Well, as nice as it’s been not to keep running up my tab at the front desk, it’s been too long since I’ve seen my psychiatrist.
Seven weeks since my last appointment, and another nine days to go until my next. The longest I’ve ever gone before was six weeks, and that was before all of this….stuff hit the fan. I feel uneasy, muddled, anxious, even confused. I’m not experiencing a mood episode, however, unless you count this somewhat agitated, depressed feeling as one, which I don’t. There’s no need to medicalize something that’s a normal reaction to being hit with both barrels.
But I need a mental tune-up, as it were, and now I wish I’d snuck an extra visit in as he’d encouraged me to do when I talked to him on the phone the day Will was released from the hospital. So why do I keep trying to tough it out? Why am I so afraid to need?
I know part of it has to do with the fact that underneath all this angst, I’m really quite stable. Why go to the doctor when I’m not sick? It’s like being in the most comfortable bed you’ve ever slept in and waking up every hour or so to marvel at how comfortable you are. I’ve thought to myself many times over the past few weeks how wonderful it is that I’m NOT in a mood episode…..talk about a bad time to go off the rails!
But this restless, edgy feeling isn’t pleasant either. It feels almost like a pale version of that mixed episode of the not-too-distant past, and that makes me nervous. I still can’t get to sleep earlier than one or two A.M., and then I either sleep too little or too much. And my sleep is always broken by frequent awakenings—I haven’t slept through the night in what seems like ages. Plus, some days I’m hungry all the time, while on others I can barely touch food; and on some days I can’t sit still, but on others I can’t get my butt out of the computer chair to save my soul.
Again, I tell myself, none of this is necessarily pathological. I’ve had two major life-changing events occur within the last six weeks, and two more within the past six months…..anyone would be reeling after being repeatedly smacked upside the head with a two-by-four. (And to think I believed 2012 was a horrific year—it doesn’t hold a candle to this one, and it ain’t over yet.)
Still, I wish I’d just swallowed my pride and made an early appointment with my p-doc for that tune-up. I don’t see any reason to try to get in sooner now; there certainly is no emergency, and I don’t really need anything but his guidance, as well as professional confirmation that I’m truly OK. But I also want him to know that the meds are finally right, and better yet, that I’ve finally learned the difference between what’s my disorder and what’s just me.
I’m absurdly proud of that for some reason. I was completely flummoxed for a long time there, and now that I’ve figured it out I want to crow about it….at least a little.
Yes, you’re probably finding today’s mental meanderings as clear as mud too. That’s why I’m literally counting the days until my appointment on the 4th, even as I curse myself for allowing money (or the lack thereof) to be the deciding factor in how often I go in. Damn.
bpnurse 