I am two weeks into reducing my antidepressant It isn't going well. I don't know how I am going to be able to get through this honestly.
My depression and anxiety are worse. I am having horrible intrusive thoughts. About the baby having horrible withdrawl after she is born. And that I won't be able to stay off medication to breastfeed which I desperately want to do. I am worried about myself and of course the baby. I don't want to become unhinged during my last 13.5 weeks of pregnancy. I know how bad it is to be unmedicated.
There is so much more I wish I could articulate but it feels like a jumble of vines in my mind.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Idle hands and mind are OCD's play things
Well so it has been a little over a month since i was laid off from work. I have fallen into a depressive slump, I consider myself a fairly social person and it is very hard for me to be home alone all day with no one to talk to. Today was particularly bad. I ended up sleeping most of the day to pass the time after I tried to watch day time television (which irritated me no end). I am also 7 days away from the start of my third trimester of pregnancy. This is the time that I have been fearing since the start of the pregnancy. This is the time that I have to come off all of my psychiatric medications. I am starting to come off my SSNRI (selective seratonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor) which is an antidepressant and also works to control my OCD and the pseudoseizures (psychogenic non-epileptic seizures). I am on the first step of coming of the medication and already my depression is worse and my intrusive thoughts are getting worse. I spent almost all day in bed. The worst possible place for me to get stuck.
I don't have many friends in the area where I live and my closest family member is down in Boston. I am struggling to get out of the house everyday and today was not successful.
Once I come off this SSNRI, the next thing to come off will be a benzodiazepine that I have been on for the past 4 years. The "benzo" is used to help me sleep and to control my panic and anxiety attacks. Coming off that is going to be a nightmare.
After the benzodiazepine my sleep aid will be next. It is a serotonin 2 antagonist/reuptake inhibitor.
I know all of this is for the benefit of my baby girl. But that doesn't mean it is going to be pleasant.
I thought that I had more to share but I guess not.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Realizing I have a ton of work to do before the baby gets here
lets see. alot has happened since the last time i wrote.
Well first things first. I got laid off from my company, not much I can comment on other than they are taking care of me in terms of severence which was nice of them. So I am not in a huge rush to get back to work honestly. I honestly don't know how I had been working full time, dealing with my OCD full time, commuting 145 miles a day on top of being in a high risk pregnancy.
I have been unemployed now for a total of....8 days (sorry had to look at the calendar).
And in my 8 days of being home, I have realized a number of things. I need to do some serious work on myself still before I can be Mama. Much of the realization came today actually. I had an appointment with my therapist this morning and we were talking about what i wanted to work on. Honestly most of my symptoms are in remission. All except for the nasty eight letter word- hoarding. I need to do some serious work on this issue. I think that the combination of working a ton of hours and coming home and crashing from exhaustion hasn't helped the issue but I will not use it as an excuse.
Really, I feel very nauseated about how it has gotten. I was watching one of my very good friends 8 mo old granddaughter. Just for 2 hours in my house. And I got in the door and it all hit me like a wave. I actually fought back tears going, I don't want to put her down anywhere! I am worse than Level 1 but not as bad as Level 2 and certainly there are no pet accidents in my home, nor are any of the exits blocked.
So she and spent the 2 hours on our bed playing and giggling. I really did want to let her crawl around but in good conscious and being embarassed about the house to a 8 mo I couldn't let her touch the floor.
I have a friend visiting in 10 days and I still have to get the guest room under control so that she will have someplace to sleep! And I want to get our bedroom done by then as well so that I don't have to feel like I have some monster hiding in our room.
So this whole set of realizations set off a cleaning binge on my part. Short lived as it was, I scrubbed our kitchen floor (it really needed it) And now I am sitting in the guest room writing this and I can feel my OCD trying to take over. I can't give in to it. If I do i know that i won't stop. And i know that it is bad for the baby to have my anxiety that high.
I just sit here and wonder how I got here. And no reason seems acceptable. I am really beating myself up, per the usual. I know it isn't constructive. But right now I am just ripping myself to shreds.
Time to practice thought distancing and pick up the pieces tomorrow.
Well first things first. I got laid off from my company, not much I can comment on other than they are taking care of me in terms of severence which was nice of them. So I am not in a huge rush to get back to work honestly. I honestly don't know how I had been working full time, dealing with my OCD full time, commuting 145 miles a day on top of being in a high risk pregnancy.
I have been unemployed now for a total of....8 days (sorry had to look at the calendar).
And in my 8 days of being home, I have realized a number of things. I need to do some serious work on myself still before I can be Mama. Much of the realization came today actually. I had an appointment with my therapist this morning and we were talking about what i wanted to work on. Honestly most of my symptoms are in remission. All except for the nasty eight letter word- hoarding. I need to do some serious work on this issue. I think that the combination of working a ton of hours and coming home and crashing from exhaustion hasn't helped the issue but I will not use it as an excuse.
Really, I feel very nauseated about how it has gotten. I was watching one of my very good friends 8 mo old granddaughter. Just for 2 hours in my house. And I got in the door and it all hit me like a wave. I actually fought back tears going, I don't want to put her down anywhere! I am worse than Level 1 but not as bad as Level 2 and certainly there are no pet accidents in my home, nor are any of the exits blocked.
So she and spent the 2 hours on our bed playing and giggling. I really did want to let her crawl around but in good conscious and being embarassed about the house to a 8 mo I couldn't let her touch the floor.
I have a friend visiting in 10 days and I still have to get the guest room under control so that she will have someplace to sleep! And I want to get our bedroom done by then as well so that I don't have to feel like I have some monster hiding in our room.
So this whole set of realizations set off a cleaning binge on my part. Short lived as it was, I scrubbed our kitchen floor (it really needed it) And now I am sitting in the guest room writing this and I can feel my OCD trying to take over. I can't give in to it. If I do i know that i won't stop. And i know that it is bad for the baby to have my anxiety that high.
I just sit here and wonder how I got here. And no reason seems acceptable. I am really beating myself up, per the usual. I know it isn't constructive. But right now I am just ripping myself to shreds.
Time to practice thought distancing and pick up the pieces tomorrow.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
been a while i guess
Wow, it has been a long time. Since I miscarried.
Well I am pregnant again with a girl. 16 weeks today. And this is alot harder than i thought that it would be. I had to come off alot of the medication that i was feeling really stable on. i am having intrusive thoughts all the time right now. it is something that i didn't every really get rid of in therapy but had a pretty good handle on.
now all these visions of being a horrible mother are haunting me. but that is what OCD does. it goes after your most cherished things and tries to tear them away from you- ruin the party- make you hide.
my hoarding things is back with a vengence... not that it was ever really gone. and i am finding that i am pushing away from my friends- becoming reclusive again.
my husband keeps pushing me to do more with the gals from work. my doctors are pushing me to exercise. neither of which i really have energy to do or the drive.
i keep getting hit with what i describe are waves of depression...seems everyone just wants to say oh that is just because you are pregnant. well that isn't a very helpful statement when i feel like crumbling on the inside.
but i am trying to keep positive - remember the things i learned in the OCDI.
just thought i would put all of that out there.
Well I am pregnant again with a girl. 16 weeks today. And this is alot harder than i thought that it would be. I had to come off alot of the medication that i was feeling really stable on. i am having intrusive thoughts all the time right now. it is something that i didn't every really get rid of in therapy but had a pretty good handle on.
now all these visions of being a horrible mother are haunting me. but that is what OCD does. it goes after your most cherished things and tries to tear them away from you- ruin the party- make you hide.
my hoarding things is back with a vengence... not that it was ever really gone. and i am finding that i am pushing away from my friends- becoming reclusive again.
my husband keeps pushing me to do more with the gals from work. my doctors are pushing me to exercise. neither of which i really have energy to do or the drive.
i keep getting hit with what i describe are waves of depression...seems everyone just wants to say oh that is just because you are pregnant. well that isn't a very helpful statement when i feel like crumbling on the inside.
but i am trying to keep positive - remember the things i learned in the OCDI.
just thought i would put all of that out there.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Miscarriage and OCD
On Sunday I miscarried my baby. I was 8 weeks pregnant.
All the doctors say not to blame yourself, that there was nothing that you could do to change the outcome.
I could swallow that alittle better if i hadn't seen my baby's heart beat on monday...it was 108 bpm. which i am now told is too slow, that there was probably something wrong already. at the time everyone said oh your baby is fine. which i find hard to believe now.
Now its more than a week later and here i am with out my child and ravaged by my OCD and depression.
I had worked so hard to keep the OCD away from my baby and now it is ripping me limb from limb, yelling in my head, bringing on PNES.
I have the thoughts....you didn't do something right, now your babys dead. you should have done everything so perfectly, you failed. you shouldn't have shut out the OCD, you would have been more careful. you killed your child. did you honestly think everything was going to work out? you don't deserve to be a mother.
And it goes on. every second it goes on. and i am reminded of the death with every twinge of pain i have from the D & C surgery I on Sunday. everything was so rushed, first i was getting blood and an IV done by the clumsiest nurse i have ever had...i have two 2"x3" painful bruises on my left hand and arm because of her. then the er doctor saying well i think you are miscarrying, don't worry they are very common we see usually 1 or 2 of them a day here. YES BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO HEAR. jackass. then an internal exam. the waiting. then the ultrasound. i can't see the screen but my husband and the technician can. silence. what do you see. i don't know (my husband). more silence. theres no heartbeat (the technician). no no that can't be right, i saw it on monday, keep looking. theres nothing, the fetus is dead. then i lose it, all the tech says is hold still i need to get pictures for the doctor. the tech says it isn't your fault there is nothing that anyone could have done. then she shares the horrible story that she lost her child at birth, that you can't change if the child is going to live or die. then i am back in the er. another nurse...something about my baby being with God and God's will. All shit I don't believe in, it only makes me feel worse.
then the ob doctor comes in. we need to do surgery to remove the placental material and i think that we should do testing on the tissue to see if there was a genetic defect that caused this miscarriage. then i am wisked up to the OR. i am only in bay 9 of prep for 10 minutes then in comes the anesthesiologist with a barrage of questions. he starts an IV, he should have been down in the ER doing them instead of that klutz. then i am in the OR and while i am still awake i am getting strapped to the table. then something in my IV that makes me slip away along with the nitrous in my face mask.
then i am coming too to hear the anesthesiologist say well 130kg is really heavy....asshole talking about my weight. that the thing i hear when i am coming too and is stuck in my mind. like i need something else to feel worthless over.
the more i come to the more blinding pain i am in. i can feel bleeding. i know i haven't peed myself. then a hot heating lamp over me. all i want to do is get out of the pile of blankets and break that light.
I feel so numb writing all of this down but it has to come out.
the rest is a blurr. i could write it down but it wouldn't matter.
Now i am back home. i left work know about the surgery, that we lost our child. all i get is thank you for the update followed by another email get a doctors note to cover your absence. how cold do you have to be. i write back how insensitive it all is, i will bring you the note.
and now i am home alone. my husband is back to work. and here i am. alone. hollow and alone.
All the doctors say not to blame yourself, that there was nothing that you could do to change the outcome.
I could swallow that alittle better if i hadn't seen my baby's heart beat on monday...it was 108 bpm. which i am now told is too slow, that there was probably something wrong already. at the time everyone said oh your baby is fine. which i find hard to believe now.
Now its more than a week later and here i am with out my child and ravaged by my OCD and depression.
I had worked so hard to keep the OCD away from my baby and now it is ripping me limb from limb, yelling in my head, bringing on PNES.
I have the thoughts....you didn't do something right, now your babys dead. you should have done everything so perfectly, you failed. you shouldn't have shut out the OCD, you would have been more careful. you killed your child. did you honestly think everything was going to work out? you don't deserve to be a mother.
And it goes on. every second it goes on. and i am reminded of the death with every twinge of pain i have from the D & C surgery I on Sunday. everything was so rushed, first i was getting blood and an IV done by the clumsiest nurse i have ever had...i have two 2"x3" painful bruises on my left hand and arm because of her. then the er doctor saying well i think you are miscarrying, don't worry they are very common we see usually 1 or 2 of them a day here. YES BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO HEAR. jackass. then an internal exam. the waiting. then the ultrasound. i can't see the screen but my husband and the technician can. silence. what do you see. i don't know (my husband). more silence. theres no heartbeat (the technician). no no that can't be right, i saw it on monday, keep looking. theres nothing, the fetus is dead. then i lose it, all the tech says is hold still i need to get pictures for the doctor. the tech says it isn't your fault there is nothing that anyone could have done. then she shares the horrible story that she lost her child at birth, that you can't change if the child is going to live or die. then i am back in the er. another nurse...something about my baby being with God and God's will. All shit I don't believe in, it only makes me feel worse.
then the ob doctor comes in. we need to do surgery to remove the placental material and i think that we should do testing on the tissue to see if there was a genetic defect that caused this miscarriage. then i am wisked up to the OR. i am only in bay 9 of prep for 10 minutes then in comes the anesthesiologist with a barrage of questions. he starts an IV, he should have been down in the ER doing them instead of that klutz. then i am in the OR and while i am still awake i am getting strapped to the table. then something in my IV that makes me slip away along with the nitrous in my face mask.
then i am coming too to hear the anesthesiologist say well 130kg is really heavy....asshole talking about my weight. that the thing i hear when i am coming too and is stuck in my mind. like i need something else to feel worthless over.
the more i come to the more blinding pain i am in. i can feel bleeding. i know i haven't peed myself. then a hot heating lamp over me. all i want to do is get out of the pile of blankets and break that light.
I feel so numb writing all of this down but it has to come out.
the rest is a blurr. i could write it down but it wouldn't matter.
Now i am back home. i left work know about the surgery, that we lost our child. all i get is thank you for the update followed by another email get a doctors note to cover your absence. how cold do you have to be. i write back how insensitive it all is, i will bring you the note.
and now i am home alone. my husband is back to work. and here i am. alone. hollow and alone.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Feeling lost these days
its been a while part of me doesn't know what to say... the self harm is back. i had been doing so well with not engaging in any of it. and then like a bolt lightening i was on my way home and there was that terrible urge again. the one where i just want to run my car off the road, or pull my car off the road and just stand there next to the sturdiest tree i can find the one with the most knots with the most healed damage from one of the winters and just stand there and hit my head over and over and over again in an effort to feel better when i just feel completely lost. it hasn't ever been about the pain. this time it wouldn't be the pain about OCD it would be the pain about the PTSD and the flash backs and the abuse from the ex boyfriend and the assault in college. all the things that i have been "stuffing" according to my therapist and husband. Stuffing is just so much easier. No one wants to deal with this shit all the time. who wants to deal with the memories of the foot ball player that was going to rape you. or the ex that thought you were a possession. if you are that person you can have this all of it but i don't think that there is a person on the planet. even those researchers that have those posters up "Are you the survivor of a an attempted rape? are you depressed??" NO SHIT that is what i want to say to all of them. No only are we depressed but we are haunted by every single person on the planet that triggers that memory.
i don't know why i am so stuck on these topic these days. i am trying really hard to work through them in therapy. i have sorta stopped going to my support group. in some ways i think that it is just a reassurance festival, i get frustrated, in the hospital they said never give reassurance especially if you want the person to get better. My OCD symptoms have been at bay lately. some checking but not much. nothing like before. there are a few people that are in the group that have been through the program at McLeans and I feel like the group should be run differently give the people that are part of the group, a lot of us could be doing more for the people that are coming in but it just seems like a broken tape some days and i would step up and do more but i am so stuck with my PTSD and half the time i am having a silent flash back and i am not even there.
I really need to finish filling out my paper work to get my service dog. my husband and my therapist seem to be annoyed that i haven't done it yet. It is a self worth issues and i am so fucking stubborn. part of me goes what the fuck is the point. now i am going deaf on top of it in my left ear so it would be even more useful.
i am just feeling lost and lonely.
i don't know why i am so stuck on these topic these days. i am trying really hard to work through them in therapy. i have sorta stopped going to my support group. in some ways i think that it is just a reassurance festival, i get frustrated, in the hospital they said never give reassurance especially if you want the person to get better. My OCD symptoms have been at bay lately. some checking but not much. nothing like before. there are a few people that are in the group that have been through the program at McLeans and I feel like the group should be run differently give the people that are part of the group, a lot of us could be doing more for the people that are coming in but it just seems like a broken tape some days and i would step up and do more but i am so stuck with my PTSD and half the time i am having a silent flash back and i am not even there.
I really need to finish filling out my paper work to get my service dog. my husband and my therapist seem to be annoyed that i haven't done it yet. It is a self worth issues and i am so fucking stubborn. part of me goes what the fuck is the point. now i am going deaf on top of it in my left ear so it would be even more useful.
i am just feeling lost and lonely.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Almost 2 whole months out of treatment
I feels as though i have sort of been abandoning this blog and i really shouldn't be. alot has been going on and i am not quite sure where to being. Well i think that maybe starting with the obvious would be a good thing, i am almost two months out of Mcleans OCDI and i am feeling really great in terms of the OCD. I have been having very few problems with the symptoms and alot of it has to do with keeping the routine that i did in the hospital. i am still using a timer in the shower and that has been helping me alot when it comes to keeping the rituals really close to zero when it comes to using the shower in the morning.
next thing i guess that is worth talking about is the fact that i am applying for a psychiatric service dog. i am excited about it and nervous about it. in the beginning i wasn't so accepting about applying for one because i didn't want to admit that my psychiatric issues were severe enough to place me in a category where adding one to my treatment would be beneficial. i haven't talked about this much and have been very silent about it. in college i was in a physically and psychologically abusive relationship, and luckily it didn't last long. however it lasted long enough to do severe damage cause PTSD with flashbacks. not six months after that relationship i had just returned from a night chemistry class when i found myself with a drunk football player breaking into my my on campus apartment with one thing on his mind. That ended with a failed sexual assault on his part and a broken foot as a parting gift as i finally beat him out of my on campus apartment. again pile on the PTSD and flashbacks. flash forward to OCDI and i am in a flashback and one of my favorite counselors is trying to reach me unfortunately it was a male counselor and in the process i am not able to recognize him, he puts a hand on my shoulder and he narrowly escapes me trying to punch him as i retreat into the back corner of my room. guess that counts as severe enough... for my friends that read this i don't want a flood of calls or a whole ton of texts. i will talk to you about this when i am ready. i am just putting this out there, giving it to my blog to hold.
in other areas i just found out that i have lost some hearing in my left ear. i am not sure how or when but i have. so i am dealing with that.
just looked at the clock time for me to go i will write again later when i feel up to it.
next thing i guess that is worth talking about is the fact that i am applying for a psychiatric service dog. i am excited about it and nervous about it. in the beginning i wasn't so accepting about applying for one because i didn't want to admit that my psychiatric issues were severe enough to place me in a category where adding one to my treatment would be beneficial. i haven't talked about this much and have been very silent about it. in college i was in a physically and psychologically abusive relationship, and luckily it didn't last long. however it lasted long enough to do severe damage cause PTSD with flashbacks. not six months after that relationship i had just returned from a night chemistry class when i found myself with a drunk football player breaking into my my on campus apartment with one thing on his mind. That ended with a failed sexual assault on his part and a broken foot as a parting gift as i finally beat him out of my on campus apartment. again pile on the PTSD and flashbacks. flash forward to OCDI and i am in a flashback and one of my favorite counselors is trying to reach me unfortunately it was a male counselor and in the process i am not able to recognize him, he puts a hand on my shoulder and he narrowly escapes me trying to punch him as i retreat into the back corner of my room. guess that counts as severe enough... for my friends that read this i don't want a flood of calls or a whole ton of texts. i will talk to you about this when i am ready. i am just putting this out there, giving it to my blog to hold.
in other areas i just found out that i have lost some hearing in my left ear. i am not sure how or when but i have. so i am dealing with that.
just looked at the clock time for me to go i will write again later when i feel up to it.
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