Looking forward to Treatment #3
After the dread and anxiety over treatments 1 and 2, I'm looking forward to numero tres (maybe its the fentanyl party afterwards.) This one is early Monday (tomorrow) at 9:30 (be there at 8:00 so I can sit around and get nervous.) Late day treatments are tough. Not eating all day just adds to the stress level. Today has been a pretty successful all around day. Still having some "good" moments which then flatten back out or get consumed by a doom and gloom period. my jaw is still sore form Friday's treatment. I'm beginning to think that "sore jaw" is just going to be part of the game.
I still find that if I think about going to work, my stomach gets tight and sick feeling and I think about individual tasks I would have to complete. The anxiety builds in a major hurry. I run this little litmus test on myself once a day or so, just as a gauge of where my head is and what stress level I might really be able, right now, to bear. By the time I took my leave of absence, my stress tolerance was near zero and I couldn't fathom going back to that job, ever. I haven't traveled far from that place, yet. I spent an hour or so today filling out the online forms for Social Security Disability. I worked until I got bummed out reading my psych history (which my wife has done a remarkable job of keeping up to date for me.) Looking back, in detail, over the last 5+ years wasn't uplifting. There are many parts which my memory had lost even before ECT began. Maybe selectively, maybe from plain old degeneration from the illness. I just keep telling myself "Give it time, Mike..."
I still find that if I think about going to work, my stomach gets tight and sick feeling and I think about individual tasks I would have to complete. The anxiety builds in a major hurry. I run this little litmus test on myself once a day or so, just as a gauge of where my head is and what stress level I might really be able, right now, to bear. By the time I took my leave of absence, my stress tolerance was near zero and I couldn't fathom going back to that job, ever. I haven't traveled far from that place, yet. I spent an hour or so today filling out the online forms for Social Security Disability. I worked until I got bummed out reading my psych history (which my wife has done a remarkable job of keeping up to date for me.) Looking back, in detail, over the last 5+ years wasn't uplifting. There are many parts which my memory had lost even before ECT began. Maybe selectively, maybe from plain old degeneration from the illness. I just keep telling myself "Give it time, Mike..."
posted by DeMental at 3:26 PM
4 Comments:
I hope your treatment goes well today, Mike! Maybe Melissa can hire herself out as a "treatment manager" one of these days. Lord knows we could all use someone to keep up with this mess of stuff we've tried!!! Looking forward to your next entry.
What a wonderful post "Cage". That too is the Mike I remember. I have checked in on you every day since you sent me this link. I know that you dont think that I understand, but I do.
It's wonderful to know that you have so much support and love, Mike. And I agree. I don't think you were what you NOW think you were before all of this. You were an incredible, strong, driven, funny guy. It's easy for those of us in treatment to reverse diagnose ourselves...to rewrite our history to make it sicker than it might really have been. But I also know that sometimes we are able to portray a persona to the world that we know we are not - even at the time. So maybe that's who you were inside at the time, or maybe that is who you look back and see - but neither should be discounted. There is another Mel who needs you out there as well...
I'm far away too! - Fayetteville, Arkansas. I tried to access YOUR blog, but I am not getting anything. Do you have one? Thanks for adding me to your list. Who can't use a little extra help? Melanie
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