“I wept not, so to stone within I grew”

Io non piangea, si` dentro impetrai.
-Inferno, Canto 33
It is 3:40 AM, the witching hour, and my being awake cannot be a good sign.
Of course, I have been awake at this hour every day for quite some time now. Maybe wanting to get up and write is a good sign.
Things here are, well, empty. I suppose [...]

On Chronic Depression and Myth

One of the things that occurs a lot in the mentally ill, especially, thought not exclusively, in the mood disordered, is that a mood episode is treated with medication, and the cycling of moods is stopped, yet the person remains miserable, suicidal, even, and suffers a lingering handicap. In the world of psychiatry, this is [...]

Yet another Shrink’s Line of the Day

Yesterday I decide that I feel bad about quitting the shrink all abruptly and in a rage. That I didn’t want to end like that, if just out of politeness. I really wanted to call and leave a message apologizing, and wishing him a happy holiday. I said that I was going to be the [...]

Enough

I finally wrote what I thought was a reasonable letter to the shrink, since he never seemed to hear what I said…about how I can’t live in the dark about what is wrong with me or how to fix it, that I was deeply hurt and concerned about the borderline thing, etc. I hoped that [...]

Still alive, beyond comfort of man or spirit

Thank you to everyone who left me comments or emails or anything. All much appreciated. Sorry I haven’t written back.
I am, indeed, still alive. In fact, the longer days are making some things easier. But I don’t feel better, am not getting better, am just biding time, this version of bardo, laced with apathy and [...]

Thanks for continuing to read

When a poster on a blog like this stops posting, usually one of two things has happened: either they’ve hit a significant remission and have somewhat lost interest in all things mental-health-related, or they have taken ill in a way that keeps them from writing, usually either a severe depression, hospitalization, apathy, or the black [...]

Here we go again

New appointment.
New level of truth telling by me.
New drug.
One (low) dose of fluvoxamine down.
Hours later: paralytic sleep, the kind where you know you are asleep but can’t move and can’t wake up.
Woken up by nausea. At the same time, phone call from work.
Vomit for 15 minutes, not very successfully. Do not feel better. (It’s central [...]

Cyclothymia as a personality disorder; hormones and moods

I have had a partial response at least to the bupropion. Because of the anxiety it causes, I haven’t been overly eager to up the dose so I am still on half a normal dose. I can’t get anything done and feel bad a lot of the time, but I am not wallowing in my [...]

Today something happened to me that never happened before.

I got reprimanded at work.
I apologize for the quality of this post ahead…I’m too tired and my brain is too fried to write well. Here’s what happened.
The last few weeks went surprisingly smoothly, the anger was under control, I was performing ok, and things seemed to be moving along reasonably considering being off all meds. [...]

Physical Versus Mental Illness

In an unpublished email, Milo wrote this comment to me:
Personally speaking, i passed a kidney stone last year, and being dead honest here, i’d  much rather the physical illness than having a paranoid episode… i really really do. i tell you one thing Sara, the pain was absolutely horrendous, but no one laughed at me. [...]

Doubt

I just got off one of those hellacious emergency room shifts. And now I am torturing myself. Did I miss a subtle stroke? Send away a 19 year old who fainted who will later go into cardiac arrest?
I am not sure how much of this is me and how much is the drug and how [...]

More hurtful psychiatry

I went to another appointment today, partly to get meds, partly to try to have some kind of useful session. I am in a shitty work environment now, and it’s bothering me, but I didn’t want to waste time talking about it because it is temporary, but he kept poking at that, and once again, [...]

Off All Meds, Cymbalta Withdrawal, and Waiting for Disaster

The shrink took a vacation (oh, August, the shrink vacation month…could anything be more irritatingly stereotypical?), thus leaving me with the worst physical withdrawal I could imagine. Seriously, could heroin be worse than this? The lesson out of all of this: never, ever quit Cymbalta! For the past few days, I have been having complete [...]

On further reflection and the rest of the story

Today in the light of day, I still had the kick in the nuts feeling about it. But I made an appointment to go back…and just chill out. And explain why I feel so fucking betrayed. I did realize that part of it is just like what my father used to do to me. He [...]

Psychiatry claims another victim

…or Dona Juana falls for it again.
I have been having a really horrible week. So horrible, in fact, that almost every night on call I get to a point where it is difficult to avoid thinking about suicide seriously…climbing up to the top of a tall building and jumping. I have been inconsolable. I haven’t [...]