Calm return

I've made a relatively calm return from an 8 day stint in the nut house. My 8th stay in just over three years, think I've become a lifer. I didn't realize just how bad of shape I was in until I admitted myself. For once I think I'm glad I went even though it didn't go smoothly. I'm still trying to process everything from how I felt going in to readjusting to life on the outside (and everything inbetween) so I'm unsure about a lot of things.

This stay was different than the previous ones. I think I got a lot more out of it. My pdoc even said that today was the best mental state he's ever seen me in during the three years he's been treating me. I'm hesitant to say I feel hopeful because that means removing a brick from the fortress I've surrounded myself with, but I don't feel as completely hopeless as I have for so long.

He put me on an MAOI, Eldepryl, and took me off the Trazodone. Luckily this is a mild MAOI so I don't have the dietary restrictions of meds like Nardil. I don't have to give up some of the things I love, primarily aged cheese, since cheese is where I get most of my calcium from. Can't take over the counter cold medicines though. Just hope I remember that if I happen to catch a cold.

I'm a little anxious about Thursday night. They found me a new therapist at the clinic I was seeing my last one at and that is my first appointment with her. I'm considering putting something together, a checklist of sorts, of what issues I will need to work on first just to get myself to a place where I feel therapy will be of help. There is the fear of hope and of trusting others. Since all my past experiences with either have ended up with me being hurt, I haven't been able to allow myself to do either for many years. There's also the matter of simply finding something within myself that's worth fighting for, something that will make me want to save myself.

Think if I don't ever find a way to overcome those three things, I will always be relapsing and never progressing forward. I will in fact end up killing myself, and if something doesn't change soon, that day is closer than even I believe it to be.