Past the half way point

Tomorrow will be treatment #9. People usually feel different and a little better after treatment 3... I feel worse now than when I started all this . I sleep all day, I say mean things, I don't eat. I still want to curl up and die somewhere. 

And now I get a call from the hospital finance department wanting me to settle my account - after I was assured at intake I could break up the copay/coinsurance over a year. My part of the cost is $1200 and change or so. Seeing as how I had to quit my job to do this treatment, I don't have any income coming in, and there is some issue with my unemployment money that I need to call about. So, there goes my trip to Georgia horseback riding. I just don't have the money.

Seems like everything is about money these days. Katie blowing all her money on a shiny new car that she can't afford, Ernie working all these hours at the night club to earn extra money. Thing is - he doesn't need the extra money per se - he buys expensive watches, Universal Studios annual passes etc. I would rather have him home.

So, I'm scared. Dead scared. ECT is NOT working for me. Elodia, the head nurse, said sometimes it takes til the 11th or 12th treatment to show effects, that it is cumulative. I pray that that is the case with me. Because otherwise, I don't know what I will do. I can't handle being this sad all the time.

I described it to Ernie and my mom this morning as if my soul was dying, but my body was staying alive. My body was this hollow, empty vessel, with no light, no life, no soul inside of it to give it purpose. I think this is because I am (and don't laugh) a giving person. I love helping people. I volunteer, I adopted kids, I am always one of the first people to help a friend out moving or with a ride. I think I gave parts of my soul to people, and these people mistreated them, crushed them, shit on them. And now.....I just don't have the energy to give anymore. I'm too scared.

The only people who have been there my whole life and continue to be there are my parents. I know it hasn't been easy for them, but they haven't wavered.

But my ex-husband, Damian, my daughter Marina, and now my daughter Katya..... all betrayed me. All took that piece of soul I invested in them and stomped on it.

I don't think I will ever trust easily again. Unfortunately, Ernie will suffer from this. I demand a lot now, and he just isn't willing to give. So, we will both likely end up alone.

I just hope this job interview on July 01 works out. I need to prepare and read and just be the best I can for the interview. Maybe then, life will begin to even out.

Birthday ECT

So, this is becoming somewhat of a routine. Get up early, drive with my dad to the ECT clinic, go through the ECT process, then wait outside for my uncle to pick me up on his way home from work. I was getting ECT #6 on my birthday. People keep asking "are you feeling any better? noticing any difference?" - and I'm like ....I don't really know. I do feel different, but I don't know if it's "better" per se. I'm more agitated, more manic. I got really angry a few nights ago and went and broke some stuff at Ernie's house and packed up some of my stuff. I just have this belief that if I am putting myself through all this to be healthier, better....why should I put myself back into situations that were unhealthy for me in the first place? Why should I be trying so hard when no one around me is trying? My parents have been amazing! I have seen a complete change in them, it's like they finally get it. But meanwhile my "good" daughter continues to ignore the family, disrespect us, and throw away everything we have done for her. She is acting like a spoiled entitled selfish bitch. My grandmother says she needs a good swift kick in the ass, and even my mother who generally sees the good in everyone says she is acting like a stuck up rotten bitch - what was more surprising was that my mom said she always saw my daughter this way - and was surprised it took her this long to act on it. The "Princessa" purse dog, the blingy clothes and heels, new purses every week, being very superficial about her makeup and hair. I had hoped she would grow out of this, not that it would get worse. And then my boyfriend - he is wonderful. My parents love him. He is one of only two people I have ever dated that my parents truly think is a good person - the other one was NOT my ex husband no surprise, but my still to this day best friend Del. The problem is my boyfriend has been on his own for so long, he doesn't know how to change. I want him to start seeing a doctor on a regular basis, cut back on his drinking, and spend more nights at home. He blows me off and flat out ignores my concerns. So, am I doing better? I feel different. I feel dizzy, confused, I'm not hungry much anymore. I have headaches. And then I'm dealing with these issues above. Also, I'm unemployed while I'm in the hospital. That's stressful in itself. I have some savings in the bank, but not enough to last forever. My daughter's stunt left me with some unexpected bills to pay on top of this. I should be able to find work again, doing something menial and meaningless after treatment, but again, what would be the point of bettering myself, only to go back to the same meaningless job? Now to find a psychiatrist who can write my scripts and do therapy after the ECT is done. Despite reading that you were supposed to stop meds while doing ECT, you do not stop all of them - only the ones that would interfere with the seizure, like lamictal or clonapin. Everything else you keep taking. I guess maybe after the ECT is all done, the doctors can decide to reduce your meds, continue them, change them, or stop them all together - there is no one single outcome. And most likely I will have to do maintenance ECT treatments once a month for a year, just to make it "stick." But so far after 7 sessions, I do feel different......I think it's still in flux, better some moments, more agitated other moments. I'm not as depressed and that's for sure. :)

Back to Unilateral

So, I went in to the treatment area this morning and wouldn't let anyone touch me before I made sure I let it be known I was pissed. I explained that I was unhappy with how the treatment went on Friday. That I had expected to be given more warning and more say before being switched to bilateral ECT, which has far more side effects than unilateral ECT.

I expected more of a clinical interview than a single question of "so are you feeling less depressed after your first 3 treatments? no? ok - switch her to bilateralll.......... "as the sedative is being pushed into my veins.

Needless to say I am back on unilateral and feeling better. The head nurse did point out I was a bit manic. But as any bipolar person will tell you, manic is good, manic is happy, productive time.

I do need to find a therapist and a person to write for my meds. I had hoped that would be Del's doctor, but they don't take my insurance sadly. That kinda pisses me off. If Del trusts her, than I'm sure she is amazing. And she does it all - meds, therapy, etc. No need for a handful of docs anymore.

My only issue is going to be balancing a job with therapy - once this is over, and I go to maintenance therapy, and regular talk therapy, how do I get time off from whatever new job I get? I won't qualify for FMLA.

I guess I  take it one step at a time, try to go to the beach soon, make the plans to go to Georgia to visit my friend Jenny in the mountains, and start focusing on me. Katie has made it clear she doesn't care about me or the family anymore, so she can shove off. I'm done putting my life on hold to help her. Done trying to do nice things for her. I'm starting to regret adopting either of them.

First third of treatments done, first bilateral

Treatments 2 and 3 went fine. Same basic musical chairs routine - various nurses "stickering" us up with electrodes, taking vitals, and getting IVs started, then rotating us in and out of the treatment room.

I've been a mess - sleeping the entire day from the anesthesia, sore, confused.

And yet still my daughter is set on being an ass. Still insisting on keeping this car, still ignoring family, still taking off all night - I did find out she has been staying over at some new boys house - who she says she just met AFTER she bought the car, and who she says she isn't sleeping with. Right.

Either way, this is the epitome of self centeredness - her mom is undergoing a serious set of treatments, and she is more concerned about having a pretty car.

My "boyfriend" is also too wrapped up in his own little world - God forbid he take a night off from the night club, his second job, to spend time with me. He is supposed to have 2 nights off each week - he never does. And he drinks excessively each of those nights.

My family here though has been great. My dad, mom, uncle, grandmother. Another family complication is that we are going to have to put my 14 year old dog down. He has been coughing for months now, and the doctor said yesterday there is nothing they can do for him.

Right now, I'm just feeling confused and overwhelmed. The switched me from right unilateral to bilateral today - bilateral is more extreme, and more commonly associated with the memory loss. I think after today I am going to refuse bilateral. Apparently I had to be re-sedated after I woke up initially because I was ""agitated""  and combative. I remember being scared out of my mind, not knowing who I was or where I was. I have felt nauseous all day. And my head hurts worse than normal.

On top of all this, I find out that the psychiatrist I was recommended to go to doesn't accept my insurance. I was looking forward to having a real psychiatrist and therapist in one who was recommended by someone I trust dearly. He is going to try and get a referral to someone from her.

So at least I have two days off. I feel like ass. I don't feel any better. The ECT doctor wants me to go back on the lithium - even though the other doctor took me off. I thought the whole purpose of ECT was to get people off all the meds.  If not, then what is the purpose of all this?

Treatment 1

So I woke up, got dressed, peed as much as I could and got in the car with my dad at 5am. Chatted on the way there a bit - only took 15 minutes to get there since the highways were empty. We walk into the lobby of the clinic - already full of people , only to be quickly ushered into the back without having time to say goodbye to my dad.

I ask one of the nurses to go tell my dad what is going on please. I'm assigned to a stretcher in a large L shaped room, with curtains between each bed. And I wait. People come and go, putting charts under my mattress, taking my vital signs, putting electrodes on my head - one behind each ear, two on my forehead - and EKG electrodes to monitor my heart on my chest and arm. Even a thermometer sticker to keep track of my temperature on my forehead. I must look like a Borg at this point. Someone comes around and hooks up all the wires to the electrodes. Then comes the woman in the pink overalls - no not hallucinating - to set up my IV.

I have good veins. Never had any issue getting blood drawn, donating blood, having IVs put in etc. This woman Tries my arm and I'm screaming, then tries the back of my hand and blows out the vein and I'm bleeding everywhere. Finally I tell her to stop. Let someone else do it. So, covered in bloody cotton and medical tape, I sit and wait.

One by one the people are wheeled into a room at the center of the L - the treatment room. There is room for two beds in there - one undergoing treatment and one in initial recovery. And with the doors opening and closing every few minutes with staff coming and going, I get to see the whole show. I'm thinking "Wow, that's going to be me soon, I'm going to look like that." I go use the bathroom again to be sure my bladder is completely empty - 1 in 10 people pee themselves during the seizure and the nurses offer you depends adult underwear when you get there. I'm like - no thank you, I'll just be sure to really squeeze out that last drop before going in.

So finally it's my turn. They wheel my bed up next to the door marked "Treatment" - and I'm on display before all the other people either waiting treatment or recovering. It's like musical chairs. Beds go in one door, come out the other door marked "Recovery" and go to whatever curtained area is open and over and over.

I get wheeled trough the door - the anesthesiologist introduces herself, so does the doctor who will be administering the ECT. Two nurses are also there. Since pink overalls couldn't get the IV started, the Anesth. doc gets my IV going no problem, and they are talking to me about the procedure - this part is a bit fuzzy now. I remember the Anesth doc saying she was going to give me the medicine now and it would sting a bit. Then blackness.

Then vivid horrid dreams. I don't remember what they were about, but it involved my family.

I wake up bawling crying, and some young man in scrubs is trying to soothe me. Telling me I did good and It's over - I think. It's like film cuts at this point as I wake up - I'm wheeled out to a different curtained area than before, offered orange juice. They take my vitals again, and I'm discharged a few minutes later it seems. I'm walking on my own, I have papers in my hand and I meet my dad back in the lobby. We get in the car just in time to hit rush hour traffic heading back home - just before 8am. My jaw hurt like I just got punched. And I'm coughing alot. The nurses say that's normal and good.

I sleep for a few hours. Then around lunch time my BFF Del comes and picks me up to take me to lunch since I can't drive. He also braves Walmart with me - since in my unmedicated rage the day before ECT I shattered my phone screen and needed to replace my phone. (I'm still using the shattered one - I don't like change).

I had bouts of nausea and lightheadedness in Walmart, even after just eating. Dizziness. My jaw still hurts, but a little less. I'm not confused or having memory problems per se - just more of an unsure feeling. Not sure what I'm doing, why I was mad, etc.

Today I'm more scared than ever. I feel like I was hit by a Mack truck. Every inch of my body hurts. My throat hurts from coughing. Since I can't drive myself and we can't get an answer now about the free shuttle to treatment, we are having to muster every family member in the area to drive me around to the appointments. My dad can get me to all the appointments on his way to work, but I need someone to pick me up and take me home.

More later

Pre-ECT

My life thus far has been pretty shitty. I was an awkward kid with few friends, with bursts of anger, violence and crying."It's a phase, she'll grow out of it" they said. But I didn't. It only got worse. Harder to hide, harder to keep in control. In high school I was bullied. In college I had fits of rage, tried to hurt people, broke things. Finally in grad school I went to the campus clinic and saw a psychiatrist who put me on medication for the first time. That first week was euphoric. It was like floating on pixie dust. Everything around me was slower, a little blurry and had a golden dusty halo. Things went on like this for awhile. When one medication stopped having an effect they would switch to another, and then another. They would add a second one to "boost" the first one's effects. On and on - I gained weight, lost weight, got nauseous, had headaches. But this is what it took to be "normal" right?

Then I got married to a man who had some medical knowledge. In the end, he turned out to be a narcissist who knew how to manipulate the system. After adopting our two girls from overseas, my life became very stressful, and not in a good way. The girls were broken. One of them very much so. My ex-husband hadn't wanted the girls in the first place, and now it was infringing on his lifestyle. He needed an exit strategy. He was already cheating on me, so why not have me involuntarily hospitalized to get me out of the way for awhile and get some solid documentable dirt on me for when the time came to carry out his exit plan?

Well that's what he did. I was hospitalized, put on more meds, made to feel ashamed. I was told I abused my kids. My kids were brainwashed to believe the same. Then he took off, took the girls, and gave me 30 minutes to get out of the house. I drove to Florida, the only place I could go, crying the whole way, thinking of ways to kill myself. He took the girls not because he wanted them, but because I wasn't working and if we legally split he would be ordered to pay child support. The girls were old enough that he could put up with them for a few years, as long as it protected his bank account. He didn't plan on "parenting" them anyway.

My kids were turned against me, I was living in my old childhood bedroom, with no money and no job. My parents were very supportive, and to their credit they have always tried to be. Their only shortcoming is their lack of understanding and knowledge.

When a family member has seizures, cancer or diabetes, usually family helping care for them learns about the disease, the symptoms etc, to better care for the person. They learn to understand that the sick person is NOT doing this on purpose and it is not personal, and they learn how to properly help the sick person without making them feel worse. Sadly, this has not been the case, though they seem to have been trying. I guess it's just a tough think to "get" if you were always taught to believe mental illness is a choice, not a real illness. That telling me to "stop acting like that" will solve it all. Like I'll just stop and go "ok" and it will be fixed. The brain is an organ like any other organ in the body - like the heart, the lungs, the liver. When it's broken and isn't working properly, there are symptoms and hopefully treatments.

Well, I've been on medications and therapy for 14 years. I'm still having swings, still depressed, still have irritable outbursts of anger. It's not working. I'm miserable. How much of it is situational? I really don't know.

The one true love of my life - a guy from middle school who I reunited with after the divorce for a few months - also had bipolar, went off his meds and cheated on me with a nurse at the hospital he worked at. He got her pregnant and married her. Now I just found out they had a second child in May. So there goes that hope. I don't think I will ever be as happy with any man as I was with him. This is very depressing to me. All I ever wanted was a loving husband and sweet children to dote on. Was I so horrible in a past life that I deserve all this? I now know I will never get him back. That makes me go further into depression. A piece of hope is lost. She is having my babies, she has my husband. She has my home and my life. I've known him since we were 12. I took a saw to the skateboard he bought me yesterday when I found out about baby #2. It was a $200 skateboard. I plan on finally throwing out everything he gave me. I've held on to it in hopes I would run in to him at the beach and he would see me in something he bought for me. Apologize, tell me he only married her because he got her pregnant in an unmedicated stupor.

So here I sit. Parents who think I am some sort of monster who is acting this way on purpose, so hey, let make it worse by letting our own anger get in the way and yell at her and confirm her fears that she is unloved and alone. Then I have a self centered selfish daughter who knows I am going through all this, and know I would do anything to help her get ahead, and HAVE - fixed her high school credits after her dad fucked up her education, got her driver's license, get her first car, helped her get college scholarships, took her on college tours. She decides the perfect moment to pull a selfish childish, but very dangerous stunt is the week before my ECT. She is too impatient and too materialistic to wait until we can work with my dad to get her a better car before fall semester. She starts looking online - we see she is looking at Lexus and Mercedes - we try explaining that those are not realistic goals, and we will help her get a better car. We work on her car for free except parts to ensure she HAS a car to drive. She goes to these shady local dealerships under the high way overpasses, and signs a car loan for $11,000. How she got approved I have no idea. She makes $9 an hour working maybe 24 hours a week at a smoothie shop. So now I have a extreme stress trigger.

Add on top that I am in a "romantic" that relationship that has no romance. His job at a night club comes before me, always. He drinks excessively - even his parents have done interventions with him. I really think he wants to be alone for the rest of his life. All of his friends are married and have kids and houses. He doesn't want to have sex, ever. We go 4-5 months with no sex. And when we do have sex, it's mechanical and has no pleasure at all. I stay because he's predictable and safe. Without him I would be homeless. I stay because I love his parents, and my parents love him. I guess many arranged marriages are like this. I stay because I want to make sure my ungrateful daughter has a stable place to live. I don't know if she understand how ashamed I am that we had to live with my parents, that we lost the apartment when I lost my job. That she can't count on me. Maybe that's the reason for the car fiasco? She doesn't think she can count on me. Maybe it is my fault.

I have another daughter, who I haven't seen in 3 years. I don't even recognize photos of her anymore. She is on drugs, has no job, dropped out of school twice, has an 8th grade education, dating a drug dealer, and has more tattoos and piercings than I do at 35. She is not being parented. My ex and his new wife (wife #5 btw) have completely cut me out, refuse to tell my anything about her, refuse to let me see her and have convinced her I abused and beat her. Now she is convinced that her sister who lives here betrayed her, her only "blood" by living with the "traitor"- me. This daughter is about to turn 18. She is lost to me now I think. Nothing I can ever say or do will ever fix her brain. She needs full time hospitalization for her FAS, RAD, ODD and ADHD. She has been arrested and evaluated, but no one will hold her feet to the fire and make her be accountable. No one will force her to do anything. So they ignore her and let her go off the rails and ruin her life.

I am very grateful for the support I've gotten from my friends from afar. From my middle school BFF Jenny, who unlike anyone in my close family, actually DID RESEARCH AND ASKED REAL SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, about this treatment. My friends Jane, Megan, Kelly, Stephanie, and Dee. I don't know where I would be without you. Probably in a ditch somewhere. The facebook people who many I've never met in person, but through support groups like Adoption PTS, I have been able to hold on to my sanity thus far. The relief to talk to other people who TRULY UNDERSTAND you is so empowering.

And so, I embark on this adventure. Tomorrow at 5:30 am I will enter the hospital for the first of 12 treatments - done MWF all at 5:30 am - over the next few weeks. According to medical journals it has a 80-90 success rate in reducing symptoms so that no more medication is ever needed. My insurance is covering it, thank you God, and thank you Obama for making it possible for me to have healthcare even when I don't have a job and that it is affordable (87 cents a month premium, period). I pray that this will cure me and I will be normal, whatever that is. I know these situations will still be here when I come out of the dark cave into the light as Plato described in his cave allegory, but hopefully I won't have this handicap holding me back from dealing with them in a productive manner.

I hope I can find a job that pays me enough money to get a studio apartment with 3 cats. That I can repair my relationship with my beleaguered parents who in the end have truly stuck with me through all of this, even though most of the time they didn't know what to do. Maybe I can find happiness at last. I will try to get photos of the treatment for the curious, and I will make posts after each treatment, who it felt, side effects, how my symptoms are doing. They will be shorter than this post, but I needed to get this all out there. My situation is not textbook, it is not simple, it is not any one single thing you can point to and say "ah-ha!" that's the problem. So I hope this only informs my family of my progress, without offending them too much, and provides some hope for people out there going through something similar. Blessed be and God Bless.