Days and nights

Sunday was an extremely bad day. The weight of the depression and anxiety were so great that I could barely move. I struggled to eat (as it turns out, I've lost thirteen pounds in the last six weeks), and I was petrified of leaving the house. We missed the NHL All-Star Game. Luckily, Matt was able to sell the tickets. We ended up watching the game from home with a friend and some pizza. The bad day did get better, but I still feel angry that my mental health issues cheated me and Matt out of a once-in-a-lifetime hockey experience.

The days are much harder than the nights. My mood almost always lifts when the sun goes down, but the instant I open my eyes in the morning, the anxiety and sadness return. Why is this? The simple answer is that my eyes are very sensitive to sunlight, and bright light can trigger headaches. But, I think there is a more complex answer. I think that part of it is a feeling that I should be doing something- going to work or school, for example- and I am not. Maybe somewhere deep in my subconscious, I still feel like I am late for something. When the sun goes down, well, it's normal to be at home and relaxing. I spend time with Matt, whose work day is done, and I feel better up until I go to bed.

Words cannot express how tired I am of this cycle. It leads me to take long naps during the afternoon, hoping that when I wake, it will be evening and I will be "safe." I still can't seem to sleep enough, despite using my CPAP and taking anti-anxiety meds.

Speaking of meds, the new anti-anxiety medicine, Serax, seems to work for a little longer than Klonopin did, but I am still dealing with debilitating anxiety for much of the day. The slightest thing will make me cry. As for the new antidepressant, I had to discontinue it because it made my heart race. My blood pressure was already sky-high when it was checked at my psychiatrist's office last week, so he took me off Fetzima. Now, I am back on Lexapro, and back to square one.

There is a ray of hope. My new psychiatrist uses TMS therapy. Basically, he wants to zap the under-active parts of my brain with magnetic pulses similar to that of an MRI machine. I'm excited about this non-pharmaceutical  option, but I don't know yet if my insurance will pay for it.

I saw a new pain management doctor this week as well. He looked at my MRIs, examined me, and suggested I re-try the anesthetic facet joint injections. He thought they may not have been done correctly by my former doctor, which does not really surprise me, since that clinic was run like an assembly line. This place seems much more personable, and it's smaller, so we'll see. If the injections work, the next step would be nerve ablation, in which pain-producing nerve endings are actually cauterized. Not looking forward to that, but it's better than fusion surgery. The injections are scheduled for two days in February, one week apart, first for my lower back and then for my neck.

I have things in motion to help improve my physical and mental health, but I feel lost. I don't even feel like I know who I am anymore. There are brief moments of clarity when I remember, "Oh! I liked that. I was into that, and it once made me happy." Yet, I can't quite cross over into being enthusiastic about my interests. I start to question whether I even like whatever it is anymore. Maybe I am different, now. Maybe this whole thing has changed me so fundamentally that I will never be the same "me" again. I look at pictures of me from a year ago, two years ago, and I don't even know who that person is, or where she went. Matt says she is still here, but I am not so sure.

I am grateful for Matt, and for my friends, who have been patient with me these last few weeks. The next challenge is Matt's business trip, during which I will be staying with my mother, far from my friends in Columbus. When I am feeling better, in the evenings, I think of it as a welcome rest. My old room, the quiet of the semi-rural town I grew up in, and maybe even visits from friends I haven't seen in years. When I am feeling like I am right now, I think of it as being trapped in my past for a week, and irrational fears that something will happen to Matt and I will be stuck there forever.

One thing is for sure. Something has got to change. Something has got to give. I don't want to live like this anymore.

From the depths

I know I am not alone. I have plenty of people telling me that, plenty of people who have faced down this demon before and survived. "Depression lies," I keep telling myself. "It will get better," I keep telling myself, but days like this, weeks like this, months like this, it's hard to believe.

There are three things that keep me from going down the road of suicidal ideation. The first is my own spiritual belief that if I kill myself, I will have an equally miserable afterlife. There will be no relief from pain. My spirit would continue to suffer. Even if I am wrong, and there is no afterlife, nothingness doesn't suit me much either. It's a waste. Feeling nothing, doing nothing, being nothing is not acceptable. In fact, that is exactly what depression seeks.

The second thing keeping me alive is the idea that I want to feel better. I want to find peace. I want to find me again. I can't do that if I'm dead. I am terrified enough of the narrowing of possibilities that aging comes with. Therefore, it makes no logical sense to end my life early.

The third thing preventing my suicide are the people I love. I know that if I hurt myself or take my own life that they will hurt, too, and that thought is more than I can bear. Not to sound conceited, but I know I would leave a bigger hole than I think I would when I am depressed.

All of that being said, I am struggling to remember a time when I felt this bad for this long. Maybe after my divorce, when I was forced to leave England and move back in with my mother when I was 25, or maybe when I suffered serotonin syndrome after cold-turkeying off Paxil when I was 22. At any rate, these events are not within recent memory, and knowing I survived them does surprisingly little to help.

At least I know what I want. I want to feel good again. I want to look forward to events instead of dreading them. I want a neat, organized room and a rejuvenated altar. I want the energy to give all of these things to myself. I want the strength to repay those who have helped me through this time. All seem out of reach right now.

Today, I am afraid. I fear that because I was on those gods-forsaken painkillers for so long, my brain chemistry will never recover. I am afraid that I will never feel good again. I am afraid that I will continue to be an emotional strain on Matt and the others who care about me.

What is today? Nothing looks or feels right. My body feels strange, and I don't feel present in the moment. The sadness is viscous like tar wrapping up my thoughts. For just a minute, I think I want to die, but then I go through all of my reasons not to again. It doesn't make me feel happy, but it keeps me breathing.

I did go to the convention, for one day. I did manage to suppress the despair long enough to have a little fun. There were several people there who "got it" well enough that I didn't break down. The next day, my friend Mandy came to visit, and she kept me talking long enough that I almost forgot I was sick- but, like a nightmarish jack-in-the-box, the crippling anxiety and anguish sprung back with even more force the next day.

I've been crying and sleeping most of the time, only remembering to eat when Matt brings me something. And, of course, I am in physical pain. Just taking a shower and getting dressed costs an enormous amount of energy.

I want to look back at this entry later and say, "See? You got through it!" I want that "later" to be tomorrow or next week. It might not be, and that is scary, too. How much longer will this last? When will I feel happiness again? When will I get to stop settling for brief moments of "maybe it's not so bad" and actually be able to be joyful?

Something else that sucks: Taking care of me is a full-time job for both me and Matt. Doctor after doctor, test after test, expensive medications, physical therapy, mental therapy, and all for what? I don't feel any better than I did a year ago. I feel worse. So not only is this a full-time job, it's one that costs more than it pays.

Okay, I'm done now. I think that's about it. All this whining that I share with the world. I share it in hopes of gaining support, but also in hopes that someone who is deep in the same shithole might read it and know they aren't alone.

Winter. (Trigger warning: description of opiate withdrawal)

Over the past week, I have learned that the agony of withdrawal from opiate drugs runs deep into every crevice of a person's being. Let me tell you about that.

When you are in withdrawal, it is the very darkest night of your soul. Nothing is safe, nothing is right, and everything hurts. Lights are too loud, sounds are too bright, and yet, everything is black. You can't remember the last time you felt good, and you worry that you will never feel good again. You're sick to your stomach, your bowels revolt against you and you break into tears for no reason at all. It depletes every part of you. It's like the worst hangover you ever had combined with the worst fear you've ever felt, and it is unrelenting. No matter how many blankets you wrap yourself in, the chills come, and no matter how you claw at yourself to be free of your clothing, the fever burns. It doesn't matter what you tell yourself about how things will be okay again, that your body is just reacting to the absence of something it had grown accustomed to, it doesn't help. You're just terrified. Of everything. Your heart pounds as if to break free from your chest. Then, the depression hits. Nothing anyone says helps. Even pure love seems to bounce right off the barrier it builds between you and everything that matters. And even if you know that right there, within your reach, is a beautiful world glittering with possibilities, you can't touch it. You can't feel it. It is separate from you, somehow, and you are separate from it, and that distance is horrifyingly intimate, sickly sinking beneath your resolve. It seeks to break you. It does break you. You can't come out of this without being broken. It's spiritual and biological terrorism setting off a bomb in your soul.

Most people feel cravings for the drug. Strangely, I didn't felt much in the way of drug cravings, and I am thankful for that. I think it is because I put the painkillers in the category of a poison that isn't needed. Sure, I know that if I had a Percocet in my hand right now and could take it, it would make me feel better for a little while, but it's not worth it.

You know, since I've been on those damn things, all I've been doing is sitting around feeling... okay. And "okay" is just what it is. It's not good, it's not bad, it's not inspiring, it's not glad or sad. It's just okay. I became content with "okay," because I feared the pain, because I was sick of feeling twice my age because of the pain in my spine and shoulder. I didn't do anything with that "okay" feeling. Didn't draw, didn't write, didn't go out on my own for a whole year, I realize now. But part of me knew the whole time that this wasn't a normal "okay." Like I was just barely keeping a lid on something disgusting that threatened to crawl out if I forgot to pop my pill at the right time.

There were some days that I wanted to feel better than "okay," and those days, I took more than I should have. You see, opiates do a wonderful job of killing anxiety, and anxiety is something I have suffered from my whole life. On days when I couldn't be arsed to deal with the anxiety on top of the pain, I took more. There were a lot of those days in December. "Oh, the holidays are here. Can't risk feeling shitty for this or that event. Better fortify myself." And before I knew it, my pills were dwindling fast.

Then came the kidney stone. Here I am, faced with this new, even worse pain, caught with my pants down and low on my pills. I go to the hospital. They load me up with Dilaudid and Toradol, and because of my tolerance, it only takes the edge off. The first time I go in, they don't give me a prescription for anything for the pain, since my chart says I'm already on painkillers. I have a pain contract with my doctor that states I can't get prescription opiates from any other source. The next day, back in the ER with even worse pain and blood in my urine, they finally gave me the prescription.

Mercifully, the stone passed quickly, but there were consequences. As soon as my pain doctor caught wind of my ER visit, he had his receptionist call me and tell me he would not be prescribing any more opiates for me. I was left with fifteen, half-the-usual-strength Percocet to try to wean myself off. I took the last dose on Monday, January 5. Then I plunged into the excruciating process of withdrawal, as described previously.

I was lucky. I had my husband near the entire time, squeezing my hand and holding me close even if it felt, to me, like he was miles away. I had friends' support, online and in real life. One particular friend was extraordinary. She had gone through opiate withdrawal herself, and she gave me advice about how to deal with it, and talked me down from the terror, and made me laugh when otherwise I would have been collapsed in a heap of bitter tears.

I would be remiss if I did not mention my dear Loki, who was right behind me through it all. He asked for an offering. At the time, I told him that all I had left to give were my tears. "Then give me those, child," he said, and so I did.

As of this writing I have made it six days. 96 hours is the magic number for opiates to get out of your system, so I am past the worst part, but I cried for a long time this morning. I still don't feel like myself. In fact, I'm not even sure how to feel like myself again. Writing this has helped. Listening to music I used to listen to all the time before I was on the meds is starting to bring me around and remember who Morgan is. She's pretty awesome, really, but she's been in hiding. I can't hold it against her. Me. I can't blame myself or shame myself for this. I was never meant to be on the poison for as long as I was. I was supposed to have surgery. I was supposed to get help stepping down from the drugs. The system failed me. It's time to find some other way to deal with the pain. It's time to call the chiropractor, the holistic practitioner, the acupuncturist, the witch doctor, or whoever can help me manage my pain without those gods-forsaken drugs. It isn't worth it, losing so much of myself, for so long.

I am writing about this all as if it is in the past-tense, when, in reality, I will still probably feel the effects of withdrawal for some time. I don't like to think about that. At this moment, I am feeling as good as I can feel, given the circumstances. I remind myself that I have been through worse, and with far fewer resources in terms of friends and support. Lying here in bed, typing on my laptop, I can imagine myself going out to the coffee house again, writing stories, drawing, playing games, roleplaying... all the stuff I used to enjoy. It may be cold as balls outside, but I can imagine the spring. I can imagine putting myself back together again, and imagination is the mother of invention. I will invent myself again, and be stronger for it.