Wednesday night I heard a weird noise that Bob thought sounded like wind rattling the house. Upon further inspection I found WATER DRIPPING FROM THE LIVING ROOM WINDOW.
Oh hey, remember the Mystery Leak To End All Mystery Leaks when we had the whole front wall and half the ceiling of our living room torn out trying to find the damn leak and closing on our house was almost delayed and OH MY GOD CAN WE NOT DO THIS AGAIN?
Ice Dam.
Someone came Thursday to clear the snow and ice off the roof. It hasn’t dripped since but now I’ll be extra paranoid come spring/summer when we get torrential downpours, watching like a hawk for another leak because seriously, CAN WE NOT DO THIS AGAIN?
They increased our association dues to budget for ice dam removal but they’re not bothering to remove the ice dams so what the hell are we paying them for?
HEAD.
DESK.
Every post I’ve tried to write in the past week and a half has been little more than bitch, bitch, whine, whine, bitch, bitch, whine, bitch, whine. With a little extra bitch and whine thrown in for good measure.
It’s been two weeks being back on medication and it’s been all of the side effects with none of the benefit. Which is to be expected because it takes four to six weeks to see results.
But hnngghh.
The only thing I really remember about the first time I started Topamax was sleeping for three days. I remember this well because I was supposed to be packing and preparing to move from living situation number one to living situation number two where we dumped the leeching roommates and gained our own bathroom. But instead of getting things packed in a timely fashion (Ha. Right. Funny.) while Bob was at work, I was out cold trying to adjust to new drugs in my system. Everything was in upheaval so I don’t remember any other side effects before I saw results or how long I was on it before we added the Prozac. I just know that eventually I finally had RESULTS.
It’s funny how quickly my memory triggered on the lasting side effects when they kicked in.
… Tingling in my fingers and buzzing in my feet.
… Feeling like I’m falling forward when sitting still or laying down.
… Getting overheated in the shower even when the water temperature is bordering on lukewarm or cold.
Those were all things that persisted throughout the entire time I was on the medication, but they were not constant and were a minor nuisance in comparison to the benefit I received. I’m still not happy about the degrading the effectiveness of birth control aspect. And Google can’t agree on how it actually affects birth control, so I’m going to have to see if the new psychiatrist has any information on it and then I might have to go back to my regular doctor to see if he has anything to say about it. Because I DO NOT WANT TO CATCH PREGNANCY. Bob and I have a healthy sex life and I’d like to keep it that way please and thank you. Though not in the last two weeks oh my god. Go ahead and ask me if I’m happy about that. I dare you.
In terms of the Prozac, I have no memory of what it was like when I started taking it until suddenly I had results. But I have a feeling the whole being suspended in Jello sensation is from that. Because SSRIs have a side effect called Serotonin Syndrome and I’m now taking two of them.
The Trazodone however?
Well then.
Within the first few months of starting this dog and pony show of treating this endless train wreck of problems I call my life, I brought up to my doctor my inability to sleep more than a few hours at a time. He gave me a prescription for Ambien with strict instructions that when taking it, to take the pill and go to bed. He told me that people often make the mistake of taking the pill and then killing time waiting for it to kick in by surfing the internet. Then a week later they will have packages showing up on their doorstep for things they have no recollection of ordering because they were doped up on sleeping pills while they did it.
Okay then.
I took the pill and went to bed.
I slept for three hours and was wide awake. But instead of just being awake and annoyed, I felt wonky and gross too.
So much for that little experiment.
Any time I brought up sleep problems with a doctor after that (primary or psychiatrist) it was glossed over. As if it was no big deal, or I was the one who should be figuring it out on my own, or for the love of Christ told to fucking MEDITATE, or they just weren’t paying attention.
So when I told the new psychiatrist I generally only sleep for three hours at a time and her reaction was Wait—WHAT??? I was caught a little off guard. She revisited it more than once and didn’t just gloss over it like everybody else has done. I was dubious that Trazodone was actually going to do anything for me. Considering my track record with drugs in general, I didn’t put a lot of stock in it. Especially considering it’s an antidepressant with just a side effect of drowsiness. Side effects generally go away after your body adjusts to the drug in your system. But I filled the prescription anyway with the instructions to take 1/2 to 2 pills a night (as needed).
I started with half a pill the first night. I didn’t notice anything different about my sleep that night or how I felt the next day. After the second night, I still woke up several times, but I didn’t feel nearly as exhausted as I normally do. I kept with the half pill for two more nights and then upgraded to a full pill. I have memories of waking up, but mostly just enough to register that I was awake long enough to shift my position and go back to sleep. A couple nights I had my SleepPhones on and I registered that my playlist was still going but didn’t even hear an entire song before I fell asleep again. And while it’s not technically sleeping all the way through the night, it’s as close as I have ever gotten to sleeping through the night in my life that I can remember.
It’s WEIRD to say the least.
I used to work forty hours a week functioning on three hours of sleep a night. I survived my entire high school career on pretty much the same schedule. In the last six years since I got fired, I’ve had the most erratic sleep schedule that has been anything but healthy. In the last two weeks I’ve stayed in bed every night and when I do wake up, I’m awake long enough to acknowledge I’m awake and shift to a different position and that’s the extent of my memory. I don’t exactly feel rested during the day but I don’t feel bloody exhausted either and I’m not napping to make up for lost sleep because I don’t need it.
Again. It’s WEIRD.
And it has also made me realize I fixate differently during the day than I do at night.
When I’m up all night, I’m fixating on the fact that I’m not sleeping when I should be and about all the things I need to get done that are not getting done. When I sleep at night and not during the day I’m fixating on all the things I’m not getting done during the day because I’m not sleeping to make up for lost time. We also have to take into account that I’m having about a thousand different thoughts at one time because I can’t finish a damn thought before getting distracted by something else so fixating is almost a misleading term. I’m fixating on EVERYTHING AT ONCE.
I swear to God if we don’t address the ADHD problem at my next appointment I’m going to scream and cry.
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Perfect Darren Criss & Chris Colfer |