mental health
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Saw my doctor yesterday morning. She’s new to me, I’ve only met her once before. She’s my primary care provider, not a psychiatrist. I’m a wimp for blood draws. But I had to go to the lab for it. One time I fainted, feeling terribly woozy and lightheaded right beforehand. It doesn’t hurt that bad…
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This weekend marks the close of the Winter I quarter. Monday begins Winter II, and an official halfway point towards this master’s degree. There is Spring 1 after that, and the last time I will have two classes at a time. I will have only one per quarter starting Spring II. I will be finished…
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The last week of the winter I quarter. Final papers, projects, all due by the end of the week. There is literally no turn around time – winter II starts Monday. Sunday night, really. That’s when the classes appear in canvas and I get right to work. It is all accelerated and I like it…
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“What do you think Dr. P? Did you imagine me capable of this?” “How about you, Shirley? – you were the one who told me to take classes again.” I think about them sometimes. The staff and other patients in the hospital with me. Shirley was a nurse who dealt with my sleepwalking, gave me…
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I have daymares. No nightmares in awhile. I take prazosin, for nightmares. I was always kind of skeptical of that – how can a pill get rid of dreams, specifically, the nightmare variety? It probably can’t – the placebo does most of the work when it comes to a lot of meds. We believe it…
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Maybe something is changing. Even if just a little. I have so much pent-up energy and my bones are sizzling. I used ativan, melatonin, vistaril, and gabapentin to force myself to sleep before work. On my way to work, I drove by the mental hospital as I always do and this time, not the panic…
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There is a construction zone around 4th avenue, and I must detour on my way to work. The mental hospital is on my route to work, so now instead of driving by it, I drive with it looming in front of me. I don’t know that I will ever get over it. I have a…
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I am a man who feels more stable under routine conditions: I develop routines for my day, my week, for grad school and work and I apply these routines to the smallest things like what clothes I wear or how I arrange my house. I have always been into a routine. Or sought to develop…
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I don’t feel very good and I feel bad for feeling bad. I’m thinking a lot about my psych meds. The first group I had to attend my very first morning in the mental hospital last year was about “making the most of your psychiatric medications.” How to take them every day without fail no…
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I’ve caught up on my meds. I’m feeling rather turbo charged despite a lack of sleep and living on mostly chocolate the last few days. The PTSD symptoms are still ever present. I saw a rust-colored car and immediately felt short of breath and my heart beat faster. Rust is the color of the elopement…
Documenting my journey through the mental health system 