Yesterday Was Kind Of Rough

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Some people use pill organizers, some people get their medication done in bubble packs at the pharmacy. This is how I organize my medications:

Picture of medications arranged in a small blue box

Keep in mind, we have no kids and our only pets live in an aquarium

Morning stuff is on the right, right side up. Evening is on the left, upside down. In the middle is a little shot glass that I count each into before I take it. When I take my morning medications, I turn the glass right side up, and when I take my nighttime medications, I turn it upside down.

This system works very well because it’s easy to see how much of what I have left at a glance and on the “occasional” day when I end up at the hospital for whatever reason, it’s easy and quick to just dump the whole thing into a bag and take it along.

Two days ago I was feeling kind of off. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but there was something a little wrong. It wasn’t bothering me too much, though, so I didn’t give it much thought. It got a little worse throughout the day but again, could’ve been a cold, could’ve been something I ate or didn’t eat, who knows.

When it was time for me to take my nighttime medications, I found myself a little confused because I looked at the glass and it was upside down. I went back through the previous hour or two as best I could (thinking was definitely not my strong suit at that point) and was almost entirely certain that I hadn’t taken my nighttime medications – I must’ve turned the glass upside down by accident when I’d taken my morning medication.

The following morning (yesterday), I woke up and felt GHASTLY. I was shivering and sweating and no matter how much blanket I wrapped around myself, I couldn’t stop shaking. My brain wasn’t working well, either, and I had a nasty headache and my eyes hurt. After a while of trying to figure out where and how I could have possibly caught covid, I hauled myself out of bed and discovered another thing: my entire body hurt. I have many parts that hurt all the time anyway, but it felt like every cell in my body had tried to do one of those fancy exercise schemes that that only have capital letters and numbers in the name. There were weird little painless but annoying jolts of what could almost be described as electricity bouncing around in my head and back.

I squinted at the bathroom mirror and the face that looked back at me looked pretty rough. Like a version of me from a movie where I’d just woken up after getting completely hammered and starting (and winning, of course) an enormous bar fight. One of those bar fights where people get hit with pool cues and chairs but the band keeps playing. But that’s when I figured out what was going on.

I was in withdrawal.

The glass had been upside down the previous evening not because I’d accidentally turned it that way when I took my morning medications, but because I hadn’t taken my morning medications that day. That explained everything – how I’d felt weirder as the previous day went on, and why it even hurt to pee. Not in the “it burns because you need a round of penicillin” way, but in the “I don’t think I’ve felt my bladder muscles ache before” way. It also explained why I was having trouble rounding up a couple of brain cells to help me put together some sentences so I could communicate with J.

J agreed with my assessment and asked if there was anything she could do. I immediately took my medication (the usual amount) and two PRNs for good measure, then sat on the couch and shivered and sweat under a blanket for a while. My resting heart rate at that point was around 115, and after a little while I decided I’d try to distract myself by working on something until things kicked in and I started feeling better.

I went down to the basement and started to staple some screen onto some scrap wood to make a flat-bottomed bird feeder, but it got harder and harder to both concentrate and do anything. When I realized I was on my knees on the floor with sweat pouring off me while I tried (and failed) to hold a piece of screen still, I gave up. Went back upstairs, talked with J for a couple of minutes, and then went back to bed.

It took me a long time to relax enough to fall asleep but it seems I did at some point. When I woke up, I felt like a brand-new person. No aches aside from the usual ones, no more sweating or shivering, and my brain was back to being able to put simple sentences together.

I’ve read a number of horror stories about people quitting SSRIs and SNRIs cold turkey (often without the approval or supervision of a physician) and based on my experience yesterday, I can only say that I’m VERY lucky to be Dr W’s patient because he is a firm believer in small, gradual reductions.

Stay safe.

Posted in: Anxiety, Depression, OCD, Panic, PTSD, Today

Confidence And Wasps

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It’s hot out today, and what was supposed to be a short trip to fetch something out of the garage turned into a half-hour long sweaty battle between me and a whole bunch of angry wasps.

That’s not normally something I’d mention on this blog, but after the insects finally coordinated and got the upper hand and I fled indoors to cool down in front of the fan, it occurred to me that standing outside and chasing wasps down with a garden hose is something that the old me would have never done before. Never.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been nervous around bees, wasps, hornets, yellowjackets… pretty much anything that has yellow and black stripes on its butt. I’m not allergic – I’ve been stung quite a few times over the years and while it’s annoying (and painful), I’m lucky to not need to worry about being in any mortal danger. But still, they made me nervous.

It took quite a lot of time (and many exasperatedly hissed “QUIT WAVING AROUND” warnings over the years from Dad) but by the time I was in my mid-teens I was finally able to see a bee without running around, windmilling my arms. Most animals don’t bother me, although some of the highest speeds I’ve ever made on foot were whilst running from an angry Canada goose and an angry badger. But wasps… they’re different. I’m not sure why. Could be that I can’t relate to how they think. And there’s never only one of them. With a goose, you know when it’s time to run. Badgers require no thought – just run.

With bees or wasps, though (especially wasps), I often find that I have no idea what I’ve done to rile them up. Yes, I realize I’ve gotten too close to their nest/hive/whatever, but I usually can’t see it, so I don’t know which way to go to fix the problem. Plus, it always seems like there aren’t any around, then I see one on my arm (which makes me nervous), and then it takes off again and joins the swarm that I then notice is buzzing and diving at me.

A year or so after J and I moved into our first house, wasps built a large nest hanging under the deck in the back yard. I set up a little zapper in front of the hole to hopefully take care of the problem, but once they realized the zapper wasn’t friendly, they attacked it in such numbers that the zapper wasn’t zapping them anymore. Next up was one of those wasp killing foam sprays that’s guaranteed to shoot 15 feet or whatever. I soaked that thing down until it was a giant marshmallow, then ran back inside. It killed a bunch of them but once it dried up the wasps were out again and angry as ever. So I asked a neighbour if he’d be interested in working as a team to go at night and take care of the nest permanently. I had one of those white zip-up suits with the hood and goggles and all kinds of stuff so I was prepared.

He said sure, then immediately hopped over the fence wearing nothing but shorts and sandals, grabbed a garbage bag, walked up to the nest, closed the bag around it, and broke if away from the joist it had been attached to. He tied the bag shut and handed it back to me. It had taken him maybe 45 seconds to do the whole thing. I was shocked. Delighted, but shocked.

So… this whole post up until now has been to show you how much of a chicken I am when it comes to bees and wasps and insects like that. Which brings me to today.

A little while ago, I noticed the odd wasp landing on and crawling behind the conduit that holds the power line going into the house. I didn’t think too much of it – something to avoid, and something to keep an eye on. Today, though… I don’t know if it’s how dry it’s been lately, or the heat, but when I went back to the house after picking stuff up in the garage, I noticed steady traffic leaving and arriving at that conduit.

Normally I would’ve gone inside and at least waited until dusk when the wasps tend to be a little calmer, but instead I grabbed the garden hose and started knocking them off the conduit and siding and onto the ground. Oddly, the water didn’t pool on the ground, it was disappearing into a hole on the ground behind the conduit, where many, many other wasps were now crawling out of and flying around, trying to figure out what was going on. I stayed out there, spraying here and there, knocking them out of the air and forcing them into what was becoming a rather large mud puddle at my feet. I turned off the water and waited for some more to group up, then sprayed them again and again. Half an hour later, there were lots of dead and dying wasps all over the place, and the hole in the ground had finally filled up. Unfortunately, there were still lots of wasps in the air, and they’d figured out that the sprayer head was where their problem was coming from so they were attacking it en masse. I figured that it was only a matter of time before they realized there was a squishy, stingable, sweaty pink human at the end of the sprayer, so I carefully put it down and scampered into the house.

Now that I’ve written it out and I’m reading it, it’s not nearly as impressive as it felt at the time, but considering that I wasn’t running around the yard screaming, I think things went pretty well. I hadn’t planned to do any of that but I saw an opportunity and actually took advantage of it. Is it because of all the work I’ve been doing with Dr C and Dr W? I certainly would’ve handled things differently five or ten years ago, and I’m in a place now where I actually care what happens to me. Regardless of the cause, I think it’s a good thing, and I’m seeing other areas in my life where I’m feeling more confident about things, too. More on that later, though – I hadn’t planned to spend an hour writing about how I’d spent the previous half hour…

Stay safe.

Posted in: Anxiety, OCD, Panic, Today

Thoughts On COVID-19 From A Disaster-Planning Catastrophizer With OCD

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I’ve been hemming and hawing over whether I was going to write a post about the current coronavirus/COVID-19 issue, but despite avoiding the news and keeping my nose buried in projects at home, the topic has become impossible to avoid. Turn on the TV, it’s there. Turn on the radio, it’s there. Drive by a grocery store, it’s there. I’m in touch with quite a few of my family and friends on a regular basis, and things are even creeping into our text conversations.

At my last job, one of my jobs was to handle Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity planning for a large IT system that served several thousand people, including some who were responsible for some aspects of public safety. I was really good at it and people from other cities would send their DR/BC plans to me to check and see if I could find something they missed. I ALWAYS found something they missed. Always.

What I didn’t realize was that I’d been letting my OCD and urge to catastrophize run free when doing that planning, and it worked really well until everyone was asking for me to do that all the time and I couldn’t control it and ended up in the psych ward.

Where am I going with this? Well… I’m not a doctor, epidemiologist, or any kind of scientist, but I’m REALLY good at looking at an existing or potential problem and extrapolating to a ridiculous extent to think of the worst thing that could happen. So, you may be a little surprised when I say that the spread of the COVID-19 virus is…

… really not bothering me that much. Honestly. Don’t get me wrong – I’m aware of it of course, and it’s proven to be more dangerous than seasonal flu on a per-case basis, but you won’t see me fighting over the last roll of toilet paper or box of frozen hashbrowns at the store.

There are a few themes that keep coming up in conversations and in whatever news report or blurb I happen to stumble across online. If you’re bored, keep reading for my thoughts on them…

 

Should I Stockpile Supplies?

There is a lot of news about people clearing stores out of certain kinds of items. Frozen pizza-related food, bottled water, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper(?) seem to be popular. Unfortunately, everyone from the most reputable news outlets, to your favourite social media stars, to the guy who runs a pirate radio website saying the government is coming to get us all have one thing in common: every page view or video click they get equals money for them. Add that to the fact that almost every single person carries a video camera in their pocket, and you have a recipe for non-stop clips of people leaving Costco with two carts full of Hot Pockets and Purell.

Just seeing or hearing about those videos makes people worry that they’re missing out on something; some of those people then go to the store to stock up, which leads to more available footage, which leads to more people seeing it… you can see the feedback loop that happens. The thing is… it’s all unnecessary. The grocery store supply chains are not going to break down. Think about it: Walmart, for example, is an ENORMOUS company with an insane amount of resources. If one producer is unable to meet demand, Walmart will engage another one to either replace them or complement them. Every store and every chain, whether it sells medical supplies, stationery, televisions, groceries… it is in their best interest to maintain stock so they can sell it and make money.

What you should be doing, though, is not waiting until the last minute to buy something that you normally pick up on a schedule. Things like medications – call the pharmacy a couple of days earlier than normal to give them time to get your stuff ready. Do you have equipment that uses distilled water? Pick a new bottle up a day or two before you run out. Are you having company over on Saturday? Pick up that ham or roast beef after work on Wednesday or Thursday instead of Saturday morning. And yeah… don’t wait until you’ve used your last square to buy another pack of toilet paper.

Think of it like you’re going on an overnight road trip – you should pack your socks and underwear ahead of time instead of hoping that one of the gas stations along the way has stuff in your size.

This Virus Is More Dangerous To Seniors.

A couple of my friends who happen to be anywhere from their mid-50s to mid-60s tell me about this a lot. They are very concerned that COVID-19 is harder on older people.

Here’s the thing, though – I can’t think of a single disease or syndrome (aside from child-specific diseases like Kawasaki, or weird genetic disorders) that isn’t more dangerous to seniors or elderly people. As we get older, our immune systems don’t have the same potency that they used to, and errors at the cellular level build up over time, making it more likely that we’ll develop things like cancer. It’s not a happy thing to think about, but it is, unfortunately, how it goes. On the other side of the coin, the very young are much more vulnerable to viral and bacterial infections, too, because their immune systems aren’t fully developed yet.

You know who else is more vulnerable and more likely to get sick after catching something?
– Poor people,
– Homeless people,
– Disabled people,
– Immunocompromised people (whether it’s the result of a condition or a treatment), and
– Mentally ill people.

That is not an exhaustive list. You probably know or work with one or more people who fit somewhere into the above list. You may not even know it – not everyone wants even their closest family or friends to know they have a disease or condition or are financially struggling. This is why you should be observing personal hygiene and courtesy by washing your hands, cleaning the surfaces you touch, and cover up your sneezing or coughing. Which brings me to…

Should I Wash My Hands Or Use Sanitizer?

After seeing the video clips of people using their arm to sweep a shelf worth of hand sanitizer into their shopping cart, it’s easy to think that hand sanitizer is the best thing. It’s easier, for sure – just pump and wring your hands for a few seconds and you’re done – 99% of the germs on your hands are now dead/nonviable. But it’s not as good as washing with soap and water. Sanitizer doesn’t make your hands less dirty – it just kills what’s there. Those dead germs fall apart but the pieces stay on your hands, becoming a nice little growth medium for those few bacteria that survived the onslaught, or the ones you just picked up by touching that door knob, elevator button, or your own phone.

Here’s an example that I think does a good job of demonstrating what I mean. Have you ever driven around (particularly on the highway) and had bugs splatter on the windshield? On some days they’ll be all over front of the vehicle – windshield, hood, bumper, lights, etc. Once you pull off the highway and park, though, more bugs show up almost immediately and start to feast on the easy meal of bug guts that you’ve so nicely provided for them. So by killing bugs, you’ve also made food for bugs.

When you wash your hands properly with soap and water, though, you’re physically and chemically removing the germs and any other debris from your hands and washing them to a treatment plant where they are killed, or into a lagoon or somewhere else where they’re suddenly surrounded by a whole bunch of other things that will eat them. So you end up with no germs AND no leftovers for new ones to feed on. Plus, soap and water can remove things like chemicals, plastics, metals, and other things you don’t really want to eat or rub in your eye.

Does that mean sanitizer is bad? Not at all – it does a job, and it does it well. But if you have a choice, properly washing your hands with soap and water is the better way to go.

I Saw That [INSERT HOME REMEDY HERE] Kills Coronavirus

I think this is the one that really bugs me. No, drinking apple cider vinegar will not fix your cough or kill COVID-19 if you have it. No, making a salt/honey/vinegar/whatever mix and drinking it will not fix you up. No, zinc/copper/gold/germanium/silver/whatever will not fix you up. People are trying to make a quick buck off you, either by getting money for page views when you go to their site or watch their video, or by selling some kind of miracle cure that does absolutely nothing at best and can possibly make you sick when you’re not.

Don’t waste your time on those people – they’re parasites, and not the good kind like those little fish that stick to sharks and keep their skin clean. They’ve been around for thousands of years, peddling garbage to people who will try anything. They don’t have a cure and they don’t care about you. They just want your money.

 

So there you have it – that’s my take on this whole thing so far. I’m aware of it and have adjusted some of my behaviours a bit, but I’m not panicking or filling the basement with toilet paper and dried lentils. And you know what? For a guy who’s used to planning for the worst possible outcome, it feels good to be able to look at things rationally.

Stay safe.

Posted in: Anxiety, OCD, Panic

Finished That OCD Study

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J and I got home a little while ago from participating in that OCD study. It was much easier for me today because J was there, we brought some drinks, and while J was being interviewed, I got around half an hour out in the hallway by myself so I listened to a bunch of loud music and did some grounding.

I thought there were three more appointments, but it turns out that while there were five parts to the study, I did two of them when I was there the first time and the other three got done today.

So that’s it. They’re hoping to publish the results of the study by the end of the year – I think I’m going to keep an eye on their website in a few months and see if they found anything out.

If you’re a psych student or a psych or medical professional and have done studies or papers, thank you so much! As someone who is getting treatment for mental illness, the thought that there is active research going on that might uncover improvements in therapies or improvements in understanding the illness makes me happy and gives me hope. We’ve come a long way from treating mental illness by trepanning, lobotomizing, and balancing humours because people are applying the scientific method to the study of how the brain and mind work. There’s always more to learn and new treatments to discover!

Please keep doing these studies!

Stay safe.

Posted in: Anxiety, Depression, OCD, Panic, PTSD

Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

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J has today and tomorrow off work so we celebrated her birthday today. One of the things she wanted to do was go out to a particular restaurant for supper. We haven’t been to a restaurant together for a couple of years now, but with some thought and planning, it worked out:

Eating at a restaurant! :)Since it was a buffet we both ate far too much, which is exactly what you’re supposed to do when you’re celebrating a birthday – and it was very good, too!

Happy Birthday, J – thank you for being the most amazing person I’ve ever known and for everything you do every day. I am the luckiest guy in the world!

I’m so happy the restaurant thing worked out and we were able to do that again! Woohoo!!!

Stay safe.

Posted in: Anxiety, Depression, OCD, Panic, PTSD, Today

WHOLLY PHOHCH

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I did it… had to change into a fresh set of clothes when I got home, but I DID IT. It’s been a year and a half since I was last able to drive to Dr C’s office.

Things could change again tomorrow but for now, I’m pretty pleased (and a little embarrassed that I feel like it’s such a big deal).

Stay safe.

Posted in: Anxiety, Depression, OCD, Panic, PTSD, Today

So That’s It, Then

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I am now officially “retired”.

My co-workers and I used to dream about what it would be like to retire, and a few of us had even figured out how many months or even days left before that wonderful day. We joked about the trips we’d take, or the time we’d have to go to shows or concerts, or riding our motorcycles around. All the things we could finally accomplish without that 40-hour-a-week weight around our neck.

Well, here I am, and it sucks. Things have not turned out the way I’d hoped. Not even close. Twenty years of work flushed down the drain.

I don’t know what I’ll be able to do, or what I even CAN do anymore.

I don’t spend the day relaxing at home, doing whatever tickles my fancy at the moment. I wish. It sucks when I look at a bunch of things that I enjoy doing but have to grit my teeth and force myself to sit down and play with some electronics or start up the printer, instead of just going downstairs and sitting on the couch in the dim quiet.

Started thinking too much about this stuff a couple of hours ago and had a good cry. No panic attack, at least. So there’s that.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about today (or if I was going to care about it at all). I’m sad because life hasn’t gone how I’d hoped. I enjoyed working with WG, DA, and so many other people. I enjoyed solving problems, fixing things, and figuring out ways to provide new services to clients or improve existing ones. People across the country would ask me for help planning or troubleshooting. I was proud of the work I did. Whether it’s old-school or chauvinistic thinking (or if they’re the same thing), I wanted to be the rock so that J could do whatever she wanted. Go back to school, start a business… anything. That didn’t work out, and I feel terrible about it.

I’m angry at the people at work who moved me into another department without letting me know, and the management of that new department who, through incompetence and neglect, slowly degraded and ruined the services, systems, and relationships I’d worked so hard to build. Their indifference when I begged for help or parts. Their casual, uncaring disassembly of all the plans and agreements I had with previous management that allowed me to take university courses. The humiliation I felt when I had to look people I’d known for years in the eye and say that yes, I knew that I used to be able to do that stuff in an afternoon, and yes, I knew it’d been a year, and no, I couldn’t tell them when I’d be able to help them. The dread I felt (and still feel) whenever the phone rang, or when I heard footsteps approaching my door. All the time I spent hiding in the server room or another building because I couldn’t face people and tell them I couldn’t help them.

I also feel very guilty about all the stress I put my family and friends through both after I ended up in the hospital and the months or years before that where I was unwell and acting strangely but unable to see it for myself. I honestly didn’t know that I was being unpleasant or downright dickish. I should’ve listened to J when she first suggested I go talk to someone. Or when she suggested it the second time… or the fifth time, or the thirtieth time. I am so, so sorry to everyone I upset, stressed out, inconvenienced, or otherwise bothered. Thank you all so much for sticking around and supporting me. I don’t know why you did, but I am so incredibly grateful I don’t know how to express it properly.

So yeah. I’m 43 and “retired”. It’s not as much fun as you’d think.

Argh… I better go hide in the bathroom, I think another cry might be coming and the hot water tank guy is here.

Stay safe.

Posted in: Anxiety, Depression, OCD, Panic, PTSD, Today

PROGRESS!

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Today marks the first time I’ve driven myself to an appointment in close to a year and a half. Check it out:

Parked At The Clinic

Yep, that’s my sneaker. And my truck.

I had to change clothes when I got home, though – it was pretty much a tsunami of flop sweat.

It didn’t even go badly. I parked far back in the lot where there was lots of space, and made sure there was lots of time for me to get to where I needed to be.

The appointment was more difficult than usual because I could barely concentrate on what Dr H was saying, but I drove the truck… by myself… to an appointment. AND I LEFT THE GATE UNLOCKED.

No guarantees I will be able to do it again next time, but I’m pretty happy with this today.

Stay safe.

Posted in: Anxiety, Depression, OCD, Panic, PTSD, Today

Interesting Article About Childhood Anxiety And Possible Treatments

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I was going through my usual morning RSS feeds while eating breakfast, and I came across this article from Science News:

“When anxiety happens as early as preschool, treatments can help”, by Sujata Gupta for ScienceNews.

Do you know one of those kids who’s afraid to try anything, thinks that everyone is going to hate them or make fun of them, or can’t tolerate being unable to see their parents? It seems there is no lower limit to the age where excessive anxiety or an anxiety disorder can appear. The article mentions that there have been experiments done that have identified children that are overly cautious or anxious, and the researchers discovered that many of those children grow into adults who have anxiety disorders.

Researchers also think they have identified the parts of the brain involved, and what about those parts causes the problem.

The great news is that a particular kind of CBT that’s customized for kids appears to work in almost two-thirds of cases. A combination therapy with CBT and an antidepressant (they used sertraline) seems to work about 80% of the time. As it’s still a new and somewhat experimental approach, it’s not widely available yet, but the researchers’ success so far bodes well for being able to help children and potentially keep them from suffering from anxiety disorders as adults!

Stay safe.

Posted in: Anxiety, OCD, Panic, PTSD, Tools