Today is the two year anniversary of A Delusional Predisposition.

I can’t believe I’ve been writing this blog that long.

Kinda hard to believe.

And what better way to bring in the new year than with a medication post.

I haven’t been feeling that great over the weekend, and I’m sure that’s because I was bad at taking my antipsychotic last week.

I skipped my Paliperidone a few days.

I know, I know, I know, I wrote a whole thing about it.

I did end up having to take a Haloperidol the other day too, because of my racing thoughts and inability to sleep.

I was shaky almost all last night.

I’d rather take that than the Trazodone, that’s for sure.

That shit wipes me out too much.

I don’t really need help sleeping right now.

I used to need it, but I don’t take my sleeping aid – the Trazodone, that often anymore.

I sleep really deep too, even without it.

If I slept any deeper my alarm would be of less use than it is to me currently.

I’ve been sleeping a lot still, like 10-12 hours a night, easy.

Granted, I’m not usually tired during the day anymore.

And that’s even after I remind myself of my crippling depression, hallucinations and delusions, and arthritis.

I haven’t noticed any more changes with my dreams from the EMDR therapy I’ve been doing.

Sean, my therapist, told me the therapy may change them somehow.

And for a while, my dreams got even more intense.

But as time keeps passing, they’re becoming less and less memorable – which is totally fine with me.

Usually my dreams are pretty intense, action packed, and jarring, and I remember them.

And that hasn’t been happening at all lately.

I’ve been doing the EMDR bird-hand, crossed at the thumbs, collarbone taps at home.

Not often – I really should pick up the pace with it, when I remember to.

That bilateral stimulation action is very soothing.

It’s amazing how relaxing it is.

I’ll set my alarm for two minutes and the time just flies by, every time.

With some of my anxiety fading, other parts of it are going wild.

I notice less mental anxiety symptoms, but more physical.

Like my sweating has increased and so has the pressure on the chest feelings.

So I asked my psych NP for a slight increase on my Buspirone to hopefully help me curb that.

It has been helping much, much more than the Hydroxyzine ever did.

It’s a night and day difference between the two, and I’m so glad I brought up that the Hydroxyzine wasn’t doing anything to get the switch.

I just wish some of the lingering symptoms go away, but if we do up my Buspirone, and it doesn’t take away the lingering symptoms, I will not ask for another increase because obviously, at that point, that’s just what I have to deal with.

So we’ll see.

I had a primary care appointment this afternoon regarding my beta blocker, Propranolol, my racing heart rate, blood pressure and my glucose levels.

Last visit both my blood pressure and my heart rate were through the roof.

Today things were almost back to normal, and she’s going to keep me on it for the foreseeable future.

I’ve been drinking caffeine again and I can tell from my anxiety levels that it’s probably doing more harm than good.

I didn’t drink any today again.

I’m going to cut that back out.

And it makes me sad.

I love caffeine.

Now it’s almost too much for me to handle.

And I never thought I’d ever say that.

Most of my life I could drink a cup of coffee before bed.

Now if I have anything past 3pm or 4pm I’m up till 2am or so.

It’s really hard for my mentally ill, addict brain to separate what’s bad for me from what feels good.

Physically I love the effects of caffeine.

It gets me moving.

I go on more short walks with Bruce when I drink it.

But then mentally it can send me reeling, and can throw me into obsessive patterns.

I did some blood work the other week and everything’s good except for my glucose levels (fuck).

I’ve really gotta watch my sugar intake now.

Oh, and there are some elevated white blood cell counts too.

But that happens from time to time with my inflammation issues being what they are.

I’ve been drinking a lot more diet soda again lately and I’m sure that and the Paliperidone switch is what’s doing that to my sugar levels.

It just sucks.

The second I don’t pay attention to my body for just a few months, it starts to get real bad again.

I can’t do it anymore.

It feels like I can’t do anything anymore.

I don’t feel like I get low blood sugar or anything.

But I need to cut the excess sugars out pronto again.

My mentally ill, addict brain can’t drink a rational amount of sugary, caffeinated and/or “diet” beverages.

It’s a shit-ton or none.

That’s something I need to keep working on.

Because yet again the black and white thinking, that all or nothing way, will send me off the path again.

I’ve been feeling really flustered with the news of my lab work.

At least my thyroid levels are back to normal with the generic Levothyroxine dose that I’m on now.

The name brand medication – Unithroid, that I was on for my hypothyroidism, has been discontinued.

The month after I got stable on it, they stopped making it.

Just my luck.

Always my shit luck.

I used to blame my Bipolar for my shitty luck.

But I think it just comes with having Bipolar.

I think having Bipolar, let alone Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar type, from the get-go, is shit luck.

It’s not a happy thing.

It’s a treacherous, vicious life.

And dealing with tons of prescriptions, and prescriptions for the prescriptions, is just one part of dealing with mental illness.

– Keren