Life amongst the chimps (and the boxes)

Boxes, huh? I'm moving again.
Despite declaring this apartment my forever home it's proving a little too expensive and too far from uni and my neighbours are kind of dicks in the getting-too-drunk-at-2pm-on-a-tuesday-and-playing-suzie-q-on-repeat-17-times way. Plus I'm tired of the contact high every time I walk past their front door.
An apartment in Thornbury became available, known to me and was offered to me in the space of 24 hours so it was all rather easy. Now I just have to pack my whole life up by Friday.
And you know what packing makes me want to do? Procrastinate like I've never procrastinated before! Have I thought about blogging in the last few months? Not once. But then tonight after packing 4 more boxes it suddenly felt imperative to update my dwindling readership (hi Mum!) on what's been going on.
So... Things are pretty good.
Hectic. But good.
I'm finding the Psychology course I'm taking at uni challenging and engaging. I have realised my natural aptitude for writing arts and humanities essays does not translate to writing good scientific essays, mostly because it seems the readership is blatantly disinterested in my opinion. It had me panicked for the first essay in which the question was the equivalent of 'how does a wheel work?' and I tore myself apart trying to reinvent the wheel. That resulted in getting a mark on an essay lower than I can remember ever getting before. Like, it wasn't even a Distinction! But evidenced by the fact that I'm publishing that online as I type, I'm actually not too phased by it. It has actually meant that the impossible standard I set for myself has already been breached so there's no point demanding perfection anymore.
The thing I have been finding a bit confronting, but only in a mental energy taxing way, is dealing with aspects of my mental illness from the other side. Our lecturers tend to make an allowance when talking of depression, anxiety and medications used to treat these that there are most likely in the room people who have been affected by such things. But bipolar disorder, psychosis and ECT are definitely discussed as things applicable to the nameless, faceless "them" of severe, clinical disorder distinct from the "us" of the science-minded investigators and healers.
The problem for me is I've been part of the Psychology student cohort "us" for only 8 weeks and I've been a part of the psychologically addled major diagnosis "them" for most of my adult life. I feel like Jane Goodall amongst the chimps.
Trying to maintain a face of neutrality, sometimes affecting to border on boredom, throughout these discussions is taxing. But it would be of no use making my colourful mental health past known to all. It doesn't add anything to the discussion we're having and I know from past experience and from this us and them model being moulded in the classrooms that even if a person academically understands mental illness that doesn't mean they don't fear it.
I know my own experiences of mental illness will provide me with insight throughout my studies and into a career in psychology, should I so make it past the umpteen billion years of study before me, but for now I have to put it aside. This isn't about me. And I mean that not just in the sense that I can't take it personally, I also mean that me, who I am now, is unaffected by those things. It feels like a different person who was hearing voices, who was so depressed they tried ECT, who spent her life wrapped up in the goings on of illness.
Right now I'm busy. And tired. And I'm a bit stressed. And that worries a lot of people who see any negative emotion as a red flag that bipolar is back. But you'd be busy and stressed and tired too if you were working and studying and moving and procrastinating in the extraordinary (I'd say bordering on masterful even) way that I am. I think I'm just a person. A person who should probably get back to packing...


(One more thing, my sleep has improved dramatically. I stopped taking the Seroquel slow release and have refound my own circadian rhythms! It's remarkable what being rested will do for you.)

That necessary thing where you're not awake...

You know, sleep. No, no, I don't know because I can't and it's making me very unhappy right now.

To start with, I am crazily busy right now. Like no free days in my diary for two months, double booking myself, fist pumping and crying 'yes!' when I realise I have an available time slot to do laundry busy. I can't even work out why I'm so busy. I am working more, and I have more appointments than usual, and I've started driving lessons, and it's summer so there seems to be more socialising, and everyone is having birthdays and oh yeah, did I mention I enrolled at university again (again, again, it seems I will not be satisfied until I have enrolled at all of them. Now if only I could get the finishing the degrees bit down.) Ok, so there's a lot going on and because I work on a casual rotating roster that includes nights I'm frequently getting home at work at 9.30pm and then needing to be at an appointment or back at work the next morning quite early (anything before 10.30am feels early to me) and it's just fucking with me. I'm exhausted but I get into bed and just can't sleep. I've been taking sleeping tablets way more than I'm comfortable with so I'm fearful of becoming dependent on them plus I have immense paranoia that they'll do their job too well and I'll sleep through my alarm the next morning.

I've reread every article and discussion board on bipolar and sleep and the same message gets hammered out each time; routine, routine, routine. But what if my life doesn't allow for routine? I don't have a nine to five job. When I get home after 9.30 I'm not able to just brush my teeth and go straight to bed. Often I haven't even eaten dinner by that time. And if I don't have to be somewhere early the next morning I'm going to allow myself the eight or nine hours of sleep I rarely get which means I won't wake up at the same time as those mornings I'm trotting off to appointments. Is that the wrong thing to do though? Am I better being in a routine of sleep deprivation? And even if that were the case what do I do about those times when my body just flips the bird to routines and alarms and appointments I've made and conks out on me for 14 1/2 hours like it did on Sunday night through to Monday afternoon?

I'm kind of blaming that big sleep reservoir for some of my sleeping woes this week. Not only did it damn what little routine I had (wake up when it's still morning time please) but I'm sure I've also gone into sleep credit or some bullshit in my sleep bank and now my brain is convinced it doesn't owe me any.

I also blame Seroquel. Of all the drugs I've had to take it rates up there with the one that gave me brain zaps and the one that gave me a facial tic as my least favourite. It makes me fat and dopey and clumsy and I'm aware that the hours late in the evening when I feel most alert and clear headed are also when I have the lowest levels of Seroquel in my system. It's hard to go to bed when I finally have the wherewithal to organise otherwise neglected areas of my life. But it's too sedating for me to take in the mornings so what are my options.

So basically I'd be much better at managing sleep and bipolar disorder if it weren't for that medication I take for it or for, you know, that pesky life I live where I have to have a job and do things and stuff.

It's 4am. Now is the worst time to have not yet slept. About this time I start thinking of all the hours yof tomorrow that should be productively devoted to doing things that I'll be sleeping through and how I probably won't even feel well rested when I do wake up and I wonder if it wouldn't be better to just get up now and tackle something I haven't had time to do this week. I have a drain that needs unclogging. And my desk is a disaster area, I could organise it. This really isn't hypomanic Katie talking, just time poor and pragmatic Katie.

I really don't know what to do.

Yes I do.

Put the phone down, it's not helping. Try one last time to get to sleep and if it doesn't work think of the streamlined desk and sparkling drain you'll have as you struggle through tomorrow.

Misery with my mandible

Happy New Year! 

Or is it? David Bowie and Alan Rickman are dead and despite vowing that this year I would steer clear of illness and injury we are two weeks in to the new year and I'm in bed at midday with an ice pack bandaged to my cheek.

I have no idea what's going on but two days ago I woke up with muscle pain throughout my body but in particular in my jaw. I left work early to see a doctor at the clinic across the road from work and saw some Doogie Howser type MD (minus the precocious brilliance) who shrugged a lot and prescribed some steroidal anti-inflammatories in the hopes it would clear everything up (the non-steroidal anti-inflammatories interact with my other medication, hence bringing out the big guns while still having no idea what's up with me).

I spent all of yesterday resting my jaw; no talking, no eating anything chewier than baby food, no drinking from water bottles that require a big sucking action and I thought my jaw was feeling a bit better although I was feeling worse in myself, I'm annoyed that there's something wrong with me and I'm missing work which means I'll be financially stressed again this month and I also feel like lounging around the house, even when it's on doctor's orders, is moochy, bad behaviour. It feels like depression behaviour.

Then I began to wonder if I really do have any jaw pain or if it's that severe or if this is some psychosomatic manifestation of something else I'm not dealing with. But I thought I was across all the things I'm not dealing with and was dealing with my not dealing with them pretty well.

My mother suggested I front up to a hospital emergency room but last time I went to emergency when I had severe gastro and dehydration and was convinced I was developing lithium toxicity they were pretty dismissive. Turning up with pain in my jaw that I've already seen a doctor about seems like an invitation to scoff.

I was told it could take a day or two for the steroids to start doing their thing so I think I at least need to give it longer than that. Then I'll consider seeing someone else, although I'm not sure who. Physio? Dental surgeon? Another GP? Psychiatrist? Voodoo priest?

I think I could handle the pain just fine if it weren't also making me feel miserable. I don't want to slump into a depressive episode because I've been grinding my teeth or my neck is out of alignment. I've long noted that my mental health dive bombs at the slightest hint of inflammation or infection. But then I also remember that I have been prone to general muscle fatigue and aches when I've been depressed in the past so this really is a case of what came first. Perhaps I'll never know but I need to hope there's a way I can find to intervene before it turns into a tumbling wheel of cause and effect, rolling down into that deep pit I feel I've only just gotten myself clear of.

I'm trying to treat myself to a day of bed rest and a Buffy marathon but as previously mentioned I'm having a hard time convincing myself I'm not just digging myself into that depression pit with the daytime resting/slothfulness. Maybe I'll try to do some household chores, nothing too strenuous, so that I don't feel so bad. I don't know where my protestant work ethic comes from.

One last thing, having a semi-operative jaw has reminded me how much medication I take. I've gotten so good at swallowing pills that I can knock down a handful at a time, including two horse sized fish oil capsules. I tried to put two small pills in my mouth yesterday and began to choke. It turns out that without opening my jaw wide to open my gullet I have to swallow each pill with a sip of water and it takes FOREVER because there are so many of them. And now I've added the steroids to the pile too so that's most of my morning gone.

I just wandered off to see if the burnt toast I could suddenly smell had a source or was another vague symptom to add to the list but as it's strongest when I open my front door and seems to be coming from my neighbours house I'm taking it as burnt toast. On the 3 metre walk back from the front door I picked up two pairs of shoes and a cardigan and put them away and that exertion has me craving a good lie down. I'm going to try to consider that my household chores done and blob the rest of the day away.