Out With the Old, In With the New

Well, I’m still in the mental hospital 😕 I found out that they’re going to discontinue the Spravato treatments entirely, and then a few hours later my neurofeedback therapist told me that she’s moving to California. I don’t like abandonment, but I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t handle the news too well. So, I’m still here. However, I’ve mostly bounced back. And my True Love is coming to my state on Thursday, so I’m trying to discharge by Wednesday. Given that I’ve been hospitalized since August 23, I feel like I’ve been here for long enough, anyway!

So, a major challenge has been figuring out how to keep my job. I’m applying for FMLA, so hopefully I won’t be terminated, but I don’t know how long you can be out with that. Money also has been difficult. Plus, scheduling my myriad appointments around my day job is a whole thing. I’m almost wondering if I should postpone pursuing my dreams and get an overnight gig instead until I’m more stabilized.

New Clinicians

But, what to do about work will have to fall into place in its own time. For now, I’m working on lining up outpatient supports so I don’t keep having to check myself into the nuthouse for a month at a time. I’ve found several things to add to my life, but there are two main ones.

First, the hospital that I’m currently at offers outpatient TMS, so I’m going to ask my team to put in a referral for me before I discharge. If I can do it here, I feel like I’d be coming back to a place that I trust rather than going to a random clinic. If it works, TMS is supposed to be life-changing, so my whole plan of discharging in two days kind of hinges on the idea that the TMS referral will work out.

The other main change I’m making is that I’m going to try to get signed up for a program called “Opportunities” at the Edinburgh Center. It’s a program where you can go as often as every day, and they offer group therapy and psychoeducation. It’ll be a huge time commitment but even if I can only go a couple of times a week, I think it will help. People I trust have spoken extremely highly of it, so I think it will more than pay off.

There are a lot of smaller changes that I want to make, as well. First, I contacted my main therapist, and she agreed to help me find an IFS clinician after all. This is going to be really hard because I’m bonded to my current therapist, but I think if I get her to hold my hand through the process, that will make the changeover go more smoothly. She’d encouraged me to think about finding a replacement for her that specialized in trauma, so I guess there’s no time like the present to do that. I’m going to try to augment that with a supplemental EMDR therapist, but I’m currently on the waiting list for that. Also, I got an intake appointment regarding doing an outpatient group at McLean, so that would be a once-weekly class to supplement the Edinburgh Center.

Finally, there is one medication that shows enormous promise in treating PTSD, but I only know of two ways to get it. The first is to move to Australia. 🇦🇺 Or, (option #2) the doctor in the Ketamine clinic told me that they’re going to do a scientific study with it like half an hour from my house. I’m not sure when the study starts, but the only main problem is that it’s supposed to be for people with Borderline Personality Disorder. Which, if you look at the actual symptoms in the DSM, I don’t qualify for BPD. However, Dr 🦊 said maybe they’d take me because some people use BPD as a synonym for C-PTSD. So it’s possible that down the road, they’ll start the study and I can be in it. However, that’s super tentative so definitely not part of my discharge plan from this admission. I think that with everything else going on, I’ve already got my hands full anyway!

Conclusion

So, it will be busy, but I think that loading up my life with supports right now will help me to move forward. I had been really grieving the ketamine, but my friend reminded me that my baseline before it started had been pretty good. I was doing fine and then it was about a year ago when my therapist abruptly decided that “it would be a disservice to continue” and I was thrown into a massive suicidal crisis. Ketamine was the thing that pulled me out of that. And thanks to the good folks at the Ketamine clinic, I was able to find my True Love and make meaningful improvements in my life. So now, it will be like my baseline from a year ago, except with the addition of my True Love. That doesn’t sound so bad!

So, I already typed up a whole list of ideas in my last post, but now I can add some new clinicians and supports to that list.