I Survived...

Well, I survived my first visit with the loony doctor. I was fine all morning, and did really well for the first 10 minutes or so. No anxiety attacks, no hysterical crying...

We talk about my hysterectomy. We talk about my family history. We talk about my issues with food. We talk about things that I've done during my "manic" periods. I did REALLY well until he asked me, "How do you see your life in the future?" Not a hard question... But I LOST IT! I know how I want my life to be, but I basically see myself alone and miserable for the rest of my life. I started bawling like a baby.

Source

Then he asks me, "Do you feel like life is worth living?" (DO YOU NOT SEE ME BAWLING HERE?!?) I take his question to mean, "Are you suicidal?" and my answer was, "Well, I'm not suicidal or anything." But he says, "That's not what I asked." I'd never thought about that before. I sat there for a minute and realized that it really just depended on whether I was on an high or not. When I'm on a high, I think I change the world with my smile and scathing wit. I can do anything I want. But most days, I kind of feel like "what's the point?" I eat, I sleep, I pay bills. Whoop-dee-do!

After going over a rundown of all of my history, he said I definitely sound like I have bipolar tendencies. Definitely severe depression and anxiety issues. He's changing my medications all up. He wants to get me on a broader range of medications to try to help with the depression, anxiety, mood swings, and my manic episodes. He wants to concentrate on the depression and anxiety first because that seems to be giving me the most problems right now. And lucky me! I get to start seeing him once a week until we get the medications regulated.

He also said that he's changing things up from what I'm already on quite a bit, so there's really no telling how I'm going to react until I've been on them for a couple of weeks. If I'm more loony than usual, just tell me so I can tell him. And THEN (lucky me again!), he's going to see about getting me on a mood stabilizer if I keep having the manic episodes. Hopefully I won't need it. But heck, I'll take ANYTHING if I start feeling like a real person again!

So... I braved the unknown. I bawled in front of someone and the world didn't come to an end. Then I came back to work and made Delma cry because I was still weepy. I'm sure they all appreciated that. But at least now I know that I can talk to a shrink and it won't kill me.