Oh! Hello There Again!

Where have I been? Um.

I guess it’s a bit coincidental that I quit taking my mental medications around the time of my last post – November ’07. I weaned myself off of them for purely financial reasons – I was paying COBRA ($900 / month) and my insurance carrier decided that my meds would equal $400 / month. Jeez.

I had all decided that I didn’t need them…I”VE GOT MEDITATION!!!! Whoops.

So for the past three months I’ve been doing this living thing on a minute-to-minute basis, just trying to keep my head above water. Terribly afraid and confused because my head just doesn’t seem to get better and I don’t know when relief is coming.

Finally, a month or so ago, I lifted my nose out of the water and decided I needed to go back to the Head Doc and get some medication. I finally got my taxes back, and after a bunch of searching, I got an appointment for this Saturday with some new guy. (The old guy won’t accept my insurance – a major carrier, BTW).

Boy do I need it. For a while it seems I was able to just tell myself I was in a low spot and that I’d feel better in a few days when I hit my high again. Lately, though, these lows just seem never-ending.

I’m hunting for a good analogy here. Drowning or burning seems decent. You’re under water, holding your breath just to see how long you can do it. Your friend pops up for air, but you know you can hang in there and show them (!). Your chest feels like an anvil and you begin to sense this fireplace poker jabbed in your ribs…it burns gentle, then more fierce as each eternal second trickles by. Now it’s throbbing, and your breasts are shuddering slightly. You notice your shaking chest is in tune to the throbbing in your lungs. So you decide to pop your head above the water and gasp a nice, big long drink of air.

But you can’t. Something won’t let you. You struggle and spin for a way out – any way. Side to side, up, down. You’re locked in place. And the burning feels searing now. You just want it over and out because you know that in a few minutes, you will have decided that it wasn’t the worst pain you’ve ever felt – surely you’ve had worse.

That's the story of my life this minute. I'll try to update with details sometime soon.



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