I’m not OK
Posted on October 20th, 2007 | by Billifer | antipsychotic, bipolar disorder, circadian rhythm, Daniel Johnston, depression, hypomania, Invega, mood, psychiatric medication, psychiatry, sleep, sleep disorder[My apologies for the verbosity of this braindump, but it’s important. Please read it.]
It has been difficult this week. My mood has been… someplace that it’s not seen in a fair amount of time. Before I go further, let me explain what mood is.
MOOD is more than mad, sad, or glad. That’s one aspect—affect—but it does not comprise the whole experience for anyone with mood disorders, and for people like me, affect is a miniscule part of mood. Most of the time, anyway.
The remainder of it runs the gamut: energy, sleep, motivation, pain and other physical symptoms, appetite and weight changes, concentration, cognition and memory, interpersonal relationships, pursuit of career, anxiety, distorted interpretation of reality.
Those are just the easy ones to deal with. Then there are the harder ones: loneliness, hopelessness, helplessness, loss of pleasure and enjoyment of pretty much anything, knowing that you are hurting the people that care about you, wondering whether you are even capable of loving anyone or deserving of love yourself, thinking that those around you would hurt less if you left them suddenly instead of a little bit at a time—like an old Band-Aid that is ready to be pulled off a healing wound.
Yes, friends, things have been bad this week. Dipping back into last week, really, but especially this week. You know about my “sleep issues”:sleep, but they’ve never hit this level of chaos. I missed an appointment with my therapist on Wednesday because I couldn’t wake up in time for a 3:15 session. I barely (and only barely) made it to my psychiatrist’s office yesterday for a 4:00 appointment because I set three alarms and my mom called me ten times (yes, ten). I didn’t consciously hear the phone ringing, but evidently it woke me anyway, because on the last one I did wake up.
[sleep]http://paxoo.com/2007/uncategorized/213/
How is this an acceptable way to live?
I can’t seem to take care of myself anymore. Not the way I should. It’s difficult to admit this, you know. It’s hard for me to tell people that I haven’t washed my clothes in three weeks. Or that I am showering about every 5 to 7 days. Or that it doesn’t matter that much because I don’t go out anymore anyway because I just don’t feel up to leaving the apartment. Remember when I went to Wahoo’s and Starbucks every day? Today’s the third day in two weeks I’ve been to Wahoo’s, and I haven’t been to Starbucks in a week.
There’s a line of a “Daniel Johnston”:devil song that goes, “I know it’s my fault, but I want out / And when I cry out, nobody seems to understand / Like a monkey in a zoo / You say I’m cute; you don’t know how much that hurts / You don’t know how it feels / to live in your own dirt / Like a monkey in a zoo.” I really relate to this song, and to Daniel Johnston in general, really. Here’s another song I really find a lot of connection to:
[devil]http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=WqwHOEXLJmU&offerid=78941&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewArtist%253Fid%253D157458%2526partnerId%253D30
