25w 5d (Blogging Withdrawal)

My internet crapped out at the house so I only had 3g on my phone. Comcast took their sweet, sweet time to come out and fix the modem, so it's been a little while since I've blogged.

Here's what you missed:

• The worst decision I have ever made
• Complete mental breakdown (no, I mean this time, for real)
• Hyperventilation due to my employer not paying me on time
• Then only paying me half of my paycheck
• Then random second payment approximately 6 days later on a date that was neither the 15th nor the 30th of the month. I should have called and asked what it was about, but I didn't want them to take it away.
• Started intensive therapy program
• Still waiting for my HMO to approve my disability claim. They want to read my "therapeutic notes", which all doctors involved consider to be very intrusive. If I had any expectation of privacy (I don't) I might be offended.

I'm probably not going to hit all these points, but I do want to write about the worst decision I have ever made. I wrote about it in my last post, but I actually followed through with getting off my medication for a couple of days. It started off as an accident. I just missed my morning meds because was up and then asleep at the wrong times and I just didn't take them. By mid-afternoon, it became a conscious decision: "I've been on my meds for 10 years. I know the side effects of being on and going off them cold turkey. I'm older and have way more therapy. I can handle being off them. I won't take my night meds."

By Day 2 of unmedicated me, I lashed out at five people who I've met in the past two years. If you know much about me, you know that I don't have many friends that are physically in the same geographical location as me. So to say that I lashed out at five people is mind blowing. I was just so angry, for no rational reason. It was like I wanted to say, "Fuck you for caring about me and fuck you for not caring about me enough to let me go through this incredibly difficult pregnancy alone and the black pit that my mind has suddenly turned into". It was a complete, unmedicated mess and one that I regret deeply. By mid-afternoon, I was sleeping and feeling like my brain was simultaneously falling and flying. I felt untethered to my body. I realized what all the doctors had been medicating me against. Their medicating me against me. That self destruct button in my brain, the one I haven't pushed for three years, is still very much active inside me. I immediately went back to that place of despair. I could barely see. My Dad kept texting me and I couldn't really see the phone to text back. He kept asking if I needed help. Finally, I realized that if I didn't get help soon that it was going to be a long road back. I managed to stagger into my bathroom to take my meds.

I have asked for forgiveness from the five people. It's been an exercise in humbleness. I really just had to take my heart in my hand and explain what had happened (I had lost my mind, temporarily) and just hoped that they could understand. I've had mixed results with my apologies, but I learned about the importance of relationships and the importance of not blaming others for what is essentially my own responsibility. I've been assured at therapy and by my sister that everyone who has ever been on medication for a long period of time, will try to get off them at one point or another. Then they realize that they need the medication and go back on, tail tucked between your legs.

So that's where I am. I've started intensive therapy four times a week and individual therapy once a week. I've gone back to the same therapy group I went to three years ago when I was in a pattern of self destruction. It's been a little crazy because the skills they teach in their therapy haven't changed, just my response to the skills have changed. They joke that I'm in the masters program of therapy, whereas everyone else is still on their undergraduate degree. I like to say I'm a returning alumnus.

Things are getting better, slowly. More pregnancy talk in my next post and I how I feel like I have to keep my legs closed to keep my kiddo inside me.