“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 [...]

I was so proud of her

I saw a patient the other night with a ton of psych meds in the ER for something unrelated. She was neither young nor old.
(Incidentally – definition of “a ton of psych meds” = more psych meds than me.)
And she was totally normal. If I hadn’t read the list of meds, I never would have [...]

I did not see this coming

The latest in my escapades – no essays or deep thoughts or medical stuff here, just my personal update.
The anxious racing episode, naturally, crashed into a depression that hit hard and fast. Or maybe not so fast, but I didn’t feel it until it was out of control.
I think I am more and more becoming [...]

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 [...]

Self-harm from the doctor’s point of view

Edit added at the bottom.
First of all, this is going to be detailed, and if it might upset you, please do not read.
I’m going to leave the details of the story pretty generic to be sure to protect patient identity, though it was a pretty typical self-harm story, I guess, the kind that is seen [...]

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 [...]

What is the universe trying to tell me with this?

As far as how I’m doing, it’s close to an exact copy of this post, so I won’t go into it. I had a very nice call night, though, now that I’m feeling slightly better. Actually, it was a horrific call night, in that patients kept coming in nonstop for the whole night. The volume [...]

The Emergency Room Visit Guide for Crazy People

I’ve been doing a lot of time in the ER lately. Today I saw a girl after an intentional overdose (she was ok).
I hope I treated her in a way that didn’t make her feel uncomfortable. I don’t know the shrink who was on duty, don’t know if he was any good. I would have [...]

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. [...]