Update - haven't written for a while and that is probably a good sign?!

I haven't written for a while and that is probably a good sign?! I say that because it means that I have been busy - busy engaging with people and getting back out into life again - a little.

I've been taking half a clonazepam/klonopin (0.25 mg) a day for quite some time now. I managed to cut out the bed time one. This has changed my thinking somewhat so that I am not in a constant state of panic about my symptoms despite they're still being there. I'm still extremely tired and in pain (back, joints etc).

I've been able to go to a theme park for a friend's sons birthday, been able to go to school functions...even been able to take my son to school and pick him up (by myself). Attend my psychology/counselling and psychiatrist appointments. Been to friends houses across town just for social gatherings.

And I've been able to go to shops to buy needed materials/ingredients for crafts I have been making and cakes that I have been decorating (see previous entry about baking and therapy). And made the cake below for my son's 6th birthday. I guess everyone knows his name now :P

 

 

And yes I've given myself pats on the back for all my achievements - but I am still so damn tired, fatigued, exhausted, hurt and getting frequent headaches. I have hope now that this won't last forever.....but oh how I wish I could kick this bone crushing fatigue.

 

This isn't the way I had dreamt my life would be. I need to think about how I can change that. I need to follow 'signs'. I suspect I will not be picking up my PhD where I left it and I will be following my cake decorating passion. Perhaps I will start a small business from home - one where I can control how many cakes I do....because being such a perfectionist....some of the cakes I've made recently have nearly killed me!!!

 

I can't keep my head up.....I think I will go and have a sleep today.

 



Images of how my head feels

How my head feels - I've wanted to paint something akin to the above picture....a combination of having my head in a vice and exploding because of the pressure!

Ladyhawke - ANXIETY - lyrics

"Anxiety"

I take a pill to help me through the day
I stay inside until I feel okay

I’ve always been so cautious
But I’m sick of feeling nauseous
It’s not that I am losing
This wall of my own choosing

Take me on a ride
Show me how to hide the voice in my head
Meet me on the road, tell me all you know
I’m here on my own

Take me on a ride
Show me how to hide the voice in my head
You’ve got away with my anxiety
It’s yours to take back

I walk alone, I stumble to the beat
My stack of drums are always on repeat
You never win when losing is a game
Inside your head there’s no one else to blame

I’ve always been so cautious
But I’m sick of feeling nauseous
It’s not that I am losing
This wall of my own choosing

Take me on a ride
Show me how to hide the voice in my head
Meet me on the road, tell me all you know
I’m here on my own

Take me on a ride
Show me how to hide the voice in my head
You’ve got away with my anxiety
It’s yours to take back

You’ve got away with my anxiety
It’s yours to take back

Take me on a ride
Show me how to hide the voice in my head
Meet me on the road, tell me all you know
I’m here on my own

Take me on a ride
Show me how to hide the voice in my head
You’ve got away with my anxiety
It’s yours to take back

 

 

 

Clonazepam zombie daze

Well....I completely flipped on Tuesday of last week. I was about to turn 41 on the Thursday, my husband was to be away for work again. On the Monday I felt I had better go and see my doctor because I had two big pustulous sores in my right ear - I couldn't hear properly. I panicked outside the doctors and then again in the waiting room.....I came over all hot and shaky and flu like and was convinced that this was the moment I was going to die.

I got up and somehow made my way over to reception and said something like: "Err I'm having a bit of a panic attack". The receptionist must have seen it all before because she quickly and discretely whisked me away to the nurses station - where they took my temp and other vitals and rendered me to be fine (apart from the panic).

Saw my GP about my ear and got a prescription for ear drops - well...EYE drops.....to put in my ear. Then we talked about my anxiety. yes...it had gone from bad to worse again. I said I was going to call my psychiatrist to have my medication reassessed. So my GP called herself because she didn't think I would - smart lady!

Tuesday morning....crying , crying, crying and more panic - a nurse from the community mental health centre had to come and get me. Took me to see the new psychiatric registrar.

Long story short - I was to up my Fluoxetine to 60mg and start taking Clonazepam (Paxam, Klonopin, Rivotril) twice a day for a few week - to try and dampen/suppress the anxiety and panic and enable my body to recover. I was to take 0.5 mg twice a day but 0.25 twice a day is rendering me a zombie!

I know Marceline is a vampire - but she has a zombie dog - Schwabl!

Well something like that sure is happening - I CANNOT physically have a panic attack, I'm now a zombie. I keep wanting/needing to lie down and I've slept much of the past week - day and night. My head and body feel leaden. Well at least I've stopped fighting now......my body is getting rest - I think...that is if these pills are screwing with me. I don't even care....that's how lax they've made me feel.

Probably the most unpleasant birthday I've ever had despite all the wonderful things other people did for me :(

I've been told that the sedation will pass as I get used to the drug and it will continue to exert its anxiolytic effect. Hope these headaches go too.....maybe its all just residual muscle tension and my body has a lot of catching up to do????

Vicious circle

"Anxiety is a survival mechanism that prepares us to act when we detect a threat in our environment that we will need to manage.

When we doubt our ability to handle things we tend to be on the look-out for potential threats and anxiety experiences become more intense, more prolonged and more frequent than usual.

When those experiences are coupled with attempts to cope by avoidance and/or suppression, we become stuck in a cycle of anxiety that decreases positive experiences of the world and makes every aspect of daily life a struggle.

Intense anxiety is designed to overtake all of our thought processes so all of our resources can be directed towards surviving the threat. Once it has been fully triggered, it is very difficult to turn our thoughts to other things or access a wider perspective by ourselves".

From Engage Aotearoa http://www.engagenz.co.nz/ 

So that explains why I cannot, can't possibly ever think about other things in the midst of an attack! Aha. That's why it's such a vicious circle.

Now I'm thinking - Heart Damage?! Or Fibromyalgia

Arrghhhhhh - now I'm having a tight chest, weakness, fatigue - all the rest of it. So I'm immediately thinking - womens' heart attack symptoms and/or my heart has been weakened and is damaged because of all the anxiety and panic. I can't win - these thought/obsessions with my body and its functioning.

But the pain in all my joints and my back has increased today - so perhaps the chest symptoms are relative to that - thoracic tension??! Sigh...I don't know. Every time I get up to something I feel exhausted and weak. I've been cleaning the house and fixing my lunch in fits and starts. Then I have to stop and rest for five minutes.

The pain - pain in the upper centre of my back, right hip - aching elbows, wrists, knees, ankles - biceps, triceps, quads, trapezius. Wow - that about corresponds to the trigger/tender points of fibromyalgia:

Or is fibromyalgia just another manifestation of depression?
Awww I need deep tissue massage and chiropractic - someone to 'crack' my back.

Some days I just can't bear this anymore - yet I go on.....

Flu-like illness or (Herxheimer reaction?) as an intermission from my usual anxiety

My son had a fever with headache last week (Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday - not Friday oddly where he went on to score five goals during soccer). Panic stations for me....NOooooooooo, I can't cope with more illness...my body won't cope....it  will kill me. Frantic handwashing and hand sanitising....no touching nose, mouth or eyes.

Then my friend calls to say she is sick, severe body aches, chills, fever and cough. Oh great. I'll stay away then. But she needed help - she had no tissues or toilet paper and was too weak to get up and out. So I went to the nearby dairy and got her some tissues and lemonade (and raided our toilet paper stash here at home. Brave her house. OMG she looked and sounded terrible....looked like full on flu despite her having had a flu shot. Or maybe a chest infection? Selfishly I didn't want to get too close but I ended up spending about half an hour - trying to be sympathetic and trying not to breath in virus particles. I had rubbed hand sanitiser under my nose and on my hands....more hand sanitiser upon leaving. Spent the next two days freaking that I would get her sickness and as bad.

Well I got sick - and probably more likley from my son.  For the past two or three days, I’ve had a fever, the aches, and a sore throat, snotty head, fatigue. I'm supposed to be having rest cos of this damn nervous breakdown, miscarriage etc etc - but now I'm freaking about the symptoms I'm experiencing in association with this cold.

For just about everyone, having a cold or the flu is a bummer. But for people with anxiety disorders, it can be extremely unpleasant, torturous. If, like me, you’re easily triggered into a panic by physiological changes, then it goes without saying that a fever or the mildly elevated heart rate that often accompanies the fever and aches and pains, dizziness etc can be extremely difficult, frightening to deal with.

I won’t even get into the horrible Catch-22 of cold meds and decongestants. They can easily fix one problem (e.g. congestion) but produce another problem ( jitters or spaciness) that can ramp up anxiety (I'm sticking with plain old panadol and zinc (with B6 etc.), olive leaf extract, manuka honey).

Hmmmmm maybe this is all a 'healing crisis' or the so-called Herxheimer reaction in response to microbial die off......oh yay - that means good health will be on the way in the next few days????!!!!!!

Meet the teacher

I was going to wait until I had gathered 'evidence' from a third party (third parent teacher help) but no....bugger it.

After my weekly session with my psychologist I have come to realise that that is how I tend to deal with things - not value my own feeling or evidence as being enough to want to do something about. So I get angrier and angrier at the person I believe to done wrong and angrier and angrier at myself for having not been assertive enough to do anything about it. That's what happened over the weekend...I stewed and stewed, got angrier and angrier and made myself sick with stress and worry and couldn't sleep and feel more tired (if that's possible) and run down and sad...more and more crying and thinking I'm going to die or have a brain haemorrhage (and die).

It's easier to turn my feelings of anxiety about dealing a problem into physical you see - cos I feel like physical problems could be more serious (leading to death) and therefore more worthy of help (apparently - all sounds a bit Freudian to me).

Anway, I'm not waiting on hearing from the third party - I'm going to trust my feelings and am going do something about it based on what I've seen and heard.

I sent an email:


Hi ***** (teacher's name),

I would like to arrange a time this week to come and see you and catch up with how ***** (son's name) is progressing in class. Would one day straight after school suit?

Cheers,

***** (my name).



I'll keep you all posted on how it goes of course :P

My mind has shut like a clam

...the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam - Sylvia Plath

My mind has shut like a clam or rather a big black curtain is drawn and I can't see anything beyond it - no future.

I've withdrawn from everyone and shut down. I am emotionally numb, too afraid too move or speak. Does anyone else experience attacks where the brain appears to shut down and its really hard to move or communicate? I feel blah and my mind says duh....and that's my day - aside from panic in between.

This could explain some of it:

 "As science gains greater insight into the consequences of stress on the brain, the picture that emerges is not a pretty one. A chronic overreaction to stress overloads the brain with powerful hormones that are intended only for short-term duty in emergency situations. Their cumulative effect damages and kills brain cells".

I've been living in such a heightened state of anxiety that I can no longer function. I feel that physically and mentally I cannot handle 'this' anymore and my mind has gone into shut down.

Psychologists, credit notes, scratchies and proctalgia fugax

Today I spent my last $2.00 on a scratchie with the hope of winning $5.00 or more to enable me to purchase a flat white (coffee). However, this sudden burst of gambling failed to yield a result :(  Stuck with plunger coffee today - it just doesn't hit the spot.
I also returned an item to the pharmacy that my husband had purchased and had hoped I would get cash or money reimbursed to my card - but oh no - this particular pharmacy is now one of the growing number of retailers that only give out credit notes....arggghhhhh...don't you hate that?

Today saw my return to my clinical psychologist. I didn't go last week because my son decided he was sick and couldn't go to school. And I didn't attend the week before because I was having one of my episodes of proctalgia fugax or levator ani syndrome...which ever it is - painful butt cramps that go on for hours. As if someone has shoved a red hot broom handle up my back passage (not that I've ever experienced anything like that to know what it feels like)!

Anyway -  psychologist thought that I was having trouble attending because of some psychological thing - some difficulty in getting there or something she had said that had upset me. I had to set the record straight and tell her there was nothing like that.....in fact I had been heaps better, able to leave the house on my own etc, etc....see previous posts.....until this last week - see setback post.
Today's talk was about my unbearable pain and stiffness in my neck and upper back. She/we decided that my not knowing the outcome of scholarships and my having been called in by my son's teacher about his inability to sit still in class are ....well...literally a 'pain in the neck'

Goodness knows what the butt cramps are about then?! Being 'sick of all this shit', being 'anally retentive', holding on to all my shit????......or is it all just muscular tension over my entire body?

Getting far too Freudian with all these metaphors.

Sigh....I just need to know if I'm going to be getting any funding to complete my PhD (and to fund my caffeine addiction)!

I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired

Aunt Flo

Oh the relief - Aunt Flo arrived early - definitely something up with my hormone balance - imbalance! Throwing up big time yesterday. Massive panic attacks - hot and cold, night sweats, low back pain - period like pain all week with no period (until now).

Actually - I'm not feeling that relieved - I'm washed out, exhausted, weepy and scared I'm going to die from the exhaustion. This is all so overwhelming, depressing and debilitating.

I suppose I had better go to the GP and tell her all this........but I just don't trust anyone anymore.....besides I can't face sitting in the waiting room and I don't have $37.00 to spare. I begrudge giving them money when they haven't followed through on what I asked. What are they going to do anyway - take blood tests....how reliable are those? Will have have to have a blood test every week of my next cycle? Then what? a trial of HRT? Or do I change my diet, keep up the herbal stuff.

Or do I just shut up and put up despite all these debilitating symptoms - besides...all women go through it?!

Hemlock in my salad

Sooooo...yesterday I was eating a Thai beef salad I had made myself - including salad greens mix. I bit into something rather bitter and spat it out. I swore it looked like a plant from the Umberliferae family with its little clustered flower heads. Could it possibly be....hemlock......nah surely not. Surfing the net looking for images - and botanical literature describing leaf morphology etc. Realised it wasn't hemlock but it took me a good two hours to reassure myself that it was more likely a bit of mizuna gone to seed! This is how my mind works ....gets obsessed with something - usually something that is about to cause my imminent death - and it sticks....and I freak out - have a full blown panic attack.

And today - I wake up with a head cold and irritated throat. But of course I have to think the worst - this is going to kill me...yada yada ...then my head gets stuff, eyes feel numb, ears get a sensation of fullness and I feel weak and dizzy. Instead of attributing this to a mild cold; I have to think I'm going to pass out and die :(

Oh God...too scared to leave the house and finish hanging out the washing let alone post *****'* present. I need to eat too.....that will probably help...but too scared to get up from computer. Feel numbness between my eyes....is this just a cold? Really?

Can't concentrate, can't focus...can't be responsible, rational....arggghhhhhhhh

I'm constantly scared I'm going die and leave ***** behind and miss out on him - and I freak out at the school and can't wait for the bell to ring so that I can make my escape. And then I when ***** gets sick I'm constantly checking him cos I'm scared I'm going lose him. These are my EVERYDAY obsessions. I'm obsessive about death and illness and trying to keep things tidy.

Oh please please make it stop

Friday 21st October 2011

Skip forward in time to today.

Today is not such a good day. I had a diagnostic laparoscopy 5 weeks ago and I'm still uncomfortable. Is this to be expected? My abdomen feels tight and I have vague pains near by umbilical incision. In fact I can squeeze pus out of the incision and can see a stitch poking out! Presumably it takes a while for absorbable sutures to dissolve???!!! I read somewhere up the three months. Is that correct? I have an appointment with my new GP today to review what I'm planning to do about my depression/anxiety/agoraphobia. I'll ask then - if I'm granted enough time! I also feel like someone is trying to pull out my uterus and have pain over might right ovary area. This is where adhesions were found and divided. It is also the site of the removal of an ovarian cyst the size of a grapefruit in 1989. This old surgery is probably the cause of the formation of the adhesions. The adhesions are causing my right ovary to stick to my right fallopian tubes that is in turn adhered to my uterus - the surgeons couldn't do anything about that but they did divide the adhesions from my right ovary to bowel to right abdominal wall. I thought all the cyclical pain would end after the surgery - it hasn't....but perhaps things are still inflamed in there! Time will tell.

In the meantime I'm freaking that i have peritonitis or something and I'm about to die. My doctor's appointment is two hours away and I just can't wait that long - then there's the wait in the waiting room - torture (panic attack inducing).

It is our son's last day at preschool today - perhaps I am anxious and tied up in knots about that? I just know I am going to be so emotional - the staff have been absolutely amazing and the place is more like extended family. We can't thank them enough and are so sad that ***** has to leave to go on to primary school :(  But the time has come and we are all excited for ***** starting big boy's school :)

Perhaps it is the expectation to perform - to turn up at the preschool where I have felt giddy and panicky before. I also need to pop into work for a few hours today - also the expectation to perform - I have to help out a colleague.

I just can't do it - don't want to do it - I don't want to HAVE to do anything - I'm too tired....so tired....so exhausted - surely I'm at the limits of human endurance....


Later: Well doctor was running late - guess what....had a panic attack in the waiting room. Thought my vision was fading out. I was so agitated...surely someone must've noticed my fidgeting! I searched 'Having a panic attack in the doctor's waiting room' and found an interesting blog to occupy me until Dr ******** came out of her office. It all went well...things are progressing - psychiatrist being called to arrange prescription for new drug (Avanza), password for online CBT - 'Beating the Blues' in progress. Abdomen was palpated, seems fine. Discussed the pulling sensations, pain etc and found out that most people are only 80% healed by 6 months, that's right 6 months after abdominal surgery and that includes laparoscopy. I mentioned that I had heard two weeks - but was told 'on the outside maybe'. I have permission to pull at and cut off the suture poking out of my belly button if I wish....it won't dissolve if not exposed to my bodily fluids! And sutures CAN take up to three months to dissolve!! All very reassuring.

Later again: Psychiatrist won't prescribe Avanza - wants me to try adding nortriptyline to fluoxetine. No way.....I've read that there are major interactions between the two. Apparently that's a psychiatrist's prerogative! I'll sleep on it......or maybe I'll come right with the status quo and increased exercise and CBT.

A bit of history

My first episode of depression probably happened when I was about 16 or 17 - although we (my family and I) never clicked on to what it was - I guess no-one gave mental illness a thought in the 80s - or didn't want to acknowledge it. My Dad had died suddenly at the age of 37 from a cerebral haemorrhage, when I was 14 and my brother, 11. I don't think I started to grieve properly until two years later. I recall walking to the bike stands and feeling unsteady, giddy - I'd never experienced the sensation before. I think things got worse from there. The dizzy-giddy sensation started to freak me out to the point where I became agoraphobic and starting skipping school. I started to get headaches and other bodily aches and pains. Soon enough school noticed and I was sent to the school counsellor - lots of crying and telling them what they wanted to hear. Lots of visits backwards and forwards to the doctor who kept telling me the regular cyclical pain I had since developed was in all likelihood constipation and irritable bowel. I could assure him I wasn't constipated. Lots of tests - barium enemas, sigmoidoscopy (great lots of gas pumped into me and no warning of the after effects - I got on a public bus only to be able to go one stop!), ultrasounds etc etc. Nothing wrong with my bowels, kidneys, liver.....soon developed a lump in my throat and excessive thirst - no diabetes and lump in throat given a name - globus hystericus.....it went away once I had a diagnosis for it!

I year or so went by and I changed GP. He suspected an ovarian cyst. I was sent to a specialist and operated on to remove a cyst the size of a grapefruit and some from my tubes. After recovery from surgery I felt great. I had been cured/fixed!!

A couple of years later and in my first year of University - started to get strange smothering sensations, felt dizzy...had to run from where ever I was. I recall sitting in a boring as hell Greek and Roman History lecture - lots of dates to remember for exams! I just had to get out of there but I was stuck in the middle of a lecture theatre row. Embarrassingly I scrambled out only to have the lecturer call out above a class of 300 or so - 'So pleased you found my lecture so interesting' Laughter. If only he knew boring brown suited arsehole! I ran outside, trying to catch my breath. What was wrong with me? cancer...I have cancer?!!

Things spiralled out of control - I gave up on University, failed to turn up for my part time job on occasion. Tried to treat myself with herbal medicine - even started training as a Naturopath. Nothing helped. Eventually, after 18 months this time, an even newer GP (I'd moved by this time) asked me to try it his way for one month and see if I felt any better. Prozac had just made its way here. There was no way I was taking an MAOI given the dietary restrictions and what my Dad had died of! OK...I said....I agreed.

One month later I was thanking him for saving my life and things stayed this way for almost ten years. The grey curtains had opened, I could feel the sun again, I laughed and meant it (instead of wondering why others were laughing and why I felt so unreal)- I could sit at a movie theatre and not need to sit at the end of the row to make my escape.

Things stayed this way for close to 10 years.....that is until I got Glandular Fever (mononucleosis) at the age of 30