Lots of stuff

First, a few times in the last few months I've had people request to talk to me privately. You don't have to post on the blog. I, of anyone, certainly understand not wanting to. Please feel free to email me at masterofirony@att.net . I may not answer that day, but I will as soon as I have time. I'm happy to talk to anyone about anything. These last months I've gotten into a lot of stuff on here, and if you have experiences you want to share, or want to talk, or think you can help me or vice versa I am so happy to hear from you. And please, if you are suffering and want to talk about it or ask about how that ended for me, PLEASE do. I remember spending much of 2 years trolling the internet trying to find the elusive answer for myself. I mainly just found out how unique my situation was. However, I will also say that the internet was the source of a huge amount of my success because after being on Seroquel for 10 months and dealing with the difficult issue of needing a high dose but being far too sedated from it, even with Provigil to help me wake up, I read about Seroquel XR which was either just about to be released or had just been. A week later I came in to see Dr. Brain armed with a million questions about this new version that was allegedly designed for people like me who needed a high dose but had difficult with excessive sedation. She was very reluctant to let me try it because she has a firm policy against my going on anything new. However the next month I wore her down and she wrote the script with a million cautions. The med was so new that I went to something like 5 pharmacies in 3 cities to find it. And within a week I no longer needed to sleep all the time. Within a month I was no longer acting like I had always acted on antipsychotics-numb and groggy and zombie-ish. I'm now on a high dose of XR, in fact I think the highest dose you can take of it, and it continues to make a huge difference. I haven't really cycled more than a little since right after the first dose, if you don't count the depression from coming off antidepressants on medical advice and I don't.

What else? Today I had an unexpected scare. I've spent so much time trying to figure out what happens if Dr. Brain's illness affects her ability to be my doctor. I knew Dr. Body was changing practices and I was thrilled to find him on my insurance the other night. I'm almost out of a med, so I called today to be established with him, only to be told they are not taking new Anthem patients. I asked if there were any exceptions. No. I asked if they did a waiting list or anything. No. I started to say "ok, well, then I'll private pay because I am not giving him up" when they said to wait a minute. They put me on hold, and after a few minutes hold started ringing. I let it go on a long time without anyone answering so I hung up and called back. Apparently they had gone to answering service while I was on hold. They said they'd transfer me back. They just hung up on me. I called again. This time the guy basically said I couldn't talk to them until tomorrow. I protested that I had just received some rather significantly bad news and I needed to know about getting my meds refilled and had been cut off. So he finally got me through and the receptionist said Dr. Body has agreed to take me anyway. Not sure what that means aside from I am amazed yet again at his commitment to me, something that has not changed in years of being his patient. It started with me meeting him and telling him I needed someone who would work as a team player with Dr. Brain, that he would have to accept Dr. Brain has the final say about everything, that he would have to agree to look up meds every time before giving them to me and that I'd ask hard questions if he didn't and that he needed to know that I was dealing with a very difficult, uncontrolled illness and that if he couldn't handle/didn't want to handle someone with significant psych issues please tell me then. He has stuck to that commitment far beyond what I ever expected, including through 2 changes of practice.

Tomorrow is Dr. Mind day. Time to talk about my new memories. Oddly this week has not just been about sexual abuse memories, I seem to have opened up a faucet. Only one other memory, but it has some play on what happened as well, I just have to get to the next step of it. I have a feeling talking will do that. I just can't believe how ready I am to do this. Instead of being scary it's actually a relief. It's also a step how much better I am, because just over a year ago I told him I was ready to talk about my family history, but that this stuff still stayed away because it didn't matter, I did not think I would ever be strong enough to move on from this and I had decided to accept that there were areas of my life that would never be normal. A year later and we're talking about it and I want to do it.

Ok, I'm falling asleep sitting up. Guess that means it's bedtime. More later.