The irony of this is the doctor who first put me on Seroquel lied to me about what it was. He said it was a sedative and that I needed it to resolve my sleep problems that I was having during my postpartum depression. That doctor went on vacation at a time that I needed a new script written. The nurse at the clinic "wasn't comfortable" writing the script, well aware that going off it was going to do bad things to me. I had to wait two weeks for the doctor to come back from vacation. The Friday before the doctor was back in office at the clinic, I had my major crisis with suicidal ideation and psychosis, which were all aggravated by the side effects of going cold turkey off of an antipsychotic medication. Because the side effects of going cold turkey off of an antipsychotic medication are suicidal ideation, depression, and psychosis.
I was uneasy going back on the Seroquel. I found myself concerned that I was going to be a zombie again and unable to function. When I got to Dr. M.'s office, I was on 800 mg of Seroquel. I have memory problems because of it. The going theory is the fact that I was on that and Geodon (another antipsychotic medication) for about seven years by then that majorly contributed to my developing diabetes. Basically, my pancreas is shot on top of the insulin resistance that I have caused by my psych medications and my PCOS. I'm playing a hard game of manage my condition with meds, diet, and exercise to forestall being on insulin as long as I can manage it.
I was handled real badly by the county mental health clinic. Theoretically I could sue them. I don't have the energy, money, or the time to pursue that. The people who made life hell for a year, screwed over my career in education, and put me on medication that's resulted in my developing a life long medical condition are getting away with it. I'm angry. I'm angry at the people who tried to make political hay off of my suffering. I'm angry at the people who were too damn lazy to do their jobs and put me into that position to begin with. And I'm angry that there's no justice here. They get to keep their jobs. They get to live their lives with zero repercussions for their actions. I'm a bit bitter on that point and still traumatized.
But, back to the Seroquel. I've been on this super low dose now for about a week. I'm actually sleeping through the night. Dr. M. thinks that if we do this for a few weeks, it should be enough to reset my sleep cycle back to what it should be and then I can come off of the Seroquel again. Because he doesn't think it's good for me, which is why he took me off it in the first place. In the meantime, I'm doing journal work trying to process whatever hellish thing my subconscious mind is trying to disgorge. It's ugly and kinda scary writing this stuff. I don't know what I'm going to do with it.
The 'noise' in my head, which is entirely different from psychosis, is back again. I've been feeling fractured in my brain for a long time, like ever since I was a kid. Now the different parts of me are making noise again. I need to process something and at the same time, I need to figure out just how fractured I am. It is seriously making me think I have a mild case of dissociative identity disorder with how I lose time, have conversations that I don't remember, and do stuff that I don't remember. That's been the last three months.
I don't have it happen that I go somewhere and not remember how I got there. I'm afraid to leave the apartment on some level most of the time right now. Which is why I'm on a higher dose of antianxiety medication at the moment. Again, Dr. M. thinks this is something that will resolve as I continue doing my work and we'll be able to step me back down to a lower dosage. He figures that both problems will resolve (the high anxiety/increased PTSD flashbacks and the sleep problem) around the same time. The estimate he gave me, given how aggressive I am about trying to stay on top of my mental health issues and take care of the problems as they pop up, is a few months. So, theoretically, by the time the holidays hit, I should be doing better.
I am just getting to the point where I can start doing stuff a bit more normally again. I'm just getting back into my writing. Of course, this is where I have someone calling me out for being 'aloof' and 'ignoring their efforts to communicate.' So, I have to explain, yet again for my readership, I am disabled and a social-phobe. It's really frustrating because there's some serious discussions that need to happen in the religious community that I've found myself in and there's been push back against it. And there are people in my readership community who expect me to be neurotypical and that I'm just being a contentious and aloof by raising questions and then going radio silent for three months.
Covid-19 has really fucked up my life. I didn't get it. No one in my household has gotten it. But, it's brought up a laundry list of trauma memories because of the isolation. It's made it harder to go out because the air is now lava and people are running around maskless as if there's no pandemic now. There's the looming specter of remote learning with two kids who have very different academic needs and very different learning styles. We did this before, it sucked. It went beyond sucking and into a realm that I lack adequate words to describe. It psychologically fucked with me on multiple levels. I don't have the capacity I used to for rapid switching between student needs because of how fucked my brain is. And there's just a lot of fucked up shit flying around, barely missing us.
We don't get a weekend off. Beloved and I are constantly 'on duty' and it's burning us out. Then I see other people doing shit like going on vacations and acting like the pandemic is no big deal. I get angry. I see other people with diabetes loading up on sugary snacks and I get angry. Some of it is envy. I want that vacation. I want to eat 'normal' food. Some of it is just pure frustration because I can't see away that we're going to get a break or improve the situation. We're just treading water and trying to get by. Covid-19 really brought that out into high relief. I tell myself that I should be thankful because we're better off than some others. I tell myself that I should be thankful because we're healthy (for the most part). I am bitter and angry with the fact that we're just hanging in like kittens on a window screen.
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