No More Klonopin & Trauma Thoughts

I’ve been off my nightly Klonopin for about two weeks. As I was tapering off the Klonopin, I had withdrawals. I felt awful. I’ve been on Klonopin since 2001. I had the shakes, nausea, dizziness, and general flu-like symptoms (because the first three symptoms weren’t bad enough). I spent one night on the floor of the bathroom reminding myself that puking is goss at the time it happens but usually helps in general feeling better. I’m forgetting about the copious amounts of diarrhea.

This happened four times while tapering off my 1-milligram dose. It was miserable.

So I’m fully off Klonopin. My new psychiatrist also upped my depression medicine. It’s helped the depression for sure. Unfortunately, the anxiety is ramped up. I’m currently working with a rather difficult faculty person who is triggering a lot of my anxiety, specifically the problems I had with my former boss and dealing with his gaslighting. I spent Monday afternoon upset, crying, hating myself and thinking that maybe I am too stupid to have an office job.

I really need to find a therapist to work through these lingering issues I have. I really hate the self-loathing I go through from making a mistake. Part of it is me worrying that I’m going to lose yet another job. These things are really fresh in my head. The fear is really fresh, the words about my deficiencies from the evaluation letter still echoing in my brain.

 

It’s been a minute

It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? I wanted to reuse this photo because I actually survived being let go from my job. Since my last post:

1. I got a temp job that turned into a full-time job. I’m working at the university again. It’s a job. It’s neither bad nor good. It’s there.

2. I finally got a new psychiatrist. For about five weeks I stepped down off one of my meds. The withdrawals were not fun. Dizziness, nausea, lots of diarrhea. Every week I spent one day wanting to kill myself just to be free of the withdrawals. She upped my anti-depression meds for four weeks to see if I would have any positive experiences with that. I have. I actually feel normal.

3. However, the med I am not taking anymore helped relieve me of leg cramping. Since I’m not taking it anymore, my leg cramps have come back with a vengeance. I’m not sleeping well. I’m not feeling tired during the day but I would really like a nice night’s sleep.

3. I’ve been sick for five weeks. It’s like I keep getting a cold, over and over and over again.

4. My new boss is the best. My co-workers are fantastic. They make me laugh. They want to talk to me. They are supportive. I feel like they are happy I’m here. I feel like making a mistake is expected and as long as I work to fix any problems, it will be okay.

I’ve learned a lot about myself over the last couple of months. I want to share with you soon. I need to get back to writing again. I’ve missed it.

Woooo!

Livin’ the emotional rollercoaster life! Yay! Woo!

My husband has been traveling this week. I’ve had a lot of time to myself to reflect, throw pity parties, go wild with jubilation, and lots of banging my head on the wall.

I have received two rejection letters from the three jobs I interviewed with. I was surprised by how bad I felt after getting those no thank you phone calls. One was a voicemail that I undoubtedly missed because I was off banging my head on the wall after the first rejection.

This whole week has been up and down with a few spirals thrown in there.

Tonight I was watching my new favorite summer guilty pleasure The Bold Type. Jane left her job in Season 1 for another job she thought would be more challenging. And, like me in my new challenging job, she failed.

She goes back to her original boss to ask for her job back. Her boss says no. That if she got her old job back it would be a disservice. Jane needed to sit in her failure for the time being.

As that scene ended I felt a tingling in my fingers that I had to write it down. This is always happens when I get some inspiration. My fingers tingle. So I doodled the first thing that came to mind.

I’m not sure where the doodle will go next and that’s okay.

I will survive this moment in my life. I also mad this crazy thing.

Struggling today

I’m really struggling today. I have little energy to do anything. I haven’t showered and I haven’t brushed my teeth. My hair is pulled back in 10 tiny hair clips to keep it out of my face.

I had plans for today but depression has derailed them. I’m going to try not to go back to bed. I woke up at 11am. This cannot be my new normal.

Yesterday one of the last three jobs I interviewed for called to say they were going with another candidate. I’m a lot more bummed about it than I thought. I still haven’t heard from the other two jobs.

I’m really bummed. I feel this intense pressure to get a job and I can’t find anything. Also, I’m “tired” and don’t want to go look for anything. I’m not even out the door to go to the library.

also I live in fucking Florida. Today’s temps are in the 90s. Someone suggested I go out with my camera but I can’t. 10 minutes in Florida’s heat means 12 hours in a dark room hoping I won’t puke and trying to ease a massive heat induced headache.

Don’t make suggestions. I don’t want to hear them.

Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder

Trisha Faye

April is the A to Z Blog Challenge. Every day during the month, except Sunday’s, we’ll be posting to a different letter as we work our way through the alphabet. On Trisha Faye I’ll be posting snippets from a Work in Progress, Embracing 60, scheduled for release this June. Thanks for joining us! Come back tomorrow for thoughts on the joys, delights, and sometimes aggravations about reaching milestone birthdays!

I received this in a forwarded email a few months ago. (Thank you, Joyce! At least I think you’re the one that sent it to me. As I’m much too often afflicted with this syndrome, I don’t really remember.) I tried to find the origin of this, to give the author credit, but it’s been circulated around the internet so much, I couldn’t. The earliest post I found was dated 2006, but to be honest…

View original post 575 more words

Dealing with the aftermath

I told my therapist about all y’all. All. Y’all.

Day 1 of my newest life adventure. I woke up feeling pretty good. I had plans to write a letter to the ombudsman of the university where I worked. He had worked with me back in December when I was being shifted around and worried about the very thing that happened yesterday.

The more I wrote the more I realized that I needed to take a break. I needed to step away from everything and come back to it. I talked with my husband about having a hard time separating the facts from feelings. The email was a diatribe similar to Tom Cruise’s manifesto in Jerry Maguire.

Instead, I’m going to word vomit. I’m going to spew up everything single thing I’ve been feeling since September 2016 when everything started to change. Then I’ll sift through it, pulling out the information needed to express my message:

I don’t want my job back. I want to call attention to the fact that I, a 12-year employee of the university – was forgotten about.

That’s what it comes down to. I fell through the cracks because I wasn’t important enough to be considered.

My perspective is this: During the transition of my office into a new area my job duties and tasks were not considered important enough to be given much thought. I was the lowest employee on the totem pole. I was an administrative assistant. I was quick to learn just how undervalued the admin was in the new area.

I got one meeting in which I was told I would do 20 hours a week for office and then do 20 hours a week graphic design for the new office. Wham bam thank you, ma’am. Problem solved, let’s move on to more important things.

One meeting. One lousy, ill described, unsupervised switcheroo that because of its lack of leadership was ultimately a failure. Not that I failed but that I was failed.

I didn’t realize until yesterday just how abandoned and tossed away like some piece of trash I was. I laid in bed yesterday sobbing to my husband that no one stood up for me, no one cared about me, that I wasn’t important enough to anyone in a position of leadership to ensure that I had a job to do.

That I wanted to work, that I am still shocked that the leadership was okay with paying me to do very little should be a sign of my integrity. I want to work. I want to help. I want to be part of the team.

How do I explain all of this in a letter without coming off as a dramatic and angry woman? This is why I need the weekend to collect my thoughts.

At least I have the support of my husband, my family, my friends. Without them, I’m not quite sure where I would be.

 

It’s the End and I Feel Fine

The view out my office window. Under-construction Forever.

As a teenager, back in the late 80s/early 90s, R.E.M. was my absolute favorite band ever. I had every single album. One of my favorite songs (before Out of Time gave me every single favorite song all on one album) was It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine). R.E.M. was my go to band for when I was having feelings and emotions I wasn’t able to sort out or express on my own. But It’s the End.. was a fun song that made me jump around and sing at the top of my lungs.

Today I feel like I finally understand this song.

Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down
Watch your heel crush, crush, uh oh
This means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steering clear
A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline

I pushed to have my re-evaluation done at work. I was so scared of having the evaluation blindside me that I pushed for a date. There I go dress rehearsing tragedy again. And I got my eval date, sort of.

This has been my workstation for the last 6 months.

Earlier this week I rediscovered my connection to Alanis Morissette’s music. I was looking for a song that always reminds me of a boy from high school I had a crush on. While looking for the song I stumbled on Thank U. I listened to the words. I read the words. I realized they were my words. My past, my present, my future.

The moment I let go of it was the moment
I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it
Was the moment I touched down

How ’bout no longer being masochistic
How ’bout remembering your divinity
How ’bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How ’bout not equating death with stopping

Thank you India
Thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you thank you silence

Today they let me go. They chose to do a non-renewal. From what I understand they don’t have to give any explanation for not-renewing my contract, which explains why there was no explanation in the letter for why they were letting me go. I was so angry. I am so angry.

What I listened to as I drove away from my building.

But once I got past unabashedly bawling my eyes out I realized the freedom of being let go. Tomorrow I won’t wake up dreading going to work. Tomorrow I won’t be lonely because I’m not surrounded by people who either won’t talk to me (my boss) or don’t talk to me (because our businesses don’t cross and most of our connections are “good morning” or “have a good weekend”). Tomorrow I won’t second guess my creativity. Tomorrow I won’t have to put on business attire and be miserable because I’m wearing a cardigan in Florida heat and humidity (I take it off in my office to the consternation of my boss and the director of the admin suite).

Tomorrow I will be free. Today, at this very moment, I am free. So my job world may be ending but I feel fine. Thank you providence. Thank you clarity. Thank you thank you.

 

No Words

Possible Trigger

Kate Spade. Anthony Bourdain. Stephanie Adams. Avicii. Possibly Verne Troyer (alcohol poisoning thought to be suicide).

at.I’ve been trying to figure out what to write because I feel it is important that the suicides be addressed. But what to say? I see “reach out to your friends, even your friends who seem put together or happy”. I see call Suicide Prevention hotlines. But the thing people forget is that depression (and anxiety) can affect how we reach out. If we even try to reach out.

I’m sure you’ve seen these two Tweets by now: I

Thank you, Caissie, for stating it like it is. Thank you, Clint, for suggesting that people listen. So that’s where I’m going with this. Trigger warning: I’m going deep and dark here, quit reading if you might be triggered.

When I had suicidal thoughts these are the thoughts I had:

1. I am no good at anything.
2. I can’t figure out how to do anything.
3. I’m never going to do any better.
4. I’m a burden to my husband.
5. If I didn’t have depression we wouldn’t have to spend $40 a visit to the therapist every week.
6. I just want to crawl into a hole and sleep.
7. I want to crawl into a hole and sleep…my husband wants to have a date night and I just can’t. I have no energy.
8. My husband is going to leave me.
9. I’m going to lose my job because I can’t get out of bed today.
10. My entire body hurts and I’m going to lose my job.
11. I suck.
12. I’m a mistake.
13. My life is worthless.
14. I will never be better than I am now.
15. If I weren’t here would life be better for other people?

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The thoughts get nastier and darker the deeper I go into a depression spiral. So dark.

When I get really low I am reminded of how incredibly sad and depressed my not depressed husband got after his sister committed suicide. He blamed himself. Fourteen years later he still says he thinks he could have been a better brother. If he had just known. I remind him that we hadn’t seen her in a couple of years so there was no way we could have known she was in pain. But she was also super vibrant and outgoing. She was able to hide her pain from people who saw her weekly, daily.

So when I get low I think about my husband’s pain and I go tell him how I’m feeling. I think about how hurt he would be if I did hurt myself. How much blame he would put on himself.

The thing is not everyone has a moment of clarity when the depression is deep. Depression muddies up every thought and action. I’m lucky that I get these moments where the mud gets wiped away and I can see. But I know how it feels not to be able to see.

 

 

Celebrities Using Mental Health As An Excuse

I love how celebrities will use their health as excuses for what they do; and in most cases will get forgiven and a pat on the back for admitting to having a problem. Except Roseann. Roseanne said her Ambien made her Tweet. Ain’t nobody forgiving Roseanne.

It still just makes me mad. I’m already feeling pretty crappy today and my writing is all over the place. Fuck you, Kanye West. Fuck you and your admission to being bipolar. Fuck you.

Kanye West reveals bipolar diagnosis at 39 – and claims it makes him a ‘superhero’

SHUT UP, Kanye! We don’t want you to admit that you have bipolar. Your admission may help you feel better about your tirades about slavery and support of Trump, but you’ve screwed up for the rest of us without your privilege.

You basically said that being bipolar is an excuse for acting badly. But it’s okay for you because your privilege allows for forgiveness while the rest of us continue to fight the stigma.

And, in a reference to his recent shocking outburst during a TMZ Live stream, in which he claimed 400 years of black slavery was “a choice”, he said: “Think about people who have mental issues that are not Kanye West…think about somebody that does exactly what I did at TMZ but they just do it at work. Then Tuesday morning they come back and they lost their job.”

That’s right, we lose our jobs. Actually, just admitting that we might have a mental illness could mean we lose our jobs. Or needing time off to go to the doctor to keep us healthy because we don’t want to act like a big asshat like you means we could lose our jobs. So thank you for fucking up again and waving your privilege around and not being a better person. Good job, pal. Good job.

“I’m so blessed and so privileged because think about people that have mental issues that are not Kanye West, that can’t go and make that [album] and make you feel like it’s all good,” he went on.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr….

He confirmed he was no longer taking medication as doctors were ordering him to take three pills a day – and instead chose to self-medicate by only taking one or two a week.

That’s not how this works, Kanye! You cannot choose to self-medicate with one or two pills a day and think you are healing and getting better. You aren’t. Obviously, this isn’t working for you but it’s okay because you’re famous.

I hate it when celebrities come out with an admission of a mental illness after they have behaved so badly. I hate it. I hate that I have had to deal with my mental illness without getting a pass for those days when my anxiety and depression is so bad I can barely get out of bed. But fucking Kanye can say shit about slavery being a choice and then say, “Oh my bad, I’m just bipolar” and he gets a pat on the back for being so open about his mental health.

We need influencers who are doing their damn best to be healthy to have articles written about them. Kristen Bell has openly discussed her anxiety and depression and it won’t get as much media attention because she’s generally a person trying to do good in the world.

 

Identifying Behaviors

I had a job interview today. I don’t know how it went. I know that I babbled sometimes because I do that when I get nervous.

It makes me frustrated that I can hear myself going on and on and not being able to stop talking. It’s like I’m in so deep with whatever I’m saying I just have to keep going.

Maybe it’s some fear that I haven’t said what I wanted to say and so I HAVE to finish what I was saying.

Is anyone else this much of a spazz? I just hope folks could see through all the jabber and give me a shot at the job.

I need chocolate. Or ice cream. Chocolate mint ice cream and it needs to be green.