anxiety
-
Every time I drive to work, I have to drive by the mental hospital. In the beginning, this was a major trigger for me and required I sit for a minute and let the panic dissipate before heading in. So many flashbacks and so much anxiety. Now I drive by and try to reframe it…
-
Have I bit off more than I can chew? Honestly…probably. I’m working two jobs. I run a rental property. I’m trying to take care of and slowly restore a house. I support my mother. And my manic ass applied to grad school when I got out of the hospital and I got accepted. I start…
-
The AC is down at work. Everyone is sweltering. Except for a few cold vets who still ask for warm blankets at night. I don’t mind the heat. It feels nice to me. I have negative associations with the cold, and it reminds me of sterile hospital environments, the psych ward AC chill, and growing…
-
I can’t slow down my mind. The anxiety is absolutely palpable. The light fixture is installed and my desk moved into place. My mother bitched about the flooring restoration and all kinds of other things while I was there the last few days. I try to let it roll off me but the truth is,…
-
I’m drowning in things to do. As soon as I cross one thing off the list, I add another. My new light fixture is finally being installed tomorrow. I’m moving my desk into the room. Then it’s all ready for me to start moving what I’m keeping back into the house. I’ve sold some furniture…
-
Slowly but surely, I’m slogging through my own book one last time for all the errors. I’m truthfully a little irritated my publisher missed so many. I think he ran it through some software or something. The errors are systematic, and my military discharge date is wrong. In short, there will be a second edition.…
-
I am at a loss on what to say. I’ve felt a powerful sense of blankness and loss of feeling. I’m like a mannequin, or robot. Didn’t make it to work last night. Too much going on, house stuff, work, family stress… I spent most of the day at the house supervising a housecleaner who…
-
Death is on my mind lately. I am surrounded by it. It walks the halls of my hospitals, and I swear I can see the reaper the moment a patient dies. I’ve had two patients die on me this week. I have another circling the drain, but he’s a full code and the family won’t…
-
There are some things worse than death. I witness it every night at work and probably get a little secondhand trauma from seeing some of the horrible shit people go through. Dementia and acute delirium is a case in point. Gone are the things that made you who you were. You are a human shell;…
-
What is it about the labile mood? And how does it affect my bipolar disorder and its manic highs and lows? Sometimes this labile mood presents with intensity and is distressing. It’s almost a daily oscillation when I miss a dose of my mood stabilizer or there are triggers in the environment. It’s not the…
Documenting my journey through the mental health system 