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.

 



I've been baking and creating - call it therapy!

SPCA Cupcake Day

iPhone 4 Birthday cake for my brother

Thank you cupcakes

 

Castle Cake

 

End of season Soccer cupcakes

 

 

Lightning McQueen Cake

 

 

.......and an update 08/10/2012 ....preparing to make my son's Angry Birds birthday cake

 

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!

I think I have developed tolerance (to clonazepam)

The thoughts about dropping dead had stopped for a while - or rather they came and went and I wasn't bothered by them. I put that down to the clonazepam. Now - they are back with a vengeance, I'm not sleeping well - having panic again, visual disturbance feeling sick, hot and cold. I suspect I've become tolerant to the dose - I say this because of the return of the above problems and because the drowsiness has eased (only to be replaced with my usual fatigue).

And I feel really really depressed, crying all the time - I just want to go to sleep and wake up when its all gone. I need peace. I can't focus, I can't, or don't want to, move. Night sweats last night sore chest and fear of dying all back.

I've read that clonazepam can make depression worse.

I'm so upset - I thought I was doing better...............now I feel like I might have gotten myself stuck in a tolerance, dependence, addiction drug hell spiral ~!~!

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????!!!!!!

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.

I just can't do this anymore

WTF am I doing?

I sit here flicking between my email inbox, Facebook, various online shopping sites, news sites...and back and forwards and back and forwards. Checking my symptoms over and over again to make sure they are consistent with depression and panic disorder. It is like a compulsion - as long as I sit by the computer and do this I'll be OK!!!

Today I feel dizzy, giddy, unsteady, weak, shaky, unstable....stumbling bumbling sure I'm going to pass out and die......flushed, hot.

Stop - check my inbox - nothing - check Facebook - nothing new. Look outside - light to bright. Hang out washing - stumble, bumble...unsteady - hold on, hold on it'll be OK. No it won't what if its not OK. OMG I'm going to die - my son won't be picked up from school or he'll come home to find me dead.

Check inbox

Feeling flushed

Check Facebook

Check inbox - no reply from husband yet about today's symptoms and fears

Ohhhhhh Goddddddddd please HELP ME.

I'm still bleeding although it easing off a little - had to call the hospital yesterday for reassurance - yes apparently it can happen......I feel as if the D and C was oversold to us - I thought it would save all this blood, clots and mess :(

Inbox....still nothing       Bank account - not much       Stuff website - no change

Inbox - reply form husband:

No, it’s not. You’re depressed, and worrying about symptoms, and have lost confidence in your ability to do lots of things. Then, as a result, you’re not doing much in the way of physical exercise so when you do try to do something requiring exertion it becomes a struggle. You need to break out of that cycle. Please allow me to take you for a walk this weekend.

No, it’s not. You’re depressed, (sure am) and worrying about symptoms (guess so), and have lost confidence in your ability to do lots of things (sure have). Then, as a result, you’re not doing much in the way of physical exercise (too scared to move) so when you do try to do something requiring exertion it becomes a struggle (maybe). You need to break out of that cycle. Please allow me to take you for a walk this weekend (OK).