Posted by Smeegle on February 7, 2005, at 3:11:28
In reply to The Honest Truth, posted by pretty_paints on February 4, 2005, at 13:38:38
Pretty Paints! You are truely wonderful. In reading your post, I could totally relate to almost every single point you made.
Though I never outwardly lied to my pdoc, I did not tell him the truth...the whole truth for at least a year. How did I expect him to help me if I didn't admit that so much more was going on. Now that I have, maybe we can get somewhere. I asked point blank at my appt last week, "what exactly is going on with me". Naturally I didn't get a straight answer and the paranoid part of me wants (and the part that wants and so desparately seems to need) a difinitive diagnosis. To me it's no different than when I had cancer 5 years ago. I wanted/needed answers. Once I knew exactly what I was dealing with, I (along with my dr's) could go from there and lay out my treatment options. I felt so much relief once the cards were on the table (so to speak). So, yeah. I wanna know what I am dealing with here. Something is defintely going on and it aint good. I don't think I am schizophrenic, but from the various meds I have been thru and tracking on my own, I have deduced bipolar disorder. To try and self-diagnose can be counter-productive, but I detest not knowing. Geez, you were so dead-on with so many of your points. The voices....I know that it is just my internal dialogue and I have to work very hard to keep it on track. Sometimes it just doesn't work out and I have learned to seek a safe place, tell someone to not let me be alone, whatever. This has been a new revelation for me. I have no idea why I wake up at 3am with the idea that I just can't do this (life) any more. It's not that I "really" want to die (suicide), I just want the pain to end. But once the idea is in my head, getting it out isn't always so easy. No one in my life knew the extent to which I had deteriorated, though they knew I was deeply depressed. Not a single person knew that I spent more time thinking about ending my life than a 17 year old male thinks about sex...lol. That's a lot! I go though each day totally detached from myself. I feel like an invisible passenger in my car, just observing this person driving. I never realized that was dissociation. I separate myself from the reality of the life that is so painful to live. What is so painful about my life? You tell me and we'll both know. I had a virtually uneventful childhood. My parents divorced when I was 7, but they were amazingly civil and as an adult I give them so much respect and credit for the way they handled the whole thing. It just wasn't meant to be for them (honestly...they are two people who had zero in common). They are both now in wonderful relationships. I was not abused. I was raised in a very loving and affectionate family. We spent probably more quality time together than the average family. Never once in my life did I ever doubt that my parents wholeheartedly loved me and that I was special to them. The only area in my life that has been what one would be considered traumatic is having cancer (just hit 5 year mark...high fives all around) and raising a very difficult child (currently 21, a military desserter and in jail for helping himself to my credit card). I look at him now and know that I have denied for a long time that whatever is wrong with me is wrong with him...only he has sooo many more issues than me (thanks in part to an alcoholic father who beat wives 2 and 3 for years...I managed to escape that hell). I know intellectually that I did everything I could do as a parent and that ultimately the decisions he makes are his to deal with, but so many times I feel I failed him. I may not have deliberately made him bipolar, but my genes did (there is a genetic disposition). He has many, many problems and so many issues and I wish more than anything that he was in a hospital getting psychiatric help rather than in jail. Maybe I am just making excuses for him, but even several of his friends called me just before I had him picked up to ask about his bizarre behavior (likely a manic episode...major grandiose ideas, going 20 hours a day, flittering from one thing to another so fast his gf's head was spinning). Waaaay out of character even for someone who's personality was a little unique to begin with. (in a way his uniquenes was part of what made him special...until it went bizzerk (sp) which just happened to coincide with his return from 8 months of deployment in Iraq. I can put the pieces of this puzzle together, I don't understand why no one else can. He puts in a request every week to speak with a counselor and every week they say one will be in on Friday yet it never happens.
Off track again...So why do I feel so totally unloved now. Completely irrational thinking. If my husband didn't love me, he wouldn't be here. He's a no-nonsense kind of person and I know that if he didn't, he's be outta here. He's baffled and at a lost at how to deal with me and/or help me, but I know he's in it for the long haul. Good or bad. I just don't "feel" it. I don't mind being alone. I actually enjoy and relish my solitude (when I am thinking rationally). Yet I feel more lonely around people than when I am alone. Explain that to me please! I know I am a people pleaser and I over-personalize. I internalize. Admitting that I need help and/or communicating what I am thinking/feeling is excruciating. All I ever wanted was peace. Peace of mind and for everyone to just be kind to each other and get along. I don't think it's too much to ask.
Sorry if I ramble, get off track, etc. Back to the voices. When I read that someone hears voices, what exactly is that? Is it their internal dialogue gone waaaaaay wrong? Or is it really hearing voices. I have constant chatter in my mind. It flits from one thing to another, random, productive, non-productive, whatever. Some days I tune it out (distraction), other days I can't. My thoughts consume me and it scares me to no end that some days the more I think about suicide, the more it seems like the only logical answer. It is simply what I must do. As I think about it more and more, it becomes a very distinct possiblilty. I have only made one serious attempt. Managed to screw it up (today I am glad I failed...tomorrow I may not be....never know). I still have "the kit", though I have disposed of it and reassembled it several times over the past couple of years. I just like to have it on hand "just in case". I know I shouldn't. No one knows it even exists (well hidden in plain view...ha). I am not suicidal right now and have no intentions of using it at this time. It's just a comfort knowing it's there. (it's like that little devil on one shoulder that says "go ahead....see what happens". Then there is the little angel or whatever on the other shoulder that says "this isn't rational...don't listen to him". I get so conflicted and scared of myself sometimes. I think the only reason my pdoc hasn't hospitalized me (now that he knows the whole ugly truth) is because (at least at this time) I am aware of what is real and what is not. He is hesitantly trusting that if it gets to be too much that I will pick up the phone and call him. He has made it perfectly clear that it is not and would not ever be an imposition. He is great. It took a long time to warm up to him, but now I know I can tell him anything and he will not judge me. I think I was afraid if I openned up and told him everything that he would lock me up for sure. I fear the stigma more than actually being hospitalized. Sometimes I WANT to be hospitalized just to escape my life (which I refer to as my own personal "hotel california" for those Eagles fans...at the risk of giving my age away). Sometimes I long to be hospitalized so much it aches. But why? Probably pure escapism. I just can't (or don't want to ) deal with another day. I can't take one more thing going wrong. I never know when that one thing is going to happen that is going to push me over the edge. It could be anything....big or small. It may never happen. I feel like a land mine waiting to be stepped on. Additionally, as if I should care about work over my own personal safety, I know it would create a real hardship if I were to be away from work right now. I know I really should worry more about me and keeping me alive and functional than what would happen if I was out of work for a week or two (or however long they keep you). Some days I am convinced I am going completely crazy, about to come totally unglued and/or crawl right out of my skin. The aggitation is unbearbale. Then I wonder if I really even need it. Am I indulging myself and just don't want to deal with the reality that life basically sucks. That this is as good as it gets.
I seriously doubt your pdoc will be angry. In a rational mind, you probably know that. Then the irrational part takes over and plays out all these other scenarios. I suspect your dr has long suspected that she wasn't getting the whole story. They have to know that at some point we are going to want to know what the heck is going on. It's normal to want to know something like that. I sure as heck do. So many times I want to ask for a copy of my records. I have copies of all of my medical records since the day I was dx with cancer. Every x-ray, scan, lab work, surgical reports, pathology, etc. I had to read for myself to be at peace. (in speaking with other cancer survivors, this is actually not abnormal). Since then, I have continued to make a habit of always requesting copies of test results just to keep my file up to date (ya know, in case I move or something it's good to have all my medical records in one place rather than remembering who has what and all that paperwork in getting it transferred). Not that I am a hypochondriac. It's just a habit I got into and now I want so much to ask for a copy of my pdoc's file on me. From what I hear, they give you an edited version which is the only reason I haven't requested it YET. I really want to know what he is writing down, what he thinks about what I am saying. Am I crazy, insane or just really, really depressed? Is it all just a cry for attention? I wanna know. I think you sitting down and writing a letter was possibly a good idea. (too bad on the timing though). I sometimes find when I have something really hard to say that I really, really need to say that it is easier to write. Maybe once all your cards are finally out on the table you will finally be able to look her in the eye and get to the root of what's going on. I hope the same for all of us.
Thanks for letting me know that I wasn't alone in thinking about so many of the things you said.
Smeegs
poster:Smeegle
thread:452494
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050202/msgs/454216.html