Good

Even before I was discharged from the hospital I had started working on the nightmare called sleep.  Every night I would try to fall asleep without a sleeping pill.  Every night it did not work.  I've had only 1 sleeping pill since coming home (4 nights).  Maybe 2.  But regardless, not much.  I've had to stay up pretty late most nights though.  However I would rather be on an erratic sleep schedule that use sleeping pills too much since there aren't many good, safe choices and I seem to develop tolerance rather quickly (just to sleeping pills).  But last night I did it.  I forced myself to stay awake until midnight because people fire guns at midnight which has scared me out of a deep sleep before.  By 11:57 I was barely awake.  I checked the clock again at 12:02 and the next thing I knew it was morning.

Now I just have to do it again.  And again.  And I need my muscles in my neck, upper back and face to relax.  I very sore because these muscles are so tight.  I suspect this is because of not being on benzos after consistent use for many years.  Not sure what will happen there since there isn't a great benzo option left that I'm not tolerant to and the antihistamines are causing pain but not much anxiety relief.  At this point it takes the edge off at best.  It is just not enough.  It doesn't help the panic attacks, the very sore muscles, the tooth grinding, the falling asleep, the obsessive thoughts, or the feeling that the anxiety is taking over everything.  Essentially this is saying the antihistamines do nothing.  I think the hospital doctor does not like to use benzos on someone who is suicidal.  In terms of enhancing safety by restricting what is available this makes sense, but I am not sure there is a lot of benefit when they have no choice but to send me home with tons of other not very safe medications that I am still routinely taking.  But that's the only explanation for why he decided I couldn't have these meds.  Dr. Brain is back to work this week and I am hoping that she is able to help.  I see her this weekend so should get some relief then but I'm hoping she has something for me sooner than that.  I don't like being sore all the time and it is causing (I think?) headaches too.  Tonight I am going to have to start working on tolerating my bite plate again to help with the facial pain and headaches.  But I desperately want the muscle relaxed, pain-free and anxiety-reduced night that I used to have routinely.  I found that I had a few klonopin left and may decide to take one of them.  It probably won't do much but trying it out lets me both see what happens in terms of klonopin's effectiveness but it also means that if it works at all I can have at least a break from the anxiety.

I've been waiting all day to see when my sister and her family were arriving at my mom's.  I'd planned to go down there for "out of the house" time today.  Oddly nobody has heard from my sister and she didn't answer when my mom tried to call her.  This is making my mother cranky, listing all kinds of other things they might be wanting to do based on her assessment of the inconvience of this event.  I keep pointing out that for most of my career I've worked Christmas eve, the day after Christmas, New Year's eve and New Year's and that nobody went nuts with this for me; in fact I spent a lot of time standing up for myself about needing to leave on time, etc.  My mother cranky apparently means that she'll bring up everything I've done that she doesn't like if given time.  I really wish she would just deal with Christmas had to change, it's not anyone's dream situation, glad to have me home, MOVE ON.  She doesn't want me to talk about being sorry, yet she keeps pushing.  We'll see how long that lasts before I lose my temper.

Anyway, not a lot more to say right now.