2kultra - Tumblr blog

[2kultra]

My husband makes custom vinyl decals! He can work with many different colors and just about any image. Get at me, he'll ship.

The only one he didn't make was the black Rock Lee one on my Chromebook.

He also makes shirts.

[2kultra]

[2kultra]

Oof

[2kultra]

#sorry 👀

[2kultra]

August 21st, 2019

I haven't blogged for a few days because I am back to work and school. Balancing those with my family life is tiresome enough. I am not back at 100‰, but I am better off than I was a few days ago after having run out of my medication and being out for a couple of days. That sucked. Luckily my antipsychotic is a monthly injection because if this shit happened with that, it would be a mess. I can only imagine. Going without my main antidepressant for a few days sucked as it was. I was so disoriented and tired. I was also somewhat irritable, which is out of character for me. I try to make a point of being kind. Regardless, I am back on my medication and slowly feeling better. I am still kind of miserable for a few stupid reasons, but I have a lot to be thankful for. I need to focus on the positive.

Anyways, I will try to write something more thoughtful when I have the time 👍

[2kultra]

Holy shit

There was so much that I did not remember that lead up to my ultimate diagnosis. Let's just say, I went through a lot more diagnoses than I ever realized. One that I don't really talk about is PTSD. It's really hard to open up about it. I haven't believed myself when I said I had it, but it was there in the papers. It's still something I am working on in therapy, but in small amounts. Once I was diagnosed with Schizoaffective, I was able to piece together earlier experiences with mania and psychosis. It all seems to fade under that diagnosis, but it would be unfair to say that trauma had nothing to do with it.

[2kultra]

Going over to mom's

To review my medical records 😲 I want to see how they line up with what I remember

[2kultra]

August 15th, 2019

My mom is going to let me look at my medical records from being in the hospital. I want to portray everything as accurately as possible in my writing. I am working on what I hope to turn into a book, that started with the story about Colbie that I posted before. I am trying to take a detailed look into my past and write about it to gain closure and also something I can give to my loved ones or anyone who is curious about how my disorder affects me at it's worst.

I was talking to my mother the other day, and she told me that during my 2K-ULTRA psychotic episode, I had been talking about a man named Hairy Batman who was in cahoots with the Hollywood film directors that I thought we're after me. It sounds so bizarre and unbelievable hearing about it now, but I definitely remembered it when she brought it up. Today I get to laugh about it. Not quite so much while it happened. But it is far enough in the past that I am able to find it funny. Hairy Batman.

I wasn't able to post anything on my blog for a couple of days being busy with work and my "book" but I still want to keep it alive. Here is my attempt for the day. I might post later, might not.

[2kultra]

Sitting in a room that was a group room not too long ago, but has since been converted to a waiting room.

Back in 2016 and 2017, I had group therapy in this room while in the clutches of alternating mania and psychosis. I remember shuffling my papers around this table, carefully positioning my pencil and the kleenex box beside them. I remember sitting in these chairs, getting up, pacing around the room, and then crumpling into a heap in the corner of the room by the door and due to lack of sleep (up all night with my conspiracy theories about my home being gassed by people who were after me, guarding the gas stove so it cannot be left on to kill my family) and heavy medications, I almost passed out. I remember being brought into the next room after my mind caved in on itself. Away from the group, away from the people, just in the adjacent group room with doctors and therapists attempting to soothe me. I was crying and crying. I ran around the facility for a while, trying to hide from some of the staff and other patients. I was terrified.

My doctor that I am here to see today is the one that managed to help me break free from this. I remember him calmly holding my hands and asking me to close my eyes and breathe deeply. I remember him telling me "We will get you through this and feeling better." And here I am, 2 years later, still trusting him with my life. He has helped me improve so much, and he listens to me when I talk. He helps me understand my medications and adjusts them when my symptoms begin to break through. He has gotten me through 2 whole year's of my life without a psychotic episode. Since junior high school, I have been battling with psychosis and I am very lucky if one year goes by without a major episode lasting at least a month. 2 years now, 2 years with one close call that he was able to reel me back in from by adjusting my medications in a timely manner. But no full on psychosis.

I am so thankful for this building. For this room. For my doctor and his secretary. For everyone that has been involved in my treatment.

Today, I am just here for my monthly aristada injection and checkup. I am thankful that it's not anything worse that brought me here, and I am really to continue to show up and pay for my appointments as they are saving my sanity and possibly even my life.

[2kultra]

Is this worth finishing? TLDR it is basically a fleshed-out version of my string of thoughts about life “on the psych ward.” But I am thinking of writing memoirs, and some of them would be detailed accounts of my hospital stays. If the ideas and descriptions seem redundant from the original post, that is because they are and I am just adding a third-person account of it in more detail. I did this to respond to a writing prompt but it ended up too long.

This wasn’t the first time Colbie was here. Absolutely not. She remembered the smell of the cleaner that they use on the floors first thing when she woke up. No, this had happened before. But how this time? Why here? 

Before she even opened her eyes, she recognized the feel of the stiff sheets and the rough olive-green blanket she was tucked tightly into. She knew the feeling of the haze the day after being heavily sedated. She felt soreness and had stiff muscles in both thighs, usually the aftermath of large doses of sedative or antipsychotic injections. As she opened her eyes and moved into a sitting position, she pushed down the blanket to reveal sky blue paper scrubs. Just as ugly as ever. And sitting on a plastic chair in the corner of the room was a neatly folded pair of blue socks with white grips on them sealed in a plastic bag. The lights in the room made everything appear in a weird high-contrast view. Everything was so sharply focused, and it was as if the lighter parts of the room shone with halos. As always, there was the locked bathroom door across from the bed and the camera in the upper left-hand corner of the room facing her. 

Colbie’s bare feet dropped over the edge of the thin mattress onto the ice-cold floor only to take 3 short steps over to the chair and put on the socks. As she ripped through the plastic, she saw something out of the corner of her eye and paused. The solid metal door was closed and there was no one in the room with her. But she saw something, and she knew it. As she continued to put her socks on, she looks out the rectangular reinforced glass window on her door to see the back of an older woman’s head sitting behind a counter. One of the nurses once told her upon leaving the adolescent psychiatric years ago was “Ideally we will never see you again. But if you need us, we’re like a motel where the light’s always on.” And here she finds herself waking up on the adult ICU of the psychiatric hospital. 

Taking one last moment to look around the room and also trying to remember the events leading up to her involuntary hold, Colbie sits on the plastic chair and stares at the messed up bed sheets and crumpled blanket. And then it occurs to her. That was part of the way out. Every time she was here there were certain daily self-care activities and responsibilities that we had to attend to get out. Before anything else, she sprung into action to straighten her bed, and that’s when she almost fell over. The heavy doses of medication that the hospital administered the night before had her swaying as she walked, and feeling off balance and weak. Slowly, very slowly, she pulls the sheets and blanket straight and tucks in the edges under the mattress. Task achieved. She would be out of here in no time. 

Now crossing the room to open the door to the nurse’s station right outside of the observation unit she was in, Colbie is determined to find out what brought her here. The light in the nurse’s station is so bright, and it is reflected back by white countertops, paper, walls, and desks. There is a counter, and on the top, a panel of reinforced glass with a small meshed out speaking hole in it that separates it from the hall. Behind the counter, desks are littered with patient files, calendars, folders, binders, and god knows what else. The walls had colored plastic shelves or sleeves holding blank forms and handouts. There is a portion of the wall that has a large set of rectangular shelves holding overstuffed files with patients’ names and allergy stickers on the side of them. And, of course, there are psych techs, RNs, a doctor, and some intern students both seated and standing discussing patients. The RN catches Colbie’s eye and turns to the young, fresh-faced psych tech that was on the phone behind her and nods towards the obs room. The psych tech quickly ends the call and comes around the counter to seat Colbie and take her vitals. Every single time. Vitals. They always do it, all hours of the day and night sometimes. The psych tech asks her questions about if she feels safe and how she is feeling that she forces out generic answers to. Seeing things? No. Hearing things? No. Delusions? You bet not. Why do you ask? The blood pressure cuff tightly velcroed around her arm cinches tighter and tighter, becoming very uncomfortable and then finally releases it entirely, relieving all the pressure. The psych tech slips the cuff off and looks her in the eye. The first thing she asks after finishing her assessment was “Do you remember last night?” to which she paused, again trying to search her mind for even bits of her memories last night. Without any warning, she vividly recalls a brief moment of squeezing the hand of a nurse that was restraining her so hard that her nails were digging into the poor nurse’s skin. She then remembered looking down right as two other nurses administered large shots in each thigh. Screaming. She was screaming. And screaming. And her scream became very weak and fell flat. And there, on the hospital bed and in a full-body restraint, her hand grew loose around the nurse’s wrist and went limp. She was out. 

“Colbie,” the tech said, “do you know why you’re here?” she asked again. Colbie suddenly feels the effects of the previous night’s sedation weakening slightly. She heard the question. Now words. She needed words. “Well…” she started, “I remember 

[2kultra]

Yung Gravy - Mr. Clean

[2kultra]

Can I just say that hot rod was a masterpiece

[2kultra]

Late night

I don't work tomorrow so I am up late. My husband was going to stay up for a bit but both he and my daughter are asleep, and I am postponing my sleeping medications for a couple of hours. I hung out with a good friend when I got off work, and we had a pretty great time. She always gets my mind off of my issues. And if we do talk about our issues, the conversation is usually deep and empathetic. It is probably one of the healthiest friendships I have ever had, and I am thankful for her.

Again, I have had no inspiration to write about anything in particular just yet. I have played around with the idea of using writing prompts, so that may be to come in the future. I want to continue writing about my experiences with mental health, but I don't want that to be all there is to this blog. It is something that I have a decade worth of stories about, some of which are emblazoned in my memory. I missed family members birthdays, mothers day, christmas, and my 21st birthday due to numerous hospitalizations, all mental health related. There is so much that has happened as a result of my illness and its different comorbid conditions. I have been on medication since age 12, iirc. I have experienced alienation from my peers due to a lack of ability to control episodes of psychosis or mania. There's new challenges that come along with it every day... not to even mention the financial strain that treatment puts on you. I've got much to tell about all of that. All in time.

My current goals are to keep this blog running everyday, improve as a writer, and to use writing as a coping skill to deal with my current stress levels. Of course I have other goals, but these are the tumblr-related ones.

[2kultra]

August 11th, 2019

So here I go with another journal entry-esque post. Not sure what I am even going to write about, I'll just put the words down as they come.

It is very hard for me to keep a calm and friendly demeanor day to day in the workplace. I am extremely introverted and don't really do well trying to make friends unless they find me first. I don't feel comfortable branching out. Part of it is just a trait of my personality, but part of it is pure "communication apprehension" that I could work on and try to improve. My problem is that I am comfortable with how introverted I am and don't feel compelled to change. And maybe I won't. I haven't decided exactly how to face this yet. All this being said, it is so draining to put on my work persona. The biggest smile I wear is my work smile, because honestly it hides a lot. It hides pure anguish some days, or deep sorrow on others. It hides my low self esteem and self doubt... Or, at least it tries to. I don't know how good of a job it does at hiding how much I hate myself, because I feel it is pretty obvious.

It also sucks not to be a pretty person anymore. Because of my mental illness and medications, I am often too depressed or tired to exercise and take care of myself. I am gross. My nails are uneven, my hair looks terrible no matter what I do with it, I gained 50 pounds from meds, and I stopped wearing make up. Yikes. It's bad. I look back on old photos, and damn, there were times I really took my looks for granted. I am a fucking mess now.

I want to start fighting to live my best life. My schizoaffective and the meds I take for it both impact my energy levels, but I want to fight to become someone who exercises regularly again. I also would like to figure out how to lose the 50 pounds I gained, that will be hard as hell. Not to mention, of course, fighting my illness that impacts everything from my mood to my sense of reality. Medications keep the delusions and hallucinations at bay, but they made me fat as fuck. I don't want to feel like this. I will try my best to eat less. I can't do a whole lot more than that unless i decide to start wearing makeup. That's a big nah from me. Too much effort! Anyways...

I may post more later tonight if I get a chance. I still have some thoughts bubbling around in my mind, but I need to unglue myself from the phone for a bit.

[2kultra]

Sitting

At a desk with my headset on

Thanks for calling

[2kultra]

Small post, very tired

I had way too much caffeine today, but I feel absolutely fine. I'm plenty tired after having taken my sleep meds and had a long conversation that revealed a lot of things to me that I was glad to understand about someone I love very much.

I ate a little more over the past few days than I should have. The scale is not my friend right now.

Being on antipsychotics feels like being a dormant volcano after a few years.

I need to go bed earlier.

I am mainly just writing my post as I am challenging myself to try to write every day. I assume there will be some boring posts in the mix. I am just writing the first things that come to mind. I hope I can grow as a writer.