Posted by sar on January 29, 2002, at 15:05:33
In reply to Re: ahhhhhhhhhhh, posted by wendy b. on January 28, 2002, at 23:26:38
bonjour, mon amie!
i'm glad you're doing well. i had a dream about you last month. you had blue hair...what would freud say about that one?
> >Cool thing is, out of 4 dates, 2 have been very nice. They both want to see me, and I want to see them, again. So within the context of all that, I have been lurking, but not writing much at all.
very cool, and good odds...i'm glad you're dating again, you playah!
your memory is very good; i liked the prozac, klonopin, and neurontin quite a bit, but they weren't enough to curb this last spell. i don't think it was the meds that made me tired (i'd already stopped lamictal: it made me loopy and idiotic), i just didn't know what else to do to escape but put myself to sleep. if i lay down for long enough i will nearly always fall asleep.
>
> The meds issue is semi-malpractice stuff. They took you off all meds? Can't even believe it... Like someone else said, in a STATE hospital, no less, where drugging people up is the norm (or at least in the popular mind it is). You know and I know you need both meds and therapy. It would probably help if you could attend a group, too. People like us try to convince ourselves every once in a while that the meds are causing all the problems, and we want to just punt them. But that's just an excuse. We blame the meds, and in some cases, it is warranted. And we have to cut back or try other things. Yeah, it's a bitch. But try to get a handle on this: once you find a doctor who knows how to treat you, you will probably be on meds for the rest of your life. And there is really nothing wrong with that. The moralizers who decree with their judgmental attitudes that it's bad, or wrong, or that we're all becomeing a society of drugged-up sleepwalkers are the ones who are wrong. And you are not one of them...i was envious of the other patients at State; i think i was the only one not on meds. they would all line up to be prodded and cajoled into taking their pills; every other day or so someone would throw a fit or have a psychotic episode and the staff would hold them down or put them in restraints and give them a shot. and then they'd be all chill.
i'd always liked being on prozac and klonopin; however, the doctors at State felt that i had an "overdose history" and that putting me on meds could be dangerous, that if i was bipolar i shouldn't be on prozac at all, and that if i wasn't bipolar and only situationally depressed i shouldn't be on any meds. they felt that perhaps overmedication had led me to overdose; or perhaps it was my "substance abuse." i explained several times that i've been dysthymic all my life, "the melancholia" runs in my family, that i first considered suicide a good ten years before my drinking habit picked up or even began at all.
then i had to lie and act normal because i'd been committed involuntarily, the place was driving me crazy i was climbing the walls and couldn't wait to get out: i was scared shitless, the place was depressing and frightening, and i felt i was receiving no treatment there. there were simply too many patients for any or all of us to receive proper treatment. it was more like a holding facility than anything else: i was there 4 days before being seen by a doctor (other than the initial assessing one, who asked me "who is the president?" and "where are you right now?" but wouldn't order meds).
i was there on a court-order for up to 90 days; after that 90 days, the court order could keep being renewed. so i put on a happy face. "you're very yang," the doctor said: hard and bright. i've left a message on his voicemail telling him that my withdrawal symptoms have not subsided, only worsened, and to ask why he took me off all meds.
> I think you have been treated by a lot of people who were not exactly at the cutting edge of their respective fields. (Joke: What do they call the guy who graduates at the very bottom of his class in med school? Answer: "Doctor." ! ) This is not to demean the docs or therapists who work in the clinics you've been to, but it has been kind of a wasteland for you in terms of getting treatment. I don't think you have had the excellent health-care that you (and everyone else) deserve. I think in Austin there MUST be some excellent clinics at the hospital associated with the university, and probably a good selection of group therapy things, too. Ask around.you're right, there alot of crappy doctors and i keep hopping around like a little pdoc ho instead of settling my roots anywhere. my only option right now is the free clinic; the one in san antonio was lacking but i'm hoping austin's is better...i can't use the university facilities until i'm a student again, but a friend of mine goes there and she hasn't liked any of the pdocs or therapists there...it's another cattle call, short appointments with no real listening...there are too many students here...mental health care in texas is outrageous, one of the nurses aides at State told me; she'd worked in Pennsylvania all her life and had thought that was bad but was appalled by the Austin State Hospital--not only the facilities, but the "care."
i pretended i was Nellie Bly.
texas isn't really known for anything other than Shiner Bock and Austin City Limits and the Manor Skeet Range and its easy passage into Boystown. oh, and Destiny's Child.
yeehaw!
> Please, don't get hung up on the diagnosis thing again. We've been over this one too, ya know... Abusive parents and the trust issues are biggies for you, that's why you always present well, and you write such funny posts, and you have this 'persona' you feel you need to keep up. You can recognize it in Mair, but not in yourself. For whose benefit are you keeping up the facade? Who are these people who want you to be so wonderfully entertaining? Who are you protecting by keeping up appearances (until you freak out and try suicide again)?
i never knew my writing was even mildly entertaining before i started posting here; i guess it's not to difficult to get the job as the "funny one" in a group of depressives! :) in real life i'm very quiet and shy; i don't really have the courage to attempt humor unless i'm drunk or writing, so i spend alot of time getting drunk and/or writing. i keep up the facade for social reasons: when i let it down in 2000, i lost nearly all of my friends. i went nuts right in front of them and cried and hinted at an upcoming nervous breakdown--freaked them out, depressed them.
so now i hide the bottles and smile. a nurse i know says it's because we're southern girls: we're supposed to hide and smile.
i'm afraid that if my boyfriend knew how sad i really am and have always been, he would leave me. he likes me better off medication, he says. "you're so much more lucid now, not so spacy..." he knows of the hospitalizations, the pills, some of the diagnoses (i keep my mouth shut on the borderline one, as a rule)...he's very supportive, but doesn't understand depression.
> >A lot of this has to do with your family. Remember in the fall when your brother and your mother beat you up? Of course you do, I know, but when and how you finally come to grips with the horrors of your childhood, will determine how easy your climb out of the tunnel will be. There is a wonderful heart inside you there, that has been beaten down again and again. And it will take many, many years to undo what they have wrought upon you. And you cannot do it alone. And you cannot, I firmly believe, do it without meds.
you're right. i've cut off contact with my family for good, it'll be better this way: it's just difficult financially. when my buds in S.A. helped me move here i nearly cried thinking how good they were to me; i felt renewed...it's just going to take time to reconcile all of this mentally...it's 2 months compared to nearly 24 years.
> The state hospital staff and their flippant suggestion that maybe you are just a "thrill-seeker," are out of some surreal B-movie. Please undestand that thrill-seeking is a symptom of bipolar disorder, and you do have all of those tendencies, along with the co-morbid alcohol abuse. You have real episodes of hypomania, and then you drink to bring yourself down. But it's well-known that it does just the opposite. You may have BPD too, I'm no expert. But anti-depressants and mood-stabilizers did help you. The only thing was, you were drinking on the neurontin, and that's a real no-no. When are you going to face that big one? And go thru a detox program? Why is no one looking for a bed for you in one of them? You gotta face that one, cuz you'll never gain the benefit of the mood-stabilizers as long as you are drinking. Brutally honest, my very dear friend, but true...
well, the only thing to read at State was the Alcoholics Anonymous book! (aside from dirty old condensed Readers Digest books...) it was surprisingly captivating and well written, and it's been on my mind ever since. i don't even enjoy drinking anymore, it's just become a disgusting habit. detox isn't for me; no money anyway. salvation army is free but too scary. social pressure to cut back. friends like me better sober. heartening.
> Anybody else (Kat, Mouse, Dinah, Mair, Kristi) want to comment? maybe I'm not seeing something that you guys can. I want so much for this chick to get well, I can't stand it. Sar, I cried when I read that you'd swallowed all those pills and had to be hospitalized. But then I realized that my wanting you to get well has nothing to do with the reality of the situation, you have to want it, too... Throwing someone a life-raft won't do any good if they don't reach out and grab it. I hope someday you can grab the raft that we all are throwing...
i hope i can too. i'm flailing. too close to the suicidal mindframe to conceive of living peacefully. this site has become very important to me in the past year, i feel lucky to have found it and believe that it has been somewhat of a lifeline...i can relate truly honestly here without worries of repercussion...i see the pdoc tomorrow (had to cancel yesterday)and will obtain some Vitamin K(lonopin) at the very least, and probably an AD as well.
spring is nearing; my mood always picks up in the few months that the weather here is perfect.
a nurse who took care of me in the intensive care unit (not at state) cried as she stood over me; before she left, she invited me to come live with her. she wants to protect me, she's never had children, and she's very motherly and pleasant. Warmly darkly yin, with little feather earrings. "Don't worry about rent," she says. so i have a place to go when and if i feel there's no place to go.
the St. Christopher medal is still around my neck...patron saint of travel, and St. Anthony to protect me from evil (i'm not Catholic, just a little superstitious sometimes)...tonight i go to my favorite restaurant, and then i see the boy.
i am having a raging craving for crabmeat soup.
am in my running shoes again.
take it easy, mon amie, and thanks again for your attentiveness.
love,
sar
poster:sar
thread:17120
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020125/msgs/17482.html