Meds and Mania

I have been taking my medication for 9 days now, the first 7 I experienced no change, still caught up in the whirlwind glow of my most recent hypomanic enthusiasm that left me aware of my inability to work but completely un phased by it. On day 8 however, something changed. I woke up, which was pretty special in itself as it meant I had actually slept the night before. This should really have been a good thing, but instead I had risen irritable and tired with my mind still racing but my body feeling as slow as a snail.

The children bore the brunt of my angry outbursts for the morning and I shipped them off to school only to come home and sink into the pit of depression. The knowledge of some of the goings on in my most recent hypomanic phase were slowly sinking in, the fact that I had gambled, drunk and OD’d myself for no decent reason, spontaneous road trips at 200km/ph all alone while spending to the tune of $1000 we don’t have spare, on junk I didn’t need and then feeling that turning up to work while hallucinating was perfectly reasonable had very nearly cost me my job, and had most certainly cost me my integrity.

Yes, the aftermath wasn’t pretty.

I find now days that there is a very fine line between, ‘I’m not feeling happy’ and ‘I must die’. In the old days, I would slowly get more and more depressed until the only way out that seemed reasonable was the permanent one. Now the dive to rock bottom is almost instantaneous.

My mood remained unchanged for the rest of the day and I was due to see the GP that evening. The journey to the medical centre was wholly uninspiring, I didn’t feel she could help me anymore so why bother going at all? Every tree was looking like a more attractive target proposition and by the time I arrived I think I only went into the building because my body was acting on autopilot.

 I had to wait 45 or so minutes as she was running behind. The last 43 of those minutes were spent hatching an escape plan, I shouldn’t have gone in and wanted to leave, I wanted to die right then and there yet my body felt frozen to the seat. What would I do, where would I go? I decided to amend and enact the emergency OD plan I had concocted and prepared for previously.

I would get up and walk out the next time the secretary left the waiting area and run up near the train tracks where I would hide in the ditch as I would not be easily seen there in case followed and take my concoction before falling blissfully asleep never having to deal with this awful feeling again.

While I was waiting for the receptionist to leave I had the sudden realisation that there was one massive flaw in my plan, I didn’t have a water bottle with me. How was I going to swallow a few hundred pills without water? FUCK. It was an evening appointment and the local store was shut and the waiting room unfortunately didn’t have a water cooler. I was still trying to work out a way around this ridiculous blip when the doctor appeared and summonsed me in.

 I was so angry with myself for not having a drink with me that I could barely talk, I didn’t really need to – she sensed my tide had turned a 180 since my last visit and did most of the talking for me. I neglected to mention how her lack of putting a water cooler in her waiting room had probably saved her a late night visit from a policeman and begrudgingly took a card for the mental health crisis team from her as she was going to be away for two weeks, I was instructed to call ‘just in case I felt un safe’.

A useless proposition really as I would never call, because when I feel that way I DON’T WANT HELP and when I do want help, I DON’T FEEL THAT WAY. Catch 22. I also hate the term un safe, I know perfectly well what is meant by it but frankly when I’m suicidal I feel perfectly safe, because I want to be that way Thank. You. Very. Much. I feel like I actually have an ounce of control for once.

 I’m certainly not afraid to die, there is no “oh no, help me, I don’t want to kill myself”. I cant really imagine that people who are actually want to die anyway, surely they are just crying for help. No, I am quite at peace with the concept of death generally and am utterly desperate for it when in such a mood, however irrational my motives at the time may seem to be later on.

I have just as yet been unable to get my shit together in the moment and the moments are relatively fleeting so I am distracted or interrupted and plan and prepare to do better job of it next time.

Yes the “mental health crisis team” card is about as useful as the “suicide prevention plan”. I think they just give them out to make the GP/Psychologist feel better, or at least reduce their risk of being sued by a disgruntled family member later.