Archive for the ‘help’ Category

so. this is a post about my current medication situation.

in other words, feel free to close the browser if you have nothing helpful or insightful to contribute.

here is what i love about the blogging world: readers and commenters have passionate opinions and are willing to share them in an open environment.

here’s is what i don’t love about the blogging world: readers and commenters have passionate opinions and are willing to share them in an open environment.

within the blogging world there is a sizable community of those who struggle/battle/are challenged with some form of anxiety. there are millions of theories as to why this is… however, that’s not what this post is about.

this post is about my current medication situation with regards to my general anxiety disorder and acute panic attacks.

again, feel free to close your browser. no hard feelings.

months ago, i wrote this post about having the baby bug. a couple of months after that, i wrote this post about having my IUD removed to get the party started on magoo 2.0. and then last month came, and i wrote this post about my baby bug being squashed.

paul and i have discussed trying for another baby this fall. DISCUSSED. i take this very seriously for a number of reasons… we have a lot to consider in terms of paul’s work and timing when it comes to expanding our family. that’s a biggie. we have a lot to consider in terms of jackson’s needs as a 2 and a half year old little boy who STARTS SCHOOL next month.

holy shit.

as for me, i have a lot to consider in terms of my mental health and well-being. anxiety disorder has always played a significant role in my life. i am medicated for it. there is a combination of drugs that work to keep the chemicals in my brain balanced and my panic attacks at bay.

i’m not ashamed of this. it’s not easy to relinquish a sense of control over oneself to a pill, or a combo of pills, but for me it is necessary and i have come to terms with that fact.

in order for magoo 2.0 to be conceived in the most healthy way, i need to be off my meds for the most part.

does this mean i’m going to go bat-shit crazy once i am sufficiently weaned off my medication??? quite possibly.

does this mean i’m going to go bat-shit crazy once i am pregnant??? most likely. hormones are nutso like that.

does this mean i’m not going to be safe in terms of my own mental health and state of mind??? i’m not sure.

so, i’m trying to find out what will potentially work best for me as i wean off my meds and continue to DISCUSS a possible pregnancy in the near future.

i want to be a good mom. we all want to be good parents. i’m not sure what being a “good” mom really means although i have been a mom for over 2 years now… but i know that my goal is to be a good mother.

being a good mom, in my case, means that i also need to be good to myself. i need to take care of myself in order for me to best take care of my child(ren).

i want to do this the “right” way. i want to wean off as much as possible, or change meds that are safe to take while pregnant.

so this is the part that i reluctantly offer to the blogging world… the one where readers and commenters have passionate opinions and are willing to share them in an open environment… yeah, that one.

this is the part where i ask you to share with me… not judge… share.

what have been your experiences in terms of weaning off meds and/or changing them?

how did it affect you?

in terms of anxiety-specific medications, do you have recommendations for me? ones that worked for you while trying to get pregnant or throughout a pregnancy?

**********

thank you. truly. it’s not easy for me to click “publish” for this post. but i do respect this environment and the people in it… and i respect your input.

it should be noted that i am and have been in discussion with doctors regarding this and i’m not solely looking to the internetz to provide me with solutions. (i like you guys and value your opinions… but not THAT much.)

obviously not this guy…

for the last 5 days, each phone conversation that i have had with my husband has begun as such…

“hey,” i say. jackson screeching in the background as my mom and dad whisk him away so i can focus.

((((long pause))))

“i still don’t know anything,” are the first words out of his mouth.

and those 5 words NEED to be said immediately after i have answered the phone in order for him and i to attempt to carry on any sort of “normal” conversation beyond the not knowing… beyond the obvious ugly.

once that has been established, some questions are asked from my end… questions that i cannot share here but wish i could.

he and i attempt to discuss other things. talk about jackson. ask about our families.

we continue to duck and run, bob and weave, dodging what we dread so very much… being separated for a VERY long time, with him being called away to a place that keeps me awake with nightmares in the earliest hours of the morning.

i have these conversations with myself during those wee hours of the morning when i wake up startled and scared.

**********

we dodged the bullet this morning. he was not chosen to leave at this moment in time.

i’m grateful. i’m relieved. i’m breathing at a steady pace.

but i’m still frightened.

this looming THING that we have been spared from for the second time in just a couple of months still looms.

it arrives with full force, announcing its presence with a thunderous roar.

and you wait.

and wait.

you duck. cower. look left and right. weigh your options.

you bob and weave.

and then what was this all-consuming THING vanishes in an instant. as quickly as the snap of a finger. and you are told that you are spared.

today we were spared.

but someone else was not.

someone with a family. someone’s husband. someone’s daddy. someone’s brother. someone’s son.

and so it goes…

**********

THANK YOU from the depths of my soul for all of the encouragement and support you have provided me with since my last post that i was not even given the ok to publish until yesterday. i have the greatest readers on the face of the planet. you are all gold, and i hope you know that i truly am grateful for each one of you. you allow me to be me in my space. accepting me at face value. and at the end of the day, that’s all i could possibly ask for.

head: it’s ok. we don’t know anything for sure. no need to panic.

heart: FUCK!!! WE DON’T KNOW ANYTHING?!?! PANIC-MODE. CODE RED. ABORT. PANIC. PANIC. CAN’T. BREATHE.

head: we’ve been through this before. keep positive thoughts. meditate… go do yoga… channel your inner strength.

heart: GODDAMMIT NOT AGAIN. HOW MANY TIMES CAN ONE DODGE A BULLET?!?!

head: we have a strong support system. we’ve been through worse. much worse. and somehow we’ve come out of that with a bit of sanity left.

heart: SUPPORT?!?! THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SUPPORT MY SANITY RIGHT NOW IS XANAX (and trader joe’s dark chocolate pretzel bark… ok and wine.) I CAN’T DO THIS. IF THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS, LIKE REALLY HAPPENS, I’M NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO TAKE IT. I’M NOT STRONG ENOUGH.

head: we’re not alone in this. people do this every day. things will be fine. families have been dealing with this for years. we’ll be ok.

heart: WE ARE ALONE. ENTIRELY ALONE. NO ONE “GETS IT.” THIS IS NOT OK. AND THERE’S NO END IN SIGHT. THIS JUST WILL NOT END. THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN AND AGAIN AND FUCKING AGAIN.

head: it’ll be ok… just repeat that to yourself. it’ll be ok… it’ll be ok. breathe in… breathe out… it’ll be ok.

heart: THIS IS NOT OK. WHERE’S MY DAMN PAPER BAG?!??! I CAN’T BREATHE.

head: there’s nothing you can do anyways. you have no control over this. what happens is going to happen for a reason. you may not understand the reason, but you have to trust. it’s not doing you or anyone else any good to dwell on it.

heart: THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO. NO. THING. I’M HELPLESS.

head: we’ve known this was a possibility. this has always been a possibility. this will continue to be a possibility until he’s out. we are no more safe from this situation than anyone else.

heart: I WANT TO BE SELFISH. THIS IS MY FAMILY. OUR LIVES. THE POSSIBILITY IS FUCKING WITH OUR LIVES. IT’S HERE… ON OUR DOORSTEP AND REPEATEDLY RINGING THE BELL. I DON’T WANT TO OPEN THE DOOR. LOCK IT. BARRICADE IT. KEEP US TOGETHER. INSIDE. SAFE. TOGETHER.

head: i need to be strong for jackson. i need to be strong for our family. rock = me.

heart: I’M TIRED. I’M SCARED. I’M FALLING.

**********

i’m not in a good place right now, obviously. please keep my family in your thoughts or prayers (if you are of the praying kind… right now, i can’t figure out if i am or not.) more than anything, please hope that things going on in and around our world improve… a lot of people need a lot of things to improve… more than just me and my family.

i considered vlogging this post for a split second and then the amount of kleenex i have gone through since returning from the dominican back to the land of endless pollen got the better of me.

trust me, you’re better off this way too.

that being said, yes, i am back. and i appreciate those of you who have emailed, tweeted and sent me love on facebook wondering why i have only posted once since coming home from vacay.

no, i have not been on the toilet, shitting endlessly on my home throne.

my site was hacked.

hacked.

i don’t even know what that means entirely, but it’s not pretty.

nor is the pollen count here in maryland.

*ACHOO*

so i guess what i’m trying to say is that i am here, on twitter, gchatting, skyping and whatnot. i’m still writing posts (actually with pen and paper. IMAGINE THAT!!!) and once my blog has a functioning heartbeat again and comes out of surgery, i will get back to my regular posting.

until then, this precious place of mine is in the brilliant and trusted hands of @PrincessJenn who is busily fixing, debugging, saving my posts, figuring out messed up databasing, and prettyfying my blog.

if you scope things out around here and start thinking “when did nic begin writing in tongues?” don’t worry too much. things are going to look a little different, be a little different and better in time.

thanks for sticking with me, dear ones.

i’m here. i’m back. i promise.

i’ve just been hacked.

no biggie… it’s not like i’ve shared every moment of my son’s life on here, or anything astoundingly personal.

jenn’s got my back… and my blog.

send good vibes puhlease.

ok, i’m going to find more kleenex, take more tablespoons of honey, make some tea and search for eye drops in the hopes that i don’t continue looking like i’m high as a kite on allergy medicine.

be glad i didn’t vlog this post. be very glad.

pollen sucks.

so does being hacked.

*WARNING* this it a nonstop stream of consciousness post… it will most likely make no sense to any of you unless you are currently a resident of the maryland/dc area.

i’ve heard of cabin fever before. i think there are a few movies out there about it. i dunno, i’m too lazy to even google it with the exception of the wikipedia definition. regardless, i’m on the brink of madness. like beyond medicinal help madness.

if i take one more picture of snow, snow banks, igloos, snow on branches, my kid discovering mass amounts of snow, or my car that was buried underneath the snow, i’m going to vomit all over the snow until the snow is no longer even recognizable as being snow… just my vomit.

i lived in chicago. twice. once when i was too small to really remember it, and then again when i was in middle school and absolutely awesome listening to green day (before they went all broadway) and wearing my flannel shirts and thinking it was the end of the world when kurt cobain died.

no, the end of the world is now. here. in maryland. and our 6 ft under consists of freezing cold snow with a sheet of ice over it because it went down to 6 degrees last night and we can feel the wind blow through the windows of our cheap ass gov’t base housing apartment.

and whatever to you canadian blogging friends of mine who are sitting there, in your homes, reading this with your mug of coffee and baileys, ready to take on another day of isolation and insanity covered in down coats, scarves, mittens, toboggans, or toques (i think that’s what you call them.)

go ahead, laugh at me. i’m well aware that i’m being a whiny little bitch about this, but dammit it’s my blog and i’ll post what i want to. and if you give me too much shit about complaining, i will throw a snow ball at you that cuts your face because it’s been frozen for the last 4 days and basically only now consists of ice.

IN. YOUR. FACE.

i’m sick of this snow. i just want to know when it will end. instead of knowing when it will end, i know when the next fucking storm is coming… today. this afternoon. and into tomorrow… 16-20 inches, in addition to the 30 + that currently resides on my car.

the sky is ugly. grey. unforgiving. filling to the brim with precipitation that will shortly freeze and then unleash its fury on us once again.

so yeah, i’m losing it. entirely. there are only a certain amount of hiding spaces in this apartment and i have spent time in each of them. i have hidden in the closet in an attempt to escape my family. (i love you guys, but we’ve spent enough time cooped up together.) and i’ve spent too long in the bathroom, hoping that paul and jackson just think i’m taking a dump when in reality i’m taking an extra 10 minutes to gain some composure, finish reading a book, or trying to not claw my eyes out.

i’ve even gone up to the attic. the storage space that is the 4th floor of our building. i went up there to get a book for paul the other night. ha!!! i knew exactly where the book was… with all of my other text books, old anthologies, college and grad school materials that i think to myself “someday i may need that.” yet i spent 25 minutes up in the storage space looking at all that was there… maternity clothes, jackson’s toys that he has outgrown, patio furniture that we obviously have no use for here. and i took my sweet ass time before rejoining my family with my wack-a-doo-ness.

and then there are the rest of the occupants of our apartment building that we have to deal with. and their children who are basically on summer vacation but in winter because they get so many goddamn snow days. and they are home and loud and dragging their sleds, saucers, and snow gear up and down and up and down and up and down the stairwell. and then there’s the one kid… THE ONE KID who is a total dipshit smart and funny and throws his frozen, wet snow boots up two flights in the stairwell, run upstairs to retrieve them, and then throw them back down to the bottom floor. he does this repeatedly.

perhaps that is how he is coping with cabin fever. it’s pretty damn annoying though. he needs another outlet. one that doesn’t disturb my child from napping. because when my child does not nap, it makes these crappy days that much more craptastic.

i like mother nature. truly, i do. jackson is an earth day birthday baby, born on april 22nd, and i am a taurus, earthy and whatnot.

but mother nature is being a bitch. an angry and evil bitch. and i kinda wanna punch her in the vag.

my parents gave us an espresso machine for christmas, which is VERY APPRECIATED as it was MUCH NEEDED in our household. the problem is that paul is classically trained in the operation of the espresso machine (because he read the manual) and i am not (because i don’t read instructions… ever.)

i just attempted to make my first mocha with a double shot of espresso. and i failed. kind of. what i am now drinking does contain chocolate syrup and two + shots of espresso because i overflowed, so i will most likely have the caffeine jitters by the time i hit “publish” on this post.

i should’ve just gotten in the car and gone to starbucks.

though i have what i would call a distinct NEED for coffee (paul would most likely call it an obsession), i am in particular NEED of caffeine to run through my veins at this distinct moment on this distinct monday for the following reasons…

- the weekend didn’t work out as we had intended. originally, paul and i were going to go away and ski for the weekend. i bailed. why? because i didn’t want to pack yet another suitcase. i’ve been living out of suitcases since november and the thought of packing another one and prepping just for a short weekend getaway gave me a panic attack and made me consider cutting my wrists (the incorrect way, don’t worry.)

- instead of going to bed early on friday night to catch up on the sleep that i have not been getting over the last 2 months, i stayed up til 1 am with my husband, drinking beer and watching conan’s last show. paul and i took a trip to nyc a few years ago and stood in line to be audience members in one of conan’s shows, but we honestly weren’t HUGE conan fans. yeah, what NBC is doing is totally dick and jay leno is a douche, but we knew that already.

- the magoo ended up spewing liquid out of both ends of his body because he was fed expired hummus (the individual who fed said expired hummus to the magoo shall remain nameless.) needless to say, this made things very NOT fun for saturday evening and into sunday. multiple loads of puke and diarrhea laundry is not my idea of a good time. in addition to the extra laundry, a horrendous diaper rash now festers on my son’s bum.

- i’ve been contacted with regards to a potentially STABLE freelancing gig as a blogger, and i’m sweating bullets over it because it could be ABSOLUTELY AWESOME. those of you who blog, freelance, or just dream of “working” while sitting on your couch, not wearing a bra and drinking a crappy mocha know what i mean. i can say no more about this potential opportunity because my palms are already dripping with sweat and i don’t want to short-circuit my keyboard. also, i could jinx it.

- i’m in the midst of my anxiety meds being adjusted, which is never an easy experience. regardless of what you may take medication for, adjusting any bit of it, whether it’s the dosage or switching to an entirely different drug, is so hard to do. this is why they call it “chemistry” and why i came THIS CLOSE to failing it in high school. every teeny milligram, even part of a milligram of the medication needs to be JUST RIGHT in order for it to balance out what is currently imbalanced in mah head. this process, when it works, can take up to weeks to see “improvement.” it’s not a fun process for me or for those around me, cuz they never know when i’m goina go all wack-a-doo on their asses… or just not be able to get out of bed.

- on a similar note, i’m getting to spend countless hours each day finding a shrink who takes my insurance. currently there are none within a 60 mile radius of where we live. that’s the bad news. the good news is that my family practitioner (who i saw last week) is helping me as much as possible to use her resources to find me someone to purge my shit on.

- this maryland weather is so messed up and it’s messing with mah head. i need to see the sun. i NEED to. it can be cold as hell out (well, hell supposedly isn’t cold… i’ll report back once i learn for sure) point being, as long as i can see sunshine, i’m good. lately, if the sun peaks out here, it lasts for about 25 minutes and then it’s gone for 25 days. not so good.

- the magoo bed/crib situation is still sucking. this of course is unless paul is home, and then all is well with the world. the magoo sleeps 2 + hours, wakes up happy as a clam, and doesn’t make me absolutely distain toddlerville. when paul is not home, we have what i now refer to as the magoo-monster. this does NOT make for good nap times, which does NOT make for fun afternoons and makes me absolutely loathe toddlerville and all that comes with it. the magoo-monster is manipulating and playing the favorite parent game.

so those are my reasons for needing an abundance of caffeine. i have now consumed 85% of my mocha and all i have left is chocolate syrup.

just hook me up to an IV next time.