Catastrophic mistake

Still alive, if anyone even cares anymore. Only one person in my life right now, my best friend, even gives a shit to keep in contact with me. Many people are upset that I moved across the country earlier this year. I'm upset with myself for doing it and every day is tinged with regret. I should not be in charge of my own life. All I ever do is fuck shit up, royally. And here I was thinking it'd be fun. Expand my horizons. Fuck!

I'm trapped in a state far away from my family and the one friend that genuinely cares about me. I want to move back to Chicago, but I'm so broke and the financial hole I'm in right now just seems to get deeper by the day. I don't even know what to do. I do have one family member here, but he doesn't have the means to help me get back to Chicago, and I have serious doubts that my car would make it that far. Had to take out a loan to get here, and get all my stuff here, so borrowing more is not an option. If I thought my car would make it and the things that are most important to me would all fit in it, I'd pack up and leave tomorrow. Fuck my roommate. Him, and my own stupidity and inability to say no, are what got me where I am right now. Luckily I'm not depressed to the point that thoughts of suicide are starting to flood back in...for now. If things remain as bad as they are, or if they get worse, I have no doubt they will return. I can feel them there, lurking.

This whole situation, from the financial disaster to the fucked up roommate situation is just so unbelievable that I can't even bring myself to type out the details. Knowing I did this to myself is the hardest pill to swallow. I don't know why I can't make wise choices in life. Everything I do ends up being one catastrophic mistake after another. How can someone be so fucked up, AND KNOW IT, and still screw their life up? I wish I knew, because that's me.

Suddenly he's gone

How does one feel so alone in a world full of billions of people? I'm not sure, but that is exactly how I'm feeling right now. Alone. Like no one knows I even exist. It's an empty, horrible feeling and all I want to do is cry. Maybe it's the depression. Maybe it's because I'm grieving.

I found out today that a friend of mine passed away. I just saw him a few days ago after having not seen him in awhile. We talked, we laughed, and now, suddenly, he's gone. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I've never lost a friend before. I've had people in my life pass away. Grandparents, aunts, uncles....mostly elderly people, many of which were ill, so their deaths weren't a surprise. This? This is a shock. Hearing the words "he's dead" hit me like a punch to the stomach. It knocked the wind out of me, and the pain & nausea were instantaneous.

Worst of all, I had no one to reach out to and share the pain of my loss. I called a few people that also knew him, but they seem to be taking the news better than I am. Maybe they grieve differently. Maybe they didn't know him as well as I did. Their reactions left me feeling even more empty. I guess I was hoping I'd find someone on the other end of the phone that would share my tears, but I found no one to connect with on that level.

I wanted to call his mom and talk to her, but I wasn't sure that was a good idea. He was her everything and I know she is absolutely devastated. I will try and call her tomorrow. Offer whatever support I can. I know she is in poor health, and the sudden passing of her only son has me worried that she's going to give up trying to get better and hers will be the next death I'm informed of.

Corner of loud and busy

The only time I really get the urge to blog anymore is when I'm gripped with depression. Most of the time I don't bother, and just go to bed. Today I figured I'd try writing and see if it helps clear my head any. I probably should go to bed considering it's almost 5 am, but I'll see if this helps bring the misery down to a more tolerable level, because right now my mind is swirling with thoughts I'd rather not entertain.

I've managed to keep myself out of the hospital since November of 2013. That's quite a feat for me. It's the longest period of time I've gone without seeing the inside of a psych ward since August of 2003. Does that mean I'm doing better? Not necessarily. Maybe better at making everyone believe I'm doing okay and holding my own, but certainly not better in terms of the amount of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation I deal with on a regular basis.

Haven't seen my pdoc since December or January. I was supposed to see him at the beginning of February, but I ended up taking off on a 3 week vacation the day I was supposed to go see him and I haven't bothered to call and schedule a new appointment. I probably should, but I haven't been taking my medications regularly, so I'm not sure there's any point. I try to take them, I just get caught up in weird sleep schedules and negative thinking, both of which hinder my ability to take them. The sleep schedule gets me confused on when to take them, especially the night time ones since my "night" varies from day to day. The negative thoughts keep me from accepting that it's a good idea for me to be taking them, particularly the MAOI. The last time I saw the pdoc, he bumped my MAOI up to six pills a day because the damn thing is only available in a 15 mg dose. Since I don't keep a normal daily schedule, it became next to impossible for me to take three pills twice a day (can't take them at bedtime because they could possibly keep me awake), so I stopped taking any. I have never had to follow the dietary restrictions that come with an MAOI, maybe because I was never on a very high dose, but that is another concern I have about swallowing six pills a day....I'll be forced to follow the diet, which I have no desire to. My go to snack food, aged cheeses like cheddar and bleu, are on the list of foods I shouldn't be eating because of the risk of a hypertensive crisis. Yes, my priorities are out of whack. Second only to chocolate, cheese is my favorite food and I'd rather be depressed & suicidal than have to give it up. 

But anyway....my vacation was stressful but fun. It was a working vacation, working on finding a place to live when I move out West. Still trying to figure things out, something that's difficult considering a serious lack of money, but it's something I really want to do. Where there's a will, there's a way. I'm considering having my brother talk to his landlord to see if we can make a deal for me to stay with him for a few months until I can find something else. I'm just not sure I could handle his location. I'm looking for laid back and quiet. He's the opposite and quite literally lives at the corner of loud and busy. Even if it's just temporary, I'm not sure I could handle the stress of moving so far AND moving to a place that's louder and busier than the corner I currently live on. We shall see.

I'm alive

After many, many months of ignoring my blog, I finally opened the email account associated with it and found a message from a long time reader who was checking up on me. It was a nice surprise to have someone inquire as to how I've been doing. 

I have been giving strong consideration to returning to blogging, which is why I even checked my email account to begin with. I'm just not sure if I should start a new blog or just continue to keep this one alive, since The Mass Defective has been my nickname since my daughter was little.

In terms of where I stand with my illnesses, nothing much has changed. Bipolar, anxiety and panic attacks are something I struggle with on a daily basis, particularly the panic attacks, which have gotten increasingly worse. After months of cycling between mania & hypomania, with bouts of depression thrown in for good measure, I'm fighting the deepening depression that always seems to come in the fall. Still haven't been able to pinpoint why my mood bottoms out at this time every year, but I'm doing all I can to avoid another hospital stay.

As far as other things going on in my life, my daughter graduated college with honors earlier this year and has already published her first novel. I'm so incredibly proud of her for chasing her dream. Sales have been slow, but there's interest and with the help of a PR firm she's hired, hopefully there will be even more interest. I'm currently trying to read her book, but it's not of a genre I typically read, so it's slow going for me. She also wants me to proofread it as I go along because she thinks she might have submitted the wrong file to have the paperback published. Luckily there aren't that many copies of it out there yet, since most of the sales have been for e-books, so once I get done and hand her the corrections, she can take a look at it, fix the necessary problems and have more copies printed.

As for me, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Somehow, I'm not sure I'll ever know the answer.

Worried about my rapid cycling

I'm not sure if it's because I'm extremely sick with the flu or what, but my depression has been unbearable the last week or so. When I put it like that though, it couldn't just be because I'm sick. I didn't fall ill until Saturday and I've been struggling since last Sunday. Yesterday it was so horrible I was tempted to go to the hospital, but as always, it strikes at the worst time. My daughter and her boyfriend are on Spring Break and will be heading to Notre Dame so they can check things out because her boyfriend will probably be going there for Grad School. While they're gone, I'll be babysitting her bunny and there isn't anyone else that can volunteer to do that.

When I saw my pdoc last month, he was worried about my rapid cycling and made several suggestions on what we should do to get it under control. As always, his preference was to add Seroquel to my med mix again. With some reluctance I agreed, but he let me choose the dose I wanted and I went with a mild 50 mg. He apparently thought that was too low of a dose so he wrote the prescription out for 1 - 2 pills a day, which he didn't mention. I noticed it when I picked the script up from the pharmacy. One hasn't been helping me sleep, which is no doubt a huge contributor to my cycling and depression, but I took 2 yesterday and that didn't help either. It's hard to sleep when you can't breathe and your throat is extremely dry and scratchy. Maybe once this flu passes, the Seroquel will help level things out.

I did inform him that I was only going to take the Seroquel until the obsessive thoughts about how poisonous I think it is start screaming in my head again, as they always eventually do. I think he was happy that I agreed to take it, even if it might turn out to be a short term solution. I was just in the hospital in November, I don't want to go back to the days when I was going in multiple times a month or every 3-4 months, and I'm sure he doesn't want me in there that often either. Not when he sees Seroquel as a possible solution to the problem.

Whatever happens with my depression, I need to hold myself together until after March 18th. Out of desperation for ways to make extra money, I signed up to be an election judge again. I don't think this time it will be as overwhelming as it was when I worked the Presidential Election. This is just a Primary, and I don't think a lot of people care or see it as important as a major election, so I'm guessing there will be a lot of down time where we're just sitting around. 

I'm trying to get my polling place assignment changed. The one they assigned me to is quite a distance from my current home, which makes absolutely no sense because they've had my new address for months. If I still lived with the old people, it would be about a 15-20 minute drive, but at least it would only be in the next town over. It'd take me a good 45 minutes to an hour to get there from where I live now and given that we have to be there at 5 am? Um yeah, I'm really not happy with that. I pretty much live at the intersection of 4 different towns, they couldn't give me a job working in one of them? I suppose if they can't switch me, I could always just spend the night at my folks house so that I am closer. We'll see what happens. I left a message for the guy I need to talk to earlier today. Just waiting for him to call back.