It would be better if I were dead. At least, that's what the voices told me. I hear them sometimes, but not all the time. Not enough to get meds for it, apparently. When I told the Doctor about them, they said that they could prescribes some anti-psychotics, but they wanted to hold off on that. So, I think I was diagnosed with mild psychosis, in addition to my other diagnoses of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, and Adjustment Disorder.
I only hear them when I get depressed. And today I was. Two nights ago I took a sleep medication and then slept for 15 hours. My body is VERY reactive to medication. So, even though I only took 50mg of Trazedone, I slept from about 2230 until 1330 the next day. Last night, I only took have a pill. I couldn't sleep. I tried, honestly. After laying in bed until about 0030, I got up and moved around. I tried to fall asleep again around 0230, but again failed. I was feeling bad mentally.
When my alarm went off at 0600 signaling that it was time for me to wake up and practice my Kung Fu, I instead went upstairs and took a shower. That's when the voices started. "You're a loser!" "You should die!" "Fill the tub up and let it drown!" I don't know why that last voice referred to me in third person, but it did. I try to ignore the voices, but they won't go away.
To get my mind off of them, I tried working a simple physics problem that I had in class a few days ago. If a mass of 100Kg is hanging off a cliff 20 meters from the ground, attached to a rope that goes up to a pulley and then along the top of the cliff to another mass, assuming a .2 friction coefficient, how heavy must that second mass be in order to only be going 10m/s when the first mass hits the ground?
I worked it out loud, doing the calculations without pen, paper, or calculator. It scared my wife for a second, because she didn't know who I was talking to. I kept messing up the calculations, though I got them close. I came up with 250Kg to accelerate at 2m/s^2. I remembered that the answer was something closer to 270Kg.
This helped me a little bit, but I could not shut my brain off. The voices kept grabbing at me for attention. Finally, at 0700, when I was supposed to leave for school, I decided I couldn't take it anymore and had to sleep. I couldn't drive anywhere anyway.
My wife asked me what needed to happen for me to be able to go to class today. I told her I wasn't sure, but that I had to reset my mind somehow. So, she graciously stayed with me until I fell asleep at roughly 0800. I woke up at 1300, but I was still out of it. My wife sat with me on the couch for hours watching the TV show "Scrubs", until I finally somewhat snapped out of it.
Missing class depresses me, and also gives me anxiety. But, even worse, I missed a newspaper interview today at 1100 that I was supposed to be a part of. The University newspaper wanted to interview our robotics team. I missed it. I keep letting everyone down.
Even now, since I am feeling out of it, the voices are there. I can ignore them for the most part, though. But I can still hear them when I am not thinking about anything else. "Why are you typing?" "No one cares what you think!" "Give up. You're done. You can't come back from this."
Are they right? I don't know. I do know that I have my livestream to look forward to tonight, playing Smite on the Xbox with a couple friends of mine. That always seems to help me feel better. Hopefully when I can livestream I'll get to talking to my friends, and they'll pull me out of this. They don't (or maybe they do) know it, but chatting with them live helps a lot.
I thought about calling the veteran's crisis hotline again today. But I decided not to. They always ask if you're having suicidal thoughts, and I usually have to lie to them and tell them that I've never contemplated it. I don't want them to send someone over to "help" me, and cause more stress. The last thing I need is to be taken to the hospital and put under suicide watch. The stigma attached to that would break me.
Besides, I have my family. My wife and my three daughters. I couldn't bear to leave them alone in the world. If for no other reason, I couldn't let my girls grow up without a Dad. They need me, as poor a job as I'm doing. It's better than nothing, in my way of thinking.
I only slept about five hours today. Hopefully that won't interfere with my sleeping tonight. I need to go to work tomorrow. I missed it today. And my disability isn't quite high enough that I can get by without working. Almost, but not quite. I still need to work about 20 hours per week to sustain my family.
Well, hopefully it can only go up from here.
- Sapper Woody
No comments:
Post a Comment