Mick Jagger Bogarted My Meds

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written anything.

I may have mentioned it before but there are stretches where I’m literally incapable of writing anything. It’s not that the muse isn’t present, it’s just that the will is weak.

For me, writing used to be easy and fun. Now I have to be in the right frame of mind and physically up to do it. So it comes in spurts.

Anyway, I’m in the process of switching meds. My psych is switching out my Lexapro for Cymbalta. And it just took me two minutes to remember the name of the drug. Hell, I’m just popping pills so much I can’t even remember what I’m taking!

I’m on the one week weaning which is always a fun time when you’re taking two SSRIs at the same time. How have I been feeling? A weird kind of mellow is how I would put it.

I’m mellow but confused and forgetful. And, I’m dropping almost everything I touch.

Still, mellow like a hash buzz is better than the Midnight screaming meemies. For those of us who have been trying to find the right med combination for decades, the period between switching one to the other is partly opening the presents on Christmas morning and partly dread. You don’t know the longer lasting effects until weeks pass.

Why Cymbalta? The psych feels it will give me more energy, less lethargy, perhaps an appreciation of golf on TV, I have no idea. I remember I was on it once but I don’t remember why I got off it.

Such is life in the Wide Wide World of Psychotropic Medication.

Good points:

Occasional Zen-like moments of introspective tranquility – even at work

Better sleep

Bad points

Appearing and feeling occasionally drunk; balance issues.

Loss of extemporaneous speaking prowess.

Weird points

Zen state causes me to stare at inanimate objects and contemplate their existence. Staring at a lock on a door: “Wow, always wondered just how locks work with the keys and all that. Fascinating construction. Wonder what metal it’s made of? Beautiful man!”

Earwigs – the songs you hear or just appear in your head become mantras that last a long, long time. Currently, walking down the hall:

Laughter, joy, and loneliness and sex and sex and sex and sex
Look at me, I'm in tatters
I'm a shattered
Shattered

Cool beans bro.

No I’m just groovin’ to the morning vibes. Don’t ask me how I drive. Man alive, thrive on jive.

I’m a cool poppa, 54 going on 21; what the Hell, it beats curling up in bed hiding from the world, shaking and sweating into the sheets. God love Big Pharma.

Rats on the west side, bed bugs uptown

I’m a creative. I write. I’m in control of my brain though I’m feeling my emotions drain. It’s vanilla shit but the vanilla beans are fresh and I’m satisfied.

Spacing out at the keyboard, wondering how long this will last

My brain's been battered, splattered all over Manhattan . . .

Shadoobie, my brain's been battered

my brain's been battered;

brain's been battered;

battered;

shattered;

Shadoobie;

;

OK, So I Lied

I've been nicely strong-armed back to a blogging group on Facebook in which we work to increase each other's blog awareness.

I've never been a part of such an effort but the people who run it, run it like schoolteachers. To wit: you get an assignment every Monday to link a FB post to this FB page. Then other members read and comment and like and well, I'm still trying to grasp it completely, but I thought it would push me in a more positive direction and keep me writing.

They are strict - do the assignments, don't fake it, or you're kicked out.

Writing is hard work. For me, it used to be a breeze but depression knocks the winds from your sails in many ways, especially bipolar depression and my traveling companion, anxiety. So it's very tough for me to write regularly - the muse comes in spurts. Heh heh (forever 12).

Anyway, I had a great time in New York City but when I came home I crashed very hard and am still not in a good place. The sick reason is that I was having so much fun I completely put work and all other troubles out of my mind.

You may think that's a good thing - but the way my mind works, when I came back on Wednesday, the shock of going back to work was too much. You see, when I worry, I'm prepared. Yes, I count the hours until I get back to work but it prepares me mentally for whatever may happen.

To forget my troubles for four days invites a sort of mental illness tsunami in which ALL of the worries come back at once. It's easier for me to deal with them continuously. As a consequence, I told my wife we'll probably not take a vacation like this for a long time.

Yeah, it sucks big time.

In addition since coming back, I've been having heightened anxiety and work flashback which have really thrown me for a loop since I haven't experienced those in many months. I see my shrink on Wednesday and we need to talk about this. The Ativan isn't working like it should - I'm taking more - and I feel like I'm on the verge.

Being 'on the verge' is not a good place to be, believe me. I even departed FB for the weekend because I realized beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was harming me. How? When I get really angry, anxious, worried or lonely, I post things that I should not - I'm trolling for attention and I become one of those people I dislike on FB. It also feeds a bad spiral that causes me to become more depressed, anxious and mad and post more.

I think it's therapy - it's not. It's coming apart in front of a small audience of friends, many of whom do not know how to take it, And I'm putting those friends in an uncomfortable situation. Facebook is a drug - it can be good or bad but when I'm in a serious state it's a bad drug.

Twitter seems different but that's because I try to avoid getting into flame wars and only deal with people in my interest circles. Yes, it's an echo chamber (so is FB) but people like me can't, and I really need to stress this, can't let their emotions drag them into something they regret. And when my emotions are on a hair-trigger, that is not a good thing to exhibit on a forum more public than Facebook.

I recently finished binge watching '13 Reasons Why' which will be the subject of another blog post.

PS: I told you all that my writing would reflect the mood I was in on a particular day and I wasn't kidding.

High Anxiety

The reactions to my Monday therapy experience have not gone away. This morning I was as nervous as I’ve been in many a month.

I don’t get it. Maybe a therapist could tell me. For two weeks, I unpacked some fairly traumatic experiences in my life. The first week was work, the second week was family. This may be because the entire conversation centered on trauma.

I hate that I can’t control the ‘willies’ as I like to call them through conventional means. My brain races too fast for mindfulness techniques and Ativan will only take me so far. It’s not good to either drive or try to work popping too much of that drug.

Yesterday in a meeting I got the ‘willies.’ I hoped no one saw me taking the deep breaths in through the nose and slowly out the mouth. That DID buy me time.

This week, routine meetings have become ordeals of nervousness and paranoia. Today I have to attend a noonday awards banquet which I am dreading. At least I get a free meal which is about the best I can say about the experience.

My new therapist promised to teach me some techniques (which I probably already know) for managing these issues. I wanted to unpack some more personal garbage but perhaps I should give my continuing reveal a rest. She’s already diagnosed me as PTSD (and surprised other mental health professional haven’t) and knows enough about me to get to techniques. I suppose the rest of the shit package can be unwrapped later.

The rudimentary Cognitive Behavioral Therapy hasn’t been of much use either. I KNOW I will survive the day. I KNOW I can make it through this awards luncheon. I KNOW I can somehow manage my workload. My rational brain knows these things and keeps telling me I’ll be OK. But all of that knowledge seems to be overridden by – what? I don’t know. Some part of the brain that likes to fuck with me.

It is one of the most frustrating parts of the illness – getting mad at yourself for not being in control, thereby starting a vicious circle.

Yesterday something else happened. I had an eye appointment and went to get glasses. While waiting in the mall for the glasses, I experienced phenomena that comes about every 18 months to two years.

I will write a post in Facebook or Twitter and then come back to that post in 20 minutes and the post will look foreign to me – I didn’t write it that way. I can remember I wrote a post – right there – but not using those words and phrases. It’s like someone, not me, completely rewrote it.

It’s a scary thing. I tend to panic and start looking at other posts and tweets, making sure I haven’t written anything odd or offensive. I used to joke that I think my ghostly rewrites were better than the original text.

So I did post about it, trying to explain that my posts might not be written in my normal style and that if I wrote anything people found odd or offensive to forgive me. I said I’d look at them tomorrow and correct or delete them if so.

Of course, while writing that post, I was fully aware that these words might not look the same to me 20 minutes later. So I stared at the post for about 10 minutes trying to make sure.

When this happens I feel like I’m losing my mind or possibly having some kind of weird stroke. The episode lasts about 6 hours, always comes in the late afternoon or evening and is usually gone after a night’s sleep.

By posting it, I was also hoping someone would recognize the process and maybe help me with some advice. I’ve talked to doctors and the only thing that was ever done was switch me from Xanax to Ativan. It did not help.

But it’s worrisome. The best thing to do is to sign off social media, stop writing anything, and take a walk and connect with the environment around me.

My fear is that one day I’ll get an episode that might not go away.

Nightmares of my Father and other things

I must write this out because I fear if I don’t this day could be worse than I’d imagined.

I already clawed my way out of bed 10 minutes late, had a cup of coffee and a small bowl of cereal and knew, just knew that I would have to call off sick today.

I didn’t want to. I hate calling off sick. But the overwhelming tiredness, the shaking hands, the seizing feeling in my chest told me I would be a complete, useless mess if I went in to work.

Waking up at 9:45 a.m. confirmed that feeling. I am still feeling out of sorts, tight, nervous, jumpy, etc.

I went to my new psychologist yesterday. It was part two of ‘everything that ever scared the shit out if you – family edition.’ Last week was work and modern times edition.

I should say something about getting a mental health diagnoses. Most of the time, you can only get an ‘official’ diagnosis from a qualified psychiatrist, that is, one with an MD after their names. 

Occasionally a Psy.D (Doctorate in psychology) will do the trick. But getting one from an MSW (Master’s in Social Work) counselor is a bit rare.

Yesterday’s session – ever see those Hitler scenes from the movie ‘Downfall’ or pretty much any movie featuring Hitler and his emotions get the best of him and he rages and gesticulates and such? You know, pretty standard Hitler stuff (note: I hate using Hitler as an analogy but right now the bastard is the best one I can think of)?

That was me. Talking about my family. I was shocked at how worked up I was. I had covered this ground with other shrinks before but I never gotten quite this worked up.

My shrink was concerned and told me we needed to get off the topic because she wanted me to leave in a settled state of mind. I understood this as Turnpike driving is bad enough without me processing another beating from my father.

She wanted me to look her in the eyes. I had not been doing that the entire session or the one before. Because what I was telling her embarrassed and ashamed me.

“There is no doubt in my mind that I can diagnose you with PTSD,” she said. I questioned, she was firm. I asked her to talk to my psychiatrist since Dr. H-S is protective and cautious of her diagnoses.

My shrink would. But she held firm. It was that obvious after two sessions? Yes, she said, and, really, nobody has ever broached PTSD with you before? No, I replied, no one had.

And so, I went home and everything seemed OK. I had dinner, did a little Internet surfing, watched Jeopardy, talked about it with my wife, all the usual.

Then I went to bed and the gates of Hell opened.

Not even here, not even now or maybe even later, will I recount the dream that woke me, finally at 3:15 a.m. It was one of those dreams that you clutch the covers and look around a darkened room convincing yourself that this is the real world, not the one you just left.

I clawed my way backwards out of bed, trying not to wake up my wife, downed an Ativan and went to the bathroom to try to get my shit together.

I will tell you the dream was about my father and a cat my mother had. It involved a weapon. And that’s as far as I will go.

It was, without a doubt, the worst dream of my life. And, it had seemed to go on for hours. In dreams, it may have indeed lasted that long.

I must have sat there for 20 minutes at least – shaking, breathing hard, trying to concentrate. Our cat came and sat next to me. Our cat seems to know when we need some company, so I was not surprised. She did not nuzzle me and jump up and demand petting as she normally would. It’s like she knew I didn’t want to be touched but just to have someone there.

The other thought I had is, it’s interesting that my father, dead since 1983, could transcend the decades to reach out and touch me again and make me hate him all the more. Some shrinks talk about giving someone space in your head. I guess he never left or something else is going on I’d rather not believe. Because this is not the first time I’ve had a nightmare about him – just by far the worst.

I managed to go back to sleep with more Z-Quil, a half Ativan and some meditation music. I knew that if I stayed up from that point I would just be re-living this dream over and over.

It didn’t work. I woke up less than two hours later and knew I had a problem. But I did my best to get up and try to shake it off and go to work.

So here I am. I have a day to try to work my way out of this, forget the feels as best I can, and not fear sleep tonight although I think that’s a given.

So, I understand my shrink’s concern about covering certain subject matter. Yesterday’s session must have somehow planted a ticking time bomb in my subconscious that went off in my sleep. 

Recounting the subject matter covered in the session and in my dream, I think it’s a good bet.

Why this reaction now when previous re-tellings didn’t spawn this reaction? All I could think of is the cumulative aspects of the last 10 years – taking care of my infirm mother, watching her slowly die while trying to protect her estate from a sister whose boyfriend threated to kill me (in front of my mother). Also: my job, the SWAT team raid on the house and then the 18-month inquisition at work that followed – all of it, wrapped up in one awful package.

Here on the couch, in a darkened living room, trying to write it out, am I. It looks like rain. The cat has left me and I just had a piece of raisin bread and a cup of tea. I don’t know how to process the rest of the day. I don’t know what my co-workers are thinking of me having taken the balance of the afternoon yesterday to attend this session with an eye appointment looming Thursday.

Yes, I always worry what they think. Because one time what they thought about me almost got me killed in front of my wife. A ‘mistake’ the current director refused to apologize for since wasn’t in charge then. I thought I’d forgiven that; I guess I haven’t.

I know when I come in tomorrow, I will work twice as hard, twice as fast, to make up for it – out of fear, no more, no less. I can’t escape the place, I told my shrink, so I will have to deal with it or lose everything.

I remember years ago, the Most Giant Asshole Rush Limbaugh pontificating that “fear is a great motivator.” It was, as he admitted, easy for him to say. Decades later, that fear would produce Trump. Fear is never a great motivator. If you rely on fear to motivate other or yourself, eventually, you’ll break down your people or yourself. Perhaps some thrive off it, I don’t know. The Limbaugh legions (who have now moved on to the even more execrable Bannon bastards), would probably attribute it to being a ‘snowflake.’

The personal is the political indeed.

But somewhere, deep down inside, a little growing voice tells me I am stronger than I know. To have gone through all of this and not jumped into a homemade noose is a good thing – taking nothing away from the poor souls to whom the pain was too great. We live in a society where the suicidal are hounded into their grave as a kind of sport. But my heart aches for each misguided soul to whom the pressures of the world and the fight against their illness, have become too great to bear. They have my sympathy – not my condemnation.

I feel battered this morning. But for some weird reason, I will get up and go back there tomorrow – a place that pains me every time I step on its grounds. I will fight the fear, not only of that, but of crowds, traffic, cops, my own government, and, most of all, the demons of the past. There’s still something in me that wants to fight – that insists I fight.

But today, I must get my shit together.

Psychiatry R Us

I went to see my drug pusher today.

She has a nice office, of course, in a nice building and she has a lot of pretty professional plaques on the wall and a special chair given to her by the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. And she’s been listed as one of the top psychiatrists in the metro area by Pittsburgh Magazine for at least two years in a row.

And, frankly, she stinks at what she does. And I probably should find (yet) another psychiatrist, but I am so tired of it all.

Maybe she's still practicing?

Today was the day I knew I wasn’t going to get any more help from her than I already am. 

I told her about my ER visit and how, after all the tests, they could find nothing wrong with me. I also told her that since then, things have not been getting better with the reprimand still hanging over my head and a supervisor who gave me a yearly rating guaranteeing between the two personnel actions, that I will not be able to leave this job, even if we want to move.

I made it very clear that the drug regimen is not working.

I made it very clear that the work situation was untenable. 

All she wants to know is whether I’m going to kill myself. And how. And she wondered about my rusting shotgun.

Exasperated, I said, no, I’m not going to kill myself but if I did I know it wouldn’t be with a shotgun that doesn’t work. 

It was Col. Mustard in the bedroom with the bungee cord

Well, how, she asked.

I gave this a few seconds of thought. Drowning myself in the koi pond sounded romantic but I didn’t think she’d buy that.

Um, how about a bungee cord from a doorknob? Seems easy enough, and, like those exercisers you see Ronco pushing at Christmas, they fit over any doorknob anywhere – at home, at work, even in your doctor’s waiting room!

Seriously, I wouldn't kid you

Instead of seeing the humor (hell, no one ever sees the humor, I think they’d rather see you off yourself since it would demonstrate that at least you’re a serious person), she asked me if I had any bungee cords at home.

Seriously?

Yes, seriously.

Doctor, do you want to come over to my house and take all my bungee cords? Because if I ever must bring home something large in my car or move, I’ll have to buy a whole other set.

Words fail me some times. This was not one of those times.

I really think we're making progress here

“Look, while you’re there taking my greasy bungee cords, why don’t you help yourself to all the knives and forks in the kitchen too,” I said. “I mean I don’t mean to be disrespectful (but I did), but there are so, so many things you can use to off yourself, it’s only limited by your own imagination!”

See why I’ve gone through so many, many mental health professionals in my life? 

As for the drug regimen that is clearly no longer working, that seemed to panic her about as much as the phantom bungee cords (I mean seriously, have you even LOOKED at pictures of suicides doctor? I could show you a few sites. . .).

Her solution was to double down and prescribe more of the same, which we did six months ago. 

Happy happy happy happy

Yes, if it’s clearly not working, let’s do much more of the same.

With that kind of thinking, I think she has a clear shot to be the next general manager of the Cleveland Browns.

As for the job, her solution was quite novel.

“I just think you need to find a different way of thinking about your job,” she said. 

I am seriously not kidding. 

And that’s when I knew it was game over.

You see, I think my psychiatrist is probably pretty book smart. But I think judging from what I’ve seen of her credentials and FB site (yes, I spy on everyone – I was in Military Intel, it’s in my blood) that she can’t put herself in the shoes of her patients. I asked her to do that today and she said “I’m trying.”

She can’t. She has never known the want, the pain and the fear inside of people she is looking to help. She can’t relate to it. There’s always a book solution, always another pill, always some, well, bullshit rationale that will keep the patient from bleeding out mentally. At least until they do. 

But for Christ’s sakes, don’t die on my watch. The paperwork is such a pain.

Often time I have caught her looking at me as if I was some sort of exotic insect. I suspect many other patients have noticed the same thing as well. We fit somewhere into the diagnosis matrix of the DSM V. Some of us are just a little harder to identify, classify and index.

So, the next time I go back to see her, everything will be fine. I won’t waste her time by whining about intractable issues of jobs and medications and she can get me in and out in enough time to protect her billable hours because her nice Lexus in the parking lot needs paid. 

No sense fighting for treatment or a solution. There is no solution and treatment, it seems, is pushing the latest drug the pharmacy rep has just given her samples of (I’ve seen all manner of trinkets on her desk with drug trade names on them). 

I should have given up on treatment a long time ago. I was stupid. I believed the advertising, the hype, the caring professionals who said, in the nicest ways, that they wanted to help you. 

It’s an industry, like everything else. As for your mental concerns, what it comes down to is this:

You’re on your own sucker. 

I Have A Little List

I have a piece of paper hanging taped to the support beam on my side desk. 

Not MY petition but A petition

I’m debating the good it does. It’s a debate that will go on for a while.’

The paper is a petition, dated Dec. 29, 2015 and signed by eight co-workers and presented by two other employees to top management where I work. 

Basically, without naming me (cowards) they asked management to protect them from an employee (me) who was using “inappropriate, threatening and alarming language,” and asked management to provide a “safe, secure environment” moving forward.

The petition was ginned up by a former boss and pseudo-management co-worker, who took the ‘incident’ of Dec. 19, 2015 and ran with it in an attempt to get me fired. I don’t need to recount that sorry tale again – you can read it here.

The member of management who received the letter asked for written statements containing specific allegations from the people who signed. None ever came. No specific instances, no dates, times or locations were ever forwarded. Of the 10 people who had anything to do with this petition, five are gone and five remain.

The echo of the HR hack at my last interrogation still rings in my head: “the people up there you think are your friends are the ones that are reporting on you.

Yesterday, I sat in my office, on the far side of the floor, isolated and alone. This is the usual day for me nowadays. I try very hard to keep to myself and communicate with co-workers only when work needs to be done. I have exempted myself from all further get-togethers as a stray innocent remark made at a luncheon in June was used against me. 

And yesterday, the lonesomeness and isolation was making a mess of my mind. No matter how many distractions aside from my normal work I can indulge in, it’s tough to maintain a façade when your co-workers are outside your door, having an animated conversation with your supervisor. 

And you’re not a part of it. I could step out with a smile on my face and a “hey guys, what’s happening,” and watch the conversation die and the group break up. I can’t bear that.

So, back to the petition I have on my desk.

The reason I have it there is to get it through my thick skull that as bad as I want to have some human contact (I won’t even go so far as to say ‘have friends’) in this office, that the atmosphere has become poisoned enough that the HR hack’s warning (and my union rep’s warning) that I have no friends here.

" . . .a BLABBERMOUTH!"

And that I have to keep my big mouth shut. Because bipolar people tend to be notorious blabbermouths. Ask me how I know.

 

I really thought I could handle this. But every day that goes by gets just a little bit harder and it wears me down. 

I sit in silence and dread the sound of people approaching my door, coming up the stair, off the elevator or hearing the phone ring. I dread opening every email addressed to me. I didn’t used to be this way. 

I don’t know how NOT to be hyper-vigilant anymore. 

I’ve been this way since my mom’s health started to go downhill which was in the summer of 2008 and my bookstore started to fail because of the economy. Then I had to sell the bookstore in the fall of 2009 and move to South Dakota for a job in December of that year. Then I had to spend the next year (2010) with my bags packed waiting to fly to Cleveland whenever my mom would take another turn for the worst.

Then in December 2010, I started the job with the VA in Pittsburgh and moved here. From the very beginning there was a good deal of stress as my job duties and expectations were never clearly given to me and I never received one whit of training. It was ‘stumble as you go.’ At the same time, my mother’s health continued to decline and I eventually became her power of attorney and executor of her will. During the period 2011-12 I was constantly spending my weekends in Cleveland with my wife and arranging both my mother’s care and the disposition of our family home. This was NOT a very good period in my life. 

Mom passed away in December 2012. It took six more months to settle the estate and satisfy all the obligations. I really didn’t even have time to grieve. I still don’t think I have as I tend to avoid all the family albums in the basement, especially the ones from the last five years of my mom’s life.

Then in October 2013, the man who hired me left one step ahead of his own dismissal. Like many VA managers, a friend set him up in another part of the organization. I did not realize at the time, that this man had been my protection. I didn’t even know I needed protection. 

What followed then was a procession of detailed managers and two ‘permanent managers each of who lasted less than a year apiece and presided over tumultuous times for our section. The first one flooded the zone with new hires in the spring of 2014, many of whose names were on that petition. They were hired in order to get this manager a higher pay grade. When he didn’t get it, he left, but not before using his new people to gradually strip me of all the media relations responsibilities I had had under my old boss. I went from being the ‘go-to’ guy to being the superfluous clerk. 

He didn’t like me. It wasn’t a secret. He was influenced by others in the section who wanted to purge the people from the old regime. Had he stayed around long enough he might have succeeded. I called him on that and his lack of management effectiveness. I’m sure he didn’t like that either. I’m also sure he and the other employees in his little mafia briefed the new manager when he took over in March 2015.

It also strikes deep. Into your life it will creep.

I know this sounds like paranoia but it’s true. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has faced this situation. The new boss was worse than the last one. Within three months of his hire, the incident of June 8, 2015 happened which led to where I am now.

Eight years of looking behind my back. Eight years of worry and fear. More shrinks, more pills, more attempts at living a life where I could relax and enjoy life without the need for pharmaceuticals. 

Even if the magic job fairy came and performed a miracle for me now, I’m not sure I could dis-attach the wires and circuits that have made me what I am today – at least not for a long time. You just can’t turn it off that easily.