I’ve hit the wall, and hit it hard.  To think it only took me four weeks.

My anxiety is spotty.  It’s kind of on and off but when it’s on it’s intense.  I’ve had days where I spent hours just pacing and ruminating.  Leaving the hospital is still making me feel sick.  Le boyf is making me go out, and is getting concerned over how I’m somehow not getting less shaky every time we do go out.

It seems to be spiking at night.  At night, anxiety is just on.  I guess it’s because it’s the time of day when the zeldox levels in my system are at a low but I just run in circles around my room, so dizzy and shaky, trying to wear myself out.

I have an agitating factor at night time; there’s a very real issue that can prevent me from sleeping.  My neighbour’s.  Fucking.  Snoring.  It has to be heard to be believed.  And it can be heard through the wall with the door shut.  They gave me ear plugs which do work, but they’re uncomfortable and I don’t like wearing them.

The rational part of my brain tells me that I shouldn’t be expecting to not be a competent, non agoraphobe in just a few short weeks.  The depressed all of my brain asks when I will ever not be an incompetent agoraphobe.  Suicidal ideation is back.  I just can’t do this for another fifty-odd years.

I had to make the decision of whether to return to my regular inpatient psychiatrist who was returning to work this week.  This was more complicated than it sounds.  On one hand, I’ve seen the regular doctor for five years, we work well together and it’s important to keep her in the loop.  On the other hand, I’ve come to realise that these two have very different philosophies.  While I was frustrated at my current doctor to begin with, I came to realise that his comparatively conservative approach isn’t always a bad thing – bringing up my drugs slowly allowed me to tolerate them much better, and adding them to my chart as PRN rather than standard gave me greater control over when I increased the dose.

The deciding factor was whether I would have to change therapists.  Each doctor has a different psychologist working under them, and I was concerned that if I went back to my old doctor I’d have to change my therapist as well.  I just wasn’t prepared to change both at this late stage.  When I asked him though he promised that he’d fix it so I could see my regular doctor and his therapist.  So it was settled.  I’d leave his care and move to hers.

I was worried about this appointment, not because I’m scared of her – as the staff kept teasing me – but having explain my entire case summary to a new person is exhausting.  Plus with her less conservative approach to medication I was afraid that she’d effectively blow up this current regime and put me straight on a different cocktail which would make me violently ill, and keep me in hospital for several more weeks.

Despite my fears she did no such thing, but explained to me that she would normally be treating anxiety with a certain type of anti depressant.  Which as we know, for bipolar patients, is problematic.

She contemplated prescribing lovan, which is apparently a safer class of the drug but I know I’ve been on that before, I just can’t remember when or for how long.  If it was for a long time, that would indicate it was working.  She promised to dig through my files to see if it was in the last five years, I promised to check with my parents because I suspect it was long before that.

She also made the morning zeldox a permanent addition to my medication chart, so I don’t have to explain to the nurses every single morning why I need PRN just after I’ve woken up.  Taking it in the morning is definitely getting easier but I’m still struggling some days where I end up doing sweet FA all day really.  I have what my dad would call ‘bed days’ when he talks about his nursing home patients, where I just lie around and watch tv.   Of course dad would say that bed days are reasonable in elderly folk on their last legs who have slowed right down, not a young person like me.

Another addition to my anxiety is the demographic shift in the hospital’s residents that has happened suddenly this week.  I’ve noticed over my admissions that the hospital does go through stages of being either mostly young or mostly older folks over periods of several weeks. And there never seems to be a whole lot of inbetweeners like myself.  Maybe because they tend to assign themselves to one of the groups and manage to blend in but I’m not interested in either.  Although there are a few who, like me, do keep to themselves.

Anyway up until now, including over the holiday lockdown period, it’s been a decidedly old timers scene.  But this week has seen an influx of youngsters and whenever this happens the hospital turns into a giant sleepover party.  Shrill laughing, gossip, cliques, running in and out of each other’s rooms.

That last part I find particularly anxirty inducing.  I know that seems irrational but truth be told I would never go into another patient’s space.  And I would not tolerate them coming into mine.  In fact it’s against the rules to have another patient in your room.  Even if it wasn’t I would be enforcing that as a personal boundary.

The nurses don’t appear all that concerned; certain rules aren’t strongly enforced when nothing is being hurt except maybe the sensibility of personal boundaries.  One good thing about the youngsters is that they all want to hang out the smokers area so at certain times of the day the hospital completely clears out when they want their nicotine fix.  I do appreciate the quiet.

Something that has made a huge impression on me in my personal therapy journey is the importance of appropriate personal boundaries.  Generally – there are some exceptions of course – the older crew are totally on board with this idea, as many have been in therapy for years but watching the current lot is good for meditating on that concept.

I’m not saying that all young people suck at boundaries but, as I said seeing certain ones running into wach others rooms and jumping on their beds makes me wonder.  I could do I could do a whole other blog post on the topic but the gyst of it is, we are told that while socialising in here is fine, we are discouraged from maintaining friendships once we get discharged.  And after being admitted with certain people a number of times you often come to understand that despite presenting well freinship with them can be exhausting.  I include myself in that description, I suck at maintaining friendships.

Some food for thought might not be a bad thing, hey?  Anything to distract me from the anxiety.

Mac