Amantadine day 4

I’m back to having my normal amount of stand-up-and-immediately-have-to-squat-so-I-don’t-black-out episodes. But holy buckets they’re way more intense.

 
Since there’s no way to measure a baseline on these things, I can’t objectively tell if my tremors and wiggling have subsided. I sometimes think they have and I equally sometimes think they have not.

HOLY SHIT WHAT’S UP WITH MY HAIR?

I had planned on going to the gym today, but I slept too late (meaning 11:00 am) and had to dive right into the day’s plans. With yesterday’s prolonged migraine that equals zero trips to the gym over the weekend. But lots and lots of fitful sleep.

 
I think I’m getting a bit of a chest cold. So all measures of Amantadine’s efficacy are essentially contaminated with pestilence, distraction and whining.

 
HOLY SHIT WHAT’S UP WITH MY HAIR?

Another crash

I was supposed to leave this morning for my annual summer vacation to visit friends in D.C. and stay at their best-porch-on-the-planet beach house in Rehoboth, DE, but I had to cancel a few weeks ago due to work issues. A lot of cool things have popped up on my calendar here in Cedar Rapids this weekend though, so I'm more or less OK with missing my trip.

But I still missed work this morning thanks to a rough descent into a bipolar depressive episode that started last night. I talk a lot about being bipolar on here, and every time I think I should stop someone messages me out of the blue to thank me for being so open and honest about it. Enough people have confided in me the stories of their struggles with mental illness that I sometimes worry I won't remember everyone in my mental checklist of kindred, struggling spirits. I've developed close, supportive friendships with a lot of these people though, and our check-ins and conversations and even drives across town just to give hugs are so dear and so valuable to me that I'll probably never stop talking about my own struggles.

So here's this morning's report: I woke up at 6:00 in a motivational black hole with a fiery headache and enough disorientation that I knew enough to skip the gym—which is huge because some days working out is the only thing that keeps me human—and to let my boss know that I'd come in after lunch, if at all today. Then I went back to the kind of non-sleep that feels like you're staying awake getting more and more exhausted compounded by the stress of feeling worried about getting more and more exhausted. But when I woke up around 11:00 my head was clear enough that I could look at the episode objectively and summon the coping and pushing-through skills I've learned over the last decade and I showered and ate and made it to work, where I've been surprisingly productive ... albeit profoundly exhausted.

So to all the people I know who are dealing with mental illness and to all the people I don't know who are dealing with mental illness and to all the rest of you curious enough about my struggles today to have read this far: You will fight this battle all your life. You will get meds that don't work, you will get meds that actually make things worse and you will find meds that you'll notice start to make improvements ... though you'll spend ages waiting cynically for them to fail you. In the mean time, learn what helps you stabilize yourself and what helps you push your way out of the wet wool blankets and the rolling fogs that trap you. As soon as I felt coherent this morning, I texted one friend who right now is in a bottomless depressive episode so we could both not feel alone in our struggles and I texted another friend who as far as I know is not having an episode just so I'd know that someone who deeply understands what I'm going through is at the very least thinking about me. And then I picked out a shirt that says carpe diem on it and I know that it's totally goofy bordering on stupid, but if I'm wearing a shirt that means something to me on a certain day or in a certain situation, I feel compelled to go out in the world and show it to everybody.

And after what my head put me through this morning, I need everyone to know—no, I need to SHOW everyone—that I'm seizing the hell out of the rest of my today.

Do you have ANY IDEA how hard it is to take a decent helicopter selfie in a hooded sweatshirt? DO YOU?

The hood opens around you like a massive poppy in full bloom and you end up with a dinner-plate halo like you’re a minor saint in a Medieval altar triptych.

Anyway, when you stave off a bipolar episode by sleeping all day and then chug a pre-workout shake before an evening trip to the gym, you end up wide awake at 11:45 pm. But I wore red for International Women’s Day and I gave a little hug to (I think) every woman at rehearsal tonight (though we were a bit chaotic so I may have missed somebody but please know that you’re all kick-ass and I love all of you every day) and even though I always feel guilty when I miss work, I count today as good but I just REALLY want to fall asleep now.

I felt a little unplugged and unproductive at work yesterday, but I went on to have a killer leg workout

Then I woke up today totally scattered and exhausted, so I took my first sick day in months. It’s hard to discern an off day from the onset of a depressive episode, but I decided today was an onset and I’m glad I called in sick and spent the day sleeping to an Alexa playlist of classical orchestral music. Because I woke up human again. Lingeringly groggy, but human. Onward!

I'm back from my three-month checkup with my psychiatrist

And she still wants to keep seeing me every three months instead of the every-4-6-week schedule I was on a year ago. This might sound good to you, but it's HUGE to me and my family. The bipolar med cocktail that she's methodically calibrated for me over the last three years seems to be keeping me stable (though the 12+ miles I've been running every week since March might also have something to do with it), and of course the tireless, diligent support of my family and friends has been an enormous part of that success.

I'm so thankful for all of this—and all of you—that I splurged on a massive bucket of Diet Coke and two super-sticky apple fritters on the way to work. Even though caffeine and sugar probably undermine the efficacy of my meds and exacerbate their weight-gain side effects. But I'm pretty sure I can manage these setbacks.

Well, THAT was awkward

We were running along at a nice pace down the Cedar River Trail, the sky started thundering at us, the rain started ... and I started having my own flashes of light. And the gray sand washing down my face that I feel when I’m about to have a blackout episode. Because bipolar meds are fun.

This happens multiple times a day when I stand up too fast. But it’s never happened when I’m running. I tried to slog through it, hoping it would pass ... and I got about half a mile before I noticed I was zigzagging so I wisely let what little common sense I had left prevail and I stopped. It was mile 3.12, which was almost our turnaround point. But it WAS a complete 5K, so I deserve a medal.

You know who else deserves medals? Rob and Scott, who stopped their run and insisted walking the 3.12 miles back with me. I kept insisting I was fine. I kept insisting that they run ahead and get their miles in. But they kept insisting on being awesome friends and not leaving me. Those jerks.

I feel normal now. The flashes of light and gray sand are gone. But I’m frustrated and a little concerned and totally embarrassed about the whole thing. And very soaked from the rain.

Shit.

Yawn

When you accidentally took your night bipolar meds—which include the sedating Clozapine—instead of your morning ones plus you didn’t rehydrate nearly enough after your morning run so you’re profoundly sleepy and your entire body feels like an immolated corpse and you need all the stimulation and moisture you can get before work:

And on all days to screw up my meds, I had my three-month psychiatrist appointment this morning. I’m apparently still normal enough to be allowed to roam among the unsuspecting citizenry, but I’ve been having near-blackouts multiple times a day for months and my blood pressure is on the alarmingly low side of normal, so now I have another compelling reason—the other one being I’m 50 and need to be responsible and get a colonoscopy—to visit my GP.

I did NOT just talk about my colon on my blog. Did I?

Anyway, I’ll call to schedule an (yawn) appointment with my (yawn) GP just as (yawn) soon as I rehydrate my (yawn) cells and wake the hell (yawn) up.

Yawn. Colon.

This shirt may be the best part of my day

When your damn hip injury seems to be creeping up into your lower back so you still can't run and it's a cool overcast day which is your favorite running weather but it's still your favorite weather for anything and your candidate won the Democratic gubernatorial primary last night and you found a totally cool stretch-cotton batik-print paisley polo this morning that you'd forgotten you had and your car is so totally clean and free of clutter that you can actually take a wide-view selfie to show off the back seat and even though you're a little bit bipolar-foggy today you're still functional enough to write a staggeringly long run-on sentence that technically has neither a subject nor a predicate but you're a writer and you can get away with such brazen linguistic abominationness plus you make up words with shameless abandon plus you end blog posts with needless prepositions at.

Carpe diem

I was supposed to leave this morning for my annual summer vacation to visit friends in D.C. and stay at their best-porch-on-the-planet beach house in Rehoboth, DE, but I had to cancel a few weeks ago due to work issues. A lot of cool things have popped up on my calendar here in Cedar Rapids this weekend though, so I'm more or less OK with missing my trip.

But I still missed work this morning thanks to a rough descent into a bipolar depressive episode that started last night. I talk a lot about being bipolar, and every time I think I should stop someone messages me out of the blue to thank me for being so open and honest about it. Enough people have confided in me the stories of their struggles with mental illness that I sometimes worry I won't remember everyone in my mental checklist of kindred, struggling spirits. I've developed close, supportive friendships with a lot of these people though, and our check-ins and conversations and even drives across town just to give hugs are so dear and so valuable to me that I'll probably never stop talking about my own struggles.

So here's this morning's report: I woke up at 6:00 in a motivational black hole with a fiery headache and enough disorientation that I knew enough to skip the gym—which is huge because some days working out is the only thing that keeps me human—and to let my boss know that I'd come in after lunch, if at all today. Then I went back to the kind of non-sleep that feels like you're staying awake getting more and more exhausted compounded by the stress of feeling worried about getting more and more exhausted. But when I woke up around 11:00 my head was clear enough that I could look at the episode objectively and summon the coping and pushing-through skills I've learned over the last decade and I showered and ate and made it to work, where I've been surprisingly productive ... albeit profoundly exhausted.

So to all the people I know who are dealing with mental illness and to all the people I don't know who are dealing with mental illness and to all the rest of you curious enough about my struggles today to have read this far: You will fight this battle all your life. You will get meds that don't work, you will get meds that actually make things worse and you will find meds that you'll notice start to make improvements ... though you'll spend ages waiting cynically for them to fail you. In the mean time, learn what helps you stabilize yourself and what helps you push your way out of the wet wool blankets and the rolling fogs that trap you. As soon as I felt coherent this morning, I texted one friend who right now is in a bottomless depressive episode so we could both not feel alone in our struggles and I texted another friend who as far as I know is not having an episode just so I'd know that someone who deeply understands what I'm going through is at the very least thinking about me. And then I picked out a shirt that says Carpe Diem on it and I know that it's totally goofy bordering on stupid, but if I'm wearing a shirt that means something to me on a certain day or in a certain situation, I feel compelled to go out in the world and show it to everybody.

And after what my head put me through this morning, I need everyone to know—no, I need to SHOW everyone—that I'm seizing the hell out of the rest of my today.

In which I am a damn drama queen

I woke up in a mild bipolar crash that was still bad enough that it gave me a powerful headache and what felt like a fever. I decided to skip the gym to sleep so now I feel fat. Then I decided to take the morning off to sleep so now I feel guilty for missing work. Then I got a raspberry seed wedged in my teeth when I finally ate something. Then I somehow nicked the top of my ear while shaving the side of my face. Because WHO DOES THAT? Now I'm at work and I'm groggy but functional and here's a funny cat picture.

I drink the mountains

It's the breakfast of bipolar stability and OHMYGODLETMELIFTSOMEWEIGHTSNOWNOWNOW pre-workout energy.

I swear this new C4 formulation is made with witchcraft and cheetahs. And maybe a few chemicals. Delicious, delicious chemicals. All in an addictive—oops, I mean refreshing ... sorry, typo—cherry-lime flavor. It puts you in a freakishly productive turbo-workout mode in seconds. But bring a towel; it makes you flop-sweat for hours afterward.

How to keep your friendly neighborhood pharmacy solvent:

I mean seriously. And I take just as many meds in the mornings as well. Granted, about a fourth of my daily pill pile—which is a totally awesome band name—is OTC stuff with purported powers to control the side effects of all this pharmacology. But none of any of it seems to be working for shit. I'm still shaky and chompy and chubby-tummied and chronically, relentlessly exhausted. I'm still struggling to claw my way out of deepening pits of depression on an almost weekly basis. The unnerving and sometimes terrifying symptoms of my Cymbalta withdrawal seem to be escalating. And I'm weaning myself off of Abilify next. BECAUSE NONE OF IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING. Despite my many plans to the contrary, I pretty much slept my way through this entire weekend. I didn't go to a play I had tickets for. I didn't help my brother-in-law paint his house. I didn't do any half-marathon training. I didn't go to our neighborhood block party. I didn't even take a fucking shower.

But I have hope. And the greatest support network a bipolar person could ever ask for. And the ability to sit back objectively and make fun of the absurd and ridiculous stuff. And the delusion that I can stubbornly will myself to get better. But not, unfortunately, the ability to swallow two daily handfuls of pills without violently gagging. And clearly I don't have the self-control—or maybe just the self-sufficiency—to shut up about it all on social media. Which, on some levels, makes all of you part of my support network too. Which I suspect may be my subconscious goal with all this whining. So sorry to drag you all into my mental drama here. But thanks for playing along. I'm going to sleep now. Which I'm really good at; I practiced all weekend.

Today was day 10 of s l o w l y weaning me off Cymbalta ...

... the act of which gave me seizure-like blackout thingies when we did it rapidly last spring. I should be completely Cymbalta- (and seizure-like-blackout-thingie-) free by the beginning of October, at which time we start weaning me off of Abilify. Because I'm on five psychotropics right now, and while saying “psychotropics" is fun and all, five (plus my thyroid medication) is a bit much.

Every time we change my meds (I mean psychotropics!) I get my hopes up that THIS TIME will be the magic bullet and I'll finally stop sleeping through life/binge-buying shit I don't need/growing an enormous gut/hearing noises in the other room/deciding nobody likes me/shaking like a hoochie mama in a bathtub with a toaster. And every time, my symptoms seem to shift around a bit but never totally go away. So now instead of adjusting/introducing meds, we're taking them away entirely. And s l o w l y. But like everything related to psychotropics (there's that word again!), results (or complications) take time. And we have to map out when those results (or complications) might manifest themselves so they won't interfere with things like vacations, projects at work, family events, theater commitments and Disney half marathons. 

Speaking of which, the Disney half marathon I'm running is the first weekend in November, at which time who the heck knows where my meds (and my brain) will be. But once again, I choose to think that by then I'll be clear-headed and focused and energized and bedecked in my red running shorts with huge yellow buttons on the front and—aside from the aforementioned shorts—perfectly normal. Just like all of you magically wonderfully perfectly normal people. (You'd tell me if you weren't normal, right?)

Never underestimate the power of bipolar depression

A relatively low dip brought me to my knees at work yesterday morning and—aside from a brief rally at dinner last night—I've been sound asleep for more than 24 hours. Full shutdown notwithstanding, this is actually progress; as little as six months ago, my shutdowns lasted around five days. This episode, however, comes with flashes of deep, excruciating pain from my right hip to my right foot. Diagnosis still TBD.

Here ends my boring medical update. To thank you for your time, I leave you with the conversation I dread having with my trainer:

I'm really tired of the tummy my bipolar meds gave me

REALLY tired of it. Cutting back on pop and sugar and fatty foods hasn't changed it. Taking HydroxyCut hasn't changed it. Adding a brutal abs workout to the end of every workout hasn't changed it. So I just hired a trainer. We meet for the first time in 10 minutes. And she's a girl. A girl covered in tattoos and piercings and filled with the kind of badassery I need to whip my midsection - and everything else - into badass shape. And I can't wait to get my ass kicked by a girl!

I'm thankful for family and friends who believe in me fiercely, even when I don't

I'm thankful for new opportunities to participate and stretch and thrive. I'm thankful for productive dance rehearsals and honest sweats and meds that seem to work better each day and 5 Hour Energy when they need a boost. I'm thankful my mom cries when I have a good day and my dad hugs me freely, which we never seemed to do enough in the past. I'm thankful I have a safety net in my family when so many others with illnesses like bipolar depression don't. And right now I'm this close to being thankful for a deep deep sleep after an awesome day.