Every breath I take feels like a sigh. It's uncomfortable.
I've been feeling flu-ish since Monday afternoon. Part of me wonders if it's a side effect of the meds or a small summertime flu.
I honestly don't know what I hope it is.
Friday I see the brain doctor again. Maybe he'll tell me.
I feel like there is a dead, dark star in my middle trying to pull me in.
The last week has been really tough.
I spoke with the brain doctor last Monday and I talked to him more directly about things than I ever have before. I didn't feel good about it either, but it had to be done so I could reach for a place to start.
The next day, and for the rest of the week, I almost couldn't get out of bed. There has been a block in my mind, making it muddy, and a pressure on my lungs, trying to make my body collapse in on itself.
Before I saw the doctor I was keeping everything sealed inside, but since seeing the doctor the seal has been broken and stuff keeps leaking out. Hopefully the seal will get back into place soon.
Sometimes I want to make up an entirely different life and post it to my actual Facebook page just to confuse the hell out of my family.
The brain doctor has given me pills. I am to take the pill before I go to bed because some people get sleepy after taking them. Four to six weeks is the expected time for me to start feeling better.
The brain doctor is also very concerned with something that I told him, but choose not to discuss here. So, there may be another kind of brain altering pill for me to take, depending.
I keep worrying about what will happen tomorrow.
What will happen to me if the doctor decides that I shouldn't be on medication? If the way I've felt for years is normal depression then I don't know if I'll be able to… I look at people at work or at the store or in my family and don't think that they feel like this all the time, like I do.
And then there's the other side where I do get the medication and it doesn't work. What if this is normal for me? What if it does work and I'm a different person? Will I be able to recognize myself?
Hopefully it's just stupid worries. It's probably just stupid worries. Right?
Work has been really, really hard since my visit on Monday. Harder than it's been since I started. And I'm not talking about the actual work I do, rather work itself.
I haven't ever liked where I am working right now, but recently has been worse. I find my patients running short. I have an almost constant stomach ache. When I drive away from work my foot is like lead and I drive much faster than I think I should (though slower than some of the driver think I should). I'm also constantly very tired. I think the tiredness is more mental than physical. Either way I'm tired and concentration is hard.
I don't want to go back tomorrow, but I will because I won't be SICK-sick, just remain brain sick.
I spent a portion of the work day reading about the drug the brain doctor would like to put me on. The side effects are basically the same as every other SSRI I've read about.
I also did the 500+ inventory test he asked me to do. Some of it I wasn't to sure of. It was all true/false, which made most of it easy, but there are questions where the real answer is "sometimes," but there was no way to answer that way. And then there was the question that, well it went some like "I have spent a lot of time imagining I was a girl. (Or if you are a girl you like being a girl.)" I don't know how to interpret that question. There were more questions that struck me as odd, but that one seemed the oddest.
There's no lab test to tell if a person is has major depressive disorder, but the doctor claims that the test helps to figure it out. Still, after spending an hour with him talking about the horrible-ness of my brain and he doesn't think I'm very depressed, well I don't think a test would tell him.
Oh, well. I go back on Friday and I expect to get a prescription then pick up some pills and, hopefully, in four to six weeks I'll be a different me. A better me.
First day of head stuff has now ended. The doctor gave me a test. Over 500 true/false questions and I go back on Friday. I wish that I felt hopeful.
I just realized the ironical bent to the fact that I posted the last post on a public weblog, so I wanted to offer an explanation.
First, I created this blog to write. Write something, anything. Just write. Hence I write about me and myself a lot because I can do that more easily even while spinning 'round the drain.
Second, I know that my blog is really only read by one person. (Hi, bro!) Mostly this site is a brief stop while pressing Blogger's "next" button. So, it is unlikely that someone who is, or isn't, anyone will read what I wrote, no matter what was written.
Tomorrow I see the psychiatrist. I guess it's a try-out for him and for me. I choose him for two reasons:
1. English is his first language. I may be a little racist, but therapy will be hard enough without trying to wade through an accent.
2. His name. It amuses me. It's WWII/European slang for traitor, specifically a Nazi collaborator. That just tickles my nerdish side.
I am so nervous about this whole fucking thing. I have no reason to be, really, but I am. I'm supposed to somehow tell this stranger things that I've never told my family and people who might consider me a friend. Seroisly, how am I supposed to do that? I don't trust people I've known for years, but I supposed to trust this guy?
I'm not so conceded that I think he'll be dying to talk about my session with someone, but I don't like the thought that it might happen. Even in a general kind of way. I don't even want him, or his receptionist telling people that a new patient.
I know how bad I feel about that kind of shit, too. When I was doing the therapy thing before and the therapy people decided that the group thing was where I needed to be one of the people in the group told me that something I said the week before was good and she shared it with her husband. I wanted to vomit right there. I never really again and then refused to do the second part of the group thing.
Just reading that makes me feel like an idiot, but it the way I feel.
Part of the irony of growing up fat is that you do your best to hide, go unnoticed. I was never really bullied for being a fat brainiac because there were people who didn't know how to keep their mouths shut. They were the ones who got picked on. As an adult I still have a tendency to hide and I don't like to have the spotlight on me, in any way. When I find out that people talk about me I get uncomfortable, not because of what they are saying -- I'm sure that I think and say much worse things about myself -- but because they notice me enough to form opinions about me that they want to share with someone.
I am so concerned with this sort of shit that… Fuck, I don't know what. I just… You know?
Are there other people like this? Seven billion people in this world, I know I can't be the only one. Doesn't help knowing that there are people just as fuck up as me out there. Like it doesn't help knowing there are people more fucked up than me, either.
Appointment with head shrinker has been made. Stomach is doing flip flops and my palms are clammy.
Yes, this is the way to start the healing.
I feel so guilty for leaving work on time. There's a lot of work to do, but so often my brain feels like goop hours before the end of the day. Plus I spend the whole day constantly working, always busy, but nothing ever seems to get accomplished. Nothing is ever finished. Even when the hiring is finished.
Today I started looking for a mental health professional. Haven't made an appointment,yet, but by the end of the week I will.
Also, I've started looking for a new job. I have got to get out of prisons.
I fell asleep yesterday sometime between four an five while I was reading. I woke up around eight. I think I brushed my teeth and then climbed into bed. Aside from a time or two when I had to pee, I didn't wake up again until 7:30 this morning. And I still could have used more sleep.
Oh, well, at least I get to see giant robots fighting monsters at the movies today.
It is so fucking hard to get out and go to work. But I really should. Fuck.