This morning for the first time in about a month and a half I feel pretty normal. Hoping it lasts. I got about four hours of sleep, and the tiredness I feel right now feels like a normal tiredness, rather than the jittery awful exhaustion of my body wearing out before my mind does. I only had one bad moment so far today, and it only lasted about 20 seconds. Intense seconds, but ones I knew would end, and they did. It's so weird how the feeling is now accompanied by a strong bitter taste flooding my mouth, when it hasn't been in the past.
Yesterday was bad. Work was stressful. Back when I had all the health problems at the end of January and the beginning of February, I was given a large, complicated project involving legal changes to medical product claims for a national-brand product website our company writes and maintains, and apparently I missed implementing a few changes from the 245-page legal-change document. (No small wonder, since I was recovering from surgery and an anesthesia-necessary intestinal biopsy right at the time the hypomania started up, but I can't forgive myself for it anyway.) My boss called me into a huddle room and explained what had happened and that she'd basically been thrown under a bus about it in front of her new boss, so it sort of blew up, although my boss handled it really well. She had a meeting with the PM after her meeting with me and it wound up turning out to not be that bad. The project manager who'd done the bus-throwing was actually much more concerned about the project being over budget and the fact that no one from the copy department had told our department that the client-facing doc I'd sent to the PM had to be formatted in a certain way. So it was more a matter of miscommunication than the things I missed, which turned out to be minor and were caught before coder implementation. But the time between the first meeting with my boss and her returning from the meeting with the PM and letting me know it was okay was awful. I was already shaking and buzzing, since I'd had little sleep the previous night, and during and after the meeting the shaking got a lot worse. Then the migraine started despite all the drugs I kept throwing at it, and by the time the workday was over I felt ready to crawl under a rock and die.
The shaking was bad all day yesterday. I couldn't stop moving. I just now looked at the Barnes Akathesia scale and I was at about a 3.5 or 4 out of 5 most of the day yesterday. I went with my brother to the Hunger Games premiere at midnight and though I was very interested in the movie and wanted to engage with it, it was extremely uncomfortable to have to sit still in the theater. My legs were shaking so hard that the seats on either side of me were moving from it. I felt bad for the poor girl sitting next to me, but I couldn't stop. Every time I tried to force it to stop, this horrible tingling shot through me and I felt like I was going to scream, so I just kept doing it. By the time I got home it was starting to wear itself out, and I got to sleep around 4 or 4:30. Then I got up for work.
Now I feel used up and tired out, but it's a good tired out. Like a normal, genuine tired, that normal people feel when they don't get enough sleep. So even though it's not pleasant to be foggy-brained and have a slight headache, I'm actually really happy about it. I feel more sane now than I've felt in days. Though it doesn't feel it will last, I'll take it while I've got it.
I had a facepalm moment yesterday when I realized I've been in a mixed state for at least three weeks. Funny how these things are so hard to see when you're in them.
Haven't heard back yet from the psychiatrist that the Abilify was authorized by the insurance company. I saw him on Wednesday and they said it would take 24-72 hours for it to go through, so hopefully by tomorrow I'll have it in my hands. This calm feels somewhat like the eye of the storm and I know it isn't going to last, so it'll be good to have this new thing to try when it does return. I'm nervous that it will increase the agitation/weight loss problem, but still willing to give it a try and see what happens.
Today's picture, taken a few years ago in northern Ohio early in the morning. It feels like a waiting picture. I am waiting.
Yesterday was bad. Work was stressful. Back when I had all the health problems at the end of January and the beginning of February, I was given a large, complicated project involving legal changes to medical product claims for a national-brand product website our company writes and maintains, and apparently I missed implementing a few changes from the 245-page legal-change document. (No small wonder, since I was recovering from surgery and an anesthesia-necessary intestinal biopsy right at the time the hypomania started up, but I can't forgive myself for it anyway.) My boss called me into a huddle room and explained what had happened and that she'd basically been thrown under a bus about it in front of her new boss, so it sort of blew up, although my boss handled it really well. She had a meeting with the PM after her meeting with me and it wound up turning out to not be that bad. The project manager who'd done the bus-throwing was actually much more concerned about the project being over budget and the fact that no one from the copy department had told our department that the client-facing doc I'd sent to the PM had to be formatted in a certain way. So it was more a matter of miscommunication than the things I missed, which turned out to be minor and were caught before coder implementation. But the time between the first meeting with my boss and her returning from the meeting with the PM and letting me know it was okay was awful. I was already shaking and buzzing, since I'd had little sleep the previous night, and during and after the meeting the shaking got a lot worse. Then the migraine started despite all the drugs I kept throwing at it, and by the time the workday was over I felt ready to crawl under a rock and die.
The shaking was bad all day yesterday. I couldn't stop moving. I just now looked at the Barnes Akathesia scale and I was at about a 3.5 or 4 out of 5 most of the day yesterday. I went with my brother to the Hunger Games premiere at midnight and though I was very interested in the movie and wanted to engage with it, it was extremely uncomfortable to have to sit still in the theater. My legs were shaking so hard that the seats on either side of me were moving from it. I felt bad for the poor girl sitting next to me, but I couldn't stop. Every time I tried to force it to stop, this horrible tingling shot through me and I felt like I was going to scream, so I just kept doing it. By the time I got home it was starting to wear itself out, and I got to sleep around 4 or 4:30. Then I got up for work.
Now I feel used up and tired out, but it's a good tired out. Like a normal, genuine tired, that normal people feel when they don't get enough sleep. So even though it's not pleasant to be foggy-brained and have a slight headache, I'm actually really happy about it. I feel more sane now than I've felt in days. Though it doesn't feel it will last, I'll take it while I've got it.
I had a facepalm moment yesterday when I realized I've been in a mixed state for at least three weeks. Funny how these things are so hard to see when you're in them.
Haven't heard back yet from the psychiatrist that the Abilify was authorized by the insurance company. I saw him on Wednesday and they said it would take 24-72 hours for it to go through, so hopefully by tomorrow I'll have it in my hands. This calm feels somewhat like the eye of the storm and I know it isn't going to last, so it'll be good to have this new thing to try when it does return. I'm nervous that it will increase the agitation/weight loss problem, but still willing to give it a try and see what happens.
