On Edge
I hate the way I am around you,
I'm so nervous and weird.
Sometimes I feel like I'm breathing under water.
[everclear]
As I wrote not long ago, for the past month, I've been doing a bit of a pill experiment. Nothing too extreme, but enough to make me very cautious about life. These past few days, I've had a few moments of agitation, irritation--yesterday, I felt my muscles and nerves straining at the skin to escape. I fidgeted, my mind feeling caged and uncalm. Today, I pressed my fingernails into my desk during the more frustrating lectures, pressed them so they would bend and send pressure back up into my fingertips. Pressed them so I wouldn't flip out, pressed them so I had something to focus on. Pressed them and watched the clock, not knowing when it would be over.
I went to dinner with my bipolar muse, Oneil, tonight. We haven't seen each other in six months, but there was an immediate ease. We had a great time just talking about being bipolar in honest, real terms. She described a certain type of paranoia, and at first, I said, "Oh, I'm never paranoid." I would have said the same thing to my therapist too, in no uncertain terms. My therapist would have continued going, left paranoia behind. But Oneil started talking about hers, and I realized that I have it, in certain amounts, too.
I am still realizing, in a lot of ways, how scary bipolar disorder is. I don't mean that it scares people who aren't bipolar. I mean it scares me.
"What if it comes back?" I wonder. "What if it comes back and I don't notice. What if no one catches it? What if this time it is worse? What if?" The what ifs, of course, are worse than anything. I worry all the time, about losing friends, about having to leave medical school. About writing words on my skin with razors, although I've never cut. But what if?
Joey has been visiting these last few days, and it has been great. At the same time, it scares me, because he's so close. "What if I get home, and he's gone?" I say. "What if being with me for 72 hours straight has made him want to leave?"
I worry that I can do everything right and still lose it all.
As a result of the recent agitation and this realization that I do worry so much about these things, I am making the decision to go up 25 mgs in my medication. I will also be bringing this up in therapy, although I know it will make me cry, and that is my LEAST favorite thing about therapy. And I want to stop worrying, all the time, that the final result will be a gaping loss.
There has been graffiti in downtown lately, the same handwriting, phrases and sentences scrawled on signs, on walkways, all over the place. I've been loving all of them, but my favorite popped up on my walk to school last week. Written in red marker on the white paint of an old, expensive house, it simply said, "We cannot save you."
The implication of which is, of course, "You must save yourself. You must save yourself."
I'm so nervous and weird.
Sometimes I feel like I'm breathing under water.
[everclear]
As I wrote not long ago, for the past month, I've been doing a bit of a pill experiment. Nothing too extreme, but enough to make me very cautious about life. These past few days, I've had a few moments of agitation, irritation--yesterday, I felt my muscles and nerves straining at the skin to escape. I fidgeted, my mind feeling caged and uncalm. Today, I pressed my fingernails into my desk during the more frustrating lectures, pressed them so they would bend and send pressure back up into my fingertips. Pressed them so I wouldn't flip out, pressed them so I had something to focus on. Pressed them and watched the clock, not knowing when it would be over.
I went to dinner with my bipolar muse, Oneil, tonight. We haven't seen each other in six months, but there was an immediate ease. We had a great time just talking about being bipolar in honest, real terms. She described a certain type of paranoia, and at first, I said, "Oh, I'm never paranoid." I would have said the same thing to my therapist too, in no uncertain terms. My therapist would have continued going, left paranoia behind. But Oneil started talking about hers, and I realized that I have it, in certain amounts, too.
I am still realizing, in a lot of ways, how scary bipolar disorder is. I don't mean that it scares people who aren't bipolar. I mean it scares me.
"What if it comes back?" I wonder. "What if it comes back and I don't notice. What if no one catches it? What if this time it is worse? What if?" The what ifs, of course, are worse than anything. I worry all the time, about losing friends, about having to leave medical school. About writing words on my skin with razors, although I've never cut. But what if?
Joey has been visiting these last few days, and it has been great. At the same time, it scares me, because he's so close. "What if I get home, and he's gone?" I say. "What if being with me for 72 hours straight has made him want to leave?"
I worry that I can do everything right and still lose it all.
As a result of the recent agitation and this realization that I do worry so much about these things, I am making the decision to go up 25 mgs in my medication. I will also be bringing this up in therapy, although I know it will make me cry, and that is my LEAST favorite thing about therapy. And I want to stop worrying, all the time, that the final result will be a gaping loss.
There has been graffiti in downtown lately, the same handwriting, phrases and sentences scrawled on signs, on walkways, all over the place. I've been loving all of them, but my favorite popped up on my walk to school last week. Written in red marker on the white paint of an old, expensive house, it simply said, "We cannot save you."
The implication of which is, of course, "You must save yourself. You must save yourself."
posted by Another Chance to Get It Right at
10:49 PM
2 Comments:
The decision to increase medication is a scary one. You know I recently increased mine -- not Lamictal, of course, but still.... I might be changing medication altogether, and that freaks me out even more!
But increasing or changing isn't necessarily a bad thing. Being on birth control again, and being in a more stressful environment are the factors that warrant your change, correct? So, it does not mean that you are worse, or that you are losing control. Changes in environment sometimes require internal changes -- that's all.
Hopefully, your increase will be helpful. I waited for almost a month to increase my dosage after I received the new prescription. I was so worried about it! But now that the medication has been in my system for a couple of weeks, I am confident that it was the correct decision.
And I don't mean the following in the wrong way at all -- I think that you will know what I mean. Jenny, if Joey hasn't gotten tired of you after all the shit in the past couple of years, I simply do not think he ever will be. It seems that you are stuck with him. :)
I wish I could have the faith that changing/increasing/whatever with medication might fix things.
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