K Minus Seroquel

It has been a week since I took 30 200mg tablets of Seroquel – 6g for those of you with my maths skills. I hoped for at least 24 hours unconscious, but I got less than 12. As usual I made sure they were spent in hospital, I’m not stupid enough to let my housemates find me like that. I lost a lot of housemates in my 20s through frequent overdoses, although I think even then I got myself to hospital. Anyway, I digress. Since returning home I haven’t taken any Seroquel, my daily dose was 200mg plus another 200mg if I needed it. I dared not take it on Friday night as the huge dose from the previous night was still very much in my system, same Saturday night. By Sunday I was functioning normally again, no slurred speech, no tremor, I could see and hold a cup of tea without spilling it all over the table. I thought maybe if it’s slowly come out of me I could continue just letting it leave my system and not return to my usual dose. Monday was the first real test, I thought by then the overdose would have worked its way out of me and I’d be running on empty. Well, I got to sleep and I haven’t done anything wild. I am on many other drugs, but Seroquel really controls you.

Since Friday I’ve lost 4kg, I’m hardly ever hungry and I can’t quite explain the feeling, just different. I think being off Seroquel is going to be very good for me. It drastically slows the metabolism and makes you ravenous all the time, hence the 50kg I’ve gained since starting it. Together with my gym visits three times a week I may get back to a size I’m not repulsed by.

I have a lot more to share with you but I’m going to leave it for another post.

Good Evening.

K

One of Two

I have expressed fervently my desire not to go down the deep brain stimulation route but the spectre is looming. I met with my psychiatrist today and again he subtly hinted at it, acknowledging my disgust at the idea but at the same time nudging towards it.

On Wednesday I returned home from a week in hospital during which time I had 10 sessions of TMS, with no obvious result. My anxiety is sky high and mood at about a 3/10. I took my discharge medications to my pharmacy this afternoon, the 89 pills of 10mg Neulactil being a strong pull. I think now I don’t have enough of anything to make for a decent overdose, I’d probably get a few hours sleep out of it but I’d rather have several days unconscious. As I try new and old medications to no avail, 100+ sessions of ECT, and TMS and their effect ceases to mend me I’m travelling closer and closer to the final options of deep brain stimulation or suicide. I’d much rather be dead than have my head opened up and meddled with. Please God, send a gunman into the house as I sleep tonight with a mission to kill me and only me, may he be given a medal for extreme kindness to the mentally ill.

My anxiety wasn’t helped by arriving home to completely different dynamics. I knew our new housemate, A, was moving in but I forgot that with every change in housemates there are changes about the house, however minor. I guess it was just unsettling to come home to the lounge re-arranged, a pot plant in a new spot and new stuff in the bathroom. I like A but it would have been a better transition for me if I was here during the move and her first few days in the house. A good thing is that she’s a student, which means sometimes I’ll have company during the day instead of the complete isolation I usually contend with.

I haven’t done any work on my novel since last year. There are two very different directions I can choose to take it in. I’ve written a prelude and a chapter down one path but I think it’s the other I want to take. Decide K!

That’s all for today, my anxiety is causing dizziness and my brain is struggling to think of anything to interest you.

Good Evening.

Three Weeks out Two Weeks in

I'm at home now, discharge was on Saturday. I'm a bit miserable, to tell the truth. I've hit a hurdle in my story, so I've only written a tiny bit. I'm close to 9000 words now, but I'm not writing the story as it will be read, rather just how the plot emerges. When I've worked out everything that's happening I'll re-write probably in a different order to slowly reveal things about my main character and her task. I've decided that she will have a very long life and will have a very important job to do and will live until she finds someone worthy to pass that on to.

I'm probably not moving to Edinburgh, the NHS is very bad for mental health and private insurance excludes pre-existing conditions, so I'm stuffed. Also, the disability support payment is a fraction of what I'm on here. My ongoing fear of becoming homeless would exhibit its self within a week of my arrival and all my money being spent. Speaking of homelessness, I'm terrified that our lease won't be renewed in March and the boys want to live closer to the city and I won't be able to find anyone around here to live with because who wants to live with an unemployed nut case! So back to Mum's an hour away from all my friends, my GP, my psychologist and I'd lose my support worker, whom I really rely on. March, please don't come! We might get notice either way before the end of the year so we won't be so surprised either way, I'm just the eternal pessimist.

I don't have enough to fill in my days at the moment. I have a medical appointment of some kind 4 days of the week, but they only take up an hour. I went to the gym yesterday, but I'm not fit enough to work out for ages without drowning in a pool of my own sweat. Tomorrow's going to be a hard one, only one appointment at 2pm, so I'll feel awful in the morning and then again in the late afternoon. If I have the money I might go to the gym, but I'm seriously broke until Saturday.

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The TMS doctor has decided I'm going to have three weeks at home, then two weeks in for 10 sessions of TMS, and if it works that'll be my life. I hate life.


By the way, you can leave comments on this blog. I moderate them before they get published, so if anything is accidentally said which would reveal my identity to any random person I can choose not publish it. You all know who I am, but Google wouldn't lead you here if you typed in my name, and I want to keep it that way.

I'm Too Happy to Buy Bottled Death

I'm writing this mostly for myself so I can remember that good times are possible.

I got home from hospital on Thursday, my last two TMS treatments being on Wednesday, and I feel good, verging on great. I woke up this morning smiling because I'd slept a 10-hour night right through with no extra sedatives; do bear in mind though that I had my normal sedatives - Neulactil, Stilnox, Seroquel and Lorazepam. I had a rather freaky dream, but not of the scary kind, so I didn't wake up troubled. My housemates and I just went to Bunnings and walking down the chemical aisle I briefly thought "If I drink that I could kill myself" but I pushed it out of my head really fast, normally I'd be thinking about whether or not I should buy it to keep handy for a really bad day or series of days.

Right now I'm letting my brunch digest before I go to the gym for the first time in my life. My support worker was able to get me $7 casual sessions at a nearby(ish) gym. I'm terribly unfit at the moment and I want to be able to walk more than 10 minutes when I'm in the UK so I can explore places, especially Edinburgh, it's quite hilly and the best bits are high up. When I get back my doctor is going to try to get me off Seroquel so I can drop some weight - an impossible task when taking Seroquel; currently I'm 113.5 KG, size 20. Somehow the change from size 18 to 20 felt really traumatic, much more so than going from 16 to 18. I'd like to drop some weight before the trip but I really don't think that's realistic now with it being only 10 days away, but hopefully if I go to the gym every day or every second day my fitness will improve a bit.

That's all I've got to say for now.

Happy K signing off!

Change

If you read my last post you'd know we were expecting a new housemate, V. Well she decided to move elsewhere, but God seems to provide for this house, good housemates have always come along when needed. Within half an hour of R putting a note on Facebook and me on Gumtree we had two replies, both from Christians. We met both, and both would have worked but we went with S as he has lived with R in the past and we all gelled really well. He's been here about three weeks now and he's a pleasure to live with.

Things are really weird at the moment with my illnesses. I ended up not coming off the Dexamphetamine, instead we actually increased the dose. I seem to be okay. Every few hours I get a strong urge to cut or suicide but I never even get up to go towards acting on them. The constant emotional pain is gone and I don't know what to do; it's been my companion for seven years. I find myself hoping for its return because I don't know how to be well. Let's not go too far though, I'm not happy, just not on the brink of tears and feeling terrified of myself constantly. There's this feeling of unjustified uselessness; I feel lazy because I've not been terrible for about 12 weeks, so I feel there's no excuse for the life I'm living, or not living. I must remember it's taking 8 different medications to keep me in this state and it's still not good, just not bad. I'm only awake for about 11 hours a day. Somehow it still feels like I have more time on my hands, maybe because I'm not usually having naps and taking sedatives during the day. I don't like the extra time, I'm not up to working and no one is free on weekdays. I've been spending a lot of time watching Netflix, reading and when I can muster up the courage doing a little work on my novel.

I haven't forgotten what it's like to feel like death is the only option, or that I don't deserve to have skin, but I now feel like if I were to kill myself it would be my own action rather than something I was forced to do by my illness. The difference between a cancer victim dying from their illness or from voluntary euthanasia, both ways they died, only one can they be held accountable for. Why I would wish for those feelings back I don't know, maybe so I can end things without guilt or fear, maybe just because this okay time is so foreign to me. I don't know.

Welcoming V

We’re getting a new housemate, as our relatively new J - who will be greatly missed - is off to get married very soon.

I’m not long home from a session with my psychiatrist; we talked about an admission at the end of next week, just as a respite, but I refused because I don’t want our new housemate, V’s first impression of the house to be “Oh, one of them is in a psychiatric hospital, well that’s just great!” She knows I have depression and spend time in hospital, as we all agreed she should know something about what to expect from me, but I didn’t mention the BPD and anxiety. It’ll come up in conversation, but not until I’m ready. BPD’s a crappy diagnosis with so much stigma attached to it; and because I have the co-morbid conditions of depression and anxiety I can’t really separate symptoms to adequately describe the experience. I can give you this: Right now my mood is about a 4/10, but largely I’m numb, urge to cut 7/10, urge to OD 8/10, but strength to refuse urges: 8/10 for OD and 7/10 for cutting, so it’s unlikely I’ll be doing either of those things today. I have things on this weekend I’d like to be conscious for, but I could get away with some cuts.

I just worked out that by the date I feel it’ll be acceptable, with the new housemate in mind, for me to go back in I will have been out of hospital for 12 weeks, that’s a very long time for me. I’ve had the one night in Short-Stay after the Seroquel overdose, but we’re not counting that. I may not last till 12 weeks, but I don’t want to scare V away. Really I should have gone in a couple of weeks ago when I was very low and used that time as a respite as well as a safety net. I’m a little scared that by postponing the admission I’m going to have a meltdown and destroy things with V more than my absence would have. Choices.