That’s me these days…nothing to complain about, nothing to get worked up about, and everything to be happy about. The weather is gorgeous and spring is in full bloom, but there is no hint of the insanity that tends to grip me at this time of the year. I’m back in the habit of going to Mass every Sunday thanks to the self-discipline of Lent. I’m not overspending, and my bank and credit card balances show it. And Lord knows how grateful I am to be rid of that horrible anxiety that came with my recent depressive episode. I haven’t even had to pop a Klonopin in weeks. Shit happens, I deal with it, and then move on to the next thing.
Not that there’s a whole lot of “next things”. Life is pretty routine these days, even boring to a point (and I’m NEVER bored). Bipolar 1 seems very, very far away and if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was over and done with. I still don’t have a lot of energy, but then I rarely do, although I’m showering regularly, doing laundry when I need to, and I clean up the kitchen almost every day. Sometimes I wonder if my vim and vigor would return if I weren’t on so much medication; in fact, I’m toying with the idea of asking Dr. Goodenough at my next visit on the 15th if we might try reducing the load a little bit. Just to increase my get-up-and-go, you know?
I can almost hear y’all yelling “Are you f*cking CRAZY??!!” Well, no, and that’s why I’m not experimenting on my own. I have no desire to upset the apple cart by messing with my meds like I did last spring. I only want to see if coming down on a couple of them might bring some of my old motivation back. I want to garden now that the weather is so great, but I lack the oomph to dig in the dirt and lug heavy water hoses around. I want to tear my room apart and clean it top to bottom and then rearrange it, but again, the energy just isn’t there. I don’t even seem to have the wherewithal to clean the freaking bathroom; God knows it needs it, and I’m the only one who’ll do it after Ben declared his independence from cleaning the one Shelley and I use. But every day when I wake up and look at the grime, I do my best Scarlett O’Hara impression and say “I’ll think about it tomorrow”.
Of course, Dr. G would probably greet me with a resounding NO if I were to propose cutting back. I got to be a No-Drama Mama by taking my meds in the exact manner in which they were prescribed, and tweaking the magic formula is fraught with danger. I know I only recently got to this point and the reason it happened is that my meds were adjusted. So it might be argued that I’m stable at this time only because of those increases, and reducing the dose could set me back. I certainly don’t need that!
Reading back over this post, I just realized that maybe getting my lead butt off the sofa isn’t worth the chaos that could result. That’s what a mental “disorder” is—chaos in the brain. I’ve had about all of that I can stand. It’s only the meds that make it better, so it might behoove me to stay the course and not risk everything going to hell in a bushel basket by tinkering with them…even with Dr. G’s knowledge and approval. Which, of course, I’m not going to get.
But that bathroom’s gotta get cleaned somehow.
bpnurse 