The neurologist

I returned to the sleep doctor about a month and half ago, and when I told him that I was occasionally losing control of my bowels during these nightmares, he suggested I go and see a neurologist so I made an appointment to see one in one months time.  The night before I went to see him, I had a horrific night, one of my worst in ages so I was not even vaguely on function mode when I got to him.  I tried hard to give him the history of all the tests I'd had but I was so exhausted, physically from the night before and emotionally from how many times I had told this story before. He looked at my EEG and said whilst he saw an abnormality on one of the brain waves, it was not definately epileptic so he suggested an overnight 24 EEG with video monitoring.  I was very distressed about having this again as I found the 24 sleep study extremely traumatic.  I just decided to do what I had to do thought and booked the EEG for two days ahead. 

On the Friday I booked myself into the hospital and went to get wired up.  Whilst they were glueing the electrodes to my head I just cried and cried.  I had no idea why I was being such a baby but the tears would not stop coming.  Once I had all the wires on, which pulled horribly on my skin and itched like crazy, I just lay on my bed and starred into space for hours, wishing time away and wishing I could be anywhere but in that hospital.  I eventually went to sleep around midnight but at 5:30am I was woken by a tea lady who wanted to know what my order was for breakfast.  I was so angry, as I was in the middle of a nightmare when this moron of a woman came and woke me up that I was too mad to go back to sleep.  I then lost it.  I hid under my blanket and just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.  I knew what was going to happen now, all that would happen was that the doctor would call me in two days time and tell me I'm fine and there is nothing wrong with me.  And I would be back to square one and still living with this horror every single night.  And that is exactually what happened.  I got the call on the Tuesday and he said there was no evidence whatsoever of any abnormalities in my brain.  I remained calm when I got the phone call but when I went home all hell broke lose.  I just wept and threw things around my flat.  I opened my drawer with all my medication in it and stared at it for about 2 hours.  I wanted to die.  I had no desire whatsoever to continue to live like this any longer.  These suicidal thoughts continued to the next day and I realised that I had to options, re-admit myself to the clinic or get the hell away from Cape Town and my pills to keep myself out of danger of doing something stupid.  So I booked myself flights to Johannesburg. Something I really could I'll afford but I didn't feel like I had much option.  

Once I got to Joburg, I landed only to find out that 2 of my staff had resigned and a guest had taken it upon himself to shoot up heroin in our bathroom and pass out, leading my manager to walk in on him not knowing if he was alive or dead.  Things calmed down after that and I have now relaxed and am recovering a bit from everything that was last week, but I'm worried about next week and what will happen.  Whether I will come home, take one look at my bed and have my nightly breakdown or whether this trip will have rejuvenated me a bit.  Every test or treatment that I try feels like such a huge deal at the time and I keep making the mistake of allowing it to suck everything out of my physically, mentally and emotionally. When each test or treatment is actually such a small drop in the ocean of the bigger picture of everything that I have gone through. 

So where to from here?  I really don't know.  But I will just keep on taking it one step at a time as that's all that I know how to do.

Coming off the meds

I decided about three weeks ago that I would be stopping all my psychiatric medication as it was costing a fortune and not helping at all. I feel like I gave it enough time and belief and it was the right time to stop it. I tapered off the medicine slowly as advised by the sleep therapist (I did not receive a response to my email to my psychiatrist).  Whilst lowering the daily dosage I was fine, I didn't feel any side effects at all.  I was meant to wean for another week but on Friday I ended up sleeping at a friends house and didn't have my medicine with me so on Saturday I figured since I didn't take it the night before I may as well stop.  Sunday was okay but Monday...oh wow! I had the worst mood swings ever, I was literally raging like a bull. I had tingling feelings going up and down my body every couple of minutes, light headedness, dizzy, nauseous. The list goes on. I got into my car on Monday evening and just burst into tears. I wished I could be dead, I cried for death to come. I was sleeping at a friends house half an hour away and bawled my eyes out the whole way there. The symptom of withdrawl have eased very slightly but at least the mood swings have subsided.  The physical withdrawl is very intense though and I hope it begins to improve soon.

The police

Last night, my dream was ultra disturbing. I dreamed that there were policemen on motor bikes floating in the air and on the other side was a big propellor blowing really hard which was creating a suction force to keep them in the air. I was standing on the ground looking and was fascinated with how this worked. Then, all of a sudden the propellor went off. The policemens faces all fell, as they realised what awaited them. Then, in slow motion the fell to the ground, their faces distorting slowly and more gruesomely as they fell closer and closer to the ground. Then, slowly still, slam, they hit the ground and died slowly and painfully, one by one. 

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FACE GOING TO SLEEP TONIGHT IF THIS IS MY REALITY!! HOW CAN I CONTEMPLATE GETTING INTO MY BED, WHICH I NOW VIEW AS A TORTURE CHAMBER BECAUSE THATS WHAT HAPPENS TO ME THERE!! I. Can't. Do. This. Anymore :(