November 22, 2010. Part two.
Make sure you read Part One first.
I felt like I could not breathe. My heart was racing. I was cold and sweating at the same time. It felt like there was a veil being lifted off of my head and as it pulled off all I felt was shear panic. I thought every single thing you are NEVER supposed to think, and then I scared myself. If I could think those things, could I DO those things? I was unsafe. IH was unsafe around me. Those were the only things I could make my spinning mind settle on. UNSAFE! DANGER! FLEE! I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom where KH was still in the shower. I slammed the door behind me and locked the door. Trying to lock myself away from my precious baby. The week lay ahead of me. There was no school, no MOPS, no playgroup because it was the week of Thanksgiving. Just me locked in my horrible, oppressive house with a four-year old to entertain and my spiraling mind. I sobbed to KH that he had to call in sick, that I needed help! I explained that I could not be left alone for even a second. I begged him, BEGGED him to stay home. He was confused, and exhausted and had no idea how to help me. He had one 10mg pill of Lexapro squirreled away in our closet, I took it and went to lay in a ball on my couch.
I was still shaking, still in physical pain which I could not describe, all I knew was I was NOT okay and if I was left alone something unfathomably bad was going to happen. KH called his co-worker to cover for him, no answer. Called his boss, no answer. He HAD to go to work at least to check the servers. He could leave at 9 and be home by 10. It was 5:30AM. Three and a half hours alone!? Never gonna make it. I next called my brother. For some reason, I was not embarrassed for him to see me in my ball. No answer. Next stop was my mom. She answered. Was here in 10 minutes. KH made it to work in time. I tried to tell her what was wrong, but it was impossible to explain. I just needed help! That was all, HELP! She had made a Doctor appointment by 8:10AM. She cleaned my house. I stayed in my ball. My body needed sleep so bad, but that was never gonna happen. She took IH and I out for breakfast, de-caf coffee for me. I ate no more than two bites. She made me go through the motions, but I was made of sand. The least little breeze and I would crumble. A hug from my child and I was flat.
KH came home to take me to the doctor. Five minutes with her and she was sending me to be evaluated at the local crisis counseling center. IH was playing with my dad, hopefully oblivious to what was going on. I was “evaluated” in a room that reeked of stale cigarettes and despair. I have no idea what I said, but whatever it was, I hit enough trigger points that she wanted to send me to a mental hospital. Let’s review that, MENTAL HOSPITAL. All I wanted was a nice cocktail of drugs to let me sleep, I was sure if I could just sleep, I would be so much better. The intake lady said I could go be admitted to the hospital and I would be out in a day and a half with my drugs to make me all better. I was in. That sounded perfect, the other alternative of waiting a week and a half to see a psychiatrist was unbearable. I would never make it a week and a half.
We went home to pack a bag. No clean clothes. Seriously. That overwhelming pile never got touched. I was literally afraid of it. I threw some strange mismatched outfit in my bag and we left. The hospital was not far, maybe 30 minutes. I had my pillow, and my cell, a book, and lipgloss. What on earth was I packed for? Turns out this hospital? Also a REHAB hospital. There was a drug addict in the waiting room with me. I was so scared. I just wanted some help! I filled out a huge list of questions. I answered a few wrong. Apparently intrusive thoughts and extreme anxiety are not the same thing as homicidal. Oops.
Some guard took my bag to search, and confiscated most of my stuff. A nurse asked me questions. When I told her I just wanted to stay for a day to get my medications correct, and to get some sleep…..she LAUGHED at me! Literally laughed in my face. She said I would be there at least a week, more like two. Um. ACK! Rewind! I started talking, I said I was mostly fine, just tired, I said my PCP would write me a script for a mild SSRI. I changed my mind! I was not going! I want to go home!! KH talked too, he promised I would not be left alone until my meds were in effect, he promised he would take care of me and that he would bring me back if I needed too. The nurse left us alone in a teeny closet room. I was miserable. I had been up for going on 40 hours. She finally got me signed out, took my blood pressure….and said I needed to go to the ER because my blood pressure was in the stroke danger level! No wonder! I thought I was about to be locked in the clock work orange hospital with druggies for weeks! Finally they let me go home. It was midnight.
We stopped at a drive through for a bite, which I could not eat, watched a silly sitcom, and KH held my hand until I finally slept. At 10AM I woke up alone. IH was still with my parents. I felt not good, but a million times better than the day before. I threw on my clothes, and drove straight to my parents house. I still felt uncomfortable being alone. We went grocery shopping, did laundry, played with IH. As long as I was not alone, or alone with IH, I was okay. (or not shaking crazy anyway) I got a shiny new Rx for 20mg of Lexapro, double what I had ever been on before. I canceled just about every responsibility that I could. I kept my job at the preschool. IH came home and slept when KH got off work. My mom was here before KH left for work each morning. It went like that for about two weeks.
Finally I decided I was okay to stay alone for the time between KH leaving for work and school. At work at the preschool I was fine, I felt no anxiety around other people’s kids, just my own! Then a few days later I was okay to come home from school and be alone until KH got home from work. A week later I was okay putting IH in bed alone. Then a week later I was okay driving in desolate areas alone, and then another week and I noticed….a miracle. I was ENJOYING my life! I was with my kid playing and laughing and not at all nervous! It took about two months before I felt like myself. Not only like myself, but better than I had felt since March……..the month I fully weaned off of my Lexapro the first time.
So, what caused it? Lots of doctors appointments, therapy appointments, time and prayer and I know the answer. 1. My hormones were jacked the hell up. Like seriously, whacked. I already knew that my anxiety ebbed with my hormones….I had PPD after all! 2. I have OCD. Not really depression, but OCD — heavy on the O, low on the C. When it gets really bad, it is scary! I was scared of, yes, unreasonable things, but it did not matter. 3. I was overwhelmed. I was taking too many pictures and not sleeping. I let everything seem like it mattered 100 times more than it really did. 4. I was not preventing it. It was a perfect storm, and one that could have been prevented.
How am I keeping it from happening again? 1. I took 20mg of Lexapro for almost a year. I am now at 10mg and plan on staying on it, or another SSRI forever. This is a disease and I am treating it just like I would take insulin if a diabetic. I chemically need help to keep my brain from obsessing. 2. I go to therapy every two weeks. It helps so much. I can tell her anything, even the ugly stuff and she makes me not feel crazy, helps me work out what is a real concern and what is me obsessing over something stupid. (like earthquakes. Oy Vey.) I plan on going forever. I may drop to once a month at some point…..but not anytime soon. 3. I am trying really hard not to overbook myself. I am making rest and sleep and fun a priority.
I will always have stress. That is life. And, I am glad that it is my life to live. And, no, it is not perfect, but it is good…and knowing that. Truly KNOWING that is huge. It is what makes the Sarah of the fall of 2011 a world away from the Sarah of 2010.
The smile is much more real this time.
I will address the looming baby question at some point this month.
I will address the faith part too, how OCD affects your faith deserves its own post.
Filed under NaBloPoMo, lexapro lexplains it | Comments (4)November 22, 2010
There are some dates you are supposed to never forget. The day you got married. May 24, 2003. The day you became a Mother. August 31, 2006. Your 13th surprise birthday party, January 16, 1993. But there are some day which change your life and the way you look at it forever……but you must go look at a calendar to remember what the exact date was.
One such day was November 22, 2010. I did have to look it up, I remembered that it was the Monday before Thanksgiving, but not the date. You see the reason I disappeared from NaBloPoMo last year was because I went crazy on November 22, 2010. That sounds horrible, and there are other ways to put it, but that it is what it felt like so I think it fits pretty well. I am going to tell you what happened. It is kinda hard, but I am going to write it down here for the same reason I want to do NaBloPoMo this month, to remind myself that the Sarah* in the Fall of 2010 is not the Sarah in the Fall of 2011.
This story actually starts back a little ways. Alllll the way back to March of 2010. That was the month when KH and I decided we were going to not try not have a baby. Did ya get that? That means we were not going to do anything to prevent, but I was also not going to obsess about trying to get pregnant. Because we both pretty much thought I would get pregnant pretty quickly, I started taking prenatal vitamins and started to wean off of the Lexapro I had been on pretty much since that other time I went crazy. I felt good! Life was Good! There was no reason I needed an anti-anxiety medication. My 10mg went to 5mg and then 2.5mg and then nothing. I was totally off the Lexapro by April. I also kept having this weird pain in my side….and it was getting worse! It was my gallbladder. It was full of a medicine sludge from all of the stupid hormones I had taken in the fall and winter of 2009! ACK! Fine. I was not taking anymore hormones. Side still hurt. Damn it.
On April 5th of 2010 I went in to have my gallbladder yanked out. I was wheeled back at about 7:55 AM. At 7:59 KH got a call from an unknown number. He ignored it. His wife was in surgery after all! At 8:05 it rang again. He answered it. It was his boss’s boss’s boss. That cushy job that let him hang out with us all the time? The one that paid great, and had excellent benefits and had my hubby around all the time? Turns out he was around all the time because there was not really enough work for him. He got RIF’d. (That means reduction in force if you are like me and had no clue.) So. No job. Wife in surgery. Wife not on her anxiety drugs and kinda sorta trying to get pregnant. Yup, that about covers it.
All day he took such good care of me. My parents were here with us, so it was 5PM before I was lucid and we were alone. He was so sweet, and I felt strangely calm as he told me that I was now a SAHM to an out of work husband. People brought us food for a week because I was out of commission. I started telling my super close friends what had happened. My MOPS steering team collected money and gave me a Kroger gift card. It was wonderful and horribly embarrassing all at the same time. We had to cancel our vacation I was so looking forward to. My mom spent the whole summer in KY working on my Ma’s house, and Gabs was being a brat. My dad was obsessing about school projects and calling every five minutes. JH was getting divorced and I had to go to court, and a million other little stressors were quickly adding up.
We had unemployment, and a small severance package, and insurance for a month. KH started getting interviews pretty quick…but nothing to match the pay he had before. We had said we could make it until July 1st and then I would start looking for a job too. He got hired on June 20th. Not as much money and he had to drive to the capital city, but it was a job in his field which was pretty darn secure. I also took a pretty sweet little job at IH’s preschool, it doesn’t pay much, but not much is more than none, and IH gets free tuition. SCORE! We waited until the new insurance kicked in and then threw away my birth control pills AGAIN.
But something weird happened. My period never came! Like a week late, then a month, and then TWO MONTHS, no period. I was sure I was pregnant. Positive. But test after test kept coming up negative. After it was almost two months late I got one test with a faint double line. The next day I was at the preschool when (so TMI, really sorry about that) I started bleeding so hard, I thought I was dying. I had to go home and change it was so bad. I called the OB of course and some blood work and an ultra sound showed that I either had a chemical pregnancy, or not. Thanks for clearing that up. Either way, not PG now.
I also had been feeling……off. Nervous and jittery and thinking all kinds of intrusive thoughts. Like before, only not. The hypochondria was horrible and I was doing all kinds of stupid rituals again. I pushed through, convinced that I would be fine. The OB gave me another hormone to get my cycle back in check. I accepted every photography gig I was offered because we were still trying to bounce back from that whole three months of no income. I stayed up every single night editing pictures, and when I did go to bed I was just a tangle of nerves and heartburn.
I did that for about a month. The week before Thanksgiving KH had a week of vacation. We had no money to go somewhere, so I made to-do lists everyday. At least our house would be back in order and I could stop stressing about that! I had a mountain of laundry and every time I looked at it, I had a literal panic attack. We had some family pictures taken by one of my friends using my camera. I told her to just shoot non-stop thinking she would get at least a few good ones by chance. She took me at my word at took 2300 pictures in an hour. They sat in a folder on my computer taunting me. She got a few good ones, but I know the smile was so not real.
KH got sick, IH was being whiny and NONE of my to-do list got done.
Sunday night, November 21. KH got IH in bed finally. I sat for hours guzzling Dr. Pepper and editing pictures of another family, one with three gorgeous kids, including the most precious baby girl. A lovely and thin SAHM who had a stunning house and a nice car and had just returned from a beach vacation with just her husband. And they were beautiful pictures. Really, still some of my best work to date. I finally finished at about 3AM, November 22. I crawled into bed next to my husband. He had been snoring peacefully for hours. I tossed and turned and fretted. I could not sleep. I looked at the clock, I knew hubby’s first alarm went off at 4AM, and he would go back to sleep and hit snooze three times before actually getting up at 4:45. I tried to go to sleep. I really did. The alarm went off. I stared at the darkness.The alarm went off. I stared at the darkness still. The alarm went off. I started to be so anxious I was literally vibrating. It went off, and he got up and headed to the shower. Finally. It was quiet. It was dark. I had a soft bed all to myself. I had three hours until IH would wake up. Only not. I hear a cry and a door slam and little feet padding across my floor. He climbed in bed with me. He snuggled next to me. It felt like he was choking me. I could not breathe……
to be continued tomorrow.
*I am over the whole using fake names bit. My name is Sarah. There are about a million and a half of us, and no one is reading this anyway, so I am going to use my real name dangit! I refer to my hubby as KH and my son has IH all the time, I even have it on a necklace I often wear so that is who they are. The dog can remain the dog I guess.
Filed under NaBloPoMo, lexapro lexplains it | Comments OffDear Dr. H:
I got this email yesterday and HAD to participate!
“If you are reading this you are probably one of Dr. H’s students or former students. You probably are also already aware he is retiring this December. Yes, this December! We are going to be so sad to see him leave!
I volunteered to gather a student-led tribute to him. He does not specifically know what I am doing, although he has probably guessed. (He is the one who gave me these addresses, after all!)
I am asking you to write a letter to him as he retires & send it to me, via attachment or snail mail or any way you can. Also include pictures if you have some from any school events or of you today, etc. I will compile these into a book to present to him.
Thank you and please send whatever you can as soon as you can, by the Friday of Thanksgiving week at the latest so I will have time to get them printed, organized, and in a book.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Dear Dr. H:
I used to sit in your class and wonder how it was that our little State University got you. You really deserved Cambridge or maybe a nice Methodist School, like Perkins. Or maybe not, maybe God knew exactly what he was doing by placing you in Wilson Hall. (Is that where your office was in 2011? Or, did it get bulldozed for another conference room?) I hope you also think it was God led for you to be at ASU, because I happen to know you are a Christian. That is why as I look back at what you taught me about the world, and it was a lot, I also recall you really cared about others. You wanted us to learn compassion as well as the geography, history and current events you taught. You wanted us to try and communicate with everyone, even if that communication was in debate form. I will never forget what you showed us the VERY FIRST DAY of Model UN; footage taken in the moments after the Hiroshima Bomb. That was it for me. The very next day I switched my major from Drama to Political Science. I was determined to stop war too!
Dr. H, I have bad news. I haven’t stopped any wars or famines. In fact, I am not so sure that my Political Science degree was the most lucrative one I could have earned. I am now in the high paying position of preschool teacher– part time. The rest of the time I am still with a preschooler, my own. He is, however, the only five year old who can tell you a country that is completely surrounded by another country! If you have not heard a five year old say Lesotho, you are missing out on a whole lot of cute. I am also everyone’s first pick to partner with at Trivial Pursuit, no one can rack up those blue pie pieces like me. Neither have I used my ability to write an award winning resolution since I graduated. I know. I was shocked too.
I still would not change a thing, I am pretty sure I took every single class you taught while I was at ASU. That was because you were my favorite professor. Not the easiest, but my favorite anyway. Thank you for being so passionate, and kind, and interesting, and knowledgeable, and….just an awesome teacher. I will never forget my time in your classroom. I will always be a better speaker because of Model UN, and I will always be able to write a 20 page term paper in 24 hours, talk intelligently about the Pan African movement write MA in Political Science on my resume.
I wish you wonderful things in retirement. I am pretty sure you have already been everywhere cool, but just in case not, I hope you get to travel somewhere amazing you have always wanted to go. I hope you get to spend hundreds of hours with your grandchildren. I hope you never have to read another incredibly poorly written essay.
Thanks again and God Bless!
Sincerely,
Sarah
BA, Class of 2002
MA, Class of 2003
Filed under NaBloPoMo, To Whom it May Concern | Comments OffShe has got to be kidding us.
I am not even going to tell anyone. We will see if anyone notices.
It was WICKED awesome–and Mega BAD.
Guess what guys!? I may be the only one who had not already seen it, but I got to go see WICKED last night! It was so so, so good. Amazing. I got chills in at least three separate spots. Best song? Obviously Defying Gravity. I went with some of my favorite people, and it was a very nice treat. I almost got carbon monoxide poisoning from sitting in the underground parking garage with 15,000 of my closest friends, but it would have been well worth it!
The stinker I saw today was as bad as WICKED was good. Parents, do not waste your money on MegaMind. Oh Em Gee it stunk. I almost fell asleep twice, The Son kept talking and wiggling (my kid will sit like a statue through just about anything) and he even predicted major plot points. It was horrible. I want my 16$ back.
Filed under NaBloPoMo, Watch it or Whine | Comments (5)Dog people.
Alternate title: Dr. Ang, you should skip this one.
I am a dog person. I will ooh and ah over a cat if someone loves it and it is the polite thing to do, but honestly? I kinda hate them. Their fur is nice on their body, but I hate petting a cat and having their hair fly everywhere. The concept of a litter box is kinda gross to me. Their creepy little tongues are just bleh. They all have strange personalities–kind of like a bi-polar person. I think a pet should be drama free.
But dogs? I love dogs. I love the big ones with their huge ole paws and padded foreheads. I love the little, yappy ones that fit just right on your lap. I love my hyper, oh so sweet Katydid even if she is naughty occasionally. I understand dog people. I now know I am from a long line of dog people.
My mom’s birthday is in December and the day she was born my Pa (maternal grandfather) traded his coon dog (you all know what that is, right? Think Where the Red Fern Grows) for a heater to keep her warm. Every dinner with my family I hear how my great grandfather used to sneak food under the table to whatever dog might be there at the time. There has been a dog in every house I have ever lived in from birth. (except the dorms. I had a fish then.)
My grandfather has Alzheimers. It is not a pretty disease, and it has been really sad to witness the last year–and yet I am so grateful that I have. The biggest change has been to his personality. While never really warm, he was always kind. Now…not so much. I could go on for an hour, but you get the point.
Except.
His love for dogs seems to have actually grown. He is so excited to see them, he keeps treats for my parents dogs stashed places. They sit by his feet or beside him whenever he is there. He seems more like his old self, and even happy, whenever he is petting a dog.
And you know what? My grandpa’s birthday was this week. And, my dad went this morning and got a little dog from the pound just for my grandpa. Her name is Lexi and she is really cute in a totally ugly sort of way. She is small, less than five pounds, and is just right for a small apartment in an independent living facility. I am not sure he understands that Lexi is his, that she is going to live in his apartment and he can give her treats and love on her whenever he wants.
I also am not going to delude myself that this dog is going to fix everything…or even anything. I am not sure my dad thought through the details at all, but I understand the thinking behind it, and hope that it brings my grandpa a little joy.
And in a year or so when Lexi needs a new home? Well, maybe we will be over losing Gilbert by then.
Filed under Family-blame the DNA, NaBloPoMo | Comments (2)