Crappy New Year

See what I did there with the title of the post? How have I not won a Pulitzer?

Well had I had the time, internet connectivity and foresight to post in the few days before Christmas, you might have had some insight into my tone and writing style when I'm genuinely happy.

Reasons I was happy;

• Application to rent the most beautiful little one bedroom apartment on the Brunswick/Coburg border was approved!
• Bit the bullet and decided to go to Europe and the US for a lovely little jaunt beginning in April and ending in June. Visited a travel agent who quoted me $4800 for flights, used my mad online flight searching skills (I used Skyscanner) and got all my flights for just under $2300.
• I'd had a crappy stay in hospital for maintenance TMS but in the last two days two nurses on two separate occasions tried to give me the wrong medication. Definitely a bad thing but I felt suddenly empowered because there was something concrete I could legitimately make a formal complaint about and perhaps get some of my other concerns heard.
• The money from my four years of tax returns finally all came through. And money can buy you happiness. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise,

So what happened?

• Well, the money kind of all disappeared on flights, bond, rent, furnishings for the apartment and Christmas. All gone.
• Moving into my beautiful dream home turned out to have a few little nightmarish qualities. Please learn from my mistakes and never, ever move just before Christmas. I spent days without power, the internet has only just been connected and when you realise that your real estate agent has given you the wrong key he is not around for you to talk to. Also a number of the lights didn't work once the power was turned on and they had expensive, difficult to replace globes. And then finally, I don't know whether this stuff happens to other people but they just never talk about it, but the lock on my front door fell off. On New Years Day. When even the 24 hour 7 day a week 365 days of the year locksmith wasn't answering his phone. Seriously, how am I the only person who has things like locks falling off doors and driveways catching on fire happen? And I wouldn't have been so concerned about the lock falling off since the building itself is pretty secure but my new neighbours turn out to be sketchy as fuck! I couldn't work out who actually lived there for the first week or two because so many people were coming and going at all times of day or night. I've finally worked out it's two guys living there (probably not a couple or the counterstereotype of what a gay couple is) and they like to listen to the races all day long while competing to see how many f-bombs they can drop in a single sentence. 
• I drank a lot of champagne on Christmas day which perhaps wasn't advisable since I was kind of tired and overwrought from the stress and lack of sleep from moving so rather than sensibly going home after drinking champagne for six hours straight I went to a party and drank even more and then ended up having some rather unpleasant social encounters. I won't go into it but it kind of put me off parties, drinking, myself and people, particularly those of the opposite sex.
• So then I spent New Years Eve on a couch with a cat watching a documentary about happiness that SBS had obviously programmed so that people in my situation wouldn't top themselves. 
• The complaint I made about the nurses attempting to administer the wrong medication has had zero response which now just has me feeling insecure about ever going back into hospital.
• And I could have endured it all because I kept thinking to myself 'I'm going to Vienna! I'm going to New York! I'm going to see my dear friends!' but then my bastard government introduced some snaky new legislation which came into effect January 1st saying that recipients of certain government payments could not leave the country for more than four weeks in a twelve month period without having their payments cut off. And because I'd been an online travel scouting genius I had booked almost exclusively non-exchangeable, non-refundable flights. So I have a couple of options; 1) Go. Fuck the government. Hope they don't notice and be prepared to have my payments cut off which would definitely put me in further financial jeopardy. 2) Don't go. Forget all the money I've spent on non-refundable flights. Stay in Melbourne, be miserable. Other people keep putting forth another idea, 'Change the flights you can and just buy new ones', which is a lovely idea if the first dot point wasn't in place. I have no further money. It's gone.

So now I've kind of just given up on pretty much everything. I'm house sitting in the suburbs for my parents which means I'm trapped far from everything with dial up speed internet and too much readily available junk food. I've been wearing the same pyjamas day and night for the last three days. I'm kind of half-watching Doctor Zhivago in the same way I kind of half-watched The Crimson Pirate before this and I'm sure I'll continue to half-watch some crap on the telly until it's nothing but infomercials. I also have a UTI which I'm kind of using as a justification for the pyjamas, couch and tell lifestyle.

It's weird though, in giving up I think I've avoided going down the other path I usually go down which is caring too much and falling into a depressive pit. I'm intellectually aware that the things that have happened haven't happened to me. They're not the ammunition of the universe vs. Katie war. These things have just happened. Unfortunately all around the same time. But I kind of like holding onto the idea that something really is trying to break me. It means when a mug breaks or my Android tablet I got second-hand for Christmas breaks (both happened today - whatevs) I have a moment of ire and then I decide I don't care. It's like I'm flipping the universe the bird and telling it it can't break me because I don't care.

Of course I'm going to have to start caring again at some point. I don't think my pink babushka doll pyjamas or stringy bed hair would go down well at work. And I suppose I will eventually want to eat something other than mince pies and corn chips. Eventually. 

And then who knows what happens next. 

And exhale...

I'm back.

I'm sure you've all been holding your breath wondering what happened to me. Some of you may have worked out from my last cryptic 'Oh god, oh god, everything's turning to shit' post which I followed up with 7 months of radio silence that things were not going particularly well. Well, you were right. Your prize is in the mail.

I could give you the long story but it's long and my fingers are kind of tired, plus it's a total bummer! The short story is I was bad, I went to hospital, I got worse, I thought I got better, I left hospital, I got worse, I went back to hospital, we tried this drug, we tried that drug, I thought there were conspiring men hiding in my bathroom, I had my appendix out (not as a treatment for mental illness, I had appendicitis), I tried more different drugs, I started a treatment trial of TMS (Trans-cranial Magnetic Stimulation), I started a double blind trial of Mito NAC (N-acetyl cysteine), things started to improve but I was undergoing so many treatments that nobody knew why I'd improved, we didn't care, we threw our hands up in the air and danced to Kanye West.

Ok, that last bit only happened on Saturday night.

I could have blogged earlier but I was scared of the Internet and my days consisted of trying to get enough oxygen into my lungs to stay alive and not much else so it would have made for a pretty boring read.

Now, well, my life's a virtual treasure trove of interest and intrigue. I'm back at work at the MTC but keeping my number of shifts to a minimum lest my head explode and also to keep Centrelink off my back (I'm on the DSP (disability support pension) now. When I went for my interview I told the woman I'd been admitted to hospital 11 times in 2 years and she conceded that that might be a barrier to maintaining full-time work. It's great that I'm on it but the current government is gearing up to bend all DSP recipients over and collectively royally ream us so I'm not getting too comfortable).

I've been catching up with friends a lot lately and that has helped tremendously. I convinced myself in hospital that I was the loneliest, saddest, most unloved being to ever be shut away and forgotten about but it turns out my friends just didn't really know what was going on with me so they thought I needed to be left alone. Friends out there, for the record, even on my worst days seeing people who care for me lifts my heart a little. Please always feel welcome to visit me in hospital, even unannounced. But I also totally understand if you can't get past the overwhelming beigeness and lingering smell of antiseptic and stale cigarette smoke that goes with psych hospitals and just can’t force yourself through the doors. In that case just send a text. Or flowers. Or chocolates. Or money.

I need to send out a big thank you to my family (I'm sorry, this seems to have morphed into my Oscars acceptance speech) who stood by me through the worst and the weirdest of it all. I can’t ever repay them so I think the only thing I can do is try to stay well for their sake. Although thinking about it, if I can’t stay well for my own sake (like it’s a matter of will, anyway!?) then I’m sure I can’t for them. I don’t know then, maybe I’ll bake them all biscuits and give them nice socks.

So to summarise; was bad, better now, friends good, family great. I’ll delve into details of the whole saga at some later point in time if the mood so strikes me and I can find an interesting way to frame ‘despondently stared at wall for 7 hours’.

P.S. Oh, and happy Mental Health Awareness Week everyone!!!

Happy Winter Solstice!

My prayers were answered and it was a remarkably short stay at The Melbourne Clinic, thanks to a medication adjustment.

I was taken off the Abilify and started on 10mg of Saphris and 75mg of Effexor. Within a day I started to feel brighter and as the days went on I noticed I was less tired, my anxiety lessened and within the week I could honestly say that I no longer felt depressed, hence my discharge. It's remarkable as well what a difference the absence of side effects makes. They were only ever slight with the low dose of Abilify but there was a constant underlying sense of restlessness I experienced. So far, side effect free on the new meds, apart from the mild drowsiness after the evening dose of Saphris.

Taking the Effexor is a bit controversial for somebody such as myself with a bipolar diagnosis. Antidepressants, particularly those of the SNRI branch, which Effexor is, can cause mania and that was the real worry with putting me on it. I was concerned too that my sudden mood shift was one that was going to head into the stratosphere, but so far my mood seems stable at a positive place.

The other thing that was a huge help from my hospital stay came from a group session run on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. The session was specifically on thoughts so I was interested in attending due to the hostile nature of the thoughts that had recently been clogging my head. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy we are taught that we are always going to experience negative or painful emotions, thoughts and physical sensations and rather than trying to avoid or fight these we can learn to accept them and cope with them and commit to living by a set of values.

In the session I attended we were informed that around 80% of our thoughts are involuntary and they tend to predominantly be negative. Avoiding or fighting these thoughts exerts a great deal of energy and is mostly ineffective. Instead we must accept that we are having negative thoughts. The thing to understand though is that our thoughts are not necessarily important. They are not commands we must obey or the truth or threats. If we can recognise that our thoughts are not necessarily important then we can examine them to find out instead if they are useful or helpful. Then, if the thought is not useful but still present there are a number of ways to accept the thought while minimising the impact of it.

I'll give you an example, say you have a recurring thought like 'people hate me', you think this over and over and immediately your amygdala lights up and sends cortisol into your body and your heart starts beating faster and you begin to feel really bad. Rather than continuing thinking 'people hate me' (which is an unhelpful thought) or trying to avoid thinking it, which tends to make the thought come back stronger, you can try thinking 'I'm noticing that I'm thinking people hate me'. The thought is being accepted, but diffused by the language surrounding it and the impact of it is lessened.

This all might sound like psychology mumbo-jumbo but as somebody who has the thought 'people hate me' about ten times a day, I've actually found it really effective. And it doesn't just work for that thought, oh no, it works for 'I've failed at life' and 'my life is a mess' and all other manner of thoughts. Try it some time! You might like it!

Well, anyway, the conclusion is, I'm feeling pretty darn good right now. I'm inside and warm on this cold day, the shortest one we'll have this year. Even though this means we're at midwinter, I like to think positively that the days are only going to get longer from now on. And may they mostly be happy ones!

Waiting on a call

Things further unfurled.

My anxiety and restlessness kept me up at night. My concentration deteriorated. While I was away in Sydney this long weekend I started to hear a voice. It gave me compelling reasons to die sooner rather than later. The reasons started making sense. I'm waiting on a call now to say that there's a bed for me at The Melbourne Clinic.

I'm hopeful it's a short stay. I'm hopeful it will just be a simple medication change or even a short round of ECT and I'll bounce right back. I'm hopeful, and that has to count for something, right?

I'm sorry then if it's a while between posts. I'll write when I can.

Sick on sick on sick

An outside observer may be forgiven for thinking that I love spending time in hospital based on how often I do it.

You see, yesterday morning, after taking my bipolar medication and some Codral and Bisolvin for my killer cold I was suddenly doubled over with stomach pain. Soon after I started vomiting and couldn't stop. As I was lying on the bathroom floor feeling like I was going to die, it occurred to me that perhaps I was having a drug interaction so I called Nurse-on-Call. My nurse suggested I to straight to a GP. I went to a local clinic and saw a GP and she suggested I go straight to the Emergency Department at The Alfred Hospital as she wasn't sure what was wrong with me but couldn't rule out appendicitis. So, on to the ED at The Alfred where I was subjected to lots of prodding and poking and I answered lots of questions and was taken off for ultrasounds and as the day wore on I started to feel better but I was hooked up to an IV so I couldn't just leave and besides, I was hoping that somebody could tell me conclusively what had happened to me. Alas, 'twas not to be. I was discharged nearly 12 hours after arriving with a big, fat question mark over my diagnosis.

Somebody suggested that the reflux I get from taking lithium, combined with the amount of mucous I was swallowing and the codeine in the Codral had just created a bad reaction in my stomach and made me very sick. In case this is the case I'm steering clear of codeine, so if anyone wants some Codral, there's some going free at my house.

So, that's it, that's the mystery vomiting ailment that eclipsed my killer cold that eclipsed my bipolar disorder.

I'm really praying (to whom? Not sure) for a sickness free stretch of time now. I'll see out the end of this cold, but that's it, then I want no more. If the universe could be so good as to comply I would be greatly appreciative.

The Mechanism of the Action Remains Elusive

I have finished up after 6 sessions of bilateral electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and undoubtedly the desired effect of a dramatic improvement in my mood has been achieved.

Despite still grappling with a definite sense that I'm stupider than I was a month ago, a shonky memory and an unusual amount of apathy, I feel a little bit like a bucket of sunshine! Skeptics of this treatment would attribute this to the brain damage caused by the induced tonic-clonic seizures. Skeptics are well within their rights to be skeptical (besides the causal link between skepticism that leads them to being named skeptics) as while there seems to be evidence that the desired outcome of mood improvement can be achieved through ECT, it's not exactly known how this is achieved, so yes, it could be achieved through causing brain damage.

The most interesting phrase I stumbled across when researching ECT is 'the mechanism of the action remains elusive'. The writer in me adores this phrase and is inclined to attribute an almost mystic quality to ECT by virtue of the amount of inherent faith that goes into this line of treatment. The patient in me screams "seriously WTF! You're putting me under general anesthetic and sticking electrodes in my head because it seems to kinda work for some reason you're not quite sure of!?"

If I told you I was going to indulge in some faith based healing as the first line of treatment for another life threatening illness, you would undoubtedly be relieved that I'm locked up in a psychiatric hospital. And yet this is seen as a most legitimate form of treatment. Oh well, it seems to have worked (see, there's that apathy!)

I guess though there's no real way of knowing what has changed my mood. It could have been the elusive mechanism of the action or it could have been taking me off the seven mind altering medications I was on or it could have just been that the time for that mood was up and it was moving on anyway and I'd be a little bucket of sunshine right now, fried brain or not.

Oh yeah, I should have mentioned that they took me off all my medication. I had one of the worst days of my life withdrawing from the Cymbalta. Luckily my shonky memory has blocked out most of it, but what I do remember is crouching in the smoking courtyard, howling in physical and psychic pain. But Miss Bucket O'Sunshine doesn't want to talk about that! Instead I'll tell you how lovely it is to not wobble and shake like I did for all those months I was dosed up to the eyeballs. I've been started on one new medication, Abilify (isn't that the sexiest name for an antipsychotic???) and I'm back on the Lithium slow release to try to keep my mood stable.

I'm being let out on Saturday and while part of me is ecstatic (little bucket of sunshine) there is a part of me that is scared that I'm somehow going to fuck things up and wind up back in hospital again within the next few months (little half-empty bucket of sunshine). Sometimes the apathy chases the fear away and I'm glad, but sometimes I wish it wouldn't. I know I'm only dreaming when I pretend I have much control over my illness and that holding on to that fear could influence anything, but when I'm feeling positive like this it's nice to be able to pretend that my mood is something I helped create and I do have control of and I can hold onto.
May the sun shine a little bit longer.

Brain soup

I'm typing this into the unsupported browser of my iPhone and hoping the Optus 3G signal will see fit to transmit this message from my hospital bed to the great wide world. As mentioned, I'm in hospital. I'm halfway (maybe? hopefully?) through a course of electroconvulsive therapy. The good news is they've taken me off all of my medication, the bad news is my brain has turned to mush and I have no short term memory. I cannot remember what I did yesterday and strangers keep talking to me in intimate tones. I'm assured by family and nursing staff alike that this is the preferable alternative to my former state but not retaining adequate memory of  what that was, I can't really comment. Despite it's drastic flaws I have always been rather attached to my mind so finding it so greatly compromised is distressing. My deep sense of uncertainty is not being assisted by the insistence of all those around me that I shouldn't worry about it. (That's exactly what they'd want me to think, I'm sure.) I'm wishing that I had some newfound optimism to accompany my paranoia but maybe what I'm presently feeling is all that can be expected for the halfway mark of this treatment. I'll update again once I turn that corner or maybe just if I find some reliable Internet. (This is all of course contingent on retaining the memory that I keep a blog.)