Tag Archives: depression

First Day Back Exercising

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Today was the first day I did any real exercise since I threw out my back six weeks ago.  I can tell I have gotten real rusty and out of shape in the six weeks I spent mending my back.  I walked for only ten minutes, enough to get the blood moving but that’s about all.  I’m not sore from walking but I can tell I am out of practice.  It is quite hot in my hometown as late July and August are always the hottest times of the year.  I’m still not quite adjusted to the heat as I haven’t been outside much while my back was mending.  And it was quite a cool and wet spring this year, so I was used to exercising indoors this spring.

I’m going to start lifting arm weights again.  I’ll start that tonight.  It has been kind of an odd tradition for me to lift arm weights and do stretching while watching Star Trek reruns. A friend of mine got me started on that last summer.  I’m most of the way through Season 3 of Star Trek: Enterprise.  But when my back was healing I didn’t lift any arm weights or do much for stretching.  I’m sure I’m going to be just as rusty with the weights as I was the walking.  I’ll have to use the light weights for a couple weeks until I’m back to normal.

I also starting tracking what I eat again.  I got discouraged for the last few months and was lazy about tracking.  I was especially lazy when I couldn’t exercise outdoors and then after I hurt my back.  Before I hurt my back I had some unexplained foot pain that limited my walking for over two weeks.  So I haven’t been able to exercise hardly at all since the weather warmed up.  And I had to exercise indoors this spring because it was chilly and rainy almost every day.

When I was at my psych doctor last time, I had gained twenty pounds since the start of the year.  That was one month ago.  I’m sure I’ve gain some more as I was not exercising because of my back.  But my back is good again.  I can sleep in a regular bed again after weeks in a recliner.  I get more sleep in a regular bed but I fall asleep faster in my recliner.  I can’t figure that one out.

Because of my back pain and lack of activity I’ve been more depressed and irritable than usual.  I’m sorry I don’t make a very good patient.  But in the handful of times I’ve been in a hospital I make it a point to never get irritable with the nurses and doctors.  I force myself to be on good behavior I suppose.  When I’m healing on my own I can be more short tempered and depressed than usual.  I got angry with two of my best friends over a week ago.  I’m still embarrassed about that.  One of these friends I got mad at I hadn’t ever had an argument with and we’ve been friends for fifteen years.  Another was my best friend from high school and we have raised our voices to each other only a handful of times, mostly when I was in the grip of a mental breakdown.  I’m embarrassed I let those things happen.  I grew up in a family where we rarely yelled at each other and never had instances where we stopped talking to people.  We may not talk to each other every day but we will drop everyone for one of our own in crisis.  Even my extended family is like this to each other.

I’ve mended from my back issues, finally.  It was one of the longest six week stretches I was ever part of.  I’m beginning to exercise again.  I’m starting to socialize again.  I’m beginning to track what I eat again.  I haven’t yet got my blinds fixed but that is coming.  I might even get new carpet by summer’s end.  After months when almost nothing seemed to go right I think I’m starting to turn the corner.  Maybe things will start to get better.

 

 

Dealing With Depression

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It’s been a rough last several days for me.  Spent most of the weekend at home and dealing with bouts of intense depression.  Finally had a break down on Sunday night.  Got into serious arguments with two of my best friends.  Sent one of them a really nasty message over Facebook and another I yelled at over the phone and hung up before he could say anything.  Summers are traditionally a tough time for me.  And I think the bad seasonal aspects of my mental illness are beginning again.

It also doesn’t help that most people I know are in foul moods already.  A week’s worth of nothing but news of shootings and violence would put anyone who pays attention in a pessimist view point.  I have spent the last several months trying to get people to be happy about the good things that are going on in the world and in their own lives.  But I don’t think I’m making any difference.  If anything I think telling people the good news going on in science and technology advances and humanitarian endeavors only make people irritable.  I don’t get any encouragement for trying to encourage people.  That’s probably what led to my last meltdown.  I wish I could just shut up from trying to encourage people. But that is not my personality.  Never has been.  Seeking and sharing knowledge is what I do.  It has also gotten me in lots of trouble over the years.

The reason I spend so much time trying to tell people good news is because I heard nothing but bad news the entire time I was growing up.  My teachers told me that acid rain was going to kill all the forests and poison the oceans.  But that never materialized because as some adults were weeping and gnashing teeth over problems, other adults (namely scientists) were actually doing something to solve those problems.  We developed better pollution controls.  The ozone layer depletion was a big deal in the late 1980s.  We got rid of chemicals that were causing said depletion and now the hole in the ozone layer is starting to heal.

The problems that people project into the future too often assume that people aren’t going to adapt.  In the 1960s it was overpopulation and famines that would end civilization.  Now the birth rates in most developed countries are not even replacement rate. I also saw a report that said there are now 2.1 billion people in the world who are overweight.  That’s almost one out of three people who are eating too much. The United States isn’t even the most obese country in the world anymore (at least not by percentage). Then there were the concerns of nuclear war and communist scares.  The first movie I remember watching from start to finish was ‘Red Dawn’ as a five year old.  I was expecting the Russians to invade any day for weeks afterward.  The scare the whole world was going to go communist was at the forefront of my childhood in the 1980s.  Didn’t happen.  People are now worried about terrorist groups abusing their religion and that the world will be completely radicalized in term of religion.  If anything, as the internet continues to spread, people will become less dogmatic about religion.  It happened in Europe, North America, and is happening in East Asia.  I certainly became less dogmatic in my religious, political, and spiritual views since I got easy access to the internet.  And I am not the only one.  This is a trend that isn’t likely to reverse.  The internet is one of those game changers, like the printing press or gunpowder.  We still have only scratched the surface of what this easy access to information can do.  It is one of the reasons I stay optimistic even with schizophrenia.  In fact, except for the flare ups, I am hopeful overall.  It’s that one percent of the time that causes me probably ninety five percent of my problems.  And last night for a few hours was one of those times.  I’m sorry I took out my psychotic break on my friends.  I would prefer if I could just break down and sob uncontrollably.  But that’s not how I’m wired.  I lash out when I’m in pain, sadly at those that care about me the most.

High Expectations and High Standards

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I readily admit that I am often hard on normal people who don’t understand mental illness.  I also confess to being really tough on people who don’t think before they speak or write something on Facebook or twitter.  But please do understand people were really hard on me for years and always held me to high standards.  My parents were quite demanding perfectionists because they knew their sons were really sharp and talented. Neither my brother or I remember a time when we didn’t know how to read.  And we essentially taught ourselves.  Because they new we had a lot to offer even at a very young age, they never tolerated us not making the honor roll, causing problems for the other kids at school, talking back to anyone, not being involved in school activities, not being involved in church activities, not having a summer job, and being in trouble with school officials and definitely not the law.  I couldn’t stand it when I was growing up, seeing my friends who weren’t pushed hard in school, who weren’t pushed into school activities, who were allowed to voice dissenting opinions from their parents, who weren’t punished for causing problems in school, or who weren’t encouraged to study hard subjects. My brother and I may not have been raised like warriors, but we were raised like scholars.

And that really didn’t make us very popular with our classmates or town elders when we were growing up.  Our classmates didn’t understand why my brother and I worked so hard in class and not so much in sports.  Our classmates thought us odd that we didn’t attend their beer parties or try to get laid.  Some of the town elders didn’t like us because my brother and I had aspirations of moving out of our village and seeking our fortunes in greener pastures.  I don’t have any animosity toward my hometown as I made a few cool friends I still hear from and became a much better rounded man than had I lived in a large suburb.  I just don’t back there very often because most of my friends (and all of my brother’s friends) no longer live there.  My parents didn’t care if I made the varsity in football as long as I didn’t give the coaches and my teammates any problems.  My parents didn’t care that my brother was the slowest runner in his class because he was doing well in his classes and had aspirations of going on to do something good with his life.  And he did.  He’s an engineer making excellent money, married to a brilliant woman who also is an engineer, and they have four extremely smart kids.  My brother and his wife are making sure those kids are held accountable and have high standards too.  And I can tell it’s starting to pay off for those kids and they aren’t even teenagers yet.

Expectations and accountability can make all the difference in the world.  For the first few years of my mental illness diagnosis, I was a little bitter at times that I was held to such high standards, did everything right, and still wound up with a severe mental illness that destroyed my ability to hold a career or raise a family.  For the first few years I was tormented by stories of people like John Nash, Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, etc. that achieved great deals in spite of their problems and handicaps.  I used to think if they can do it, why can’t I?  But I now acknowledge that I don’t have to be a Nobel Prize winning scientist, or a great teacher, or a great difference maker who completely changed history to live a decent life as a man with schizophrenia.  From statistics I’ve seen, anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of people with schizophrenia attempt suicide at least once.  I haven’t gotten to that point even after having problems since age seventeen.  A significant percentage of homeless people are mentally ill people, so I’m probably doing something right because I have my own apartment and have  never missed a rent payment. Some of the normals I’m tough with on occasion can’t claim even that.  I held employment for several years, if for no other reason just to prove I could even with schizophrenia.  Many schizophrenics can’t claim that.

I am convinced the reason I am doing alright with my schizophrenia is that I was held accountable and held to a high standard even as a little child.  I have to think that carried over into adulthood even with a mental illness.  Perhaps that is why I am so active with this blog, because I have expectations that won’t allow me to not communicate to others when I obviously can tell people about my experiences with schizophrenia.  I have the expectation that I won’t allow my mind go to rot, mental illness or no.  I have the expectation that I won’t allow my mental illness, as tragic as it is, to be pointless and meaningless.  That’s the joy and glory of having expectations and standards.  And I confess it is sometimes a little annoying when others don’t hold themselves to similar standards.  But I was held to standards and I am grateful every day because of it.  It might have even saved my life without me ever knowing it.

Socializing One on One (We Are Not That Different)

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I have been trying to figure out normal people for most of my life.  I have tried to find a basic statement to make sense of my fellow man, much like Einstein’s theory of relativity or the equation Force equals Mass multiplied by Acceleration.  The only real conclusion I have come to can be summed by Tommy Lee Jones in the first Men In Black movie when he said, “The individual is smart, but people as a group are stupid, panicky animals.”  Ever since I was a young child I have found taking my fellow humans one on one much easier and enriching than dealing with crowds, groups, or cliques.  I have always gotten along with most of my school mates and elders when working with them one on one.  Not so much when they were in large groups.  People have always seemed more civil and easy going if I could talk to them one on one or even in small groups. Sadly we seldom ever get to talk with our neighbors, extended family members, coworkers much on a one to one basis.  There are times I’ve had more in depth conversations with people from different nations over Facebook than with people in my apartment complex.  I like the digitized friends I have in some of my interests pages groups on Facebook more than I do my own neighbors.  But I didn’t have much say in who my neighbors were.

Some of my happiest memories from junior high and early high school came from the weekend ‘lock in’ parties that my school and church participated in.  We’d have movies, snacks, board games, card games, and just stay up all night and chat with the fellow school mates.  I used to get into those extremely in depth conversations with my classmates I may have not had much to do with on a regular basis during the course of a school week. I would talk with people I thought I had nothing in common with until my voice was raspy and my throat hurt. Those times made me realize that everyone else has their own problems, fears, and hangups.  We as students, or the community as a whole, may stick us in groups like jocks, nerds, cowboys, preppies, party animals, thugs, basket cases, beauty queens, conservatives, liberals, artists, rich, poor, etc.  All the window dressing and nonsense aside, people actually have far more in common with each other than we are lead to believe by our culture and leaders. One guy at these lock ins told me that he was under constant pressure from his parents to be a great athlete because his father was a great athlete years before.  Another kid told me that even though she came from a devoutly religious family she had her skepticisms and doubts.  A third kid told me even though he came from a wealthy farming family he had little interest in farming once he was done with high school but would probably do so to please his parents and grandparents. One kid told me he was envious of how smart I was and I told him I was envious of how popular and handsome he was.  Who would have ever guessed?  Another kid I was envious of because he got excellent grades, was handsome, and wasn’t lacking in confidence by any measure (not that I could tell at least) that he was envious of me because of my smarts, my not being afraid to take unpopular stands, and because of my friendship with my female best friend.  One way he put it went something like, “Neither of you has to worry about ever finding dates for the weekend.  You can always ask each other.”  Another guy told me about my female best friend, “You two go together so well you get along better than most married couples.” I may not have had a lack of dates in high school, but they were usually with the same girl and always casual.  I had far more dates in high school than college, but most my dates even in high school came before my mental illness took full effect.  But too much stress is placed of finding love and trying to get laid, especially in high school.  I miss those lock ins and opportunities to get to know my classmates on a less structured and formal basis.  It’s about the only thing I miss about junior high, but I definitely would love opportunities to get to know my neighbors better.  Perhaps we in the modern world suffer from too much structure and formality.  Maybe that is why we are more irritable and short tempered than we should be.

 

Back Pains and Missing Out on Summer

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I’m still healing from my back pain.  I’m able to walk short distances again.  I was able to run some errands three days ago so I don’t really have to leave my apartment for the next several days.  But since my back is clearing up I really think I should be back to normal within a few days.  I’ve been sleeping in a recliner the last few nights to rest my back.  The last time I try to sleep on my back I could barely get out of bed.  My routine has definitely been thrown off since I hurt my back.  And the worst part is I don’t know what I did to cause my back pain.

The weather has gotten much warmer just about the time I hurt my back.  Haven’t been able to get out and enjoy it at all.  I usually go to the park several times a week during the summer.  Haven’t been able to do this for almost two weeks.  Makes me feel like I’m missing out.  But I can’t rush this recovery.  I tried to rush things a few days ago and it set me back at least a day.

Been holding up mentally during most of this process.  I’ve had a few moments of depression and irritability during those times of weakness.  When I first hurt my back I thought I’d need two or three days of ibuprofen and ice and I’d be back to normal.  Didn’t turn out that way.  I haven’t had crushing bouts of depression during the last week and a half I’ve been mending from this injury.  I’ve had more boredom than anything.  But even with the boredom I haven’t called friends much during this injury.  I just haven’t had much to talk about with my friends during the last several days.  That’s probably the most depressing part of the whole deal.  Being on the mend has made me really feel like I’ve lost connection to my neighbors, my community, and my friends.  I haven’t done anything socially since I hurt my back.  It really has been boring.  Fortunately I haven’t had any relapse of the psychiatric problems in these last days.

I have pretty much spent most of my days playing computer games, watching youtube videos, and watching baseball games.  Not exactly really thrilling but there’s only so much I can do until my back returns to normal.  I have called my parents every other day to have some resemblance of a social life.  I can’t wait until my back finally clears up.  This certainly has made me appreciate my physical health more.

 

 

Dealing With Physical Pain And Mental Illness

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I’ve now been fighting severe lower back pain for a week.  I went to the chiropractor on the first to get my back worked on.  I get to go back in on Thursday for more work.  I hope I don’t have to have many more appointments.  Medicaid will cover only so many chiropractic appointments per year.  I’m working with the same place that rehabbed me after my car accident last fall.

Since I can barely walk now I’m moving from trying to lose weight to just maintaining.  As bad as my back hurts I won’t do any exercise for awhile.  I’m thinking this could be a very long process.  At first I thought two or three days of ice and ibuprofen would be all I needed.  The back isn’t healing as quickly as I hoped.

Naturally this has me slightly depressed and mildly irritated.  I was anticipating being outdoors and walking in the park everyday, just like the previous two summers.  Summers were when I lost most of my weight.  I also decided that I won’t be able to sleep in my bed anymore, at least not until my back completely heals.  I have a recliner I can sleep in.  It is so much easier to get up from sitting down than lying down.  When I was in the chiropractor’s office on Wednesday morning, the chiropractor and I had a tough time getting me off the work table after I laid down on my back.  I felt bad for the poor lady.  But I suppose she’s seen far worse than what I had.

The back pain is more bearable now that I’m not having the auditory hallucinations.  Haven’t had to deal with those for a few weeks.  I’m still not very comfortable with driving as I do tend to be more irritable in traffic than I should.  Fortunately I haven’t crossed over into road rage.  If I can tell it’s not going to be a good mental health day I avoid driving unless it’s absolutely necessary.  But the lower back pain is going to slow down my leaving the apartment and running errands.  Too bad because I need to go grocery shopping in a few days.  The store I normally shop in is a really large store.  I love walking through the isles and seeing the huge variety, especially in the overnight hours.  Since the back is hurting bad, I won’t be able to enjoy that for awhile.  I would hate to think I have to use an electric cart for my shopping.  I mean I’m not that old even if I have a birthday in two weeks.

As I’ve been out of commission for a few days I’ve been spending most of my time at home.  I usually play computer games, watch youtube videos, and check in on friends through Facebook.  I’m starting to get a little restless as I’ve been doing this for several days.  But it’s a restlessness I can do nothing about as my physical health is suffering.  I think this isn’t going to be an easy recovery.  It’s a shame I have to start falling apart physically just about the time I’m getting my mental health in order.

 

Getting To Some Kind Of Normalcy

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After six weeks of being on a different medication I am now adapting to the changes brought about.  I usually don’t need as much sleep so I now usually wake up earlier.  I have found myself slightly more sensitive to caffeine.  So I usually shut off the coffee and black tea after four p.m. unless I want to be up most of the night.  I have been spending more time outdoors and restarted the exercise routine a few days ago.  I am still kind of rusty but I hadn’t been doing much exercise for three weeks because of the weather and medication changes.

I am also regaining some of my lost emotions. I have felt a little loneliness over the last few weeks.  For months I have been content to spend the vast bulk of my days in isolation with as little interaction as possible.  I never did well at socializing, especially growing up in a small farming village where most people didn’t share my type of interests.  But I am now wanting to socialize again.  I find myself leaving my apartment at least a few times a day.  Previously I used to leave my apartment only once or twice a day if at all.  I have had days I didn’t leave my apartment, especially in the winter. I also feel a little more happiness.  Used to be the only real feelings I had for a couple years were anger and quiet contentment.  I didn’t relax and feel happiness because I didn’t know how.  But the ability to feel happiness is beginning to come back.   I am now able to feel a little anger and irritation without fear of going psychotic.  I haven’t had a psychotic break since I changed my medication.  I switched back to an old medication I had been on for several years.  The DNA tests I took shown that this medication worked really well for me.  So it confirmed something I already suspected.  I’ll see my psych doctor again at the end of the month and we’ll look into changing a second medication then.  I knew this would be a long process when we started.  But it’s certainly better than having psychotic breakdowns every six weeks.

I admit my physical health and exercise has taken a lower priority since I started this medication change.  I have gained a few pounds in the last few weeks. My endurance has really dropped off. It’ll probably take several more exercise sessions before it really starts coming back. But I’m getting back into exercise again, especially since the weather is warming up.

 

Why I Hate Politics

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Another thing my schizophrenic mind hates is politics. I will not under any circumstances discuss my opinions about politics with anyone outside of a couple family members and my two best friends.  For one, I’m open to the possibility I could be way off.  Two, I consciously know I am only one vote among millions so I don’t feel like I am completely in charge of the whole political process.  I don’t have delusions of grandeur in that regard.  And third, I have nothing but complete loathing and absolute hatred for how continuous and nasty the whole topic has become in recent years even among close friends.  And every time I turn on my tv or log onto Facebook, that’s the main thing I see on the news or in my newsfeed.  I have unfollowed dozens of friends and family members because I don’t want to hear about politics anymore.  I unfollowed people I agree with even.  I don’t want to hear about anyone’s politics any more than an atheist wants to hear about your relationship with God.  I unfollowed these friends and avoid news channels because I don’t need that level of confirmation bias and headaches.  No, I don’t have it all figured out even though I am 35 years old.  I missed that memo that said I had to have all my opinions and beliefs for life formed by age 21.  I’m open to changing my beliefs.  I don’t identify myself with how I voted in the last election.  And I am absolutely sickened by how no one wants to compromise on anything and how much everyone fights over the pettiest nonsense.  Politics is a religion for far too many people.  I am more than my vote.  I am more than my opinions.  And I will be glad when the mass insanity of the election is over.  I have enough stress and tension in my schizophrenic mind.  I don’t need to deal with nonsense that I as one person can’t do anything about.  I’m convinced that normal people are more insane than I am, at least when it comes to politics.

New Normal verses Old Normal

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When I was growing up as a precocious child in the rural corn belt of Nebraska, I was frequently asked “Why can’t you be normal”.  My classmates, the adults in my life, and even my own family asked me this frequently. I didn’t have the foresight or the courage then to ask “What defines normal” or even “Who defines normal”.

Looking back on it years later I know I never would have gotten any kind of direct answer simply because what qualifies as normal keeps changing.  In 1750 it was normal for two out of three children born in London, England to die before their fifth birthday.  Now in the developed world (and increasingly so in the developing nations) infant mortality is rare.  It is so rare now that if most of us were to look back five or six generations in our family tree, we would find that our most of our ancestors had more dead children than most of us have children or siblings.  That’s what breakthroughs in medical science can do.  As recently as my parent’s generation, most people were married in their early to mid twenties and had children within a few years.  Now it is quite common for people of my generation to not marry until their thirties or even not marry at all.  Back when my parents were in their twenties, if you weren’t married before thirty you were thought insane or gay.  Now the stigmas on both homosexuality and lifelong bachelorhood are in retreat.  Instances like these create new normals out of old normals that no longer worked.

There are things that go on now most people take for granted that may be looked out in horror by future generations.  Even though wars haven’t really been fought between developed nations since World War II, I can imagine a future where people will look back at their ancestors and wonder how we justified ourselves in fighting wars and proxy wars that went on for years.  Perhaps committing any kind of violence against other people will someday be viewed with the same horror we in 2016 view slavery, inquisitions, and wars of territory expansion.  I can hope, can’t I?  Perhaps in future years it will seem absurd for people to hate others based on their political views.  I can only hope so, otherwise I am forever condemned having to listen to people bicker back on forth about political beliefs on Facebook and Youtube when all I really want to do is chat with a few friends and watch a few videos.  I hope our obsession and splitting hairs over political beliefs will someday seem as absurd as Catholics and Protestants fighting during the Renaissance is to our 21st century sensibilities.  Besides it’s not like politicians ever invented any labor saving devices, cured any deadly diseases, did any serious scientific research, or thought up better and less cruel ways of living.  At most, they provided some funding and got out of the scientists and engineers ways.  Many of the most influential and beneficial people who made a difference in history never held a public office, won a battle, or sat on a throne.  Remember that the next time you take your political beliefs seriously.

Less dogmatic and hateful attitudes about political beliefs would be nice.  What would be even nicer is less stigma and discrimination against those with mental health issues.  Seems to me that having mental illness is one of those few things many people don’t feel bad at all about stigmatizing.  It is essentially stigma’s final frontier.  Every week it seems there are crime drama shows where the accused perpetrator is mentally ill or an introverted loner who doesn’t fit in.  It also seems too common someone with a mental illness committing a violent crime gets far more attention than homeless mentally ill people being beaten by cops or gangs of ‘concerned citizens.’  Funding for mental hospitals has been dramatically cut over the years, often leaving the most afflicted to either the street, prison, or dead.  It seems that prisons have become de facto mental health hospitals for a sizable portion of the mentally ill population.  I know that the stats are a few years old in the link.  But I have little reason to believe that the situation for mentally ill individuals in prisons has gotten much better in recent years.  The treatment of seriously mentally ill individuals, at least in my country, is barbaric and insane.  What did you think was going to happen when funding for mental hospitals was cut?  Did you think the problems of the mentally ill would magically vanish once the hospitals were no longer well funded?  Or did you think mentally ill people like myself are making our illnesses up and don’t need help?  There should be no wonder why I was so quick to self commit myself on two separate occasions.  There should be no wonder why I want to change my medications even after a few mini breakdowns.  I don’t want to wind up in prison or dead for the crime of having a psychotic breakdown in front of the wrong person.  You won’t prosecute the handfuls of crooked bankers who triggered the Great Recession but you will throw thousands of mentally ill people in jail because you don’t know what else to do with them?  Way to stay classy. This is certainly one old normal that is in dire need of a quick death and being replaced by a new normal of more understanding, compassion, and better treatments.  And yes, we can find the funding to do this transition if we care enough to do so.

Speaking of practices some currently on the fringes of normal society abhor, maybe even the age old practice of killing animals for food will seem barbaric to future generations.  If lab grown meat gains traction in future years it could.  Don’t be so quick to scoff.  In 1900, who would have thought Henry Ford and his insane motorized carriage would put the draft horse out of business within several years?  Or who would have thought in 1850 that John Rockefeller would find great and numerous uses for a scummy and sludgy nuisance called petroleum?  These two by themselves got rid of old normals and created a new normal.  The internet is a key example of a new normal.  If I was born even fifteen years earlier I would have never been doing this blog.  Who knows what new normals are on their way?  Stay tuned my friends.  Things are going to be getting more interesting than they already are.

Relapses and Lonely Friday Nights

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The last several months haven’t been the most stable for my mental illness.  I had a “small” psychotic relapse yesterday afternoon.  Unfortunately this was at least my fifth breakdown since last summer and the second just in the last six weeks.  Things haven’t been stable and what I’m doing to minimize these relapses is no longer working.  I called my psych doctor and I’m now on the waiting list for an open appointment session.  I think I’m going to probably go back to my old medications.  They worked much better than what I’m on right now.  On the old medications I was on for at least six years I probably had only one or two relapses in an entire year, usually in late August or early September.  And even then the relapses weren’t as vicious as they are now.

I am afraid that changing medications could sink my attempts to lose weight.  I’ve lost over forty pounds in the last two years with these newer medications.  But these relapses are getting too frequent.  And even when I’m not relapsing I am more paranoid, more easily irritated, and more delusional than I have been in previous years.  One of my delusions now is that most people are stupid and malicious.  I’ve even gotten to where I don’t socialize in person unless it’s absolutely necessary.  But there’s only so much youtube, online articles, and computer games even a mentally ill man can do before such things become detrimental and unhealthy.

I can tell other aspects of my life are suffering.  I haven’t shaved in weeks and I don’t grow good beards.  I also haven’t showered every day like I normally do.  I haven’t been doing laundry as often as I should.  Things like my personal habits have been slowly deteriorating for the last few months.  I haven’t even gone to the park for over a week.  I normally go to the park three to four times per week.  Driving has become an irritable chore.  I drive so little now I usually go three weeks between refuels.  It’s been this way since mid October.  Besides a few snowstorms and one major blizzard, we didn’t have a bad winter.  Another delusion I have developed lately is an irrational fear that I’m going to get into another car wreck.  My social life and entertainment activities have been completely curtailed for months now because of the irrational fears that I’ll get into a wreck and that people are stupid and violent.  This is no way to live.  Changes are needed.