What Must Be

My medication just got increased. I am still out of work. I have to let go of the common worries of money and those types of things. I have to truly believe that I am in the hands of God. My own hands have failed me. Perhaps failed is the not the right choice of words. Perhaps inexperienced hands would be a better choice. I have learned that the age I am now is often a triggering age for uni-polar or bi-polar disorders to rear their heads. I will not say, "ugly head," because I feel no shame in what I feel as I am sure most people have felt what I have felt on some level or another and feeling shame will only exacerbate things not only for myself but only serve to make my readers feel potentially shameful too and that is not a thing I wish for. 

Something happened in the last 8 months that triggered a chemical alteration in my brain. Emotionally I am not the same as I was, say, a year ago. My sleep is deeply disturbed. I am fixated on washing dishes and rearranging the glasses on my kitchen shelf. I check my email every second or two as well as my phone.  

Zoe is here and I am thankful for her presence. She is the daughter of a very old friend.

Since my hospitalization I have not had a crying jag or thoughts of suicide. Until last night. I am feeling tense, anxious, and the crying jags have begun again. This morning I began the increase of medication; it is possible this increase is having this effect. I don't know. I am not having thoughts of suicide; just the weeping. 

I have just arranged to get a full medical work-up to rule out some things that might otherwise be responsible for my current state affairs. 

I wish I could draw as I have a mad urge to paint.

I'm Away For a Bit

I spent two weeks in the hospital. For weeks I had conversed with Freda and told her I felt like I needed to be in a hospital. She tells me, since my release, that I had told her this perhaps 20 times, over and over... 

I arrived at work at the very end of January; I had been crying uncontrollably all morning. I sat at my desk crying some more. Freda called and desperately tried to calm me down. She had me imagine horse rides on Queenie as a child. She had me try and recall bonfires on the shores of Rustico; everything was remembered and nothing caught my heart.  The woman that sits with back to mine came and still I sat crying while she began her work. She never knew I was weeping. I sat through a meeting with three interruptions, by me, while I went to the bathroom to weep. 

I have been crying uncontrollably for months; it became even alarming to myself. Listen, I have done all the things one should do to to prevent such an occasion but to no avail. I am in therapy once a week. I take my prescribed medications as well as the vitamins. I share my feelings with friends and reach out as well. 

Do not dare to judge me. Do not dare.

For six months I have not been able to sleep beyond 4-5 hours and that sleep was always interrupted by wakings filled with dread. I stopped taking the subway because I waited for the train and envisioned myself throwing myself in front of the train. It seemed a grand idea. So I began to take my car. Then my car became my enemy. I looked for places to smash it against a tree, drive it off a bridge, or careen it off the road into freezing water that I was sure to drown in. I became completely unable to get out from under the dreadful dirge that I felt.  

I was suicidal. My suicide made sense. My death was a thing I told my best friend, my closest friend, my safest friend, to forgive me for; even Freda had lost the ability to hold me here. 

I sent an email to A. A has known me for 20 or more years. She is an RN who directs a clinic that I used to work for. I trust her. I trust her from my toes. I asked her to get me a shrink for meds. I told her that on a scale of 1-10 I was a 15 of suicide. It was a friday and I felt if I had to go home one more time, for a weekend, alone, I was going to end it. I was not able to take another moment. She, being the woman I trust her to be, acted swiftly, immediately, and with the assurance of a nurse. She had me sent to the ER. 

I am grateful.

It is now almost a month later since things have transpired. I am on an anti-depressant - a new thing for me. I am also prescribed something to help me sleep. I am on leave from work. The sleeping meds are a bit too strong. I take it and find it difficult to wake. Without I find myself awake in the middle of the night. I have cut the dose and still I am not feeling square and pointed; things are not done and dusted yet.

Freda says I sound different now. When I ask her what she means she says I sound as though I am 'back'. She says I am present again; she says it is OK that I don't know exactly what it is that I feel. She says that I will make it; she is still my lifelong encourager. My heart. My lungs. The woman that represents a grounding. 

Me? I take one moment at a time. I still feel a bit scared because what happened was disconcerting to me.  I have been depressed in my life but never have I felt suicidal. Never. It was a landscape that felt unfamiliar to me.