form filled out and faxed in by a doctor stating that I will die or suffer undue hardship without my meds - having talked to the local branch of the government in charge of such things, I was assured that if I get the form faxed in by 3pm tomorrow (and it was in by 2pm today) that for the next year, my prescriptions will be paid for by the government. One less thing to worry about budgeting for!

(Huge huge huge thanks to my girlfriend for tracking down the right phone number for me to call - took me 4 transfers and 10 minutes to speak to the right person)

Sun, Surf, Sand....and Seroquel

2007-07-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

Be gentle, folks, this is my first disability blog carnival entry.

As the theme for this one is "On Holiday" and I love word-play, that's the title.

I have a love/hate relationship with vacations. Once I get there, I love it (usually). It's the *getting there* that I hate.

Imagine that crowds, noise and lack of privacy can trigger anxiety and panic attacks. Imagine spending a full day surrounded by people non-stop, noise overload, the only "alone time" available is a trip to a dirty airport bathroom (or a claustrophobic airplane or Greyhound bus toilet). Over the years I've figured out some coping strategies - I wear my cloak (hurray for medieval re-enactment) so that if I have to, I can pull the hood over my face, wrap myself up in my "blankie" and feel secure enough to take a nap (this strategy only really works once I'm ON transit though - I shouldn't recommend it for airports or bus terminals); I have an MP3 player to help shut out some of the background noise so that I feel a little more alone; I bring books so that I can tune out my surroundings and lose myself in someone else's world; or (especially when I take the night bus) I have my writing notebook and I sit there in my little circle of bright from the overhead light thinking and crafting poetry. One day I want a laptop computer so that I can also play some of my favourite games to help distract me. (The Sims 2 and Civ 4 rank VERY highly on my list of favourite games - well so does World of Warcraft but that relies on an internet connection and that is tenuous while in transit).

Great. So now I'm "there" and I'm away from my familiar house, my familiar routines. Internet access ranks highly for helping me maintain my balance - take away my access to my blogs, my email, my games, my message boards and I start feeling very isolated. I've spent my adult life relying on the internet for a sense of support, of community. No matter how screwy my sleep schedule, my online communities are there when I need them to be - that can't be said of real life people who have lives and schedules of their own - at my convenience and theirs. Yet another reason to get a laptop! It's even more important when I'm away from home to have my decompression time, my alone time so that I can process what's going on and enjoy being there.

Soapbox time

2007-07-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

I really grappled - and still am - with posting about my suicide attempt last summer. This blog is the first place I've ever made it public - even my family doesn't know it happened. I posted about it on a very very narrow filter on my personal blog but I found it very difficult to talk about there. Here, mask firmly in place, it's a bit easier. On one hand it is a manifestation of my illness (and an ongoing one - I still feel suicidal from time to time but with last summer still fresh in my mind I won't attempt again). On the other, the world treats suicide as shameful. Those who attempt it are "failures" who just need to "cheer up and see that it's not all that bad" - the caveat being unless of course one is elderly, has a severe disability or a chronic illness and then it's "okay" to stop living. The most glaring example of this was the young male RN who helped me to the washroom in ER and while he was assisting me blurted out "but why did you do it? A beautiful girl like you!". Because - of COURSE being beautiful is a buffer against anything horrible EVER happening to anyone.

He may have needed his eyes examined - spending an entire afternoon, evening and night vomiting didn't leave ME feeling beautiful. I didn't even feel fully human - add to that the gravol, the other anti-nausea meds, the sleeplessness, the sheer and utter crapitude of how I was feeling. But his comment was indicative of societal thought - and society as a whole needs to accept, to empathize, to de-stigmatize mental illness.

Tonight

2007-07-28T16:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight my girlfriend and I are going to a fetish night in a nightclub. Accordingly, I've spent most of the day in quietude, building up my reserves enough to be in a building jam-packed full of people and noise. I want to go - don't get me wrong - but I need to have my buffers up first so that I can enjoy myself while there. Crowds make me anxious and so does excessive noise but having my sweetie there as a familiar face will help and I know that once I get acclimated, it'll be fine.

Plus I'm wearing an outfit that makes me feel exceedingly sexy.

A square peg in a round world

2007-07-28T15:33:00.000-07:00

I know what I "should" be doing. Conversations with my parents, my so-called peer group, and welfare workers, along with the societal image bombardment all tell me that I should be working full time, waking up every morning at the same time to be at work at the same time to spend my day doing whatever at work and then coming home in lock-step conformity to do whatever the "normals" do at night. I have tried that, imperfectly, and the stress of having to meet those expectations with no regard for my unique challenges was more than I could handle.

How can I be at work on time when I never know when I'm going to be able to finally fall asleep and when my medication makes me sleep so deeply that I oftentimes don't hear the alarm clock?

How can I deal with the stressors of a job (and every job I have ever had has had them) when they are added to the stressors of leaving the safe zone of my apartment, of getting TO work on time and then lasting the day hoping to goddess that I don't have a panic attack while I'm AT work.

How can I get TO work on days when I'm so depressed I can't eat and getting dressed (forget showering here, people) takes more energy than I have. Or when I have a panic attack and take an extra Seroquel to take the edges of my panic off enough that I can sleep (causing me to sleep even deeper and longer).

And how can I get better when I can't always afford my medication and I can't get permanent long-term counselling (currently all that's available is 10 weeks on with a volunteer counsellor then a few months off then 10 weeks on with a DIFFERENT counsellor)

But I don't look sick (refrain)

2007-07-28T03:28:00.000-07:00

In a recent phone conversation with my mother, I mentioned to her that I was pursuing disability status with the government as I am unable to work. In a glaring example of she just doesn't GET it, she replied "but you were doing so well with your job and you seemed less depressed."

Um yeah mom, whatever you say mom. My last job damn near killed me. Literally. 12 months into working as a customer service representative in a call centre, I attempted suicide (an overdose of migraine-strength tylenol. Robaxcet & vodka) which led to me spending 3 days in the hospital puking my guts out. I spent an additional 2 weeks taking a prescription-strength medication to calm my stomach down enough so that I could keep down food. Having to be somewhere at a set time 4 days a week (2 months prior, Human Resources and I had negotiated dropping my days from five a week to four - the minimum I could work and be considered full-time as far as benefits down - due to my depression and stress) plus the *additional* stress of dealing with assholes on the phone 8 hours a day (and assholes in middle management) was more stress than I could handle (along with some relationship drama - but *that* is a subject for a whole nother set of posts). I returned to work after I got out of the psych ward but the continued stress took its toll and 15 months in, I was left with no resources emotionally at all. I came down with the flu, felt so crap-tastic that I forgot to take my meds, which spiralled into me not sleeping for 2 straight days and barely eating. Needless to say I wasn't able to make it to work during this time - and as I was already in jeopardy from poor attendance*, I was fired. The after-affects of that job are still with me. Prior, I would have classed myself as an introvert with some outgoing tendencies and I enjoyed being social. Now? Days, if not weeks, go by where I don't even leave my apartment.

*One of the bigger causes was the fact that I'd had one panic attack at work and not really had anywhere safe to process it. The other was my insomnia/Seroquel loop (I get insomnia, take an extra tab - I've discussed this with my doctor. My regular dose is 50mg but I do have an extra 25mg built into my daily Rx for use as needed - finally fall asleep at dawn, wake up 8-12 hours later with all the mental acuity of tapioca pudding....and there goes my day - lest anyone thing my meds are a cakewalk: my first 2 weeks on Seroquel, I couldn't remember log in information at work to save my life - and I had 18 or so different logins and passwords to keep track of...and over those 2 weeks, I got myself locked out of each of them at least once cuz I was too muzzy-headed to remember the password [and I have always had an excellent memory])

Nom de plume

2007-07-27T17:42:00.000-07:00

Pen name. Pseudonym. Yes. Please. A shield for my identity so that I can be completely honest in this blog.

Without my anonymity here, I will be unable to be as nakedly bare as I need to be, to be as honest as I must be. Once the burden of identity sets in, then I will be constrained to censor my words, to "protect" the people who know me (as I invariably end up doing when I post about my illness in my personal blog), to be less than true to the vision behind this blog. My words could easily belong to anyone - this is my place to talk about my illness and my reactions to it as something more than myself, to be Everywoman in a sense instead of (name with-held) from (location unknown) limiting my scope.

I could be anyone with a mental illness.

Here, I am the: the Girl Anachronism, signing off for the moment.

the origin of my nom de plume

2007-07-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

girl anachronism

you can tell
from the scars on my arms
and cracks in my hips
and the dents in my car
and the blisters on my lips
that i'm not the carefullest of girls

you can tell
from the glass on the floor
and the strings that're breaking
and i keep on breaking more
and it looks like i am shaking
but it's just the temperature
and then again
if it were any colder i could disengage
if i were any older i could act my age
but i dont think that you'd believe me
it's
not
the
way
i'm
meant
to
be
it's just the way the operation made me

and you can tell
from the state of my room
that they let me out too soon
and the pills that i ate
came a couple years too late
and i've got some issues to work through
there i go again
pretending to be you
make-believing
that i have a soul beneath the surface
trying to convince you
it was accidentally on purpose

i am not so serious
this passion is a plagiarism
i might join your century
but only on a rare occasion
i was taken out
before the labor pains set in and now
behold the world's worst accident
i am the girl anachronism

and you can tell
by the red in my eyes
and the bruises on my thighs
and the knots in my hair
and the bathtub full of flies
that i'm not right now at all
there i go again
pretending that i'll fall
don't call the doctors
cause they've seen it all before
they'll say just
let
her
crash
and
burn
she'll learn
the attention just encourages her

and you can tell
from the full-body cast
that i'm sorry that i asked
though you did everything you could
(like any decent person would)
but i might be catching so don't touch
you'll start believeing you're immune to gravity and stuff
don't get me wet
because the bandages will all come off

and you can tell
from the smoke at the stake
that the current state is critical
well it is the little things, for instance:
in the time it takes to break it she can make up ten excuses:
please excuse her for the day, its just the way the medication makes her...

i don't necessarily believe there is a cure for this
so i might join your century but only as a doubtful guest
i was too precarious removed as a caesarian
behold the world's worst accident
I AM THE GIRL ANACHRONISM

(c) the Dresden Dolls (www.dresdendolls.com)

But I don't look sick

2007-07-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

In fact, my intake worker at welfare told me last month that - if it wasn't for the all important doctor's note - I would be classed as "highly employable" and not eligible for long-term assistance. If it wasn't for the doctor's note.

The one that says that due to my invisible* disabilities I am unable to work.

I don't look sick. I'm 28 years old, no visible disabilities (unless you count my gimpy right knee that aches in cold/damp weather and makes me limp - synovitis** of the joint and a femur and patella - upper leg bone and kneecap - that are misaligned from years of limping), well educated (no university degree but a reference library on medieval history that's bulging at the seams), reasonably attractive. None of that shows the inner me - the woman who gets panic attacks at the thought of leaving her apartment, the woman with four suicide attempts in her past, with flashbacks (good old post traumatic stress disorder), seasonal affective disorder, who takes 2 medications every day that literally keep her alive. Deviations from my routine can overwhelm me, so can the stressors of daily life - checking mail every day (my room-mate does that for me and gives me what I need to deal with and handles the rest), going to the doctor, going to welfare, to EI, going shopping. I find crowds and being around large numbers of people intimidating and something to be avoided at all costs. The last time I went off my meds, I didn't eat for 2 days and I couldn't shut my brain off to sleep for almost 48 straight hours. Yes, shut my brain off. When I'm off my meds, my brain feels like a hamster on crack, running around and around and around and around and around on its wheel, unable to take a break or rest. I have spent most of my adolescence and adult life not getting more than 4 hours of sleep a night because I couldn't wind down enough to sleep. Since going on my meds (Celexa and Seroquel) in December of 2005, my brain feels *slower*. I still have insomnia but at least most of the time when I sleep, I sleep about 8-10 hours. The two main side effects of Seroquel are drowsiness and weight gain. This works for me - when I get severely depressed (instead of the medium grade depressed that's my life most of the time), I lose my appetite. Food sits in my stomach like a stone, heavy and unappetitizing until I vomit it back up.

Forget being able to work when some days it's all I can do to get dressed each day. Forget being able to work when I never know when I'm going to be able to finally fall asleep (and thus wake up). Forget being able to work when I never know when the next flashback is coming - but I know I need to be somewhere safe when it does.

I don't look sick - but I am. And it's "all in my head".

*Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source
in·vis·i·ble [in-viz-uh-buhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1. not visible; not perceptible by the eye: invisible fluid.
2. withdrawn from or out of sight; hidden: an invisible seam.
3. not perceptible or discernible by the mind: invisible differences.
4. not ordinarily found in financial statements or reflected in statistics or a listing: Goodwill is an invisible asset to a business.
5. concealed from public knowledge.
–noun
6. an invisible thing or being.
7. the invisible, the unseen or spiritual world.
[Origin: 1300–50; ME < L invīsibilis. See in-3, visible]

**WordNet - Cite This Source
synovitis

noun
inflammation of the synovial membrane that lines a synovial joint; results in pain and swelling

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.