Awoke

I really crashed my mood tonight.  I watched "Awakenings" which I had seen 20 years ago and remembered as a happy movie.  It turns out that it has a sad ending where the people who were helped with L-Dopa to come out of a near catatonic state after suffering from encephalopathy for 25 years did not stay out of that state.  And I cried.  A lot.

I wish I'd remembered how that ended.  Because it was way too close to home.  Just over 5 years ago I started Emsam.  And after that I had a long period of  psychological improvement.  It was not like I was all better but for a couple years my meds were pretty stable and worked pretty well.  I actually had a routine to my days that included a time I always went to bed and a time I always woke up.  I've never had that before or since.  I had those last few years I could work and except for 9 stressful nursing home months work was good those months, and some of the nursing home months were good too.   I had lost weight and kept it off/lost more because I wasn't on so much Seroquel or other weight gain drug.

And then it all turned around.  The wrong way.  Dr. Mind told me not long ago that he knew for almost a year that I was going to have to stop working soon and that he was dreading having to tell me that I needed to look at whether I could really keep doing that.  He was very open that he is extremely thankful that news did not come from him.  I don't blame him; that would be about the only thing that I can think of that would make me walk out on him.

But the truth is that back then I said so many times that I had gotten my miracle with Emsam and a higher dose of Seroquel XR.  And I did and I am so thankful for that time.  It's just that I'm very sad that it didn't last and that now I am on more Seroquel than I would have been allowed to consider back then (the limits start to blur when there isn't anything else to take but drugs that have much more nasty side effects and you are at elevated risk for those side effects) along with several other mood stabilizers and while I am truly doing well right now "well" is defined so differently than it once was.  Now well means that I'm not cycling but I also don't do almost anything stressful.  It used to be that I was handling a relatively normal life without great strain.  Now relatively normal life is not even close to the goal.

I don't know.  It's been a rough 24 hours.  Old cat got really, really sick last night and I was up all night with her.  I thought it was the end.  She had stomach cramps so badly that I could see them and she not only threw up she had diarrhea everywhere.  I am in the process of steam cleaning all the floors while disinfecting several blankets and her bedding.  She seems to feel better now but it was really bad.  That was after Dr. Mind got very sick during our session and tried to continue treating with his hands covering his face because he was so dizzy and nauseous.  Needless to say I decided quickly that we were done.  So I am worried for him as well.  Then I talked to my mom about how I am feeling about my brother.  It only kind of helped; I later discovered I am feeling a lot more than I thought when she brought over some cookies because she made them to take to him tomorrow.  And I am so annoyed because every week she does that, tries to make his life happier and  he does not deserve it.

I have a lot of bad feelings to work through.

And I should check the dryer to see how my comforter is doing.