Yet another month slips by; and yet, full of activity.
Let's see, I'm now three months into taking Wellbutrin, and three months into yet another round of talk/psychotherapy with yet another therapist, and to be honest, neither have been much help. I have gotten more benefit out of doing a guided breathing meditation--and full disclosure that was two weeks ago I started that, and I haven't been consistent in the last five days, but be that as it may, I still got more benefit out of it than Rx or therapy.
I am technically ELEVEN weeks into therapy, and for the last four sessions I have asked myself "why are we doing this? It isn't helpful."
For someone such as myself, who has endured easily a half century of narcissistic abuse (as well as the resulting byproducts of self esteem issues, rumination, learned helplessness, and anxiety attacks), a good starting point of therapy that would be USEFUL *IS NOT* telling me to re-frame things in a positive spin or try to catch & release the negative thoughts--AS IF I have not tried doing so.
I have identified BOTH, what I don't want as well as what I *DO* want from therapy, and right now, the current therapist is what I do not want. What I *DO* want is schema therapy, grief therapy, as well as to be evaluated for other issues that haven't been identified thus far (perhaps autism? attention deficit disorder, etc), because, to be honest and fair, I cannot fix what's broke unless or until we identify what exactly it is that's in need of repair and/or attention. Telling me it's a choice to be depressed or anxious isn't helpful in the least bit.
And in other news...
I fell down yet another rabbit hole regarding the results of my last lab report, which then necessitated my nephrologist to re-run all those tests, plus run additional tests to rule out anything that might have caused the "weirdness" in the dodgey lab tests from Quest. For a while there it was upsetting to think I might have cold agglutination disease or autoimmune hemolytic anemia. In the end, Quest didn't maintain proper temperature when they spun out my blood sample or half assed something else, which caused "RBC agglutination present" on my last lab report--something I've never seen on any of my labs.
On an upnote, my BP was good (I popped a GABA 20 minutes before the appointment to cut down on the "white coat syndrome" anxiety), and I was told my proteinuria has improved. I don't know how to interpret the lab reports on this, as it's about ratios rather than the numbers alone; however, my numbers have gone from 1400-1600 down to about 400. I need to find out around what date did the numbers start to improve--I was remiss in asking during the appointment, as I was too fixated on the agglutination issue, and of course, my Word document with eight bullet points, talking points for the doc, and he even added additional points of discussion. Good appointment all in all.
So now for the main event, and talk about "burying the lede!" I am going to get one of my hips replaced come mid-summer. Hopefully the latest variant or mutation of COVID won't be surging or the surge will be over by then. Last thing I want to do is get my hip replaced, then come home with COVID.
I am looking forward to the potential of my pain decreasing, my mobility increasing, my sleep improving, and by extension of all three, I am hoping my mood will improve as well.
Maharajah went away on business, and while he was away, I reverted back to a habit I had in "The Beforetimes," where I'd work on household projects, and take advantage of not having an anxious audience while I tear apart the condo in doing so.
The last time I had household projects was in October 2019. I painted our bedroom. I left the cans of paint and drop cloth where they were, thinking "I'll finish up tomorrow." After nearly three years, those cans of paint and drop cloth have remained where they sat. I rearranged the bedroom an did a nice deep cleaning of the room, as well as puttered about with a lot of little projects, so little that they aren't noticeable at a casual glance. I took hot baths, I slept pretty good. And soon enough he was home.
He came home last Friday night, and he has been isolating in the spare bedroom. Last night was "day 3," and he took an at home COVID test, which came back negative. But I don't trust the tests--especially since the Omicron has about 37 different variations to the spike protein and that's what the tests TEST, the presence of the spike protein. So he'll test again tomorrow night, and if the test comes back negative again, I guess I'll have to acquiesce and trust the result.
The last two years have been so detrimental to my physical and emotional health. It's undone easily 10 years of hard work. The pandemic, mom dying, and seeing just how truly awful too many people are, has really made me regress to a time in my life when I was terrified and distrustful of everyone--including people I formerly loved and or respected.
I feel as if I were starting from "Square One" all over again.
On top of all this, I am just barely beyond being a hermit. In some ways I feel as if time, life, and experiences are passing me by. I'm jealous and resentful of the cognitive dissonance people have in going on vacations, getting on airplanes, and eating indoors. I feel such a sense of abandonment that is sadly too familiar to me.
I've reverted back to persistent, debilitating, daily sobbing jags as a result of everything I listed above (oh, plus menopause), and nothing has helped--see the first paragraph about Rx and therapy. That guided breathing meditation has been the only thing to interrupt the physiological shit which has kept me sobbing--sobbing the kind of primal sobs one sobs for a beloved friend or family member dying--only for me, my sobs aren't for grief over my mom dying, my sobs are for the death of the life I once had.
The notion of things ever returning to "normal" again is so outside my ability to conceive or believe it.
I'm amazed I was able to peck all this out without breaking down into an ocean of tears, but the only thing I *DO* believe in these days is the power of the guided breathing meditation.
It took me ten years to sort out all my emotional garbage, put each item into a pile of its own, fold each item in half, then fourths, then eighths, and tuck that shit into a recess in my psyche where I don't access it every moment of every day.
The pandemic, mom dying, and just seeing an abundance of "Human's inhumanity to their fellow humans," and it caused all that hard work to just explode forth from its storage space in my psyche--and after two years of profound despair, I am now setting about putting everything back in order again.
The work continues.
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