Sunday, April 17, 2011

Drug Experimentation

Psychiatrists can never say with certainty that an particular drug or any particular combination will work, or that their side effects won't outweigh the good that they'd do you. This means that months of drug and dosage recombinations until you and your doctor finds what the two of you think is best. As your doctor has much more experience at this than you, it's usually more their call when you've reached that point. I've been on lithium since November 2008. I know I'm probably a broken record on the shitty side effects, but here it goes again. I have much less affect, my memory is fried, I can't concentrate like I used to, and my sex drive is nonexistant. Late last year, I got my doctor to agree to mess with my medicine a little bit to help increase my sex drive, but not by taking me off the lithium, but by putting me on a different anti-depressant. Yeah, that didn't work so well, because that drug made me physically ill all that time. No time to worry about if I'm horny if I'm puking my guts out, right? After that debacle, I had things other than sex to worry about and I knew that it'd be be awhile after those things got sorted out before I'd really be looking to get laid, so I just let it go. So, while this might be common sense, or at least something that is easily deduced, when a person who is supposed to take a specific combination of meds two times every day, "when they wake up" and "before they go to bed," but this person often sleeps odd and long hours and barely remembers to eat or get a shower, well, it's probably not a long shot that they won't remember to take their medicines like they are supposed to. (Yeah, I admitted this to my doc. I'm trying not to have to say it outright to my folks, as I'm attempting to take the meds, it just doesn't always work out that way.) The best, and pretty much only side effect I've noticed, has been the return of my sex drive!!! A bit of this sexual playfulness has popped up in emails, sometimes surprising even me. Then, last night, as I was flipping through premium cable channels late at night, like Skinamax Extreme and I felt a foreign tingle south of my waistline. Hmmm. What was that? So tonight I decided to take advantage of a bit of free time, renew my friendship with my rabbit. What can I say?!? I feel like a new woman. A new nymphomanic woman. A new nymphomanic woman who wants to start exercising regularly so she can be better, leaner, stronger, more flexible in and out of bed. Unfortunately, I think this will disappear once I'm on the "proper" dose of medication again. Ugh. What's a woman to do?

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Uncharted

Today was the second meeting the grief support group that my mom and I are going to. Last Sunday, the third, was the one month anniversary of my uncle's death. I know that just the time in between, if nothing else that I contributed, because, honestly, I haven't contributed much to pushing through this or moving on, has made it a little better. I don't have that deep, physical, painful hurt all of the time like I used to. I can sleep without the extreme use of alcohol or anti-anxioty drugs, though I'm still having sleeping issues, which I might talk about later. But just the time, in and of itself, has helped and I've realized that I no longer feel that horrible all the time. And that's a start. I'm also slowly but surely moving towards seeking other help. My mom and I are going to a greif support group and I'm going to explore my options of getting back with a therapist soon. While I still cry too much, too often, and too unpredictably to be rushing into the job market right now, I did look at job listing for the first time since getting back. I'm thinking about buying a book to help with the resume building (or should I just do it online?) before I actually start sending anything out. Until then, I have tons of little things I can do around my own house until then.

A part of me feels completely disappointed in myself right now. Before my uncle passed, when I would talk to people, visitors wondering what I felt was next for me, I would tell them that I was going to continue to help my folks as much as possible but I wanted to try to find a job just for the money so I could start saving and start paying down my loans. I thought by now I would either have a job or be completely disheartened by all the job-rejection I was facing. But I haven't even be able to get out there and try to be rejected. I just know that I want to take a job that I won't plan on having more than two years, one that pays enough and gives me enough hours that I can save up for a car emergency fund, a first & last months rent & security deposit fund, and a general emergency fund, while also trying to pay down my student loans. I want to be out in two years. And that time period is quickly ticking away.

The grief support group is really nice. Our leader, a Chaplain at the local hospitcal focuses on us having a safe place to discuss our feelings about our loss(es) in that room and encourages us to have both a/a few good friends who understand and will accompny us on our journey of reliving our memories and acknowledging the pain that might come, as well as individual journalling. One of his slogans is that the sooner and more intensely you grieve and stay with the pain, the quicker you will find yourself on the other side, your new normal. I try not to let that give me a free access pass to do nothing but cry all day, but I think it provides a controlled model of how to deal with the pain and work through it. I can't move on and truly give myself to a situation, to a new job, to a new friend, to a new lover, or even to those friends and family and lovers in my current life, if I don't work through this grief.

But, on the other hand, I still have quite a bit of a lost feeling. That's why I wanted to share this new-ish song. The video is kinda cute, all the lip-synching. And I know Sara Bareilles is a bit too pop from some of my readers, but what the hell. This song really captures how I feel and I wanted to share. I hope you enjoy. And I hope all my friends out there know that I care about them, I haven't forgotten about them, and that I'll make me way back around to them when times here aren't so tight. Thank you to all my friends and family who have stuck around and continue to stick around.







Lyrics - Uncharted - by Sara Bareilles
No Words
My years won't make any room for them, oh.
And it don't hurt
Like anything I've ever felt before

This is no broken heart
No familiar scars
This territory goes uncharted

Just me
In a room sunk down in a house in a town
And I don't breathe
Though I never meant to let it get away from me

Now I have too much to hold
Everybody has to get their hands on gold
And I want... uncharted

Stuck under the ceiling I made.
I can't help the feeling I'm going down
Follow if you want. I won't hang around
Like you'll show me where to go
I'm already out of foolproof ideas
So don't ask me how
To get started
It's all uncharted

Each day
I'm countin' up the minutes til I get alone
Cause I can't stay
In the middle of it all.
It's nobody's fault

But I'm so low
Never knew how much I didn't know
Oh, everything is uncharted

I know I'm gettting nowhere
When I only sit and stare like...
I'm going down
Follow if you want. I won't just hang around
Like you'll show me where to go.
I'm already out of foolproof ideas so don't ask me how
To get started
It's all uncharted.

Jump start my kaleidoscope heart
I love to watch the colors fade
They may not make sense
But they sure as hell made me

I won't go as a passenger, no
Waiting for the road to be laid
Though I may be going down
I'll take in flame over burning out

Compare where you are to where you wanna be
And you'll get nowhere

I"m going down
Follow if you want. I won't hang aruond.
Like you'll show me where to go.
I'm already out of foolproof ideas so don't ask me how to get started
It's all uncharted.