Monday, November 26, 2007

poetry

I used to write poems and stories and songs A LOT..for some reason I just have not done that in a long time so I figured as stuff pops into my mind maybe I would just jot it down as I thought of it even if i is not very good. I want to just write it out even if it is not very good....maybe I can get back into my poetry and creative writing. For some reason all of my poetry used to be very dark and sad. Maybe I can write some happier stuff in the future.

When eternity called out your name

I thought that I had everything
that tomorrow was just a promising
one day I found
it fell to the ground
when eternity called you away
but I only want you to stay
it is not fair
you should not be there
I want you here with me
why must I wait for eternity
life is not the same
since eternity called your name
the tears fall like rain
and I cant take the pain
since eternity darkened your flame
I am drowning in sorrow
there will be no tomorrow
I want things to be the same
before eternity called out your name
I scream to the stars
can you hear me that far?
you still live in my dreams
you're an angel it seems
I wish this was not my fate
because eternity is too long to wait

Saturday, September 22, 2007

May June and July 2007

I have fallen behind on blogging. I wrote in my journal but just never got around to putting it in my blog. I will copy some stuff from my journal onto here just to kind of catch up.
I raised my dose of zoloft a few times. I am on 150mg now. I will raise it a few more times until I am on 200mg. I raise it by 25mg at a time but need to give it a month or so at each dose to see how it will work.
These 3 months I only left the house to go to my dr appts. I use the excuse that it is too hot, but I really just do not have any desire to go anywhere.
Kim moved back in, guess she got tired of having room mates and so she moved back in.
Josh moved out. He just can not stay away from his friends here who get him into trouble. He was kicked out of his out patient rehab program because he was still smoking weed. He last few urine tests from probation have been positive also. He has not completed his community service like he was supposed to. He was then put on house arrest. This was very hard on all of us because of his anger problems. He was cooped up here and could not leave the house so he started acting out more and more. He is 16 but can not get a drivers license because of his arrests.
In July I decided that we could not deal with this anymore. Almost 4 years of this, of him being arrested numerous times, his inpatient rehab, outpatient rehab. All the costs of court fees, attorney fees, probation fees etc. All of his lies and everything else. We sent him to live with his dad in July. Josh did not want to go. He protested and begged. He actualy took off the day he was suposed to leave and did not come home til then next day so he purposely missed is plane. He thought that meant he would not have to go. NO, that just meant I had to spend more money for another ticket so he could leave.
He finally did leave. He calls here constantly begging to come home and promising he will not ever get in trouble again etc. Well, it is a shame that I can not believe him. His word is not worth the air he uses to make it. I just can not deal with it anymore. I worry about the safety of my other kids. I worry about the toll that the stress takes on me. He has been warned over and over for 4 years and it is time for him to move elsewhere.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

chaos, messes and more

I hate chaos and just feel like my house is cluttered and it makes everything seem chaotic. I do not like my house to be messy. I like it to be super clean with everything in its place. I want it to look like one of the models homes that you go look at when you want to buy a new home. My ocd makes me want to have everything perfect but my physical problems and fatigue keep me from making things perfect.
I just do not even know where to start. A friend has been trying to help me start on the fly lady program and to make a control journal but I just can't seem to even get started.
I am lazy. I like to read books, watch tv, watch dvds, sew, play on the computer and just basically lay around. I am trying to not be so lazy but then I figure why not. There is nothing wrong with being lazy except then I feel like I am wasting my life. But I can not understand how people figure out if you are wasting your life or not. No matter what I do with my life, I will eventually die. We all die. So, if I climb a mountain and cure cancer or if I lay on the couch and watch tv, it will still end the same way.
I realized something odd this week...the sight of blood and gore makes me sick. This is something new to me. I used to love to watch trauma shows and when I worked in the hospital, nothing made me sick. The grosser it looked, the cooler it was. The site of blood and guts was just common and was no big deal. I could be thinking about what I was going to cook for dinner while I was in the middle of cleaning out a pus filled wound. I guess all that has changed. My mind is weaker now and I guess everything is different then It used to be. The other night I was watching a show called scar or something like that. It showed people doing stunts similar to those done on the show jack ass but they mess up and fall and break bones and get hurt. About 5 minutes into it, I could not watch it anymore. I just could not. I had to keep looking away.
When I told my husband that I could not watch it, he was surprised also. He told me "you used to be so strong". I sure wish I was still strong now....
I have been working on relaxation this past week. I want to get some relaxation tapes and try them. When I have started feeling the globus feeling in my throat I have made an effort to lay down, close my eyes and focus on breathing in and out. I relax all my body and try to imagine the stress and anxiety leaving me. It has seemed to help some. I need to keep working on it.
I still do not want to leave the house. I keep saying I will go somewhere but then just have not ended up going.
Well, I have a few topics in my mind that I want to journal about so will have a few more entries in the next day or so.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

So far, so good

Well, week 3 of the new med, Zoloft has started.
I started out still taking lexapro but lowered it to 20mg and then started the zoloft at 25mg. I was supposed to do that for 1 week but after the first 3 days on it, I had my regularly scheduled appt. with the psych dr. I had been doing really well for those 3 days but he felt I was becoming a bit manic. He told me to slow down the tapering and to stay on that dose for 2 weeks instead of only 1 week and then lower the lexapro to 10mg and raise the zoloft to 50mg and do that for 2 weeks and then stop the lexapro. I am not sure after that what..I am not sure if zoloft goes higher or what.
I have been doing well on the zoloft. I have had some headache problems and some other side effects that are just a bit bothersome but nothing worth worrying about.
My anxiety has seemed better but my OCD seems to be a bit wild. I can not sit down if I feel there is something that needs to be done. My mind wanders more. I have not been online much the past 2 weeks because I just feel a bit too on edge. I have not had any panic attacks since I have started the zoloft though so that I all that I can hope for right now...it has been great.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Plans for the week

I figure I need to make plans for each week otherwise the week will pass and I will get nothing done. I will sit and worry about what needs to be done and will end up doing nothing.
I will keep this weeks list simple since I know I will be going through med changes and want to not have to worry too much about other things. I do need to get sassy groomed, I am hoping to set up for a groomer to come to my home to do the grooming. I also need to get to the bank on weds to deposit my monthly disability check. I am hoping that my husband will take me to the bank that day and maybe we can do one other small errand. I also HAVE to get some lab work done. I have put it off because I am afraid the blood work will show I have some fatal illness and I just do not want to even know, but I have had this lab slip in my purse for over 3 months and I need to get it done. I have an appt with the psychiatrist on Thursday so, maybe I will have my husband take me to the bank on Thursday instead and we can go to the dr appt all at the same time while we are out so I do not have to make 2 trips out. Maybe if I am feeling well enough we can make a special quick trip into sprouts so I can buy some fresh fruit.
One last thing, I need to buy a few gifts online for a few online gift exchanges I am doing. I need to have them ready to mail out by the end of the month. This will be an easy task for me since I am a super duper expert at shopping and spending money online.
Ok, well this is what I plan to get done this week, of course I have lots more that NEEDS to get done like listing probably over 100 items on ebay, and plenty of other stuff..but for now I will stick with an easy list that will be realistic.

New meds start tommorow

Well, I had my phone conversation with the psych dr. I see him thursday but wanted to start the new meds sooner. He called in a script for zoloft and I have instructions on how to wean from my higher dose of lexapro onto the zoloft. It seems like it is going to be a 4 week ordeal of switching fully from one, onto the other. I asked him about stopping the wellbutrin but he wants to change as little as possible at a time. So, that also means I will not be able to restart the lyrica or change my pain meds for awhile either. I understand that it is best not to change to much at one time.
I am worried about starting the new med.
My husband is off most of this week and weekend and I have posted a search for a mommy's helper for a few days a week for the next month. I just am trying to prepare for the side effects of weaning off an old med and starting on a new one. I am hoping to be just fine but will feel better if I have some plans.
I wish I had an extended family or a circle of friends. I wish I had neighbors that were my friends.
It is hard to feel like I really do not have people that I can depend on if I ever need some help...
When I feel better that is something I need to work on. I have some plans for things I want to do
I have signed up for some different online moms groups for my area, I know I can not be active in them now but I can at least talk online to the gals and get to know them. I know I also want to take some yoga classes and maybe a dance class. I have lots of things I want to do...I just need my mind to free me up to do them.
It is hard to explain how all consuming it is to be in a panic all the time. I spend so much time and energy with anxiety that I have little left for other things.
I did have a good day today so that was a bonus. It left me feeling positive about the med change. I read back over my blog and see that in the beginning I sounded stronger, more determined to get better. My recent posts have sounded like I am defeated. I think I have felt more and more pessimistic about getting better as time goes on and I am not any better.
My psych dr did tell me though that the longer I can stay symptom free, the lower my chances are for a relapse. So, I guess the means if this zoloft works, the more good days I have, the less chance I have of having a bad day.
I always hate new medications. I am scared I will have an allergic reaction and die. I plan to take the first dose tomorrow along with a generous serving of xanax...

Sunday, March 18, 2007

The end of another week

Sunday again....
Tomorrow I will call the psych dr. I have an appt with him Thursday but I want to see if I can start a new med even before I see him.
I take an above normal dose of lexapro and ever since I started taking it I just have not generally felt well. I continued to take it because it did settle most of the anxiety. Slowly though it has not been working and I am tired of not be totally well. I know there must be something that will get me better, closer to normal then what this med is doing. I also take wellbutrin but that does not seem to do much either other then help a bit with the side effects of the high dose of lexapro.
I have tried quite a few drugs, the one I will start on this week will be zoloft. I have heard promising things about zoloft working well for anxiety and panic disorders.
I do worry about the changing from one med to another. In the past the changing from one to another has been very rough on me physically and mentally. I am trying to set up for a mommy's helper to come in the few days a week that my husband works. I am hoping that this will be easy and that the med will start working fast and not have many side effects.
Maybe this will be the medication that will help me the most and give me at least part of my life back.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Who am I?

I have thought about this a lot recently. The answer is not an easy one. I really do not know who I am anymore. I feel like the years of mental illness has robbed my identity. I am no longer the person I thought I was. Maybe I am not really anybody at all. I look in the mirror but that is not me. I do not see the person that I used to see looking back. How can 3 years of mental illness rob me of who I am? I do not smile the same, my eyes are not bright like they used to be. I look tired all the time. I smile at my reflection in the mirror but it looks fake, almost like I can look deeper and know that I am not truly happy.
The world that was once so big for me, has become small. I do not participate in any life outside of my home. I want to go out, I want to be an active participant in life and not just watching on as life passes me by. My mind just will not let me. I am a prisoner of mental illness. An unwilling participant of an invisible disease that has stolen my bright future from me.
I have had good months when the medication has worked, but it has always been just a small window of wellness. Just enough to tease and tempt me. Enough to let me start believing that maybe there is an end to this mental nightmare. As soon as the hope has built and my heart begins to feel excitement again, it is snatched away from me.
I have tried to be upbeat and positive about this journey, but I feel weak right now. I feel hopeless and helpless to what is happening to me. I know this is just a low place right now. A place that I do not like. A dark place that I have been before but not a place I like to stay. It is a place of dark thoughts and many tears. A place that is lower then I could have even imagined feeling.
I know it is not all real, it is a figment of medications that are not working properly. Of chemicals and hormones that are out of sync with each other
I know that I will start a new medication and have new hope again. I will look for each day for the bad feelings to subside and for the good days to become more frequent. I just hope that I am not let down again.
I hope that in a few weeks when a new medication has saturated my brain that I will be able to better answer the question of who I am.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

pain is a pain

My pain has been bad the past few weeks. I keep thinking that one day it will slowly get better and I will need less pain meds but so far it just keeps hurting. I have fibromyalgia as well as arthritis in my knee from all the surgeries to repair my femur. I also have the bone spurs in my neck and I really think that is what causes quite a bit of my pain. I just never seem to be pain free, unless of course I forget that I just took a dose of oxycodone and accidentally take a 2nd dose. That has only happend 2 times or so but amazingly I felt out of pain. At first I did not realize that I had no pain I just kept feeling different and then I thought to myself wow, no pain...I wish it had lasted longer then 2 hours. I tried the new medication LYRICA for awhile but it did not help much. I also have peripheral neuropathy and that causes lots of burning in my feet or makes them feel tingly like they are falling asleep. At this point the only shoes I can wear are crocs and of course my older kids hate the look of crocs and tease me about them. I want a new body lol..
I get upset with myself that I am lazy and do not do much. I guess I should at least let myself have some excuse since I have been qualified as disabled by the government and my dr's. It is hard for me though to think that I can not just do everything I want to do or everything that I used to do or that everybody else does. Since I do not LOOK disabled it is easy for people to just think I need to get up off my ass and get moving...I am guilty of this as well. Sometimes I am really tired and I was thinking geez I am lazy, then I realized that with the amount of oxyodone, xanax and other meds I take that it may not be laziness, it may be medications causing it.
I did change the time I take my lexapro from morning until night. I take the wellbutrin in the morning and the lexapro at night and that has seemed to have made a fairly big difference that I am noticing now. I do not feel so groggy throughout the day.
I have not had much anxiety problems this past week. Luckily the globus feeling has subsided this past week..thank goodness, that is the worst thing ever.
I started exercising and trying to eat better. I know if I lose weight that it will take a lot of stress off of my body and will help me feel less pain.
I am getting really worried about how much C weighs. He is 10, he is a big boy, about 4 foot 10 but almost 120 pounds. He is pretty solid but he needs to lose weight. We could not find any p ants that fit him properly this winter so he has had to mostly wear sweat pants and track pants. He has just recently started being upset about his size. I feel for him because I was the fat kid in school and hated it. I think my life could have turned out with a different story if I had not been the fat kid. Luckily we homeschool him but I worry that he will keep gaining weight. I had a talk with him today. Nothing harsh, just a gentle talk about some different foods we would be changing to and how he could walk on the treadmill etc. I think even if he could just lose 10 pounds and then maintain that for awhile until he grows a few more inches then I think he would be fine.
Well, I have thought about some journal entry subjects that I wanted to get written down and journal about so I plan to be writing quite a bit here in my blog the next week or so...so if you are a reader of my blog, check back this week..

Monday, February 05, 2007

Catching up

I have not posted much in awhile. I wanted to keep this blog as an ongoing journal. I have thoughts in my head that I want to come blog but just never actually sit down to do it. I need to make a better effort at doing so. I find writing down my feelings etc to feel good, a place I can say whatever I want. I like to look back over the posts and see what thing I was feeling over the past few years.
I have had my ups and downs since the first of the year. I have not had any actual full blown panic attacks but have had a few times that I could tell I was on the edge of one. I have also had some more problems with my globus the past week..I hate this feeleing, I would rather have my arm held over a fire then to feel the feeling of the globus in my throat. I am hoping it will just subside over the next few days. I have had it at times that it was very mild and went away after a few days and then I have had it at times that it was terrible and it lasted for months.
I am blessed to have my best friend C...I know that I am happier now that I have a friend that I can count on to always be there and that I can trust and talk to. Trust is a big issue for me since some other things happened online at some forums I go to. I used to share everything at certain forums, I was like an open book. I am not comfortable doing that anymore and that kind of sucks. I loved the support and the input that I would get from other people when I would share details of my life. It is a shame that a few bad things has made me not want to share personal stuff anymore. Maybe I will get over it as time goes by....either way it is ok since I have my friend C that I can share whatever I want to with her.
My oldest daughter is moving out. She is 18 1/2 and I guess she is ready to try out life on her own. She is sharing an apartment with 2 other girls and the apartment is only 10-15 minutes from here so that is no so bad. She also wants to keep some of her stuff here and her bed so she can sleep here 1-2 nights a week. I think that is just a bit of security for her. A way for her to know that she still has a home here and can always come back. That is fine with me. She can come back anytime if she needs to but I think after a few weeks at her new apartment she will realize she does not want to come sleep here.
I can tell right now that she is happier then she has been in many many years...she has friends, a social life, doing fun teenage stuff and has paid all her bills and is actually saving money for the future. It is good to see her happy.
J has been clean and sober for about 6 weeks now. He spent a few weeks in juvie and I think maybe that scared him enough to keep him clean for now. He is doing outpatient intensive rehab as wel as church etc. He also seems happier then he has been in a long time. He seems to have plans for the future and as long as he stays clean he will be able keep planning for the future.
I had to go to the dentist last week and that is my biggest phobia ever. So, it was a hard week. I also need to go back next month to have a deep gum cleaning, that takes 4 appointments and I am already freaked out about it.
The addition of wellbutrin to my other meds has seemed to make a small difference, not tons of difference but enough to give me some more motivation to at least sew some and do some other things. I think I could probably use a higher does sinse I still feel depressed at times and just do not enjoy things that I used to and do not really feel like I have anything good in the future to look forward to.
My pain has also been a huge issue this past month. No matter how many oxycodone I take I am still in pain. I will see the dr next week and will need to change to something longer acting and then just use the oxycodone for breakthrough pain. The dr has mentioned putting my on oxycontin. Yes I have heard all the stories of people getting addicted to it etc.....but that is not really anything I am concerned about, I am in pain, I can not function, my quality of life is not very good because of my pain and if there is someway to decrease my pain so I can start doing the things I used to like to do, then it is well worth the risk of the oxycontin.
Well....I have more to write...much more but will end this now so I can take a nap.