Acceptance, Actually

The path to healing is supposed to involve "acceptance".  Sometimes this is called "surrender", a word which I hate for its connotations of cheesy romance novels.  So I'll talk about "acceptance".

Since my psychotic episode I have struggled mightily against my illness.  I felt like I had to; I couldn't afford to go back there, I couldn't afford for my mood to get any worse, I couldn't afford another mistake with my meds.  I've struggled against everything that's gone wrong with my life over the last two years.  The jobs I've lost.  My relationship problems.  The loss of my cats.

Then, the day before my cat CC died, I was overcome with a sense of calm.  The universe is kicking my ass right now, for whatever reason.  There's nothing I can do about my illness except what I'm already doing -- taking care of myself as best I can.  The job stuff, my cats -- those situations are both out of my control.  My relationship -- well, that needs work, no question, but we're finally ready to start that work after healing from the trauma of our previous, fraudulent couples counselor.  So there, at least, there is something I can do, and I am damn well going to do it.

I don't know why or how I attained my sudden sense of calm.  I just know that for the first time in two years I feel like I know what I can and can't control, and I feel deeply that things will get better.  It's a damn good place to be.

Self-Esteem and the Confidence of Others

It's important for others to have confidence in us.  If those closest to us don't believe in us, in our ability to reach our goals, in our ability to heal, in our ability to overcome our difficulties ... well, it's damn hard for us to believe we can accomplish those things.  

I'm depressed right now, and maybe that's coloring my memories, but I feel like nobody's ever believed in me.  My parents always told me I was smart, but they won't acknowledge the disabilities that hold me back.  Without doing that, I can't go to them for advice the way some other people can go to their own parents.  Then there's my husband, who thinks I make excuses to avoid working.  Yeah.  Three learning disabilities and psychotic depression is an "excuse".

Right now, I'm trying to believe that I can overcome what happened to me last year.  And, for that matter, my entire adult life of underemployment.  But it's a damn difficult thing.  Here I am, depressed, feeling bad about myself, needing to view myself positively ... and having to get to that place without help from anyone.

FML: More Impending Loss

A few weeks ago I rejoiced to learn that Piglet, my feline companion of nearly seventeen years, does not, in fact, have cancer.  She has IBS, which caused fatty liver disease.  If a feeding tube were put in, and she could tolerate the food, she could make a full recovery.

Well, she can't tolerate the food.  Even though it's food she tolerated a few weeks ago.  Even though it's bland as hell.

Obviously, a cat who can't eat isn't going to make it.  I've decided to stop all procedures, like the feedings and the subcutaneous fluids, because they're only making her miserable (she's actually started hiding from me for the first time in her long life).  I don't want our last days together to be filled with me doing things to her.  The only meds I'm continuing are the anti-nausea and anti-inflammatory drugs that are likely to make her more comfortable.

This was a tough decision, but it helps that I have the strong sense that Piglet is just Over It.  She's ready to go.  That makes it only slightly less devastating.  This cat has been a loyal and loving companion for nearly 17 years.  She's the sweetest and most easygoing cat I've ever met; if you wanted her on your lap, you just put her there and she'd settle in.  But chances were she was on someone's lap anyway.

I could always count on Piglet to support me when I was sad or upset.  She'd bump her head on my arm or my leg, rub against me, and generally carry on cute until I at least had to smile.  Then she'd crawl into my arms and purr until I felt better.

She's no longer well enough to do that, and I think the feeding tube makes it difficult for her to purr.  But she's still nestled nest to me on the couch, providing what comfort she can.  I can't imagine my life without that love.

I've lost so much in the past two years.  I lost what I thought was a promising job.  I lost my mind and my mental health, and therefore the sense of efficacy I'd worked so hard to build throughout my adult life.  But hey, I thought to myself, at least my relationship is strong.  Then, last fall, my marriage crashed onto the rocks.  I thought to myself at least I've got my cats.  I also thought, but they're old ... and the way things have been going lately ... they're two of the few things I have left to lose.  And now I'm losing one of them.

FML.

Disability, Relationships, and "Glee"

Last night, I watched this week's episode of Glee.  I watch it regularly.  This is somewhat about the music.  I enjoyed being in choir as a high school and college student, and I miss singing, and the occasionally perform something that isn't a pop piece of crap.

I watch it more for the subversion.  Two teenage gay couples who are in sexually and emotionally healthy relationships.  For that matter, two teenage gay couples whose characters are more than their sexuality.  Then there was the remark one of these characters once made about his atheism and the irrationality of believing in a deity.  I suppose the religious right was already pissed off at them, so why not hang a lampshade on it?

Yesterdays plot dealt with the relationship problems of two disabled characters.  The first concerns Emma, the high school guidance counselor, who has OCD.  She's had an ongoing romance with Will, the non-disabled choir director, who was thinking of proposing ... however, when he talked about his plans with her emotionally abusive parents, they talked him into questioning their relationship.

Emma and Will then had what I think is a pretty realistic conversation about the difficulties both partners face when one of them is mentally ill.  Will was concerned about Emma's ability to handle the messiness of having a house and children: "You need to control things in order to deal with your life, and you can't control people!"  Emma responded by saying that she's taking her meds and that things are getting better: "But can I promise that I'll get better?  I can't."  She told Will that if he didn't want to live with that, he owed it to both of them to be honest with himself and with her.

A Depressive Makes Some New Years Resolutions

I started this post in early January, but I'm only finishing it now.  What do you want?  I have ADHD, a mutant mood disorder, and some meds that mess with my memory.  Oh, and guess what?  I'm only a few days late for Chinese New Year!  So there.

I'm so glad to see the ass-end of 2011.  There were so many challenges, so much loss.  But it's a new year and I'm not going to dwell on them.

As with every year, I am making New Years' resolutions as a way of setting my intentions for the coming year.  Last year their focus was caring for myself.  I think I did a pretty good job of that, given all the problems I had.

Here are my resolutions for 2012:

• To establish a nightly ritual in which I think of at least one good thing that happened that day.
  I spent much of last year in various states of crazy, deep depression, or profound anxiety about the future.  There weren't a lot of positives in my life, but nonetheless, I know they were there.  I need to pay more attention to them -- this is according to my friend's six year old, who, when we were visiting for the New Year, happened to mention that "something good happens every day, and we should be glad".  Out of the mouths of babes.

• I'm will structure my time and create a schedule.  A few years ago, before my life went to hell in a handbasket, I had something of a schedule that I more or less stuck to.  Work out from 10 to 11 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Do a certain chore from 2 to 3 every day.  Spend only three hours a day on the computer.  Spend at least two hours working on art.  I didn't always stick to it exactly, but I did sort of, and I got a lot more done as a result.

• I will enlist an ADD coach to help me in my search for meaningful work.  Now that I'm past the Solstice, I need to get back to my job search.  In the course of my last one, I realized that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.  I feel like everyone who has a real job knows something that I don't. 

• My disabilities present an additional challenge here -- I wasn't able to "start at the bottom" as an admin like most people; and at this point I really need to be able to work from home most of the time to care for my mood disorder.  In other words, I need help.  I need real help.

• I will continue to work on my marriage.  I realized last month that, in addition to whatever legitimate frustrations my partner has, he's going through his own shit right now.  It makes him difficult to live with.  But I didn't promise to love and support him only when it was easy.

• I will work on my non-violent communication skills.  As my mood has stabilized, I've gone from the "shock and sorrow" phase of my relationship difficulties to the "really effing pissed" stage.  Thanks to our incompetent marriage counselor, and thanks to my partner's lack of emotional availability, I've spent the last several months holding space for him.  My issues have been ignored.  And this has made me angry.  Like most people, when I get angry I get reactive, and I can be sarcastic and contemptuous and say destructive things.  Since I'm the one with the capacity right now, I resolve to take on the responsibility of communicating my needs and my feelings in a non-violent way that will be easier for my partner to hear.

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Working with a Couples Therapist: Warning Signs and Red Flags

Last week I wrote about a list of questions you should ask as you're interviewing couples therapists.  This post delves into the deeper problems in the field of couples therapy: lack of training, lack of experience, and individual bias.

This is information I wish I'd had before starting our disastrous couples therapy.  If I'd known what I know now, I would have realized as of our first session that our counselor had no idea what he was doing.  But I fell pray to the most common assumption about couples therapy: that anyone with a Marriage and Family Therapy degree has received training in couples work, and that they are therefore qualified to work with couples.

As it turns out, having that "MFT" after their name tells you nothing about a so-called "couples therapist".  In spite of the name, "marriage and family therapy" programs usually require only superficial coursework and training in couples' issues.  As for other therapists who provide couples counseling, including psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and others, receive no coursework or training at all.

Nonetheless, about 80% of therapists do some form of couples therapy.  To put it another way, an overwhelming majority of therapists work with couples, and the overwhelming majority of those do so without any real training.  



Most therapists are trained to have an individual therapeutic orientation, not a relationship or community orientation, and they fall back on this when attempting couples therapy.  Don't get me wrong, individual therapy is great when you need to talk about your own problems.  A good therapist can help you see where you might be sabotaging your own goals.  They can help you elucidate your needs, see the places in your life where they're not being met, and support you in making the changes to your life that will ultimately help you meet these needs.

When one of these counselors tries to do couples therapy, their instinct is to focus on each partner as an individual, what those individual's needs are, and how they're not being met in the marriage.  Even if the couple comes to them saying that both are committed to staying in the marriage, this individual may lead the therapist to give up on the relationship -- and tell the couple, sometimes after only a few sessions, that they should divorce.

Does that sound like a viable way to save a relationship?  Didn't think so.


Fortunately, there are ways to determine whether your therapist knows what they're doing.  Again, thanks to Dr. William Doherty, here is a list of red flags that indicate that your couples' therapist may be incompetent:

1.  The sessions lack structure.  If you're going to therapy and having the same fights you are at home, with no interventions from your therapist, that therapist doesn't know what they're doing.  At the end of the session, after you're both worn out and emotionally bruised, the therapist might say something inane like "we've gotten some important issues out into the open here!".  Both members of the couple leave feeling hurt, drained, and pessimistic about their relationship.  Been there, done that.

2.  The therapist fails to recommend any day-to-day changes that the couple can make.  You're in therapy because something in your relationship isn't working, right?  Which means you want to change something, right?  For instance, if Dick and Jane's therapist explains to them that they handle conflict by Jane losing her temper and Dick retreating into silence to punish her, but fails to tell them how to change this dynamic, Dick and Jane's therapist lacks the necessary experience to them.  Been there, done that.

3.  The therapist feels overwhelmed by the couple's problems and recommends divorce.  Seriously.  In these cases, the therapist fails to realize that the overwhelm is caused by their own lack of knowledge and experience, not by the couple's "emotionality" or "irreconcilable differences".  It's not your therapist's job to recommend that you split up.  If they do, they're not competent to help you, and you should seek help elsewhere.  This is actually one mistake our therapist didn't make.


Dr. Doherty says that there are other mistakes that are more common in more experienced therapists.  A therapist may have worked with dozens, even hundreds of couples over the years.  They know how to provide structured sessions, how to give meaningful feedback, and how to contain the difficult feelings that come up during couples therapy.

Listen up, dear audience, because this one relates directly to you.  Even an experienced therapist may lack experience in your particular area of need.  Doherty relates several examples of this, but to me, the most important one involves a story of mental illness.  Out of the blue, Doherty's friend came home and announced to his wife that he was having an affair and that he wanted an open marriage.  The next day he was found in a confused state, wandering around in the woods.  He was diagnosed with psychotic depression (a fellow sufferer!) and spent to weeks in the hospital.

While his own therapist cautioned him not to make any major decisions in his current state, his wife's therapist urged her to divorce.  Remember that "sickness-and-health" promise that's part of the standard wedding vows in this country?  Yeah.  Her therapist wanted her to up and abandon it.  She, however, was not ready to give up on a long-term relationship when her husband was clearly not himself, and found another therapist.

This was yet another area in which our therapist couldn't help us.  He gave me half of one session to talk about my issues with disability.  He provided no insight, let alone concrete suggestions, as to how my partner could come to a more empathetic understanding.  He didn't deal with my mental illness at all.  These issues are fundamental to our marital problems.  Yet we barely even mentioned them.  I suppose I should be grateful that he didn't recommend divorce because this was clearly a problem that would never go away.

For Doherty's full article on the hazards of marriage therapy, click here.  For a more compact list of what to look for in a therapist, and what warning signs you should heed, click here.


individual therapy hazardous

Couples Therapy: Questions to Ask Before Making that First Appointment

As I've ranted before, my marriage is going through a rough patch.  My husband is frustrated by my crappy employment history as well as my current unemployment.  This makes me feel that he's not taking my illness and disabilities seriously.  And in fact, he once said in counseling that he thinks I use them as "an excuse to not work".

Because it's not bad enough that I have to hear that crap from ignorant neurotypicals on the internet, the breakroom at work (when I work), or even on the bus.  I get to hear it from my partner.

In other words, we got issues.

We also had severe problems with our marriage counselor.  At this point, we're not sure whether we'll go with another Gottman counselor or not.  Whoever we choose, it will need to be someone who knows what they're doing. 

I'm guessing that if you read this blog, you're either mentally ill or you have ADD, which pretty much means that you've also dealt with relationship problems.  ADHD and mental illness can both put an incredible strain on any relationship, and you may need help to negotiate this treacherous terrain.  A competent couples counselor can be the guide you need to save your relationship.

But how can you tell your couples therapist is competent?


Going through the mill has led me to do some research I wish I'd done before seeking couples therapy.  I've learned that there were questions I could have asked our counselor that might have indicated his lack of experience.  I've also learned that during our sessions he gave clear signs that he had no idea what he was doing.  I've decided to share that research with you in the form of a short series on couples therapy.  Part One will be how to choose a counselor.  Part Two will be signs to watch for when you're actually in the therapists office.  Part Three will be about relationships in general, and staying in them when things get hard.  


So let's begin with Part One.  Your relationship has problems -- whether they're big or small doesn't matter -- and you've decided to seek counseling.  You've looked online, talked to friends about recommendations,  and you've made a list of people who seem like they could work with you.  What next?

Emotional Attachment Sucks

Yesterday I wrote about a difficult discussion that I need to have with a friend.  The short version is that she was in a car accident on her way to go on a hike we'd finally planned.  She left me a voice message telling me this, mentioning that she was OK, her car was not, and that she "the pain was setting in".  She wouldn't be able to go on the hike we'd finally planned.

I was disappointed, but the kicker is that she blew me off for five days when I tried to get in touch with her to check in.  And when she got in touch, via text message, it was just a casual New Years' greeting.

Needless to say, I feel less important to her than I did already.

I was already feeling unimportant to my friend.  We used to see each other a couple of times a month for lunch.  We'd get together for Pagan holidays.  We went to see Shakespeare together.  But two years ago she moved to Boston, and now I'm lucky to see her a couple times a year.  When she visits I always feel like I'm being squeezed into her schedule.  We'll talk about how we should have lunch and it turns into coffee; we'll talk about going on a hike and it turns into a short walk on the beach.  It seems like she's always running to the next engagement with the next friend.

I should have talked to her about this before now.  I know this.  But I told myself that my feelings were my problem; my friend wasn't responsible for them.  No, it's not good for me or my relationship with my friend, and it's not good for me.  But old habits die hard.

Then, the blow-off.  I tried three different methods of getting in touch with my friend to make sure she was OK after the car accident.  I tried to be clear that my only need was to know she was OK.  There was no response until 5 days later.

Now, I'm feeling worse than just unimportant.  I feel like I don't really matter to her at all.  She has other friends, right?  A lot of other friends.  She's one of my closest friends here in California, but maybe I rank toward the bottom of her own list.

I clearly need to tell her how I feel, but I'm not sure how to do it without getting triggered.  Without triggering her for that matter.  She's told me before that she feels like she's "never enough" for a lot of the people she's close to.  Possibly this is because she has a lot of friends and overcommits to spend time with them.  As for me, I feel like I'm "never enough" to a lot of people.  I probably need to put myself out there more.

My problem is that I'm not someone who attaches easily to other people.  I have friendships, of course, but not a lot of deep ones.  I feel like there aren't too many people who really get me.  Maybe this is why when I attach pretty deeply when I do attach,.  The upside of this is I'm still close to a few of my best friends from high school, middle school, even elementary school (the downside is that most of these folks live in out of state).

I feel like most people don't attach the way I do.  My closest friends from college?  I was deeply attached to them, but they drifted away one by one, in spite of our promises to keep our friendships alive.  Close friends from my grad school programs?  Same deal -- and unlike my friends from college, who are scattered all over the country, most of my classmates live within a twenty mile radius.  The friends I still have from grad school were in other programs, but two of them -- the two closest -- have left the state.  Of course, they promised that they'd call and email and skype.  And of course, in spite of these promises, these things never quite happen.

Why do people do that?  Everyone knows that the chances aren't in favor of sustaining a long-distance friendship.  Why can't we just be honest about that up front?

For that matter, what the hell is the deal with people who say they want to make plans, and then don't?  Or they say that they'll call or write.  Or they ask me to call them and don't call back.  If you don't fucking want to make plans, don't fucking tell me you want to make plans.  Jebus, people!

I even had a friend who had once been close enough that I brought this up with her.  We'd run into each other at an alumni event and she asked me to have dinner with her (and since she'd blown me off so many times I was surprised by this).  We had a nice conversation at dinner, and then there came the inevitable "We should hang out some time!  Call me!".  And I said, "If I do, will you call me back?".  She looked shocked.  "What do you mean, will I call you back?"

I explained that every time she asked me to get in touch, she didn't respond.  For that matter, she never initiated contact.  She had no idea she was doing this, and promised that if I called or texted she'd get back to me.  We'd make plans!

We didn't make plans.  I didn't try to contact her again.  And I won't.

But back to my current situation.  How do I have this discussion with my friend?  Part of me wants to take the initiative, but part of me feels that if I tried to contact her three times and she blew me off, maybe I should give her a chance to contact me.  Or maybe I'll give it a few days, or at least until I'm not feeling as pissy about the whole thing.

When Friendship Sucks

There's a good friend of mine who's visiting from Boston right now.  She grew up in the Bay Area and has a lot of friends here, so it can be hard to schedule time with her.  Which sucks, because I kind of feel like I get a certain time slot, and at the end of it, Our Time Is Up -- she has to run off to meet someone else.  We can't just chill.

I try to be understanding about this.  I'm not the only one who wants to spend time with her, and I'm hardly the only person she needs to see.  It still hurts a lot, but I've been telling myself that my hurt feelings are my own shit, and I shouldn't put them on my friend by trying to have a dialogue about it.  (And yes, I do realize that this is a bad idea for my relationship with my friend.  But old habits die hard).

Then, last week, she went and blew me off.  It was regarding a fairly serious matter -- basically, she'd been in a car accident on her way to meet me somewhere, and wouldn't be able to make it.  She said she was OK, that she shock was wearing off, but the "pain was setting in".  That, of course, got me fretting.

So I tried to check in with her.  I emailed her.  I called and left her a voice mail.  I expressed my concern for her, offered what support I could, and asked her to let me know how she was doing.  No response.  Two days later I tried to check in again.  No response, again.

By this point I was pretty anxious.  Busy my friend may be, but blowing someone off is not really in her character.  That, of course, argued for her being hurt.  On the other hand, if she were hurt, a mutual friend who also knows her family would have learned about it, and that friend would have told me.  What the hell was going on?

I didn't get a response until five days after the day of the accident.  On New Year's Eve she sent me a text wishing me a Happy New Year and promising we'd talk soon.  And now I'm pissed.

So, yeah.  We'll talk all right.

I'm trying to keep in mind that my friend is an emotionally intelligent person who has the capacity to make room for my feelings.  But it's not easy.  I have very little experience with people who can do that, and I've lost a major friendship with a person who would or couldn't respect some very important boundaries.  In essence, I've never dealt with a serious emotional conflict in a friendship that has gone well.


Now I have something else to be anxious about.

Gottman Institute Comes Through (WAS Frustration with "Gottman Certified" Marriage Counselors)

This post originally was about my frustrating experience with the Gottman institute regarding our incompetent marriage counselor.  He had been misrepresented by his clinic director as having "advanced training and certification" in the Gottman method of couples counseling, when in fact he had neither.  In order to seek redress from this situation, we needed a letter from the Gottman institute stating that fact.

Due to star-crossed emails, as well as a manager being out of the country, I didn't receive any communication from the Gottman Institute regarding this matter.  After what seemed like no communication, I got peeved, and ranted about it where I rant about everything -- this blog. 

This morning, I did receive an email promising the letter we need.  It turns out that the Gottman folks sent us an email, but gmail ate it (it's been doing that lately).   They restated the offer to help us find a real Gottman therapist, and better yet, the chain of command is getting involved.

I thus retract my rant.

Lamictal 300 mgs: Plus 2 mgs Abilify, minus 5 mgs Adderall

The short version: my mood has been all over the place for the last week and a half.  My pdoc had two options.  Number 1: Go back on 12.5 mgs of Zoloft, which would numb me out a bit, and shouldn't give me SSRI problems because they'd be tempered by the lamictal.  Or, number 2: go back on Abilify for the short term at a very low dose; I'd still feel my feelings, but I won't be reduced to tears over stupid shit.

In other words, the lamictal is helping a lot with the depression, but it's not stabilizing my mood as much as it needs to, and it needs help.

We decided to try Abilify first. We know from past experience that it will work immediately.  I also think it's important to feel my feelings; I just need not to be completely overwhelmed by them.  I feel pretty good about this.  I can start it tomorrow and stop crying like an emo kid.

We're also removing the Adderall from my cocktail.  After two weeks it's clear that while it does help my mood, it doesn't help enough.  It also wreaks havoc with my sleep.   Unless I can be sure to squeeze in some seriously vigorous exercise, and I can't always do that, and messed up sleep equals messed up mood.

A few words about my mood lately.  At some times I'm feeling really good, almost too good, and for no particular reason.  Then if I'm triggered (or sometimes when I'm not), I crash and crash hard.  I start sobbing and simply can't talk myself down, let alone stop, for several hours.  When I finally do, I last about ten minutes before I start sobbing again.

What do I mean when I say "stupid shit"?  Well, let me tell you about the day after Thanksgiving.  We like to cook our own small turkey, because we like to do things with the leftovers.  But, unbeknownst to us, the turkey was partially frozen.  It probably was up against the side of the refrigerator case or something.  Anyway, it took all afternoon to cook (way too long for a 12 lb turkey, so I was already crying about that).  Then we cut into it, half of it was raw.

The rational side of my brain, and my husband, told me that this wasn't my fault, and that we could just use the turkey for stock, so it wouldn't be a total loss.

The crazy part of my brain was in tears because I'd wasted all day and my husband was sick so he couldn't help me cook so we hadn't spent time together and he was leaving the country the next day AND I RUINED THE HOLIDAY!

Don't even ask what happened when he returned from his trip and didn't immediately give me a hug.

I can't be crying so much that it interferes with my life.  And with my husband probably also being depressed, I can't be triggering that feedback loop where does something without knowing it will upset me, and then I start crying, and then he feels bad for upsetting me ... and gets stressed ... and I feel bad for stressing him out, so I cry more ... and he withdraws from me emotionally ... so I get more upset ... and the cycle begins anew.

To wrap up: Abilify.

The Gottman Method of Marriage Counseling: It Might Not Be What You Expect

UPDATE:  Thanks to a google alert (presumably), an employee at the Gottman institute got in touch with me regarding this post.  This individual was able to ascertain that my couples therapist is not, as we were led to believe, Gottman Certified, and they've kindly offered to help my partner and me find someone who is. 


I hope to learn how to verify Gottman Certification, at which point I will write a post about that.  As for this post, I will be leaving it up for the sake of informing others how misrepresentation in marriage counseling can go horribly wrong.  I may revise it or remove it in the future depending on how events play out.


***********************************************************************************

When it became clear that my husband and I needed marriage counseling, we found an outfit that used the Gottman Method.  We signed up with a local counseling clinic that offers a series of 12 sessions designed to Improve Your Relationship by Building Intimacy and Communication Skills.  Counselors who work with the Gottman method are certified by the Gottman research institute.

Six sessions into our twelve week session, I thought I'd evaluate my experience with the Gottman method and its effectiveness so far.  It's a big topic so it's going to be a series of posts.  This, the first post, will discuss the assumptions and expectations I had going into it and how they've played out.

First, a few words about the Gottman method and why we chose it.  The method is based on two things:  Dr. John Gottman's years and years of psychological research, and Dr Julie Gottman's years and years of clinical experience.  We chose this method because of its research and evidence-based foundation. Based on Gottman's own website, we thought that

Gottman Method Couples Therapy is a structured, goal-oriented, scientifically-based therapy. Intervention strategies are based upon empirical data from Dr. Gottman’s three decades of research with more than 3,000 couples.

I have ADHD.  We have some serious issues gnawing away at the foundations of our marriage.  We're kind of floundering right now.  In other words, structure sounded pretty good.

Lamictal 300: Depressed Mood and a Really Bad Dream

This morning I'm fighting sadness and a depressed mood.  I've taken my meds, I'm eating breakfast, I'm sitting in front of my therapy lamps like a good mental patient.  But still depressed.

My mood trouble was brought on my a bad dream, which is unusual for me.  I have plenty of dreams that are weird or scary; lately I've had a long string of them in which, despite the varied content of the rest of the dream, I am escaping a city on fire.  Rarely do they continue to bother me after I wake up.

I think this one is a problem because it hit a little close to home.  My biggest fear is that I will be rejected for my mental health problems.  Maybe my friends will be scared or uncomfortable and stop talking to me (they haven't).  Maybe my partner will leave me because I'm just too crazy (he hasn't).  Or maybe word will get out somehow, and I'll be judged by strangers -- people will look askance, mothers will pull their kids close to them as I walk down the street, and I'll never find work again!

Yes, I have a dramatic imagination.

In my dream, I was in some sort of group (in jail?  On a package tour?  Both? I couldn't tell) and a good friend of mine was there.  The guard/tour guide (who was armed) announced that since I had been psychotic he would have to bound hand and foot to a metal bar.  I was tied up in dead lift position, bent forward with my ankles and wrists shackled to a bar in front of me, as if I were about to do a dead lift with a barbell (this at least makes sense since my dead lift form has been kicking my ass lately).

But how had the guard known anything about my mental health history?  I didn't know any of the other people in the group ... I looked around and realized my friend Kris was there.  She avoided my gaze, as if guilty and frightened.  She had ratted me out.  She thought I was dangerous.Then the group was led onto a passenger train.  I was still ted up, but thanks to Dream Logic could nonetheless move around comfortably, so I found my friend and asked he why she had told the guard something so private.  She looked away and told me that she thought I was unpredictable, possibly violent, and that he needed to know about me.  It was for the safety of everyone else in the group, she said.

In keeping with more Dream Logic, our friend Janet suddenly showed up out of the blue.  Janet is a doctor, and had also been told of my condition; she asked me a bunch of patronizing questions and responded to everything I said with patronizing half-answers.  I tried to explain that I'd only had one episode; it was almost a year ago; I had posed no threat to myself or anyone else.  She smiled condescendingly, as one would to a child, and told me it was for my own good.

The passenger train passed by a number of beautiful old stone buildings with the windows bricked in.  The tour guide explained that they were abandoned.  Nonetheless, someone had taken the time to make lovely, intricate Celtic knots with the brickwork.  And belying his statement that the structures were abandoned, we passed a building where one floor had people living on it -- and they were being evicted so the windows could be bricked in.

At the end of the journey we came to a swimming pool that reminded me of some of the beautiful public baths from the late 19th century.  This image of the Sutro Baths in San Francisco show the slides, the diving boards, and some of the seven different pools -- one fresh water, six salt water -- that were kept at different temperatures.

Image courtesy of efliv's Flickr stream, shared under CC license

 

Despite my protests that I had spent years on the swim team, that I had worked for years as a life guard, that I had in fact taught aquatic safety to numerous Girl Scouts, my friends wouldn't let me swim.  The proprietor told me it was "for my own good".

The Innermost Circle of Hell: Relationship Counseling

My partner and I started seeing a couples counselor last month.  What with my partner's travel schedule, and the counselor's travel schedule, our second visit wasn't until a few days ago.  And it was awful.

The therapist we're seeing uses the Gottman Method.  We chose this method because it's evidence based, and we're both big fans of that sort of thing.

Another thing that appealed to me about the method is that you start with exercises that help you build positive feelings your relationship.  This is supposed to give you a strong foundation of love and affection from which to work on conflict management.  Conflict management, by the way, is supposed to be one of the later steps in the process.

For some reason, our therapist chose to bypass this step.  My partner mentioned one of his frustrations, and the therapist asked me if I was OK with using the session to address it.  I wasn't, really; but I figured, hey, this process isn't always going to be comfortable for me, right?  Besides, our therapist was there to help us if things got bad, and maybe he could teach us some new skills to keep it from getting bad in the first place.

Nope.

Self-Care For Mood Disorders: Preventing Overwhelm

Whether you have a mood disorder or ADHD, having the support of your family can make all the difference in how well you cope with your disorder.  For me, just knowing the fact that my partner is in the other room helps me to feel stabilized.  Living with another person helps us keep to a regular schedule and feel less isolated.

A few years ago, when I was healthy, I was able to enjoy the times my partner was traveling on business (and these times were many).  I used that time to do my own stuff -- write, work on art projects, etc.  I missed him, sure.  But I was fine when he was around.

This past week was not so easy.  The difficulty was compounded by the fact that my partner and I have been having some fairly serious problems.  Even though we finally had a productive discussion the night before he left, I spent most of the week with feelings of shock, grief, anger, and betrayal.  Until three weeks ago, I thought my marriage was healthy and sound, built on a bedrock of honesty.  Oops.

If my partner had been in town, I would have been reassured by his presence.  We could have continued to talk out our issues.  Instead, he was in another country, in a time zone eight hours ahead of me.  I had to cope by myself, and it was damn hard.  The upside is that I learned some important things about protecting myself from being so overwhelmed that I make bad choices in self care.

Lamictal 150 mgs: My Mood This Week, and Coping with Relationships

My mood this week has been pretty good, considering.  Considering the stress.  Considering the anxiety.  Considering the sadness, anger, and feelings of betrayal.  The lamictal is definitely helping me feel more stable, less depressed, less apocalyptic.

Last week my partner and I finally had a productive discussion about our difficulties.  On the one hand, it was a huge relief to hear why my partner had been so cold and distant the previous few weeks.  On the other hand ... well, on the other hand, it was hard to listen to the hurt he's been holding in.  It was hard for me to learn I'd caused so much of it.  Most of all, it was hard to learn that my partner has spent the last several years violating what I thought was the foundation of our relationship -- honesty.  Our relationship worked because we both valued the truth.  We don't lie to each other, and we don't hide things from each other.  At least, we didn't used to.

After the productive discussion, my partner and I have felt closer than I have for some time.  Unfortunately, we could only enjoy a few hours of this before he left for a ten-day business trip.  The previous few weeks we'd been struggling like hell not to withdraw from each other completely, and suddenly here we were, feeling emotionally close.

Confused?  Hell yes.

Lamictal Day 54: 100 mgs. Relationship Stress Decreases, yet Appetite Problems Continue,

For the past ten days, I've been hard pressed to differentiate between loss of appetite due to stress and loss of appetite due to medication.  Learning that your mental illness and learning disabilities are fucking up your marriage can do that to you.

Yesterday I experienced a breakthrough with my relationship drama.  My partner expressed some frustrations he's been withholding from me.  I had the opportunity to express some of my own frustrations.  We got to a place where we agreed that our current patters were royally horked, and came up with some creative solutions to address them.  All in all, we both woke up this morning feeling better about our marriage than we have been in days.

I was expecting that the reduction in stress would mean a reduction in my appetite problems.  But no!

Lamictal, Sleep, and the Marriage Bed

I've been writing a lot lately about my relationship problems.  In a nutshell: the living situation that my husband said was working, wasn't.  The money situation that my husband said was working, wasn't.  Also, it turned out, my husband resents the fact that I don't get out of bed until 10 at the earliest.  Of course, I can't really control this, and he knows that, which means that he feels bad about resenting it -- but he still resents it.  So now, in addition to having physical difficulty sleeping, I feel guilty about it too.

Learning that he'd been hiding all of this from me really hurt.  That being said, I can also understand it.  He was trying (albiet in a wrong-headed way) to protect me and give me a bit more time to get stable.  What hurts much more, and is far less understandable to me, was to learn (during the course of our first couples therapist visit) that he's been so frustrated for so long that he basically can't remember what he ever saw in me in the first place.

Now, I thought we were doing OK until a week ago.  The only indication that something was wrong had to do with the way my husband slept -- when I got into bed, he would roll away from me, shifting until he was on the far edge of the bed.  I even asked him if he was mad at me.  No, I'm not mad at you.  Why do you ask?  he said.  I told him that he was rolling away from me, avoiding me, from the minute I got into bed.  I can't help that, he said, I'm doing that in my sleep.  It has nothing to do with you. 

Yeah.  About that ...

Lamictal 100 mgs: Appetite and Stress

Since I went up to 100 mgs of lamictal my morning appetite has been even worse than it was.  It's just such a chore to choke anything down.  So why bother trying?  Well, not eating will make my mood worse, and that makes the lamictal rather pointless.

Yesterday was harder than most days.  My partner and I had our first session with the marriage counselor to try and deal with our difficulties.  The appointment was at 11, so given the way my appetite has been, I didn't bother to try and eat anything more than a handful of trail mix.  As for the session itself, it was as hard as I expected it to be.  The therapist asked us both to tell the story of how we met, why we were attracted to each other, why we decided to get married.  I can answer each of these questions.  My husband cannot.

WTF?  My partner in life basically has no idea why he wants to be with me, or even why he ever did?

Day 41, 100 mgs of Lamictal: Feeling Better About Life

I think I may be hitting a sweet spot where the lamictal dosage is concerned.  It's been tough to track my moods in some ways because I've had a fair bit of stress since I started the titration.  The situation with my grandmother is stressful, and my mood definitely took a hit from that.  Then there's the whole deal with my marriage.

I'm feeling more optimistic about that today.  The last few days have been pretty hard.  At many points I found myself obsessing over the difficult times my husband and I have had.  I wondered if we've ever been truly happy together.  I wondered why my husband even wants to be with me, when my learning disabilities, my ADHD, and my mood disorder clearly cause him so many problems.  It's been nearly ten years since I've done this sort of thing.

I guess the mindfulness training must be paying off, because at some point I realized that I was basically thinking "depressive thoughts" about my husband and me.  My depression was causing me to undervalue the good times we've had and the good things about our relationship.  Basically, instead of thinking depressive thoughts about myself -- I'm no good, I'll never be successful, etc. -- I was thinking those thoughts about my marriage.