I’d been meaning to update this blog for a while, but life has been exhausting. Then last night I called the hospital where I was inpatient for over a year. I asked about a specific nurse who had always been amazing to me, only to find out she had gotten a new job. I think that the fact that it’s completely irrational for me to be so upset about this, is a large part of why I’ve been trying so hard to convince myself I was fine. Maybe having insomnia last night when I never have insomnia was random. And me sitting here on my bed crying and going through tissues like they’re going out of style really is about the sad memories that it feels like it’s about. Like, obviously events that happened on Christmas Eve 2020 might make me this sad right now, right?
It’s just weird. I’ve been discharged since June, so it’s not like we spoke frequently. But it was good to feel like I could call every month or so and she would be there.
It also sucks that I’m here crying uncontrollably for hours and there is literally not one single person I feel like I can talk to about it. I think that this is a lot of what’s been fueling the “dissociative word vomit” I’ve been running up against lately. Casual acquaintances will tell me that I’ve said these really intense things–either suicidal ideation or personal details about my life that I try to keep secret–and I have absolutely no memory of saying the things. They try to jog my memory by describing context or whatever, and I still have no recollection. Zero. This is a major problem at work, where everybody somehow knows I live in a group home and God only knows what else I’ve told them.
I’m really trying to work on the C-PTSD. I’m getting better with not hyperventilating after I take a shower, for example. But I finally figured out that I hyperventilate when I bend over. I had always thought I was just out of shape, but now that I’m walking several miles a day to work and never out of breath from that, I’ve been able to figure out that I’m not just fat. The problem is that a LOT of things involve bending over. For example, putting clothes in and out of the washing machine and dryer. Picking up kids’ toys from the floor. Cleaning up in my own house. The good news is that I’m not just lazy and I’m not just out of shape, so it’s been really nice at least knowing that bending over is the trigger and trauma is the problem. At least now I can validate myself when I’m not breathing.
I’ve been trying to read more. I had been reading Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, but when I got to the chaper on how believing that your past was happy will erase all your trauma, I felt like it was harder to see him as a reputable source of information. Which is too bad, because some of his stuff from the beginning of the book was great. I think he’s just a product of another time and science has improved since his book came out. I might get back to it eventually and just skip chapter 5. Now I’m trying to read How to Do the Work by Nicole LePera. It had been recommended to me ages ago and I’m just now finally getting to it. It’s hard for me to settle down enough to read. I feel like there must be other things I need to be doing. But I’m chipping away at it.
I miss Dr. X a lot. When times are bad, I feel like he would know how to help. And when times are good, I wish he could know how much he helped me. A few weeks ago my outpatient psychiatrist changed my meds for the first time. All he did was add 150mg twice daily of OXcarbazepine/TRILEPTAL. But it’s still hard because Dr. X picked out my old meds for me. And that was back when I was inpatient and Dr. X was there and my social worker was there and “MK” the nurse was there and I was seen and valuable. Now I’m here trying to put on my brave face 100% of the time with everyone and it’s not fucking working. I can’t afford transportation to and from work, so I try to wake up every day at 5am with NO CAFFEINE and, despite meds that make me tired and significant sleep apnea that still isn’t being treated, I have to be showered and out the door by 7am. I get to work at like 9:05 for a 9am shift because that’s how the bus schedule works and I’m not leaving my house at 6am to arrive at 8:05 for a 9am shift. I work until 5:30pm and get home at like 8pm. This is all for a commute that would be 15 minutes by car. I can’t drive a car anymore because I have a dissociative disorder because I have trauma. And that feels unfair. I’m so absolutely exhausted all the time that at least I don’t usually have to think about how totally alone I am. And then I find out that MK is gone and there’s no chance I will ever run into her ever again and I cry for like an entire night and day. I mean, I get 45 minutes a week of telehealth therapy but I miss being surrounded by people who cared. I know my life mattered to the people in the hospital, but they are becoming an increasingly distant memory. The same is true of my paternal grandma, who loved me and is now dead. I want my life to be valuable to someone now.
