It figures
Nov 8, 2008 
I was actually having a good time. I mean, come on. How often does that happen. Let me back up. Today we had our Kindergarten Presentations. Awwww, the kids were so damn cute. When I got to the Art High School, I thought I was nauseous from motion sickness. Damn idiot cab driver. It was pretty bad, so I took some compazine, which I had in my purse. I thourghly enjoyed the presentations. Did I mention the kids were really cute? About half way through, the headache started. Oh crap, a migraine. And of course, you know, I had no Zomig in my purse. I must have taken the last one last week and forgot to put a new package in. I also thought my ibuprofin bottle was empty (which it wasn’t). Even if I had looked, I couldn’t have gotten those big horse pills down without water.
After presentations, some of the staff decided to go out to dinner. We ended up at a Korean BBQ place down the street from the school. We toasted with a shot of soju (I think this is where I really made the mistake). Dinner came, we grilled up our meat. I had some soup (spicy tofu soup, FWIW). I had a little piece of grilled octopus. This whole time, my headache was starting to go away from the 800mg of ibuprofin I popped and the nausea had died down from the compazine.
All of a sudden, I thought I was going to lose the little bit of food that I had eaten. I ran to the bathroom. It was disgusting. But at least it wasn’t the hole in the ground toilet, it was a real western one. The smell was so bad I ran right back out. I gave a coworker some money and told her I was leaving.
I then ran home and proceded to puke. Then I took a Zomig. Now I’m waiting for the nausea and the headache, both that got worse from throwing up to subside. I’m throwing my clothes on the floor. I’ll deal with them tomorrow. I’m going to climb into bed and put a pillow over my head to block out the light that comes in.
It totally sucks because I was actually having a good time. I wasn’t stressing about this, that, or the other thing. My mood was actually normal. It almost feels like I can’t win. The old thoughts of not deserving to be happy because I’m a bad person came flooding back.
Oh well.
*sigh*
Anger and Depression
May 27, 2008 
Someone once told me that Freud said depression is anger turned inward. I’m too tired lazy to look it up and see if it’s true. But regardless, I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between anger and depression lately. I’m trying to do all the right things. I’m taking my meds. I’m trying to take some time just for myself. I’m trying to eat right and exercise. I’m drinking more water. I’m trying to work through issues. I’m trying to get enough sleep.
But even with doing all of that, I feel like absolute shit. I almost burst into tears at work yesterday. I come home at lunch or after work and close the blinds and the windows. I just want quiet. With all the little people running around, I’m being driven into sensory overload right now. I’m not sure what’s triggering the overload. I’ve been doing this for a year without this level of distress.
Nothing seems right at the moment. I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin. I don’t know what I want or where I want to be. The only thing I do know is that I don’t want to be around people. Maybe I should suck it up and go back to school and get a computer science degree. Then I could be a hermit and still make a living.
A lot of it boils down to dealing with the anger that’s been bubbling up inside. I don’t like feeling it. I know it’s not going to kill me, but it sure as hell can make me uncomfortable. That’s where the depression – anger link comes into play. I don’t like feeling the anger, so I know I’m stuffing it. Stuffing emotions never seems to make things any better (at least in the long run). But right now, it’s all I know how to do. I’m hanging on by a thread right now. If I actually tried to feel and/or process the anger, I think that thread would snap. But by not processing the anger, am I driving myself further down into the depression.
It almost feels like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don’t know how to move forward, and moving backward just isn’t an option. I’m at the point where a therapist would be very handy. I don’t think I can find one where I am and I certainly don’t want to do the internet therapy route. I’m on my own with this one. That scares me too. I don’t know why though. I’ve spent so many years on my own, taking care of myself. Hell, I should be an expert at it. But I just want to crawl into the closet and close the door.
Oddly enough, I did that when I was a kid. Maybe this is some sort of age regression thing going on too. I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m miserable. I’m going to keep doing the self care. I’m not giving up on that. Eventually things have to get better, right?
Halcion
Apr 19, 2008 
Let’s just say I slept last night. A quarter of a milligram of Halcion put me out for almost 18 hours. I’ve never taken it before, and I’ve taken just about every sleep medication known to man.
I managed to drag myself out of bed about 2 PM. Food and showering helped wake me up. I had to buy a birthday gift, so I needed to get out. I wandered around old downtown for about 2 hours. I got the gift I needed plus some hair clips and a pair of sunglasses.
The doctor gave me two doses of the Halcion. Trust me, I won’t be taking it on a night when I have to go to work the next day and I’ll be splitting the dose the next time I take it.
It did feel good to sleep though. It was that blessed, dreamless, deep sleep. It was the kind of sleep I really needed to recharge my batteries. Hopefully I’ll get another good night’s sleep tonight. And hopefully I’ll be ready to face the work week on Monday.
When it rains, it pours
Or should that be “When it snows, it blizzards”?
Oh well.
I thought I was doing slightly better. Then yesterday rolled around. Doesn’t help that I developed a yeast infection on top of everything else. I had a panic attack at work. Thankfully it was on a break and not during the middle of a class. The principal was driving all the Korean teachers nuts and in turn the Korean teachers were driving to foreign teachers nuts. We had new student orientation today and that just sent everyone into a tizzy. Speaking of which, working on a Saturday morning just sucks. Having to be peppier and happier than usual (don’t want the new parents to think we’re not having fun) sucks. Put them together and you get major suckage.
After orientation (which went as well as could be expected) I went to LotteMart to do my errands. I wanted to have lunch at TGIFridays. I walked out of there with my meal half eaten because it was just too crowded and noisy. Then I want to the doctors where I had to explain to him why I could do the vaginal yeast infection medicine. On the other hand, I managed to look relatively normal so I didn’t get questioned about my mood. Which was a good thing because I was in no mood to tell him how I was really feeling. I may try going back up to 100 mg on the Zoloft. I had tried that and felt too wired so I cut it to 75 mg. We’ll see. Then I tried to do my grocery shopping. Bad idea. It seems like at least every other week I end up walking out of the store because I just can’t handle the sensory stimulation. It’s frustrating. I just want to be normal. I just want to be able to get my stuff done.
So I guess I’m headed for another early morning trip to HomePlus tomorrow. Hopefully if I get there early enough I won’t hit the weekend before Lunar New Year crowds.
Oh and then there’s my new mouse. My old one is dying. Could be something to do with the fact one of my students dropped it on the floor last week. I’m not complaining because it’s an el-cheapo mouse that I dug out of my brother’s spare parts box when the scroll wheel on my old one died. So I did manage to buy a new mouse today at LotteMart. I only managed because the electronics section is separate from the rest of the store and usually a bit quieter. I get my mouse home and take it out of the package. I swear I had bought a USB mouse. But no, it’s a PS/2 mouse. Crap. My computer doesn’t even have a serial port. I only paid about 5 bucks for it, so no big loss. But hell, I swear it was USB. So I’ll pick up another mouse tomorrow. Oh and to top it off, the mp3 player I wanted was out of stock. It was a 6GB iRiver for roughly $150. Compared to some of the other players it was a pretty good deal.
Only good thing coming up is the fact that I only have to work two days next week. I have stuff I want to get done (mostly some programming and compiling) but I’m not banking on it.
Well…
So I was reminded I haven’t posted in a while. Two weeks or so I guess. I just don’t have much to say. The Zoloft isn’t making me manic, so that’s good. I’m also not feeling any better. Two weeks isn’t enough time to tell for sure that it’s not having an affect. I went back to the doctor on Friday and he renewed the prescription for another month. I’ll see him right before Christmas. I can always go back sooner, but six weeks really is the minimum to know for sure if an antidepressant is working or not.
He also feels I’m having some repetitive strain issues with my right wrist. I thought I had slept on top of it. But it really does get worse if I’m typing a lot or writing a lot. And considering I’m grading papers for portfolios right now, the pain isn’t a great thing. So basically I’m now using a wrist brace. That’s a little extremely annoying because I wear my medic alert bracelet on my right wrist and the chain ends up pressed into my skin. Moving it to my left wrist isn’t an option because I wear my watch on that wrist. And it would just feel weird. Plus there definitely is a learning curve in figuring out how to type with this thing on. The brace itself keeps my wrist at a different position and the part that fits over my hand covers the tops of my fingers so I don’t have the same reaching ability with my pinky finger. In addition to the brace, I’m icing it a couple times a day and taking ibuprofen. All that together seems to have helped a little. I’m sure time will tell.
Speaking of Christmas, a friend asked if I was staying away from bridges and tall buildings this year. I’m not suicidal right now. Well, at least not actively. I still have the occasional suicidal thoughts. Given how bad things got last winter, I guess I better stay away from those bridges. My Christmas shopping is nearly finished. I bought for everyone except the paternal unit. I have no idea what to get him. I really don’t care either. But I do need to find something and box the whole lot up and ship it home. Gotta keep up appearances you know. My entire family unit is basically in denial about my entire childhood. I don’t want to disturb their river.
In other news I didn’t sleep much last night. I got a somewhat distrurbing message from a person who participates in some forums I also participate in. It was highly triggering. I ended up turning it over to the forum administrators because I simply wasn’t emotionally equipped to deal with it. So after I got over the worst of the triggering stuff (which took a good six hours) I spent the next few hours beating myself up for not being able to deal with it. I can’t seem to move past me feeling like crap about feeling like crap. Or something like that.
OUCH! My wrist really hurts now, even with the brace. I’m signing off to put some ice on it. If you don’t hear much from me in the next week or so it’s because my hand is about to fall off.
Zoloft
Before I go any further into writing this…
Yes, I know that taking an antidepressant isn’t a sign of weakness.
But that doesn’t really change the way I feel. I feel like I’ve completely failed. I feel like I’m a total screw up. Are either of those things true? Probably not. But again, that doesn’t really change the way I feel.
I’m working on talking back to the irrational thoughts and emotions. But at this moment, they are really powerful. And it’s really hard to fight back against them.
And yet again, I digress. So on Wednesday I went to see the doctor again. My sinus infection has pretty much cleared up. I’m still pretty congested, especially at night, but that’s getting better. What isn’t improving is my mood. Keeping the mood diary was pretty much a waste of time. It basically said the same thing every day. I feel like shit. Well, not in quite those words, but you get the general idea. So when I went back on Wednesday I asked him to prescribe an antidepressant. I need some relief from this. I need to sleep. I need to be able to actually look at food without getting nauseous. I need to be able to go to work and not want to cry every time I set foot in my classroom.
I explained all of this the best I could. Holding back the tears was close to impossible. I didn’t want to let him see me cry. A lot of that goes back to my old fears about crying. But I think part of it too was I was (am?) afraid of him. Damn it! He’s never done anything remotely bad to me (except shoving that vacuum thing up my nose to see what my snot looks like, but that’s a medical doctor thing). He’s probably one of the most soft spoken and kind doctors I’ve come across in Korea.
So after all of the talking and making sure I wasn’t planning on killing myself (I won’t lie to you all, I do have some suicidal thoughts, but not intense enough to worry about) he wanted to prescribe Prozac. I put a stop to that really fast. Prozac was the first antidepressant I tried back in college. Let’s just say it was NOT a good experience. I was having trouble sleeping to begin with. Prozac completely trashed my sleep cycle. Wait, there was no cycle. I basically didn’t sleep for almost two weeks and ended up in the hospital after coming within about five minutes of attempting to kill myself. So yeah, I don’t think trying Prozac again is a great idea, especially when living in a country where you don’t speak the language.
Why Prozac? Apparently the pharmacy in LotteMart only carries Prozac. Anything else has to be special ordered. I’m finding that the selection of medications in most pharmacies (read not the ones inside of the hospitals) is pretty bad. I have a hard time tolerating many antibiotics. So I tend to stick with the ones that I know won’t make me break out in rashes or other fun things. It’s been very difficult to find pharmacies that carry these. I’ve never heard of a pharmacy carrying ONE antidepressant. But I guess I’m just used to how things work back home.
Okay. Scratch the Prozac idea. He asked if I had tried other medications. That actually almost made me chuckle. It might be easier to list the ones I haven’t tried. But I digress. I didn’t get very far in my list when he stopped me. I guess he was at least slightly familiar with Zoloft. So that’s what he decided to prescribe. That was fine with me. It was an effective antidepressant when I took it. It was pretty activating the first time I tried it. Well, that might be an understatement. Zoloft is the only antidepressant that’s ever pushed me over into hypomania. I’m not bipolar by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t remember exactly how it’s stated in the DSM, but drug induced mania doesn’t qualify a person for a bipolar diagnosis. And I digress yet again. You would think I’ve started the Zoloft the way my thoughts are scattered all over the place.
The other thing Zoloft has going for it is that it seems to be somewhat effective in reducing PTSD symptoms. If I remember correctly, it even has FDA approval to be labeled to treat PTSD. So yeah, Zoloft is probably a good choice.
The doctor (I wish I knew his name) wrote the script for 14 days. He also warned me that it would be expensive. Apparently my definition of expensive and his definition of expensive are two different things. My 14 days of Zoloft plus a couple days of decongestants and assorted other goodies came to 8,500 Won. According to my favorite currency converter, that’s $9.37. A quick glance at drugstore.com shows that a 30 day supply of Zoloft is $87.14. And I really do have the real deal, no generics. The pills look just like these. So even if you round up and double, my 14 day supply is less than a quarter of what I would have paid back in the US. So, expensive? Not by any stretch of my (U.S. raised) imagination.
So I’ll start it in the morning. Like I said, it was pretty activating for me. Given I’ve been having issues sleeping, taking it at night probably isn’t the brightest thing I could do. I need this to work. I need this to help. I really do. I’m not looking forward to waiting out the four to six weeks to see if will work, but that’s just life.
I'm just your typical depressed donkey. I happen to teach English to small and not so small Korean children. I really do love my job even though I might complain a bit.
