Fireworks Fear

The 4th of July is coming, and that means fireworks. I’m not a fan of fireworks because of the noises they make. In my neighborhood, people started setting off fireworks last night. They will do so every night and they will do more and more each night. They even set them off during the day. I’m not trying to be un-American; I’m just saying that fireworks scare me. Loud noises that come out from nowhere and happen over and over again terrify me. It’s a PTSD trigger.

My dog normally barks at fireworks and never stops barking, but last year I got him a ‘ThunderShirt’. The shirt is like a giant hug and is meant to help keep dogs calm. It works like magic. My dog may bark once, but then he goes and lays down. At least I don’t have to deal with my dog barking nonstop all night long from the fireworks.

The fireworks started last night. One really loud one went off, and I thought it was a gunshot. It’s not uncommon to hear gunshots in my neighborhood at night. My dog barked once and then went to bed. I wouldn’t mind the fireworks if they only happened one night, on the 4th of July. But instead, it’s at least 4 or 5 days of fireworks and loud noises.

I do my best to manage my fears. It scares me a little less since I already know that the fireworks are coming. I can prepare myself for them. Some nights, like on July 4th, I will take a Valium, which will allow me to actually enjoy the fireworks and celebration. Do other people have this same fear and problem?

Lessons I’ve Learned: Courage Is Not The Absence Of Fear, But The Ability To Continue In Spite Of It

This is a saying I remember hearing over and over at my AA meetings. When I was getting sober, I was constantly told to pray for help to change. Change is not an easy thing, so I was told to pray for the courage to change. I am not a person that likes to pray, but when you’re desperate enough, you’ll try anything. I’ve now been sober for 12 years. At this time, I’m still having difficulties, just in a different area of my life. But I still need to work on changing, and I still need the courage to do so. I don’t feel like I have any courage. I feel weak and helpless, but my friends and family tell me that I’m a courageous person. Either I don’t see what they see, or they’re just wrong about me having courage. I suppose I’ll be positive about this and just assume that I’m not seeing what these other people are seeing.

One thing I know I’m good at doing and I keep trying. No matter how many times something fails or problems arise, I don’t give up. I guess others see this as courageous; I see this as desperate. I want to give up all the time; I’m not sure why I don’t. Maybe it’s because of my family. My entire family is so supportive and caring. They put a lot of energy into dealing with me. I feel like it’s the right thing to do to keep trying, if not for myself, then for my family.

I have learned that it’s okay to have fear, but don’t let that fear stop you from doing anything. I am in control of my life. I make the choices. I can choose to look fear in the face and keep moving forward. I have learned to never give up on myself. If I can’t do things for myself, then it’s okay to find another reason. For me, it’s my family. I wonder what other people use as their reason to keep moving forward. Does anyone want to share?

No More ECT

Tomorrow would have been my next ECT treatment. Instead, I talked to my doctor a week or two ago and canceled the appointment. I’ve been wanting to stop these treatments for a while, and I finally did. Now, I’m nervous. I’ve been doing this for 15 months. Even though it’s hard on my mind and my body, it has become normal. All of the “what if’s” are going through my mind. What if ECT actually was helping? What if I slip into a huge manic episode? What if my depression gets worse? What if I have to re-start it, will I be willing to do that?

If I have to re-start ECT, then I don’t get to pick up where I left off. I would have to re-start by going three times a week for a month. Then once a week for four weeks, then every other week for eight sessions, and then finally back to once a month. I can’t do that again. I think I would rather try the IV Ketamine, and that terrifies me. Treatment resistant bipolar depression sucks. I wish I could take a vacation from it. Sometimes I feel like giving up. I know I’m not going to, but I want to. I wish I could be the person that didn’t always do the right thing.

Anxiety At The Gym

My husband and I just finished working out at the gym. Thank goodness it wasn’t very busy, but my anxiety was still pretty high. My anxiety tends to sky-rocket every time I see someone, walk by someone, or see someone looking my way. So basically, that means my anxiety is high the entire time I’m there. My husband stays by me the whole time to help me feel a little more secure, but it doesn’t completely remove my anxiety. I can’t imagine how anxious I would be without having my husband there by my side. In fact, I don’t think I would even be able to go if I wasn’t with him.

Even when the gym is slow, like it was today, there are still more people to keep track of than possible. Knowing everything that’s going on around me is one of the things that helps reduce my anxiety. I start to panic when I can’t see everything that’s happening and everyone that’s around me. My husband is there to help keep me safe and as a second pair of eyes, but no one can see everything that’s happening in a gym at one time. I become very nervous, scared, and paranoid in public places. I wish I could get rid of all of this anxiety. It’s exhausting. I have Valium that helps, but I don’t want to take one every time we go to the gym. I guess I just have to suck it up and deal with it, although that doesn’t sound like something I want to do or can do. I’m sure it will get better over time; I just have to be patient.

Therapist Waiting Room

Yesterday, I walked into my therapist’s office and anxiety hit me immediately. There are a total of seven chairs in his office, and every single one of them was occupied. I walked up to the receptionist’s desk and decided to wait for the receptionist to appear. I stood there for a few minutes, but she never came forward. A chair opened up, so I decided to sit down. I get very nervous around strangers. I’m not comfortable being close to just about anyone, especially strangers. I don’t like to be touched by strangers. It’s a PTSD trigger for me. I even carry a spring-loaded knife with me everywhere I go, which probably is not a smart idea, but it’s what I do. My PTSD has improved, but there was a time that I couldn’t be touched by anyone, not even my loved ones.

My appointment was at 4pm; I arrived five minutes early. I sat in the open chair and moved as far away from the other people as I possibly could. I looked down at my phone and saw that the time was 4:22pm. Even more people had arrived in his office. I’ve never seen it this crowded before. Normally, there are only one or two other people in the waiting room when I’m there. I was caught off guard by the amount of people there. I decided that if my therapist didn’t call me back by 4:30pm, then I would leave. I knew that my therapist would understand if I left, he knows how difficult crowds are for me. Two minutes later, my therapist called me back into his office. I was shaking, fidgety, and rocking back and forth. He could see that I was having an anxiety attack, and he knew why. He told me that a family of six people all came to an appointment for a family member who was seeing someone else in the office. I understand someone’s parents going to an appointment, but I don’t know why all of their siblings would go as well. They didn’t even go into the appointment; they all just sat there in the waiting room. Oh well, everyone does things differently.

I had a good appointment with my therapist. He’s easy to talk to and offers helpful insights. I’ve been seeing him for several years; I think it’s been since sometime around 2011. Talking to him feels more or less like I’m talking to a friend.

Worst Case Scenarios

I’ve been told that I always tend to think of the worst case scenarios. I easily jump to the worst possible conclusion instead of the most likely conclusion. I try not to panic, but it happens so easily. I think that part of it is just the way I’m wired. I’m a worrier, it’s what I do. The other part is that I’ve experienced a lot of trauma over the years. My father died when I was 18 and shortly after that my boyfriend died. I have also lost numerous friends to drug and alcohol addiction and to mental illness. I suppose I just expect to hear bad news at this point. I would rather expect something bad to happen and end up being pleasantly surprised when it’s not true, than to expect good news and be disappointed with sad or scary news.

Maybe this is a terrible way to look at and deal with life, but it’s how I do things at this time. I don’t know how to do it any other way. I am learning to gather information before drawing a conclusion. For example, I heard that there was some type of incident in my home town where someone lost their life. That was all the information I could find. Instead of assuming that it was a friend or family member, I called someone to see what they knew. Turns out, it was not about anyone that I knew. Another example is that I become scared when someone I don’t know talks to me or comes up to me. I am terrified of anything I don’t know. I’ve been able to get better at this over time. Hopefully, I will continue to grow and be able to reduce my anxiety.

IV Ketamine Scares Me

The other day I made the decision to stop my ECT treatments and to increase by Clozapine dosage. I’m currently at 200mg and will be increasing my dose by 25mg each week until I reach 400mg. This was one of the options my psychiatrist gave me. Another option was to go back to doing ECT three times a week, but I’m not willing to do that at this point. The third option my psychiatrist gave me was to do IV Ketamine. He has been offering this as an option for many months now, but it’s not something I want to do.

IV Ketamine scares me for a couple of reasons. I used to get high off of Ketamine when I was using. That was a long time ago, and I know that abusing Ketamine and using IV Ketamine are two completely different things; the side effects of IV Ketamine are nothing like the effects of getting high off of it. My biggest fear of trying IV Ketamine is the possibility of dissociation. When I would use Ketamine to get high, I would take so much that I would slip into what’s called a ‘k-hole’, which is pretty much a dissociative state. I couldn’t move or speak, but I could still feel everything that was going on around me. The possibility of dissociating scares me, it triggers my PTSD. I always need to be able to protect myself, and dissociation would take that away from me. Plus, the treatments are especially expensive.

The use of IV Ketamine is highly effective, and it works very quickly. It is known to show improvements by the end of the infusion. Maybe my reasons for not trying it are ridiculous, but they are my reasons. I’m not saying that I’ll never try IV Ketamine; I would just prefer to leave it as an absolute last resort.

I Did Well… For A While – My Life: Part 5

After working at the rehab for 9 months, I decided I wanted to move forward with my life. I applied for many jobs in Phoenix. I got a job as a receptionist for a legal compliance and ethics e-learning company. I found an apartment in Phoenix and moved there with a guy I was dating from the rehab, but that relationship didn’t last. I don’t know when our relationship ended, but I think we lived together for about a year. I adopted a dog and named him Cash (after Johnny Cash). He was awfully energetic and liked to chew on everything. I learned how to train him, and he started to behave properly. Cash came with me to AA camping events, which was a blast. At some point, I found a great AA club where I would go to the same meeting every day at 6pm. I don’t like change, so moving was scary. I like to keep a regular schedule. I made a lot of friends at the meeting, but I would only go to that one meeting every day. One of the guys I met was Brandon, who became my best friend. He had the same sarcastic attitude that I have and we got along wonderfully.

I was doing really well at this time in my life. I got a promotion at work, I was able to live on my own, make friends, and maintain my sobriety and my mental health. I took my medication and saw my doctors regularly. I was seeing the psychiatrist that was treating me while I was in rehab. Brandon asked me to workout with him. I told him no for months, and then I ultimately caved and decided to go with him. I was terrified because it was something new, but Brandon made me feel safe. After working out with him once, I was hooked. I loved it. We started working out together 5 days a week. It helped me get through my days at work. I would go to work, then workout with Brandon, and then go to my meeting (often with Brandon). I was happy with this new schedule; it was working well for me.

In the beginning, I wasn’t open about my mental health when it came to my AA meetings. My close friends knew, but that was all. Eventually, I ended up talking about my bipolar disorder in a meeting. I felt as if it wasn’t accepted. Several times, I was told that I didn’t have a mental health problem. It was just an issue to work on through step work. That was a problem for me. I didn’t feel accepted. My mental health was a huge part of my life. Even when I’m doing well, it’s still a large piece of my life. I was stable for years. That had never happened to me before.

My psychiatrist decided to wean me off my meds slowly because I had been stable for such a long period. It was possible that my mental health issues were drug related, so we thought it was worth a try to get off medication. I was down to two medications, and then she took me off the Seroquel. About 4 months later, I started to fall apart. I thought it would be a good idea to go to therapy again because I started to remember things that I hadn’t previously remembered. These memories triggered what was eventually diagnosed as PTSD. With the PTSD coming up and the med changes occurring, it was like the perfect storm. I started having hallucinations and was shaking uncontrollably. My psychiatrist put me on Abilify, but that made it worse. I barely slept for 3 weeks.

My job let me work from home, but after a little while, I couldn’t even manage that any more. I went on short-term disability, which then turned into long-term disability. There were times that I struggled to feed the dog. My mom came out to stay with me for a little while, but she couldn’t be there all the time. I decided to move back to Connecticut because I couldn’t be on my own anymore. I’m lucky that she was able and willing to let me and my dog move in with her. My long-term disability turned in to Social Security Disability.

I thought writing my story would help my memory, and it has; but it has also become difficult for me. There’s a lot that I struggle to remember, and a lot of other things I wish I didn’t remember. I think I’m going to take a break from writing my story for a little while.

Improvements

My day actually got better as it went on, which is rare. I ended up doing some cleaning because I just couldn’t stand the dog hair anymore. Then I received a call from my mother-in-law asking if I wanted to come over and play some cards. I was just about to say no, when I ended up saying yes. I told her that I was struggling with some depression, but getting out of the house was probably a good idea. I wasn’t able to smile or laugh while I was over there, but I was able to get through the day without wishing I was dead the entire time. Sometimes, it’s important to push through, and that’s what I did by getting out of the house. I pushed through the pain and it actually helped.

When I got home, there were flowers on the counter. My husband went out and got me my favorite flowers, tiger lilies, and left them there for me to see when I got home. He can be so sweet and thoughtful. I made sure to tell him how much it meant that he did that for me. For a day that started out really horrible, it is actually ending all right. I pushed through the pain, and today it paid off.

I Feel Like Two Different People

I often feel like I’m two different people. This is the ‘pretend’ or ‘fake’ person. It’s not that I’m being fake, I’m just holding back. I’m one person when I’m around people I trust, such as my husband and my mom. I can fake being okay and my paranoia, anxiety, and fears decrease. This is the person that I make up; the person I let others see. I can also be this person around other people such as family members and friends. It’s just harder for me to keep up this person. But for some reason, I always feel like I need to put on this other persona. I don’t exactly know why, especially with the people I trust the most. Maybe, I’m just trying to give myself a break from the other person that I am; allowing myself to release some of my anxiety and paranoia. I usually need the help of Valium to do this with people other than my husband and mom.

Then, there’s this second person, the real me. I’m the person who jumps at every little noise. This is the person who sometimes keeps a baseball bat by the door and keeps a knife in my pocket when out for a walk, just in case. My paranoia increases when I’m alone. I have more auditory hallucinations when I’m by myself, although I’m learning to tell which things I hear are real and which are hallucinations. When I leave the house by myself, I’m constantly looking around, especially behind me, so I can see everything that’s happening. I never want to be caught off guard. I rarely ever take anti-anxiety medication when I’m by myself in my house. I prefer to use it when I leave my house or when I with others, that way I can be that other ‘pretend’ person.

I wonder if I’ll ever feel safe again when I’m by myself. Despite the fact that I’m pretending when I’m around others, I do feel safer than I feel when I’m alone. I feel like two different people. Each ‘person’ comes naturally. People I trust tell me I don’t have to pretend to be anyone or anything, but it just happens. For some reason, I don’t feel like I have control over which person appears, it’s just instinctive. Does anyone else have this issue or feel this way?

My Side of the Pole

Bipolar – Mental Health

Tag: Fear