(Scroll down for the tl;dr version, since I'm about to vomit up some long shit tonight. And I might also mean that literally.)
Today was the nerve-wracking first visit with my new therapist, B. By 'today' I mean it's 3:30am and I can't sleep, and since I need to turn my light on to do any of my homework and don't want to wake Rae up (as I have repeatedly done already while trying to cuddle... sorry sweetie! :c ) I figured, 'blogging time.' Well, that and I am super nauseous and don't want to use up any more of my limited Primperan supply.
So yes. Therapy no. the First. If you can get past that, you can read on to the super exciting miscellany! Hooray!
Well, first off I admit that my terrible nausea is most likely not a byproduct of the therapy session, which began sometime around 9am and ended a little over an hour later. You know how you go to an hour of therapy and they always, always manage to make it last 45 minutes? B seems pretty young and perhaps hasn't learned that little secret yet,for which I am grateful. Admittedly it could also have been because I took an Adderall about 45 minutes before I went to see her and I was, as is the case when I'm on that stuff, literally talking her ear off. Seriously, I caught her trying to tape it back on.
3:33am... I'm giving up on sleep now. After 3am my body just doesn't get any rest and sleeping would literally cause me to be sick and drowsy all day no matter HOW much Adderall I put in my poor abused belly.
ANYway (as you can see, the effect wore off long ago), the session went... very well. I said before that she seems very young and inexperienced but at the same time she helped me out more in that hour than all my other therapists did over several sessions.
B pretty much just let me run loose in terms of conversation and we touched upon my confusion issues (she doesn't know what it is but it happened twice while I was in there), as well as my splitting people black, mood swings (both triggered by outside events and non), identity issues, what I want out of therapy (I think I probably said 'no more mood swings')...
I don't think I mentioned this in any earlier posts, maybe I did, but my sister and my parents revealed that I have a tendency to fly into rages, call them names, threaten to leave and never come back, tell them I hate them, snap at them... the best part is that I HAD NO IDEA. Ayep- some weird form of amnesia, I guess? Or I get so angry that I explode and block it out. So we talked about how that's bad, and she told me something totally obvious that had never occurred to me or anyone else before, at least not in those words:
"What am I feeling right now?"
When I wake up in the morning, I ask myself what I am feeling, and take steps to avoid triggering a 'bad day'- if I am irritable, don't force myself to be social. If I am happy, by all means, make plans and get things done. If I am sad, take steps to withdraw from other people and coddle myself (and cry to Rae, of course) until I feel better. Don't make the mood worse by giving into it- say, if I am feeling terribly self-harmful, don't look at triggering material or listen to trigger-songs (of which I have far too many to count), don't let myself wander into the sharps section of the art store when I'm getting supplies, etcetera. Likewise, if I'm super manic, I should probably avoid shopping altogether, as my last paycheck was far less than I anticipated. But (as usual) I digress.
The biggest thing we touched on- or rather, what took over the session and ended up causing us to go over the time limit- was my issues with leading a double life for my family's sake.
It's no secret to friends ad a few family members on both sides that Rae and I are engaged. Rae's entire family knows we are dating, I have traveled up north to her hometown with her for weeks on end and met everyone, and they all seem to like me pretty well.
My parents, sister, two or three close cousins, one aunt, and one uncle on my side know I have a girlfriend. My cousin M found out because she is pretty much my long-distance best friend. My cousin E found out because my sister and cousin A told her, and THEY know because I told them before my parents made me promise not to tell anyone. I told my uncle because he's gay himself and my aunt knows because she got drunk and asked me outright, gave me a huge hug, and likely forgot all about it.
It's a very big problem, for me, not to be able to tell my family about Rae. I can't describe how big, or why, in words; though I got close until I started crying (how embarrassing- crying on my first appointment!).
In any case, that went well... and then was the psychiatric evaluation. I thought I did that already, but apparently not? Or something? So I spoke to Dr. S, another youngish guy but one that definitely seemed to know what he was doing. He said he'd like for me to give the Lamictal another shot, since it worked before. And then, as troubles arose, we would adjust the doses or find something else. He did seem to think the Adderall was fine for me to keep taking; this is good news, since I've heard the stories- they won't give college kids Adderall in case they're just looking for a high or want to sell them. I did learn they go for minimum $4 a pill, but honestly I need it more than the druggie freshmen do, so I'm keeping it, thanks.
And that was my meeting. It was when I got home, before Rae went to work, that the nausea hit. I still insist that it was the super intense therapies. And it could have been (that whole subject, about my double life, needs its own post and I always get sick after talking about it). Either that or the Adderall I took this morning- after not taking it for over a month- isn't sitting well in my stomach. Especially since it's the first thing I 'ate' all day. Adderall and weak chai, extra sugar. It also probably didn't help that I downed a large cup of coffee, courtesy of Rae's landlord. It had an assload of sugar in it too. And then I didn't eat anything else until around 5ish when I made some ramen with curry.
But like I said. Intense therapies.
tl;dr version: It's 4am, I'm nauseous and can't sleep. Therapist says be more self-aware. Head doc says Lamictal and Adderall. The miscellany stuff I promised earlier is next post. Which I will start now.
+Eden.
Today was the nerve-wracking first visit with my new therapist, B. By 'today' I mean it's 3:30am and I can't sleep, and since I need to turn my light on to do any of my homework and don't want to wake Rae up (as I have repeatedly done already while trying to cuddle... sorry sweetie! :c ) I figured, 'blogging time.' Well, that and I am super nauseous and don't want to use up any more of my limited Primperan supply.
So yes. Therapy no. the First. If you can get past that, you can read on to the super exciting miscellany! Hooray!
Well, first off I admit that my terrible nausea is most likely not a byproduct of the therapy session, which began sometime around 9am and ended a little over an hour later. You know how you go to an hour of therapy and they always, always manage to make it last 45 minutes? B seems pretty young and perhaps hasn't learned that little secret yet,for which I am grateful. Admittedly it could also have been because I took an Adderall about 45 minutes before I went to see her and I was, as is the case when I'm on that stuff, literally talking her ear off. Seriously, I caught her trying to tape it back on.
3:33am... I'm giving up on sleep now. After 3am my body just doesn't get any rest and sleeping would literally cause me to be sick and drowsy all day no matter HOW much Adderall I put in my poor abused belly.
ANYway (as you can see, the effect wore off long ago), the session went... very well. I said before that she seems very young and inexperienced but at the same time she helped me out more in that hour than all my other therapists did over several sessions.
B pretty much just let me run loose in terms of conversation and we touched upon my confusion issues (she doesn't know what it is but it happened twice while I was in there), as well as my splitting people black, mood swings (both triggered by outside events and non), identity issues, what I want out of therapy (I think I probably said 'no more mood swings')...
I don't think I mentioned this in any earlier posts, maybe I did, but my sister and my parents revealed that I have a tendency to fly into rages, call them names, threaten to leave and never come back, tell them I hate them, snap at them... the best part is that I HAD NO IDEA. Ayep- some weird form of amnesia, I guess? Or I get so angry that I explode and block it out. So we talked about how that's bad, and she told me something totally obvious that had never occurred to me or anyone else before, at least not in those words:
"What am I feeling right now?"
When I wake up in the morning, I ask myself what I am feeling, and take steps to avoid triggering a 'bad day'- if I am irritable, don't force myself to be social. If I am happy, by all means, make plans and get things done. If I am sad, take steps to withdraw from other people and coddle myself (and cry to Rae, of course) until I feel better. Don't make the mood worse by giving into it- say, if I am feeling terribly self-harmful, don't look at triggering material or listen to trigger-songs (of which I have far too many to count), don't let myself wander into the sharps section of the art store when I'm getting supplies, etcetera. Likewise, if I'm super manic, I should probably avoid shopping altogether, as my last paycheck was far less than I anticipated. But (as usual) I digress.
The biggest thing we touched on- or rather, what took over the session and ended up causing us to go over the time limit- was my issues with leading a double life for my family's sake.
It's no secret to friends ad a few family members on both sides that Rae and I are engaged. Rae's entire family knows we are dating, I have traveled up north to her hometown with her for weeks on end and met everyone, and they all seem to like me pretty well.
My parents, sister, two or three close cousins, one aunt, and one uncle on my side know I have a girlfriend. My cousin M found out because she is pretty much my long-distance best friend. My cousin E found out because my sister and cousin A told her, and THEY know because I told them before my parents made me promise not to tell anyone. I told my uncle because he's gay himself and my aunt knows because she got drunk and asked me outright, gave me a huge hug, and likely forgot all about it.
It's a very big problem, for me, not to be able to tell my family about Rae. I can't describe how big, or why, in words; though I got close until I started crying (how embarrassing- crying on my first appointment!).
In any case, that went well... and then was the psychiatric evaluation. I thought I did that already, but apparently not? Or something? So I spoke to Dr. S, another youngish guy but one that definitely seemed to know what he was doing. He said he'd like for me to give the Lamictal another shot, since it worked before. And then, as troubles arose, we would adjust the doses or find something else. He did seem to think the Adderall was fine for me to keep taking; this is good news, since I've heard the stories- they won't give college kids Adderall in case they're just looking for a high or want to sell them. I did learn they go for minimum $4 a pill, but honestly I need it more than the druggie freshmen do, so I'm keeping it, thanks.
And that was my meeting. It was when I got home, before Rae went to work, that the nausea hit. I still insist that it was the super intense therapies. And it could have been (that whole subject, about my double life, needs its own post and I always get sick after talking about it). Either that or the Adderall I took this morning- after not taking it for over a month- isn't sitting well in my stomach. Especially since it's the first thing I 'ate' all day. Adderall and weak chai, extra sugar. It also probably didn't help that I downed a large cup of coffee, courtesy of Rae's landlord. It had an assload of sugar in it too. And then I didn't eat anything else until around 5ish when I made some ramen with curry.
But like I said. Intense therapies.
tl;dr version: It's 4am, I'm nauseous and can't sleep. Therapist says be more self-aware. Head doc says Lamictal and Adderall. The miscellany stuff I promised earlier is next post. Which I will start now.
+Eden.
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