depression

Topamax. It ain’t tops

Mac the Disordered anxiety, depression, mania , , ,

Ha…ha…punny.

Things haven’t been great for awhile, so my doctor decided to mix up my medication.

 I’d been subsisting on a mood stabilizer and melatonin antidepressant to regulate my sleep. She was iffy over the melatonin and suggested removing it. I cried. She changed her mind.

 She did decide to supplement my mood stabilizer with another one – topiramate, or topamax. I take an extra pill, tiny pill that must be no more than three millimeters across, every morning and evening.

 She took me through the potential side effects, of which one really stood out –

 Appetite suppressant.

 See, in my experience that should read as:

 Heinous nausea.

 I wasn’t too worried otherwise, because my current mood stabilizer didn’t give me any side effects even in the beginning worse than some broken sleep and mild constipation.

 The day after the night I started, we had a party in the evening and I was running around trying to clean the house in dreadful heat. If I was feeling washed out that day, I put it down to that.

 The next day though I hit the wall hard. Well, I would have if I’d been able to get out of bed. Heinous nausea did indeed make an appearance. After the first few days it’s reduced to being around only three hours after I take it but trying to fall asleep feeling like I’ve just downed a three course meal is a challenge.

 My mood was stabilized all right. Stabilized in a very bad place.

 My depression over the past two weeks has been dreadful. I spent hours in bed staring at the ceiling, with even my thoughts slowing to a plodding pace. Plodding over things that happened ages ago that are suddenly at the forefront of my mind and I can’t get them out, trying just wears me to tears.

 On top of that I’ve been getting headaches. Which is ironic because as well as mood stabilization topamax is supposed to stop migraines. I’ve never had a migraine in my life and I hardly think that these are as bad but they’re still nasty. Paracetamol and ibuprofen don’t help. And funnily enough it’s localized to where that bloody Frisbee attacked me…

 I saw my GP a few days after I started and as soon as I slouched into her office she told me she was concerned. The fact that I was low – more specifically that I hadn’t showered in some time – was clearly evident.

 I told her I had started topamax and she looked surprised. “Topiramate? I’ve only ever seen that used for seizures” – I raised my eyebrows – “but these psychiatrists always find alternative uses for drugs in practice I’ve found.” She added quickly. “come and see me in a week, if you’re still feeling gross I’ll give Dr *psychiatrist* a call”

 I continued to be low with bouts of irritation that haven’t gone away. I can’t leave the house, except near the middle of the night to do my grocery shopping. I can’t stand the sound, sight, touch of people. I fought off intrusive thoughts compelling me to commit violent acts toward my self and other people. This is a symptom I associate with a manic episode.

 I’m not sure if my out of control moods are as a result of the meds not working yet, of them not working at all, or of them interacting and cancelling each other out. After a particularly violent episode of intrusive imagery I left a message for my psychiatrist asking for emergency advice. I will put up with a lot while adjusting to new meds but being bombarded with violent imagery isn’t something I want to deal with for too long if I possibly don’t have to. As yet, I haven’t heard back from her.

 I saw my GP again yesterday and happened to have the first good day I’d had in two weeks. So she’s decided that I’m doing better. Now I’m back down again and no idea where this is going.

 I’m still certain that this is going to cumulate in a hospital visit and I’m ok with that. This medication business needs to be sorted out…not once and for all because it doesn’t work like that but at least for a long stretch.

 

Mac.

Update: Turns out you can be both depressed and concussed

Mac the Disordered depression , ,

If you recall, about three weeks ago I had an unfortunate altercation with a Frisbee on a morning run.

I was wondering if the abnormally low mood even by my standards that resulted was in fact a concussion symptom, or purely coincidental.  Not that it was overly serious but still, it bugged me.

Last week during a routine visit to my GP I casually mentioned what I had been speculating and she confirmed that depression after a concussion is, in fact, a thing.

Welp.  There you go.

A fairly insidious lesser known concussion symptom, depression can apparently appear even in patients with no prior history with mental illness.  Something to keep in mind if it happens to you, I guess.

Mac

Aspergers and Familial Embarrassment

Mac the Disordered Uncategorized , , ,

I’ve complained about feeling like a target of disdain from my family but the truth is, I’m not the only one.

I have this uncle on my father’s side who probably has Asperger syndrome but I don’t believe he has ever been officially diagnosed. He has trouble reading social cues and empathising with others so overall his capacity to function in mainstream society is very low. He lives with my grandma and has been unemployed for at least ten years, possibly longer.

And yes, he’s the one that my mother holds over me whenever we’re having conflict. You’re the one with the social dysfunction, and that’s obviously what any conflict we have is based on. You need to apologise and accept that you’re just a shitty person compared to the rest of us. If you don’t, you’ll end up living in the basement like him.

As far as I know, he’s not there because he refused to lie down to his mother’s emotional blackmail. He’s there because he’s tried to live independently in many different contexts – as a bachelor, married, as a Buddhist monk – and it’s all gone to shit because he can’t empathise with others and live under anyone’s rules but his own. Maybe he could have if he got the same kind of support when he was younger as I did.

Not that my grandparents didn’t care; it was a different time where there were no behavioural disorders, there were just bad kids who were socialised into a lifestyle of ostracisation that would be so hard to escape.

He presents as what you would call an oddball but he’s harmless unless you’re the type of person who is distressed by conversations dominated by talking about chewing tobacco and tarot cards. My mother would appear to be one of those people.

He embarrasses her. I came to understand that very early on in life, I didn’t fully understand why until my understanding of adult interaction developed later on. I knew there were tough times. He’d been married twice, to the same woman but both marriages were short lived. He’d attempted suicide a couple of times. His life seemed far removed from my own until I started struggling myself in my early twenties and the similarities became frighteningly clear. Looking at him can be like looking into a possible dismal future of wasted potential and suddenly my mother’s threats developed a powerful hold over me that still keeps me wake at night.

It makes me sad, thinking about how things could have been different but I don’t know if my mother feels that way. She never lets on if she does. She just gets embarrassed. Every time we have a family get together, she can be heard bemoaning his presence afterwards. He makes her uncomfortable, and dislikes the way he dominates conversations.

Last weekend we had a party for my grandma’s 80th at a nice restaurant. I brought my boyfriend with me, this being the first time he’d met my extended family. As soon as we walked in my uncle came up and thrust a packet of tobacco under my nose, joking that it would enhance my sports performance. I had to politely decline a couple of times before he got the message but by now I’m used to his manner; this interaction didn’t bother me at all.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see my mother looking alarmed as she does whenever he talks to one of us children but no drama ensued and we got on with the party. All was forgotten and my strongest memory of the day was the look of pure elation on my grandmother’s face when the waiter placed her birthday cake in front of her.

My mother however was still bothered by the interaction between my uncle and I today when I went to her house to do some work. She stood with me as I typed away and asked me fretfully,

“Did I imagine it or did he try to make *BF* take some chewing tobacco?”

I assured her that he was offering it to me and tried to laugh it off, but she wasn’t done.

She vented at me for a while about how embarrassed she was. She asked me if I could see that the chewing tobacco represented a destructive fixated interest. I shrugged.

I wish I could pinpoint why this makes me so uncomfortable.

Maybe it’s just as a fellow aspergian I feel uncomfortable hearing him described as an embarrassment. My view as an insider is going to be different and my mother has made her feeling over some of my less than genteel behaviours abundantly clear. She doesn’t like me ‘engaging’ him. I talk to him but I’ve become good at keeping our conversations being derailed by fixated interests. I don’t see why I should pretend he doesn’t exist but I feel like the rest of the family are on a different page. Mother got annoyed when she found out that I’d been interacting with him on facebook. By interact I mean that he comments on my status, I reply to him. That’s as far as it goes

Is it just my non-NT status that makes me sad, rather than embarrassed? I can see that his behaviour is often totally inappropriate. It’s not hard to see how his life ended up as it has and while I struggle to accommodate other people in my life, it’s something that I consciously work on because life is impossible without some form of coexistence.

It’s also interesting that he’s my dad’s brother, the closest one to him in age but I don’t recall him ever giving his take on the situation. I feel like I’m going to have to ask him about it at some point just to make sense of it all. Right now though the thought is too upsetting, I have the feeling that at least it would make him uncomfortable.

In the mean time I can’t stop wondering, how long until my family start pretending that I don’t exist?

Mac

Should I accept that I will never be ok?

Mac the Disordered depression ,

It’s one of those nights. It’s midnight, I’m cradling a jar of Nutella, bawling my eyes out because my life has gone nowhere.

And wow, people love to point out that my life if going nowhere. Just in case I never noticed.

It does cause people pleasure to see someone that was once so high functioning being unable to get it together.

My life story in a nutshell was that, despite being a mixed bag of issues from birth, I was a fairly high achiever until my late teens, when I cracked. All the horses and men of every monarchy in the world could not put me back together.

I’ve never worked full time. Never been able to live independently without some form of government assistance.   And despite working on my health consistently for years, none of that seems likely to change soon.

Reading that back makes me cry. It’s just so fucking sad looking at it.

It makes me wonder if all my therapy has been worth it. What’s the point of spending all that money if life just doesn’t get better? If I don’t get better? Is it a waste? My family will quickly point out that it is. I’ve wasted their money, my money, wasted their time visiting me in hospital because I ‘refuse’ to get better.

My sisters both have jobs, I am reminded. One of them is looking for a house with her boyfriend, a house for them, not one with housemates.

They say they like to remind me of my shortcomings so I don’t become complacent. Because I’m always thinking how fucking wonderful sharing a house with other students in a shitty area where people have knife fights in the streets is. How great it is that my friends go shopping for furniture at brick and mortar stores, while I’m scavenging it from the side of the road. How despite my private health insurance, I can’t go to hospital when I need it because I can’t afford the gap.

I could ask my parents for it I guess. But I just can’t give them the satisfaction.

It doesn’t matter how well I’m doing, the conversation always comes back to that. I continue to be defined by my failures.

They say it gets better. But I’m just too smart for my own morbidly low-functioning good. I know that it’s a completely hollow statement.

Sometimes it doesn’t. People just don’t ever manage to get it together. I’ve seen them, in my family, in my boyfriend’s family. People I met in hospital. It just never works out.

After six years of no improvement, it looks like I’m headed the same way and it’s devastating me. Should I just give up, accept my lot, be one of those people on the DSP in the housing estates, compliant enough on their meds to not cause anyone trouble but not benefiting anyone either. It’s a miserable existence. Fifty or so more years with nothing to show for it except being a handy tool for my family to boost their self-esteem whenever they feel like they might not be getting anywhere in life.

I could be a cautionary tale but against what? I never abused drugs or alcohol, or skipped school or hung out with miscreants. My problems are largely genetic which points to the uncomfortable idea that having this relative who is getting so far behind in life is actually no one’s fault. She can’t be fixed, but she couldn’t have been prevented. Where’s the closure in that? Blaming me is so much easier.

I can tell them to stop but, ya know, what right do I have? Do I not realise how hard their lives are because of my illness? The embarrassment of having a partially employed daughter in her mid twenties who is apparently so bright? Of having to deal with the embarrassment of her being in hospital? What would the neighbours say. And bailing me out of debt. No that wasn’t pleasant at all but how could I appreciate that. I was the one having fun spending.

And let’s not forget, I’m on the autistic spectrum. If we’re having a disagreement, obviously I’m the one in the wrong, and I don’t admit out loud that I’m a shitty human being I’m going to end up living in mum and dad’s basement like my unemployed uncle, now that would be embarrassing.

I just need to talk to someone to tell me that I’m not a failure. That I will get there one day. That I won’t end up living in mum and dad’s basement. I texted my boyfriend and told him that I’m struggling but the fucker fell asleep.

Just tell me it will get better.

I don’t even care if it’s not true. Not right now.

Mac

Not sure if depressed or concussed.

Mac the Disordered Uncategorized ,

I have been dealing with a rough patch lately, but in the last week I’ve had more good days so things are looking hopeful.  But something happened yesterday that may or may not have set me back.

The day started off well; I got up before 11 am for the first time in a week and went for a run.  Context – my running routine consists of walking to the park/nature reserve a few streets away from my house, running through the bush for 45 minutes and warming down by walking home.

Being a Saturday in the school holidays, the park was crowded with picnickers and competitors in the local Frisbee golf tournament ( I have no idea either…) but I wasn’t paying attention to anyone.  I didn’t think I needed to.

Anyway, I completed my run and began walking back home, cut off from the world by my music and dark sunglasses.

Out nowhere I felt an almighty impact to the back of my head and my vision blacked out.  My limbs went slack and I dropped onto my side.  My hand started working again and automatically moved to the back of my head.  I opened my eyes and looked up incredulously.  What the hell was that?  There was no-one nearby, the picnic area was about half a kilometre away.  I figured a falling tree branch must have hit me.

While I was trying to look for the offending branch without moving my head, I heard yelling and running feet.  Suddenly I was looking up at a team of concerned Frisbee golfers.

I had been hit at the base of my skull by a Frisbee.  Not your standard lightweight Frisbee either, it was a dense plastic with narrow, sharp edges.  they explained that they had been practicing some way away.  The thrower was concerned about forcibly throwing a heavy Frisbee in a busy park, but they had assured her that “the only person around is that jogger way over there, and you’re not throwing at her anyway.”

So she hurled it with all her strength.  And it caught a freak breeze.  And rebounded off a tree and into the back of my head.  Lucky me.

I was still a bit groggy but fortunately one of the golfers was a doctor.  He started off asking me about my family to see if I was confused, but we ended up sitting on the path talking for about an hour.  By that point he was satisfied that I had no fractures or bleeds, and I convinced them that I was good to walk home, given that I live pretty much across the road.

Then as I was walking home, my housemate drove past and threw a water bottle at me because HILARITY.

I got home, showered, bandaged an ice pack to the back of my head, and sat in my darkened room to watch some tv.

And after about half an hour of this I realised that apart from a mild headache I was fine.

But I felt completely hopeless.

It’s important to rest physically and cognitively after a concussion but even though I was doing that, I couldn’t make myself do anything else like, say, paint my nails, clean my room, do my makeup.  My housemate was having a party and I found myself hiding in my room for the first half of it.  Being in the living room, with everyone talking was too much for me to handle.

Twenty four hours later I’m still feeling flat.  Not the same as the fogginess and dulled senses I’ve felt with concussions I’ve had before, and obviously I’m typing this onto a backlit screen without discomfort.  My motivation has been completely zapped.

It’s probably the unexpectedness of the incident which making me keen to stay withdrawn I guess.  Which is understandable but I hope it doesn’t stay around for too long.

But I still can’t tell the story without laughing so I’ll probably be ok.

Although I skipped the run today because…well…I don’t want to go outside.  There’s Frisbees out there.

Mac

 

I’m screwed

Mac the Disordered Uncategorized

I’ve been lying in bed for a week.

I haven’t been going to work or class. I had an assignment due today. Can’t even care.

I possibly wouldn’t have eaten all week if I didn’t have my boyfriend and housemates feeding me.

I feel like I should be crying more but it’s happening in short bursts. I can lie here mulling over my devastation – nothing. Then burst into a violent sobbing fit while on the toilet, or in the shower, or while playing candy crush. It never lasts for more than a minute

I guess you have to feel in order to cry.

I was forced to feel a lot of things last week and it sucked balls. My brain has gone into survival mode and has suppressed all of my emotions. If I hide from the world then I won’t be made to feel out of turn. Foolproof.

I’m not fishing for sympathy or attention, there’s no spin on this. This is just reality as it’s happening. How emotional can you get over someone who just stares at the ceiling all day?

I will probably get up soon. I’m craving something. As soon as I figure out what food group it belongs to, I’ll be up searching.

At least I think it’s a food. You can’t eat love and validation, can you?

Didn’t think so.

Mac