Complaint Pot

    Well, I did it.

    On Monday, I went into my counseling session and straight up asked, "Can I just complain today?"

    My counselor, of course, said that was ok. So, I complained, well, for the most part, anyway. As usual, I would interrupt myself with little things that might possibly help me solve the issues I was relating.

    But, you know what? It felt really good to just get that permission to essentially bitch and moan. I don't do that very much. I mean, I could, I suppose, but what good would it do me? I'd much rather take actions to make my life better. 

    I could go to softball every week and complain that the ceiling is too high, so I don't have a good sense of where most things are. Or I could complain that the baseball helmet I have to wear when batting makes me dizzy, because it does. I could even complain (much more loudly than I do in reality) that the floor keeps growing sudden small mountains under my feet. It doesn't, by the way, that's just another way my perception is off. That floor is pretty level, to be honest.

    However, I don't usually do that. I get to the task at hand, which in my case, right now, is using softball as a way to make my dizziness recovery time shorter. It's working, that helps, of course.

    Either way, I do complain. Some days you just have to let loose, you know? Some days, some weeks, some months, some years just really suck, and you have to let loose about it.

    The problem arises, really, when you can't turn the complaining off. Then, you get stuck. Then, you limit yourself. Limiting yourself like that can become a huge issue. 

    I mean, sure, I could just moan all day about how my brain doesn't work properly, how I can't remember clearly enough to put the past week together, let alone a month or a year. I could constantly tell people how dizzy I am, why I can't seem to get to my bedroom in my small house without bouncing off of the corner by the piano in the living room. But, what good would that do? My time is much better spent trying to improve these things, right? Instead of whining that my house is laid out strangely, I could figure out a way to always stay away from that side of the wall, so I don't hit it.

    If you get lost in complaining about your present circumstances, you can miss out on all sorts of opportunities. Whether they're opportunities for fun, or for quiet solitude, or for something new, if you're stuck on what you can't do, you don't really get to know what you can do.

    I know a lot of people, some are able to walk, some are not. Some are able to speak, some can't. Some are able to drive, some are not. But the people who are the most fun, the people who are the most chill, all have one thing in common: They live their lives despite what they've been dealt, as opposed to those who live their lives feeling they can't deal with it. 

    I mean, that's how you get places, when you think about it. You take something you can't do, and find another way to do it. Even when we were babies, we did this. We had a circumstance we couldn't control, like we were hungry, or we needed to be changed, or we were bored, and what did we do? We cried about it! That wasn't complaining. That was doing something to better our situation. We knew that if we made a fuss (even without really realizing what a fuss even was) we would get help. 

    For a while, after a brain injury, children and grown adults can be like that. By this I mean we can just lash out at people because something isn't working right for us. A person usually comes to help, and the situation gets fixed. 

    Communication is key in all of these situations, from the baby crying to a grown adult lashing out. Something wasn't working right for that person, and they got help the only way they knew how. I don't imagine it's all that fun for the other adults when the person with the brain injury lashes out. I know it's not, actually. I used to work in elder care, and definitely had my share of trying to help people who couldn't really tell me what they needed. I also have raised two children. One is still in his teens, but one is in his 20s.

    My younger son has very little problem relating his feelings to others. He feels very comfortable just telling us or his teacher, or sometimes his classmates what's going on that is making him feel sad, or angry, or depressed, or anxious.

    My elder son, though...he's a rough one to read. When he was little, he'd often come home from school and, to the casual observer, just lose his mind. Either running around, or trying to destroy the outside, or just flying off the handle over what his snack was. Over time, we came to realize that it was how he dealt with his day. All day long at school, he had tried to behave himself, tried to be quiet and respectful, and tried to be like his peers in class. The thing was, though, he has ADHD, and at that point was undiagnosed. So all day long, he tried to do all of these things that he just wasn't equipped for, failed in many cases, and was sent to a room outside his classroom as a punishment. I often, and to no avail, tried to explain to his teachers that he had a ton of energy. I also said it wasn't unlike being on fire with no way to remedy it except moving, or doing some other quiet activity to occupy the racing part of his mind.

    This was incredibly frustrating for him, as you can imagine. So all of those pent up feelings of frustration, anger, and embarrassment just stayed pent up until he got home. Once I understood that, I was more able to deal with the situation.

    This is kind of how I feel about myself complaining. I get frustrated with my circumstances, and, instead of lashing out, I internalize those feelings. Letting them out in a controlled environment, like in a counseling session, helps me to deal with them. As a bonus, it helps me deal with the feelings without exposing my weaknesses to the world. However, I wouldn't get the same effect just screaming about it into the void.

    This isn't something that came with me through the stroke. These are all things that I needed time and patience to really understand. I had to learn to look at myself in a whole new way after getting through the immediate therapies and care I received after the stroke. It's been a real growth experience.

    It doesn't upset me, though. I've learned a lot through the process. I have more patience than I used to have, for the most part, particularly with myself. I am, strangely enough, also more likely to tell people what isn't working for me in a situation, not by complaining, but by saying what's bothering me and asking how we can fix it. And I mean that. I always want to know what I can DO to fix something, not how other people are going to fix it for me. I personally feel the hands-on approach to one's problems is best. While sometimes that may mean asking for help from the right people, you can still get a desired outcome.

    This approach can look very different to every individual and each problem that individual faces. Some will be able to fix the problem with a solution they've thought out themselves. Some will need to bounce solutions off of a loved one. Some might need to talk to a counselor or therapist about the issue. We're all looking for the same thing, though. We're looking to resolve an issue we're having. That's what's at the center of it, fixing an issue.

    There are solutions out there for most problems. Sometimes you just need to share the issue at hand, and ask.

A Day Late and Likely a Few Dollars Short

     I seem to have settled into an every other week type groove lately, and, as that is working for me, I plan on continuing that trend. However, it's Sunday as opposed to my quasi-usual Saturday update, and that's a good thing, this week. Friday is what I want to base this entry around.

    I had a psychiatrist appointment on Friday. I see a psychiatrist because, at some point, it became clear that my depression was problematic in a couple of ways. One way, of course, is that it's depression. Depression, as many know, sucks. Even when it's not that bad, it's still an issue. It sneakily causes all sorts of things, from lack of motivation, to very dark thoughts, to anger, to...so many things.

    As many of us have heard over the years, depression also lies. It lies in sneaky, smooth-talking ways, too. Depression is kind of like every narcissist you've ever met. It gaslights you into thinking nothing's wrong. It destroys your impetus to do things that you actually like, even though you know doing that thing would cheer you up for a little bit. I've heard depression described as everything from a black raincloud that follows you everywhere to a venomous snake coiled inside your mind.

    I believe those to be accurate descriptions. 

    I've likely had depression for a long, long time, but it was discovered and first treated by a nurse practitioner I went to way back in 2019, before the stroke. I may have related this before, and if so, please excuse my repetition, but I recall the appointment pretty well. 

    I was likely in for something having to do with my migraines, as they were a major problem at that point for about 8 years. So, I checked in relatively often, with my care provider. I had to. I had been on several different meds to try to corral the extreme headaches, and those meds needed to be monitored. I was on a blood pressure med, as well, which also needed to be monitored, I had allergies I needed to keep in check, the usual stuff you see a care provider for. 

    I can't remember exactly what we were talking about, but in the conversation, she stopped writing, looked directly at me, tilted her head to the side and said, "You're depressed."

    The thought had never occurred to me before that moment. Sure, I had a few things to be depressed about. My eldest son was about to reach adulthood, graduating from high school. He'd told us since he was 3 years old that he was moving out when he "grew up," and had experimented with living away from home a few times. My mom had moved out of state to live with my dad, so we had no backup care for my then 8 year old son, and no one to help if my husband and I wanted to go out on a date. My job was stressful as it was, though I loved it, and was not made easier by those every-other-day-migraines. I did have hobbies, mainly theater and singing which I was doing regularly, but that, too, was affected by my migraines.

    She was right, of course, I was depressed. She was just the first person to see it.

    So, she put me on an antidepressant. It helped, however, it also completely erased my libido and most of my general emotions. I could act emotions, and did that onstage and also in the rest of my life, but inside I felt, well, flat.

    Not too long after that, of course, I had the brain hemorrhage. The med did help me through the immediate issues with that, and for that I'm very grateful. I still had a lot of depression to deal with, though it was more situational, as one might expect. 

    After I got home, I decided that I wanted to try a different antidepressant, and asked my new nurse practitioner. She put me on another one, which, like the first, was an SSRI. That one didn't help in the libido department, plus, my mood was still just...off.

    Third antidepressant was an SNRI, which worked better, but I had no patience.

    Third one, a different type, made me ultra dizzy, on top of my usual super dizziness. No go there.

    The next one felt almost magical. It worked! I had a sex drive, and I didn't get angry for no reason! I was super happy. But I needed to keep going up on the dosage, and ended up hitting the limit of what was considered healthy.

    At that point, I just decided to not do another one, and try to see what I could do with nutrition and a tincture that had mood regulating qualities. That was a nice thought, but yeah no.

    Then I decided I would find a psychiatrist. They have a tendency to know more about brain meds than other providers. So I found one about an hour and a half or so from where I live.

    Our first appointment was...I'll just say I think I caught her at a bad time. But, she was able to prescribe me a med in the same family as the one that worked best (classified as a tricyclic antidepressant). I could go higher in the dosage than the other one was able to be prescribed for.

    That one worked and is the med that I take today. But, of course, there's a bit of a catch. It started raising my pulse rate and blood pressure. I'm still within safe levels, though, and have decided that I can handle this without freaking out. Well, without freaking out much, anyway.

    Now, on to yesterdays appointment. I've sucked at sleeping since I was a baby. It's just a personality trait at this point. Some people are funny, some people are grumpy, I don't sleep worth a crap. I've tried a lot of things. I wound up taking 10 mg of melatonin for a while, after going up from 1 mg. I decided that if I kept that up, I might never make my own. 

    So, I tried certain gummy supplements. Those work really well, but now, they can interact with my antidepressant, so I don't use them unless I really, really need to.

    Then, I decided it was a good idea to talk to my psychiatrist about it. Lack of sleep causes problems for me during the day. I know it's a problem for anyone. For instance, though, I've been having a hard time just lately with some just not ideal nights of sleep. I was walking in to the gym at therapy the other day, and just as my COTA said, cheerfully, "what's your number for dizziness today," I unexpectedly tilted into and almost knocked over a partially full water cooler.

    So, I laughed, looked at her and said "Let's call that a 6." She grinned as well after she was sure I was ok and said, "OK then! Let's get to it!"

    And we did. 

    Whatever the case, I can't just go lurching around, possibly murdering water coolers.

    Luckily, my appointment with the psychiatrist was the day after. So, I let her know about how things were going, and she had an idea she'd been thinking on since the last time I'd seen her. The idea is a mood stabilizer that has an added bonus of making your mind quiet down after you take it. My mind races, pretty much constantly, so I'm totally onboard. 

    I start that med likely tomorrow. I'm hoping it will help, I'll let you all know either way.

    All of this blog entry is to say, really, don't give up. If something doesn't work, try a different way. If you can't figure something out, find someone who can. There's no shame in needing assistance, we all do. We live in a global society, really, and everyone has something to add to it.