amw

It's hard to find the time to do anything lengthy on the computer here. It's Sunday evening now and things seem to have settled a bit - it's the first nice day in a while and everyone who has privileges to go outside is walking the grounds or hanging out with buddies somewhere. This morning M came to chaperone me to the gym, which is the first time i've been there in 10 days and the first time i've left the area of the hospital since last Monday. We grabbed a burger on the way back. I didn't feel guilty. It's doctor's orders you see.

Tuesday morning the nurses dragged me out of bed at 9am for fasting blood work. I passed out with a needle in my arm. They took my vitals and i had low pulse, very low blood pressure and low blood sugar too. Lots of hypo. The docs decided to pull me off Seroquel, which has low blood pressure as a side-effect and switch me round to Zyprexa for anti-psychotic goodness. I was on it for a few years before but quit on my own because i didn't like the weird heavy-limbs feeling i got from it, but figured maybe it'd be different this time around. It is. I'm on 10mg at the moment and the heavy limbs are still there, but my outlook on it has changed. I guess i'd rather have heavy limbs and my shit together than light limbs smashed in front of a subway car.

I did get 3 ECGs and an Echo done in the space of 3 days. And blood taken 5 days in a row. And God knows how many blood pressure measurements. Doc says i should try eat more salt given i tend to run low anyway and even Zyprexa can affect it negatively. I'm getting a Holter next week. Ugh. I swear if i have a weak heart or something i'm done, just give me the gun already. Fuckin never-ending spiral of malaise. Also i lost 5 pounds, probably from not eating when i was more depressed. I'm less depressed now. Or maybe just more mixed. The Seroquel knocked me out cold for 12+ hours, then left me groggy for much of the day, which didn't really give me the chance to let the crazy out. It didn't really give me the chance to do much of anything, which in turn led to deeper depression because i wasn't getting anything done and i was breaking commitments i'd made to people, to myself.

On Tuesday they also moved me to a different unit, one that is mood and anxiety specific. Most of the unit has bipolar or unipolar depression, or OCD. It's odd seeing people do things i do and then thinking wow that's pretty fucking annoying behavior right there. Heh. I don't know how much longer i'll be here. Like i said, i'm less suicidal, more mixed - on the other hand, leaving the grounds still causes anxiety because i'm scared i'll either jump off the nearest overpass or steal a car and keep driving forever. I don't feel safe, and i don't think J feels able to manage me either. We gotta work on that. She's seeing my social worker tomorrow so who knows. I've fucked everything up at work already, i have no idea if i'll still have clients when i get back out. I'm practically broke. And then on top of all the bipolar related issues i still have my various other issues like gender and .. other things that fuck with my head and now the voices are back a little bit it can just keep creeping and crawling and i know where that leads, i know where it can go.

I've reached the point where i want to want to get back into a "normal life". But that's one level of want removed from where i need to be, i guess. I'm finding it hard to care about anything but i know i should care. So that's better than nothing at all.

The doctors confiscated some drugs i had stockpiled...

Yeah, and i started smoking again after two years. Fuck it.