Appointment Update

I just want to start by saying I love this doctor. I've seen a few different people for mental illness over the years, but this doctor seems to really understand the inherent side-effects of severe anxiety. There was no lecture just some understanding nods and sad smiles after she reminded me that I can always email if I'm having medication troubles, and I told her I knew but the anxiety chokes me up every time. She's like I get it and left it at that. No lecture like I got with my last provider who didn't even keep an active work email after the first couple of years I was with him.

He would always tell me to call, knowing full well I had a phone phobia and never call anyone. I could be bleeding out on the floor and still be unable to dial 911. This doctor that I've been seeing since spring is just so much more understanding and willing to work around my issues. She's great. I didn't even get a lecture when I explained how I was self-medicating the anxiety with old (I mean expired in 2014) medications I had out of desperation. I told her how the second, stronger pill knocks me out at night and a portion of the next morning BUT it really gets rid of the anxiety during that time.

She told me to check the label and jot down the name for next time and we can keep that as a backup if my main one isn't working as well. Wow. No lecture about using old meds or stuff that she didn't prescribe. She was more like, well if that's been working, let's keep it in the arsenal of things to try.

But before we get to using that more often, she prescribed a different anxiety med that's quick-acting and should help with the jitters I get when I get really anxious along with refilling the Ativan. She doesn't want me using the Ativan as my maintenance drug because I guess I can acclimate to the dosage and just constantly need to go up. I was taking it twice a day every day for years but only taking it as needed the last couple of years. So now I'll use that for breakthrough anxiety or at night to help me sleep while I'll take the new prescription every day to control the intense, overwhelming anxiety I've been getting lately.

With that in mind, she decided not to up the dosage on the bipolar med to see if regulating the anxiety helps get me out of the depression. It's worth a shot. I'd definitely say the anxiety is feeding into the depression at this point and it sucks. I can't focus between the brain fog I get from the chronic fatigue and the depression and then the jitteriness from the anxiety on top of that. It feels like having restless leg syndrome all over your body all of the time. I can't sit still and I can't concentrate on anything because I feel like I'll vibrate out of my chair. It's frustrating and that adds to the depression.

So hopefully, being able to take something for my anxiety every day will bring it under control. Since I had a limited supply of pills before, I was rationing them and only taking them if it got so bad I couldn't function anymore. Mostly I saved them for bedtime so I could sleep and not lie awake all night with racing thoughts.

And maybe if I'm not feeling anxious all of the time, my mood will come back up. Right? Right? Ugh. Here's hoping it gets better soon. I'm tired of feeling like this every day. All I want to do is sleep. Whether that's from the depression or the anxiety or the medications or the chronic fatigue or all of the above, I don't know, but I can't get anything done when I sleep half the day and the other half I'm barely awake and just thinking about going back to bed.

My next appointment is November 11. I made sure to make it as soon as the appointment ended instead of forgetting about it for weeks and not being able to get in for two months instead of four weeks like planned.