Archive for the ‘Mental Health’ Category
Just a note: I don’t want to hurt anyone by what is said here but I just need to vent a little. I am sorry if I cause any problems.
When I am able to stop and look back over what has happened in my life since childhood, I get just a tad bit overwhelmed. I have been a perfectionist since I was a little girl. Always keeping things in order. But when you are a child, you don’t have control over the orderliness of your parents or your family situation. Whatever you want to call it. My family situation was pretty disorderly when I was growing up. My parents divorced when I was less than a year old and it was by no means an amicable split. There were accusations of violence and abuse in their relationship. My mother got shared custody of me with my Dad having every-other-week visitation rights. We moved in with my grandparents. My grandfather passed away about a year later leaving three generations of females in house together.
My mother worked when I was little and so did my grandmother so I went to daycare. It was a good place from what I remember. I learned a bunch and it set a good foundation for me as I grew up. My father I assume worked as well but I didn’t see him very often so I am not sure. He didn’t seem to have time for me back then. He would promise to come and pick me up for the weekend and I would wait by the front door for him to show up and he never would. My mother and grandmother tried to be the rocks in that storm. They were always there for me. This obviously left a bunch of feelings of unworthiness, being unloved (by my dad), hurt and anger. Other than that, my early childhood and even pre-pubescent years were spent in veritable calm.
My dad got married for the third time (my mom was the first) when I was about nine. My mom remarried too. Both of them decided to start families with their new spouses. On my dad’s side, I ended up with two half sisters. On my mom’s side, I ended up with a half brother and an older step-brother (from my step-dad’s previous marriage). I love my half-siblings as much as if they were my whole siblings. I would do anything for them. Because of the distance between my dad and I, I am not nearly as close to my half-sisters as I would like. Maybe one day things will be better though. My step-brother is a scourge on this earth on the other hand. He has caused so many problems he could take up a whole post.
I was pretty rebellious and promiscuous as a teenager. I just wanted to be loved and I did what I thought would make me feel that way at the time. I made bad decisions but in the end it made me a better person. When I was fifteen, I was at my favorite aunt’s wedding (my dad’s sister) and I got into an argument with my dad over my boyfriend at the time. He said a bunch of things to me about how I would never amount to anything but trash and all other sorts of awful things. I was upset and went into the restroom where he followed me. We continued arguing and I said some very hurtful things back to him. He grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me against the bathroom wall. I crumbled. I had to spend the night at his house that night but I don’t think I slept a wink the entire night. He dropped me off the next morning at my grandparents house (his side) and I didn’t see him nor my sisters until my high school graduation. I just no longer existed.
I went to college to study chemical engineering. I got half decent grades and managed to work a few semesters for a big company. My second semester working was a very bad one for me. My great-grandma (on my dad’s side) passed away at the beginning. Then September 11th happened. Then my mom got really sick. REALLY sick. She got a blood clot in her right arm between her shoulder and her elbow that cut off the circulation in her arm completely. I was living in another city working at the time. She ended up loosing two fingers, having numerous surgeries and skin grafts, being in ICU for weeks, having permanent nerve damage and being disabled for the rest of her life. She was only 41 at the time. That event turned our lives upside down. I had to grow up and take responsibility for all of the things my mom did (except work) and go to college full time. All the while worrying about what was going to happen to my mother while she was taking her narcotic pain meds. I lost my mom that day. She will never be the person she was before. She had had problems before with clots, just never this bad. You see, she is Factor V Leiden homozygous plus she has all sorts of protein deficiencies.
At the time, I was dating this guy. We had been together for probably a year. He took this opportunity to propose to me and like anyone who is going through a crisis and isn’t thinking clearly I accepted. We were engaged for two years before I could break things off. He was mentally and verbally abusive to me and had me wrapped up in his sick little world that I didn’t think I could escape. That was the first time that I ever truelly new depression. Before I ended things, I was so far gone that I would swallow ha handful of pain pills just so I could escape from the horrible reality that was my life. My parents were broke with my mom being out on disability. I had asked my dad for help paying for college and he promised he would but he didn’t even give me enough to buy one textbook used. I was having to take out loans. I had an abusive fiancee setting myself up for what happened with my parents. I was trying to make sure things were okay at home. My classes were horribly hard. I eventually cracked and couldn’t even get out of bed. All I could do was cry. Eventually I went to the school shrink and they prescribed Zoloft. I went to counseling. I dumped the fiancee. I started doing better. Not great but better.
I will continue my life story later and I will draw up some conclusions that I have made as well.
I made it through the holidays and boy am I glad that is over. Thanksgiving to New Years just seems like an awful lot of stuff to do and people to please and food to cook and eat. I think I would give anything to just be able to hibernate. Here is why I am running on empty:
HH’s parents come for Thanksgiving week and stay with us in our house. I cook the big meal with turkey, dressing, casseroles, etc. My family (mother, stepdad, half-bro, and grandma) come over to eat with us.
Christmas party for my work and Z’s Christmas program fall in the middle of December as well as HH’s birthday. All the while, we are trying to put the tree up and decorate and buy presents and get those wrapped.
Then comes the Christmas fun. My parents wanted some Christmas by themselves so the Saturday that HH’s parents were coming back we spent the day with my family (mom, stepdad, half-bro, grandma) doing the whole go out to eat and open presents thing. Then HH’s parents got in for the week of Christmas. They were staying with us for that week. Things got a little ugly while they were here what with me losing it and starting to yell and cry. That was Christmas Eve. Christmas Day I cooked another big meal and my family came over and ate and watched Z open presents. They left in the early afternoon and we (us and HH’s parents) drove across town to my dad’s house where we ate and did the presents thing again. HH’s parents left early Saturday and we drove to the farm to do Christmas with that part of the family. Three hours of driving each way and all day eating and hanging out at the farm.
New Years was pretty much a non-event. We didn’t do anything that night but the next day we had to go to my family’s house for the whole dinner thing. That was pretty much all day yesterday. Now I am back at work. I had Christmas Eve through New Years day off for either holidays or vacation. Not that I really consider it a vacation.
Oh yeah, HH is buying his grandma’s old car. It is newer than his but there is the problem of it being in Tennessee and us here in Texas. Guess that will be more wasted vacation.
Friday was my first day at a lower dosage of Cymbalta, 40 mg instead of 60mg. This marks the beginning of my second medication taper. Unlike with the lithium, I don’t have a very good plan for this taper. I am just going to see how long it takes for me to feel better before I go reducing the dosage again. If I ever feel better.
Cymbalta is worse than crack I imagine. Nausea, headaches, chills, no appetite, body aches. The worst of all is the unmotivation. Trying to do anything takes an extreme amount of psyching one’s self up to even get started. Just writing this is hard. I have to will my fingers and arms to move just to get the words out. All I want to do is crawl into bed and not come out except to use the bathroom and if I could figure out how to not do that and still be hygenic I would so be there.
All in all, Cymbalta sucks. If you can help it never start taking it. It just isn’t worth it. These drug companies are so full of crap about no withdrawal effects and such. I wonder if they would give these drugs to their own children or their spouses or their parents? That would be the true indicator of their corruption. I am going to go now before I make an even bigger idiot of myself spouting my conspiracy theories. I promise I am not usually like this.