Grad School Finals Week and my 30th birthday

Dear public, online diary,

today I woke up and realized I am about to turn 30 this week. I woke up and thought, "why am I still in school? Why have I only had cashier and customer service jobs? Why am I still living with my family? Why aren't I married?" I guess I had an early mid-life crisis this morning.

Here is the answer to most of the questions above: I have a major mental illness and it is very difficult to get the medication to treat my symptoms. My mental illness froze my progress. I spent so many weeks lying in bed, in a catatonic depression. I spent more weeks huddled in the kitchen, in my "safe spot" by the fridge, hearing voices and trying to breathe through my fear.

I parted ways with my former outpatient treatment center. I am now back with the county's main outpatient center. My former treatment center released me because I have had no major symptoms the past 2-3 years and they are intended for people who are fairly non-functional. Now, I am with the more lax system that treats people who are not on the verge of total self-destruction. It is less "intensive" as my former therapist put it. Sadly, it is also more apathetic. If I miss an appointment I have to wait another 3 months to see a doctor, without medication. Thankfully, I have a cell phone app to remind me what my schedule is like.

Thirty years old and I still feel like that 18 year old girl starting college for the first time. One year later, at age 19, I became floridly psychotic, my life spiraled up and down, jobs came and went, I dropped out of school, then returned again, and now here I am, 30, with my head kind of screwed on straight and about 35 years left for working full-time.

It is finals week. For me, that means a last ditch effort to get a C in my math and programming classes. I started so promising, but then I slipped into a depression and started sleeping through the night and half the day, missing my classes and falling behind. Still, I have hope that I will not crumble into another depression. My new doctor at the county is putting me on Prozac and taking me off Zoloft. I told him I had totally built up a tolerance to the Zoloft the past half a decade and he agreed it had lost its efficacy. I am being weaned off Zoloft this week, taking half my dose with the other half being Prozac. I have felt a difference in that I am awake before noon. That is usually the sign that my depression is receding. Luckily, I saw my doctor before finals week, so I have been patched up the past few weeks and now I am prepared to study hard, study long, and write programs like my life depends on it.

My graduate program is going well and I'm 90% finished with my graduate class term papers. I just need to pass my elective classes, which have nothing to do with my field, but I am enrolled in them and the grades still count on my GPA. After next week, I will be done with finals. I will be thirty years old. I will be healthy for a solid 4 years.A toast to you, dear reader! A toast to you and to good mental health and a strong GPA!!

Depression Despite 200 mg of Zoloft

I have been in a depressive state since the end of spring break back in March.

When I get depressed I sleep excessively. I have been known to sleep for 10-12 hours when I am depressed. It's not exactly laziness. I just cannot get out of bed. I feel fatigue, lethargy, and emotionally exhausted when I do roll out of bed. I often wake up at 6 in the morning, make an effort to brew some coffee, but I somehow find my way back under the covers of my bed. I then black out until around 10 or 11 am. It is ridiculous.

I am taking a mood stabilizer twice a day and 200 mg of Zoloft once a day. I have been on that dose of Zoloft for about 4 years now. I think my brain has built up a tolerance to that drug and it now barely makes a dent. Still, if I were to suddenly go off of it, I would go into a depressive withdrawal. People generally don't think that anti-depressants can cause withdrawal, but it does. The withdrawal isn't as bad as barbiturates or hard-core drugs, but there are major mood disruptions caused when you go off of anti-depressants.

Right now, I am restless and feeling low and pretty crummy. I tend to escape into cyber-space and miss class when I go into severe depression. I have been managing to to make it to class lately but I am so behind in my programming class I intentionally skipped the lab class because I fear being scolded by my professor (she would totally tell me I don't understand the data structure chapter because I haven't come to class). When I am in a depressive state I get really sensitive about comments and body language. I always feel like I am not doing good enough, that I am a failure, that people think I'm wasting their time.

I have to enact my WRAP plan. That is short for "wellness recovery action plan," which was invented by mental health counselors to get patients from relapsing into severe mental illness. Basically, it's a booklet you create outlining warning signs that indicate you are going into a period of mental illness. Accompanying this list is a set of actions and thoughts that help you re-ground yourself so you don't go into a downward spiral. I have a WRAP plan for mania and paranoia but I totally neglected to make one for depression.

I will give you an example of my WRAP plan for mania

> I get insomnia when I feel manic // --> Go to bed even earlier and just lie there instead of surfing the web until I feel sleepy.
> I start thinking that people know I'm nuts // --> Remember that the constitution protects me from discrimination based on mental disability. Write a list of arguments for and against proof that people know I'm nuts.
> I can't concentrate to do my homework // ---> go to the library, get a private study room where there is no noise and distractions, and work for as long as I can. Leave. Walk around for an hour. Come back, study.

This works pretty well for me. I cannot believe I forgot to make one for depression! I think I will do that today. Then off to the library to lock myself in a room to study programming.

I feel sad. Today is 4/20. That is national marijuana day (not a federally sanctioned holiday, but still). I cannot smoke marijuana because I am broke and also because I live with family who do not allow marijuana in their house. I have been clean 90% of the time for at least 3 years. I tend to go back to smoking pot every summer for a month or so, but I really feel that pot would be beneficial to my major depression right now. Yes, you can disagree with me. You have the right to think that pot should be illegal (it's not in California due to majority vote, but federally it's a shady area), but I have the right to disagree and yearn for the plant.

Sigh**

Making The Jump: One Foot Outta the Closet

Classes at the University begin this month and I finally did what I've been mulling about for the last two months: I requested to join the United Student Pride club, an LGBT club for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered, and transsexuals.

I knew eventually I'd have to own up to my physical and emotional attraction to females, I just postponed it by, oh, about 15 years. I've known since I was 13, when I was sleeping over at my best friend's house and I woke up aroused beside her. I looked at her and realized I wanted to caress her face and run my hand up her thigh and cradle her breasts in my hand. It was such a strong impulse I leaped out of bed and run around the house like a hyper cat. I suddenly felt free, real, sincere, eager, and scared. That was the first time I fell in love. Nothing came of it, we got into fights and we stopped talking. Then, men began to show a pushy interest in me and I let myself get pushed into relationship after relationship with men I was not attracted to. I had always watched the gay pride movement out of the corner of my eye, letting others do the hard work, while I hid in my bedroom masturbating to the pretty busty women of Swank films, and wishing I had the nerve to admit what I was.

I think if I had come out sooner I would have found a female lover by now, somebody that I really mesh well with. I also think I would have a greater sense of self and self-respect, since I would have been fighting for equality alongside my peers. I will always regret not coming out sooner, but the years flew by and I can't do anything about those years anymore.

Last month I attended the funeral of my 24 year old cousin who committed suicide June 25th. I miss him terribly but I vow not to let his life go out in vain. I will do what I must to prove that life is worth living. I will be true to myself and to others and not live a life of secrets, regrets, and shame.

Coming out to my University is just the first step. I also have to be honest about being a shizo-affective, a person who suffers from the biological disease of paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Previously, I hid it from everybody but the people I already knew had a similar diagnosis. I can no longer pretend to be what I wanted to be: a straight girl with a"normal" mind. I have to be honest with others, even if that means losing some of them in the process.

And no, being crazy doesn't have anything to do with being a bisexual. I just got a colorful combination of genes when I was conceived.

Now I fit into nearly every minority out there: a Mexican-East Indian American mixed race, bisexual, schizo-affective, female from a low socio-economic area. The US consensus takers must be really frustrated with me, trying to pin down all the labels that apply!

Just writing this makes me feel less remorseful for my life of secrets.