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Tag: fatigue

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE

Relapse. For those of us in recovery from one mental health issue or another, it’s a filthy word. Who wants to relapse? There’s a classic meme showing the difference between reality and expectations when it comes to mental health recovery – expectation is a nice straight line on a consistent upward trajectory. Reality looks like a ball of wool under siege from a horde of rabid kittens.

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN… THEN UP WE GO

It’s 35 days since I touched down on terra firma. Jet lag’s done and dusted, the big adventure receding into once upon a time status, and I’m settled back into normality – taking for granted the luxuries of my pillow, my car, and our pristine drinking water. Yet for most of those 35 days, my mental health has been really shit.

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SUNSHINE

My inclination is to run and hide and bury my head – old habits die hard. But if there is one thing I have achieved this year, it’s to stop using eating disorder and self-harm behaviours to numb my emotions. They are becoming non-options. That’s not to say I don’t think about it, miss it, want it, and feel tempted to slip. I’m moving closer and closer to accepting they’re no longer an option for dealing with life.

ORGASM

There are lots of reasons women – and men – might experience anorgasmia. I’m only going to talk about one – because it’s the one that affects me. Medication. Specifically, SNRI anti-depressant medication. All medication has an effect – that’s why we prefer prescriptions to placebos. Side effects are unwanted consequences of medication and when we treat conditions pharmacologically, we weigh the pros and cons of our options. I’ve been on my current anti-depressant two years. At the lowest dose I struggled with orgasm, and at my current dose it is an impossibility.

FEEDING TIME

It’s easy to know when your body needs food – physical cues are given out. We all know what they are (even when some of use choose to ignore those cues), and we know drinking a glass of water doesn’t make them go away. So feeding physical hunger is easy. And yet I do not stand alone when it comes to yearning for food regardless of physical hunger.

TRANSITION WEEK

It’s been a wild ride. My last two days at the clinic were focused on discussing healthy ways of managing my out of control anxiety issues. I had one day of leave cancelled altogether (Sunday) as I couldn’t be trusted not to harm myself. I didn’t even trust myself. The next day was escorted leave and Tuesday – my final day as it turned out – back to full unescorted pre-discharge phase.

WEEK TWO

Same old, same old. Neither better nor worse. I feel my depression has sunk pretty low and I spent a lot of today mapping out “exit” strategies. But I also communicated this with the registrar and have requested to have my dose of pristiq increased. She’s also modified my leave to “escorted” which is fine by me.

WEEK ONE

A friend of mine has encouraged me to share my private journals of inpatient. I hope it’s not triggering for anyone. It’s deeply personal. And I’ve made every effort to remove identifying information of the clinic, staff and patients. It’s a long read! But this is what life is like.