Thursday, December 07, 2006

freaking out just a little

On the one hand my mood -which has been wallowing in a black hole the last few weeks - is beginning to lift a bit. I'm starting to take an interest in things and even - despite my last post - started planning Christmas yesterday. That's right: lists have been started and cards have been sent. I was even clear-headed enough to wash some bedlinen in preparation for my Stepson's arrival on Saturday - which I am now eagerly anticipating, as opposed to feeling sweet bugger-all about anything - without too much muddleness of the head. That may not make a lot of sense to some of you but at times even the smallest task takes a really huge amount of mental effort from me.
So the fact that I've managed to get stuff done at all without feeling befuddled is a good thing, trust me.

But on the other hand it seems that in my not-so-clear-headed mood I have successfully managed to alienate myself from people I would have considered 'friends' at work. Well, maybe 'mates' is a better word than 'friends'. I feel like a total outsider - left out of the loop on virtually everything. Even work-related things, although this last is perhaps the thing that p*ssed me off in the first place and made me withdraw. The words 'overreaction' and 'over-sensitive' come to mind, but I have possibly not been able to deal with things as well as I should have - or at least as well as I once would have.
It makes coming to work every day really hard. I used to be part of 'the gang' but now I'm simply a shadow that hangs around, occasionally doing something useful. Ooh, that sounds terribly self-pitying, doesn't it? I hate self-pity. Everyone hates self-pity. Which is why hiding under the covers in bed all day sounds like a much better option. If I don't have to face all this, then I won't feel so bad about it, then there won't be self-pitying to be done... d'you catch my drift? My sister accused me of becoming a hermit not so long ago, but is that really such a bad thing? I just feel like a piece of driftwood that has been battered ceaselessly agains the rocks in a storm. And when one is hurting already, it doesn't take very much to make it worse. So I guess what I'm saying is, this piece of driftwood needs to be washed up on a beach somewhere to be still and dry for a while.

So what's stopping me from taking some time off? I guess it's because I don't want to admit to failure. When I came off my medication it was on the advice of my doctor, who said she felt that I'd be OK to just stop, as opposed to weaning off them. I had finished my cognitive therapy sessions a couple of months prior to that - the psychologist felt I was doing just fine. So admitting that I'm actually NOT doing OK doesn't sit well with me - it's like saying I couldn't hack it on my own and one thing I've always held dear is my independence; Now that I've put that in words I must admit it sounds like slightly skewed thinking; I mean, if someone I knew said these things to me my advice would be, "It's not that you've failed and it's not an independence thing; you don't have to do this alone." Trouble is I think I've had double standards for a very long time - one set of rules for everyone... except me. Learning to cut myself some slack is one of the hardest things I've ever attempted and I'm still not great at it.
I also don't have a lot of leave days due and the couple I do have I want to save for my trip home to SA next year. Which leaves me only one alternative: go back to the doctor and get her to book me off for a week or even two. Doctors don't like doing that though and I guess I'm afraid she's going to want to put me back on medication and I really don't want to go back on medication because it makes me drowsy... it sort of takes the edge off life which I suppose is sort of the point, but how am I ever going to learn to cope with it if I'm not really facing it?

Oh my, so many questions. Don't panic - most of them are rhetorical; I think I know the answers in my head, if not my heart. Sometimes it just takes a bit of spelling-out like this for me to make any sense of things.

Normal service (HA HA!) will resume shortly.

10 comments:

-Ann said...

I empathise with so much of this post. Failure would be to do nothing at all - being aware of the problems and taking steps to resolve them is way more than a lot of people ever do. Best of luck with it all - I'll be thinking of you.

Anonymous said...

I think you are further along the road to sorting this out than you realise. You have great insight and good instincts.
What you need to do now is take some action, no matter how small. Perhaps, the inertia is weighing you down?

Anonymous said...

Aaaaaaaah! Oh wait - you said not to panic. I can imagine your frustration. It's a bit like taking up meditation because you don't want to sit around doing nothing.

Terri said...

Jason - I do feel I've made some progress. I guess it's more difficult to see progress when you're actually in the situation.

-ann - Thanks :)

Chitty - More like impatience. I'm very much an 'instant gratification' kinda gal, and all this slow progress stuff gets to me.

Kyknoord - LOL! You really do crack me up! thx :)

It is the question said...

Hey Terri

You're a long way along the road since kicking the meds.

But you also know what they're there for. If you need a return to even a reduced dosage for a while, that's fine. It's not a step backwards, it's just another step along the road to managing things as opposed to them managing you.

Good luck.

IITQ

Linda said...

Good Morning Terri!
You know what I do when I find an interesting piece of driftwood in the river? I pick it up and put it on my deck to dry out in the sun.
Consider yourself sunning on my deck. My way sending hugs to ya and I am thinking of you. :)

Reluctant Nomad said...

Um, no comment - I'm left speechless!

Terri said...

IITQ - Thanks; it's good to get objective opinions and what I've heard here is all really positive.

Beads - Sunning on your deck sounds just perfect :)

Nomad - Um ja me too. I considered deleting that but I think I'll just turn word verification back on and leave it at that. Does anyone actually read that crap??!

Terri said...

On second thoughts... that anonymous lecture has to go. Comment deleted!

Anonymous said...

ag skattie- i know its a cliche, but saying something like that out loud (or on a blog) is a huge step forward and i'm very impressed!