Yesterday was terribly weird. I actually felt ok. A little fragile still, but ok. I don’t know  where the depression went, I’m just glad it’s gone.  I don’t really feel as ok today. But it’s gloomy outside. Maybe I have SAD after all.  Fooey.

I think February was the poster child for depression and anxiety. Sheesh.  I survived it, though. I figure that’s good. And I’m finally up to enough lamotrigine (generic lamictal) that it’s axed the mania stuff.  Delightful! Oh wait, it’s also clobbered my creative drive. Dayum. This is not so hot for an artist.

Delightful Case Manager pointed out today that there’s always a trade off between good and side effects of meds. Errr. Yeah, I knew that. I mean… Trileptal worked well for me, but caused a nuclear explosion in my stomach over time. Abilify worked well… but gave me gut spasms that crippled me. Zyprexa makes me gain an average of at least 3 lbs a week… for at least 10+ weeks. Topamax made me unable to speak almost. Yadda yadda. Merely not being able to do my work well is  a peesacake, right?

I’m sure if this higher dose of wellbutrin kicks in it won’t seem so bad.  LOL

The past month has just slammed me. I’ve struggled so much with depression that I… I’m lost.  I honestly don’t know how I’ve gotten through except that breathing is a habit by now. Anxiety has been my next best friend. My buddy hypomania came to visit for a couple of days and that was a relief, but he went home quickly. But man, it’s been tough.  And that’s just what bipolar has done to me.

Last week life started throwing me curves too.  I should be used to that. But January was generally calm and I forgot how rough *things* can be.

My mother had hand surgery. It went well. Taking care of her, though, felt stressful.  Oh that was nothing it seems like now.  The next day her father, my grandfather died. Total chaos. Grief. More chaos. Relatives to visit. Funeral arrangements. Brother staying with us. And still looking after my mother who’s halfway one-handed as she heals. I was so stressed that if anyone touched me at all I jumped. I feel totally alien. Can you spell PTSD? heh And I’m still slowly creeping up on my bipolar meds dose, it ain’t there yet. A travesty.

The unreality of it all was horrible. I don’t think my grandfather liked me much. He certainly never had anything nice to say to me in the last 20 years. He had very little to say to me at all, really. Yet everyone was talking about wonderful things he said and did, how helpful he was and so on.  Hell, the man wrote up for his funeral that he wanted all his grandsons there. He didn’t mention his granddaughters.  Talk about feeling invisible and unvalued.  I don’t know who that wonderful man they buried was. Someone I never met. Damn that stranger for pushing all my buttons anyway.

And half of what’s in my spinning head I can’t get out to make sentences with anyway.

Things have to get better. I can’t take much more.

Not great, but since Mog asked, I figured I’d better say something. I got hypomanic for about 36 hours, then back to depression. Call me ping pong ball. But I’m a still-kicking ping pong ball.

I just realized that my sense that things will be ok eroded almost completely over the last year. I didn’t really notice until now that it’s starting to come back a little.

Can I lay that erosion at the door of bipolar disorder?  Some. Not all.

Being hit by a truck that didn’t see my red car pulling out of the parking lot made the first half of last year difficult to say the least. Months of pain, fighting with doctors over it, surgery, PT, all the legal crap, people harassing me for payments I didn’t have until the legal stuff was settled. All that lasted well into October.  And by September I had realized that though my knee is “fixed” it will never be right again. I will always have trouble and pain when the weather changes, or if I sit too long at a desk, or if I stand too long.  And I can’t do a  damned thing about the weather, so I’m stuck with a messed up knee until I exit stage left.  This has not helped me feel things will be ok.

Bipolar disorder gets its fair share of blame for this erosion, though. The Trileptal that helped my bipolar symptoms so much ultimately gave me such bad gastritis we thought I had an ulcer. So that had to go. I tried Abilify, which worked nicely, but appeared to give me gut spasms not to mention the county would no longer pay for it and I sure couldn’t. So within a year I started up on a third bipolar med. Encouraging? Not particularly.

Then there’s the gut spasm abdominal pain itself. That’s gone on for months on and off. We don’t even really know what it is. That doesn’t encourage hopefulness.  Nor does the rest of my  health stuff over the past year. I’ve had bronchitis twice I think it was, once that lasted almost 2 months.  I’ve also had colds and the flu.

Then there’s the financial problems. When you’re as sick as all that so constantly, working properly and consistently is almost impossible. So… severe financial problems just because I wasn’t able to earn as much.

Now that I’m looking at my eroded sense that things will be ok, when I stop to see what’s contributed to that, I realized I’m not so nuts. Most anyone would feel emotionally worn down after dealing with all this in just a year. Somehow that makes me feel a little more hopeful.

I’m still crossing my fingers and knocking on wood. But hey, two months ago I wouldn’t have bothered because I was convinced nothing could possibly help. I like having a little light at the end of the tunnel.

I got approved by a local clinic today. Thank goodness.  I had  no way to pay for the colonoscopy and CT scan my GI guy says I need, but now I can get them. Well, once I go through the system I can. That’s a lot better than not at all.  I’m not thrilled with the idea of the tests, but I’d rather know what’s up and hopefully be able to fix it.  I’m relieved I’ll be able to get them done after all.

All this is because of my abdominal pain that stopped for a while then came back then stoped again etc etc.  So apparently it wasn’t the Abilify like the GI guy first thought. It’s probably IBS, but no way to know until other stuff is ruled out. At least so far I know it’s not my gall bladder or stomach.  And my bloodwork is all ok.

Do you have any idea how heartily tired I am of having health problems to blog about?  Between the bipolar brain stuff and the rest of my body trying to fall apart, it eats up way too much of my time and energy. I really hope 2010 will be better than 2009 was for health. Wish me luck.

And good riddance.

Hellooooooooooo 2010!