Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Outbound

I had my psychiatry appointment rescheduled. It was okay. I got checked out and sent on my way. I have enough meds to keep me grinding on. I'm now looking for another therapist, and so far it's a target-poor environment. The person I was originally sent to has to have surgery, so now I'm waiting for callbacks from a bunch of randoms. One of them is female. I don't know how I feel about having a female therapist. I hope if I do end up with one she doesn't try to pull the "oooh we're both women we can talk about anything" spiel.

I am going to Manitoba to work on the car tomorrow. I am excited. I want to get away from home. I might actually be able to motivate myself. Today I spent most of the day trying to go back to sleep. I played a lot of FreeCell too. I'm very lazy. I want to do some C++ coding by I just can't ass myself to do it. I'm doing Project Euler right now, which I suck at. I also have an intro-to-games-programming book I'd like to work through. And I want to learn SQL and Scheme. I have too much to do and no energy to do it.

I have a lot of physics I need to do too. I need to review some linear algebra and especially change of basis for quantum. I also need to go over some calculus and maybe learn some vector goodness in preparation for E&M. I really hope I can get okay marks this coming term. I hate getting anything lower than an 80 but it happens a lot because I'm a bad student. I wish I didn't suck at my chosen major so much.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Jubilation

I had my termination appointment today. It was very short. I went in, told the guy that I wanted to see someone else, and he gave me a name and phone number. It reminded me of people hitting their friends up for hookers and drug dealers. I'm glad to have that done with. My mom went in after me and spent more time inside with the psychologist than I did.

The new person is supposedly much more soft-spoken and non-confrontational. We shall see. I almost feel like being adolescent and purposely difficult just to rile him. It's Internet trolling in real life. I don't think I really want to see a therapist at all but my parents are forcing me to go. I will end up back in hospital if I start skipping appointments or cancelling so I will just have to bite the bullet for 6 more weeks. I don't want to show this new person my old paper diaries. I think I will keep them to myself and write everything again. I started hushing myself for certain things because I knew they would arouse suspicions. I had many thoughts that were left unwritten.

Tomorrow I have a psychiatry appointment. Hopefully it will be quick. After that I should have more than a week free. My dad and I are going to Manitoba to finish restoring a car. We will drive back afterwards. I am looking forward to doing it, both for the car and for the chance to get away from my mom and little brother. I will miss my dog, though.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Ugliness

I feel ugly.

I know this is the typical whine of the teenaged and female, but I feel it's definitely true in my case. Part of my problem is I cannot do anything to fix it. I am utterly terrible at doing my makeup or my hair, and I have no fashion sense whatsoever. I don't think there's one specific spot that just ruins everything for me, but a whole combination of subtle and not so subtle things. I just don't think I'm very attractive at all. This has been pretty much confirmed for my by the men of the world (I'm straight). I never get any attention from men. I don't get hit on, flirted with, or even catcalled. I always think people are laughing at how I'm dressed or how I look. I'm very self-centred.

I don't think there's anything I can really do to fix myself either. I can't afford plastic surgery (and it's obvious when someone's had "work done"). I can't just make myself taller. I'm already on birth control, so bigger boobs are not happening. I can't do anything to fix my terrible figure.

Boredom

The last few days have been full of boredom. I have been doing nothing but FreeCell and torrenting. I'm a very boring person, which was already obvious because I have a blog. I went for a hike yesterday with my dog, mom, and brother. It was hot and humid. My dog had a lot of fun, and it was nice to be able to see her run around and get soaked in streams. I need to go running today as well.

I run every other day. I usually go 2 or 3 miles. Tonight I want to try for four miles. I usually run downstairs on my treadmill. It's nice to be able to see how far I've gone, how many calories I've burned, and how long I have to keep going. I have an Elle and a Popular Mechanics to read tonight, too. I have terrible form when running and I always want to quit before I've gone far enough. I hate how sweaty and tired I get. I feel so disgusting. I like running because I can get rid of all the fat I have from eating bad food. I have actually lost some fat from the running. I'm still the same weight because muscle is denser than fat, but most of the fat that was on my thighs has been replaced by muscle. I still have belly fat, though.

The reason I usually stop running is my legs hurt. I'm usually not winded at all, but my legs or shoulders hurt and I get stitches. I hate being so weak. I wish I could go farther. 3 miles is only 5 kilometres.

I have my termination meeting tomorrow. I'm apprehensive.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Therapeutic

I had my check-in appointment with the psychologist this morning. My mother went with me. I spent a while alone with him, and he did his "read the diary, ask me questions" routine. I didn't say anything. He's decided that unless I "step up to the plate" and talk to him there's no more point in our seeing each other, so Monday will be my termination appointment. I'm pleased. The longer I've spent seeing this psychologist the more I've disliked him. He could have saved us both two months of time by just giving me a referral to someone else like he said I would when I was discharged, but he chose to keep seeing me for some reason.

I wish I didn't have to see anyone at all. I don't want to go to therapy. I think it will be useless and I don't think I really need any help from anyone. It's not that I think I don't "deserve" "help", it's that I don't think I really have a problem to be solved. My parents are insisting that I see another therapist, though. Maybe I'll get recommendations at my termination appointment, because right now I have no idea who exactly I'm supposed to see. I only have 5-6 weeks with this person anyway, because I'd swear on the Principia Mathematica that I'm going back to university this fall. There's a Counselling Services there, but I don't know if I'll actually go and see anyone. I'm pretty sure there's no way for anyone back in Ottawa to find out if I am seeing a therapist unless they have a court order.

I also started my step down of the Celexa today. My dad and I have a car rebuilding project in Manitoba we'd like to work on next week, so I need to reschedule my psychiatry appointment. There's all this concern from my mom that I won't be safe, but I'll be safer there than here. I'll have people around me all the time.

It's been very rainy today, so I haven't done much. Mostly, I've played with my dog, watched movies, and played Assassin's Creed. I have a pretty good desktop, and I like to play videogames even though I suck at them. There's nothing that's come out recently that I'm very interested in, though. I spend most of my time these days on the computer or reading. I never go out and I don't have any friends in my city. The only physical activity I get is running on our treadmill every other day.

Medicationing Update

I had my meeting with my substitute psychiatrist today. It was passable. She had planned to switch me onto Zoloft. My mom was in the meeting with me, and we had discussed the different classes of drugs used to treat depression (ie MAOIs, tricyclics, SSRIs, SNRIs, and atypical antipsychotics like Seroquel for people who're bipolar). My mom thought we should ask if I could go on a SNRI because I also have problems with social anxiety, and they've been shown to be helpful with anxiety. We had a long discussion with my psychiatrist, and she's decided to start me on Effexor (at 37.5mg/day). I have to taper down the Celexa and taper up the Effexor now. Hopefully the Effexor will be at least marginally useful. If it does help, it should keep me out of the Oubliette, which I really want. I hate having to play Russian Roulette with all the medications. At least she promised not to put me on Paxil. I still have my appointment with the psychologist tomorrow to "check in", and I've managed to wrangle it such that both my parents will be there. They both want to keep me out of hospital too, and I want to get my dad more involved because so far it's only been my mom going to my appointments with me.

It was awkward in the appointment I had today because my mom insists on saying all these silly things. She gave everyone a big speech about how you need CBT and medication to treat depressoin, which everyone already knew. She kept complimenting me on my supposed medical knowledge. I actually know very little about medicine. I have a collection of a few facts, especially about anatomy and weird diseases, but I don't have any formal training or education. She keep asking me for medical advice and I keep telling her to see a real doctor because no one should take advice from me.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to go out to a park with my dog, little brother, and Dad. I haven't been outside in a while and my brother never gets out. Like me, he's always on the computer. Hopefully my dog will enjoy herself too. She's very friendly and full of energy and she loves to go out and smell new things.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Appointments

Yesterday I had an appointment with the "Therapist". It started off as these things usually do. Because I'm so recalcitrant the session usually consists of him reading my paper diary and occasionaly asking me questions about what's in it. I'd been having a particularly unpleasant few days before the appointment, and I guess after reading one day's entry he decided I was at imminent risk of walking off a building. He started asking me a whole series of questions and assumed that I must really want to end up back in the Oubliette because I couldn't or wouldn't answer him. This sounded to me like saying that if you don't eat your tomatoes at dinner you actually have an implacable lust for tomatoes and their derivatives, aka total bullshit. But I'm not a PhD in psychology, so what do I know?

He made me and my mother sit in his office and have a conversation about "what I wanted and was prepared to do" while he went to inform Psychiatry that they had a readmission pending. He tossed me out and had a conversation with my mom, where she supposedly told him that putting me back into the lockup wouldn't help at all (this is true). It came down to whether or not I could answer "What does the hospital mean for you?" - this was what determined whether I was going to lose a month of my summer to Circle Group with a bunch of 13 year old screamo fans.


I have an appointment today with my substitute psychiatrist (my real one is on vacation). I told her last week that the Celexa is about as useful as a spoonful of dogshit every morning, but apparently being on the 60mg/day (I've been on Celexa for more than two months, just at different doses) for three weeks isn't enough to evaluate whether it's working or not. I have to "communicate" today or it'll be another round of them doing the paperwork to lock me up again. I find the sub-psychiatrist really irritating, and she seems to want to "help me through my stuggles" or something. I got asked "What do your friends call you?". Newsflash: I'm not your friend. You're not my friend. The only reason I tolerate being in the same room with you for more than 90 seconds is that you'd cage me up like an animal again if I didn't.

I hate having people hang this threat over me like the Sword of Damocles. I like how the approach now is "tell us exactly what we want to hear - deviate from it in any way and you're going back to prison". I wish they would all leave me alone. I sure would have less anxiety if they did. But why do what's best for a person when you can harass them instead? And they wonder why people don't like or trust shrinks. You might as well ask why people don't like or trust parole officers. I wonder if these people get some sort of thrill by forcing people to cry in front of them and nearly tossing them down the well. I wouldn't be surprised. They should have been dentists: they'd get paid more to torture people.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Faust Post

This is the first blog I've ever had. My blog virginity is officially lost.


A little bit about me: I'm not yet 18, I'm female and white, and I tried to kill myself on April 14, 2009. That sounds like something from AA, but I'm not a drunkard (yet). I spent a little less than a month in the Looney Bin after my attempt. I was discharged on May 14, 2009. I live in Canada, and I'm in university, studying physics.



Right now I'm taking 60mg/day of Celexa (citalopram) but hopefully that is soon to change. Celexa has been effectively useless for me. I am nominally in "therapy" right now. I've been in "therapy" ever since I was in the hospital, but I think it's pretty useless. Part of this is my fault: I am very unwilling to discuss things. I don't want or think I need help. Part of the problem is the person I'm seeing: they just can't seem to accept that I don't know the answers to some things and they make a lot of assumptions about me and what I'm doing or saying that don't necessarily correlate with reality.



I'm not entirely sure why I started this blog. I don't think anyone will read it. I keep a paper journal, but that is read by outside interests. Maybe this will be too, but the critical distinction is that all of the Internet can't put me back into the hospital. I think I want someone to talk to who can talk back but can't cry in front of me or give me strange looks for days. I can't talk to many of my "meatspace" friends because many of them don't know about what I did or I think their advice and ideas would be . . . unhelpful. Talking to my family is even worse than talking to my therapist. Not that I want or need the great unwashed Webosphere to be my Agony Aunts. I just want someone(s) to talk to.

I'm still not sure what my exact feelings on my suicidality are. I have good patches and not so good patches, like anyone else. I've been diagnosed with Major Depression and Dysthymia (fun fact: the name for this comes from an Old Greek word that's very roughly equivalent to "life force" or "elan vital"). I know I've had the depression and its symptoms for at least 5 years, or at least since I started high school. I don't remember my middle school years that well. I think I was pretty normal, mood wise, in elementary and before, but again I don't remember very well. My April 2009 attempt was my first attempt, or, possibly, my 1.5th. I overdosed.