The Rest of My Life

I’ve been writing kind of heavy stuff lately, and I think it has skewed what this started out to be, which was a chronicle of how people who are crazy live in the normal world, how we are mostly invisible to everyone. Lately, you’d think that all I ever am is crazy.
Which is understandable. This [...]

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. [...]

On mental illness and stigma in medicine

Today I saw a patient for a pre-operative evaluation. This is a consultation for a patient that needs surgery, but who has other medical problems that make the surgeon nervous, and the surgeon basically wants someone like me to sign that I evaluated the person so that I can be blamed if something goes wrong. [...]

Fear and Hope and Wellbutrin

For a day or two, I thought it was working well – not well, but it seemed like suddenly I fell back into myself, which is a strange expression, but only by becoming me again, I realized how swallowed up by this monster I had been, how lost I was. I speculate: where was I [...]

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 [...]

Holding on, waiting for the thunder

So far, med free. The shrink called and is back from vacation, but I’m debating whether to go back or not. I really only need to if I decide to try meds again. So far, I don’t feel so great, and STILL having some withdrawal issues, but it is a little bit nice to remember [...]

It’s all coming back to me now

It is so strange how you can be okay for a while, enjoy life, live normally, and then, just when you breathe, overnight it all comes back. You’re crazy again, hurt again, suicidal again.
I must admit, even though I went back to an old, previously successful drug routine, I haven’t really stabilized out. How do [...]

Scared, but back

I am slowly turning human again. A human that has to live in the dark, yes, but human nonetheless. But I don’t feel well. And I start a new job this week, and my first night is a 30 hour shift.
I really wish I had tried to delay starting by another month. But no one [...]

The follow-up

Just warning, this is going to be a boring post, but I’ve had a few emails asking for the end of the story, so here is at least the next bit.
I finished the big deal project Monday, and agreed to hit the shrink again today, this morning, before work. I decided that now was as [...]

Shrink’s Line of the Day (edited)

Me: I don’t want to do any med changing until after I take the boards next week. At least my mind is okay right now.
Shrink: What happens if you move the date?
Me: I don’t think I can at this late notice. (Note: I never said anything about moving any boards. I had no such thoughts.)
Shrink: [...]

More shame, at the end of which my heart just breaks

Today I had to check drug levels. This involved a tremendous amount of humiliation. All morning I was angry. Now I am just heartsick.
The doctor tried to do me a favor by talking to the clinical lab director about if they could order the test through the clinic and send it over, saving me from [...]

More psychiatrist fun

I haven’t updated because I’ve been sunken into the worst depression I’ve had in years. It is so hard to remember that just three months ago I was fine. I am sorry I ever thought to change meds, even with the side effects.
But I’m also tortured by the sneaking idea that those 4 years I [...]

Zero-point-five

That was my lithium level last week. Not quite enough to count, but enough if you are of the “low-dose” school of thought, which, of course, my doc is not.
From my point of view, I may as well have had a lobotomy. My personality is gone. And wherever it went, it took my brain and [...]

How I got manic depression

The chain of bad luck, the family curse, began generations before I was born. Ours is a dynasty washed in suffering, inexplicable sadness, insanity, suicide, and unnamed misery. If one were to draw my family tree, it would be a hangman’s tree, the symbol of final verdicts, not amenable to appeal. In the shadow portrait [...]

And this is how I lose my mind

The appointment is tomorrow. This waiting is driving me crazy. I am feeling both giddy and silly, never a good sign, and not sleeping. Physically, I feel horrific from not having enough of my good drugs in me.
And this morning, I woke up and needed to consult something I wrote a couple of years ago, [...]