PMS and Birth Control

I've started recording my PMS symptoms in a regular place so that I can track what's happening. I have the impression that every few months, either my PMS, my period, or both, are miserable and I'm not sure why or if that's actually so, aside from vague references in my personal journaling before last month when it was really bad.

Last month I spent two or three days in a very low mood, unable to get the motivation to do anything I was supposed to do, including school work. I managed to do the short assignments due for my language class, and that was about it. Then, the first two days of menstruating were absolutely miserable, and far worse than what I normally experience. Normally, I have one day of heavy bleeding with cramping, etc., but can manage with just one dose of a medicine like Pamprin. Last month, I had two days of heavy bleeding and ended up holding my stomach every time I stood up, walked, or sat down because all of these activities jarred my internal organs and made me feel awful. Pamprin didn't really help, either. It was a few days later that I started to think about birth control to get this under control again. I suspect stress is throwing hormones off, but who knows if it will level out on its own?

This month, on the other hand, the most noticeable symptom I've had is increased appetite, both before and during menses. I'm a little confused, but I like this a lot better than ending up sobbing for half an hour after an Israeli film screening I had to go to for class. (It didn't help that I had no warning for how ... upsetting this film would be ahead of time. Need to talk to the prof about that at some point, actually.) That wasn't fun, and if I hadn't been PMSing it might not have happened.

So I'd like to try birth control. I went on it freshman year when my mother suggested it in case I became sexually active in college, but nothing happened at all that year, and eventually I gave up taking it because I didn't think I needed it. It seemed fine and a helpful regulator, if nothing else. Of course, there's also the consideration that I have a boyfriend these days and may end up becoming sexually active soon. But really, the horrible mood during PMS is what makes me want to take birth control again. Because I have a hard enough time keeping my mental health on a good track without hormones playing into it, too.

Trauma and Post-Trauma

[Content note: Description of the after-effects of trauma.]

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with my therapist. I made that appointment two weeks ago, but didn't anticipate when I made it that I would need it so badly. I felt like I was doing well two weeks ago. I was keeping up with work, mostly, and hadn't yet stood in line long enough to royally fuck up my knee for the next week and a half.

More importantly, two weeks ago I didn't know that I would be fighting panic attacks a week and a few days later.

This past Friday was horrid. It was worse than horrid, and is possibly the worst day I've had in months, excepting the 24 hours I spent vomiting/passed out recently, and that was bad in a very different way.

Sometime Thursday night/Friday morning, I had a dream. Only it was a little more than a dream, it was a nightmare based on memory. In it, I remember walking away from a hostile interaction with my brother, shutting a door, and locking it (with one of those push locks). My brother then tried to open the door, found he couldn't, and started shouting at me.

That's it. It's all I remember of the dream, so far as events go.

But I spent all day Friday remembering back to Christmas day when he did that for real, except there was no locked door to keep him out. Both in the dream and in life, there was no way out for me, just a room with one exit, and him standing in it.

On Friday, I went to class. I went to lunch. I read material and submitted a short response paper at literally the last minute. I went to a ten minute TA session for one of my duets. I went to a ResLife Staff Appreciation thing in the ResLife office for half an hour, long enough to enter a raffle and eat some cake.

Through all of it, my mood kept plummeting, refused to stay at my normal cheery level, and as a result I had repeated bouts of tears and shaking.

At 6, I went to campus shabbat services, and only managed to stay relatively positive for half an hour before I had to stop singing in order to fight tears. I ate dinner afterwards, and talked to a friend. And then I caught the campus shuttle back to my dorm, shut my door, and called the after-hours number for counseling services.
---

The on-call counselor called me back within minutes, and I managed to tell her what was wrong. I told her that I couldn't get the fear and anger of the incident with my brother out of my head, that my thoughts were going in circles, that it got worse when I had some down time, and that I was scared and had had a dream about it the night before.

She told me in return that what I was experiencing was a normal response to an abnormal situation--that, essentially, I had been traumatized, and this was part of my brain's way of trying to deal with it. She said something about cycles of not remembering, and then having it triggered and experiencing basically what I was going through. That I had been experiencing intrusive memories, which were like flashbacks except I knew it was a memory and not happening in that moment.

Perhaps the most comforting thing she told me is that my regular therapist specializes in trauma, and so he'll be able to help me move forward from here. She also talked me through a few coping techniques: making myself busy instead of letting myself think; shocking one of my senses to refocus my thoughts on something else (for example, going out in the cold without a jacket, or holding a hot cup of tea); spending time with friends and telling my housemate-friend that I might need support in my downtime at night.

Well, I made myself busy, or I already had a lot to do last weekend for my job, but I made things take more time by, for example, inviting one of my best friends to come shopping with me on Saturday. She drove, which was awesome because my knee was acting up, so I benefited that way, and she was planning to go shopping that day anyway, so it worked out well. I also went to a music major's thesis, which was a one-act opera, and it was awesome. On Sunday I woke up early and was running around immediately to do a few last-minute tasks, went to breakfast, and then spent 5 hours doing something for ResLife (to be fair, I could have done half the time, but felt the need to do the whole thing).

And then I hit time for schoolwork, realized I had so much to do because of midterms and other stuff and got really overwhelmed just in time for my therapist to call and check in on me.

Normally I can handle this stuff. Normally, I get a 24-hour rest period on shabbat by way of simply not doing homework from Friday through dinnertime Saturday. I didn't get that. Didn't have my spirits lifted by singing the psalms, only had a few hours' downtime on Saturday night when I had a two-hour skype session with my boyfriend. I went to bed really happy that night, but the feeling didn't last through the next day.

I wish it had. I wish I could go back to my "normal" but between midterm stresses, not getting a real shabbat, and having my mood plummet anytime something reminds me of Friday (including having my mother text me, unfortunately), I just...can't. I feel like I'm unable to manage anything right now, except I know I can go to classes and can even participate in them. But I'm not as invested in them, and I keep getting distracted by thoughts returning to Friday. It's a vicious cycle.

I'm praying that my therapist can help me break it, and get past it so that I can get on with my regularly scheduled life instead of feeling trapped by this one, enormous thing.

The Saga Continues

Content Note: This is part three of a series on abuse. Part One. Part Two. 

Two weekends ago I spent a night at my mother's house for the first time since December 27th. Every time I go there, I spend days or weeks getting my mental health back into a normal, positive track.

Yesterday, early afternoon, I finally called my mother to tell her why I stayed away for the whole month. I told her that my brother had trapped me, that his behavior was escalating, and that things were "moving toward abuse" or some such--I hadn't intended to modify it for her, but it slipped out. She said she would talk to my brother. I said okay and thank you.

Around 10pm last night, I received a text from her.

I talked to [brother's name]. I've asked that you guys agree to disagree & no more argueing.

 Things only devolved from there. I tried to be extremely clear and tell her that agreeing to such a thing 1) would make me feel like I had no way to stand up for myself and 2) would require a level of trust in my brother that I no longer have.

I've tried being tactful. I've tried cooperating. But my mother is not a good mediator, especially because she's involved, and she's also trying to force us to do what she wants, not what we want. It is so, so hard to explain things clearly and with reasons. It is so, so hard to retain respect for my mother when she's asking me to give an abuser another chance, without taking into consideration that I don't want to. She also threw in two lines of guilt tripping in separate texts.

For the record? I don't believe that "[h]e would die for [me]" and even if I did, what the hell does that matter when he actively hurts me in life? *still fuming*

Why does she keep asking me to do things I can't do? Why does she think that she or I can fix this? I'm not willing to place myself in danger just because she wants us to "get along." I'm not willing to deal with my brother without extensive family counseling, and even that I wouldn't be willing to do if he wasn't so involved in the family--or if I didn't have trouble with the idea of simply cutting ties. Not that I think family counseling is going to happen. 1) Not sure if anyone's insurance covers it. 2) My brother has very strong, negative feelings about any kind of therapy.

I'm not sure if I'm making sense or how much I'm rambling. I know that I will not do things on her terms--only on mine. The part I'm having trouble with is letting go of my relationship with my mother, should it be necessary.

It's the little things

Content Note: This is part two of a series on abuse. Part One. Trigger warning for substance abuse and bullying.

Yesterday I had to get a bag of miscellaneous (but important) things that I accidentally left at my mother's house. It's a two hour drive to get there, about 4.5 hours round trip, so I stayed overnight.

I'm mostly okay physically. I just wish I had driven back last night instead of overnighting it.

--
I started a different post to continue this series shortly after I finished the last one, but I have yet to finish it. In the meantime, things have continued to escalate.

I mentioned last time that my brother had a beer in his hand when he yelled at me. I didn't make a huge deal of it because his behavior was inexcusable regardless of his level of sobriety. However, there's that, and then there's substance abuse.

Last night my brother took prescription meds that weren't his for a "hurt shoulder." I can't make any statement on the veracity of that claim, but I can say that he took more of the other person's medicine, actually went over the dosage for the day. He also said both that he felt fine and that the medicine wasn't helping. My conclusion is that he wanted to get high. He argued with my mother over taking this greater dose, and ended up taking it anyway. And then he went for the beer, after arguing with both me and my mother about the wisdom of that decision. And kept arguing every time he went to get one, because one of us would speak up, and he would just keep going until we stopped responding, and then get another beer.

Meanwhile, we were both alarmed and worried that he was going to accidentally kill himself because of the drug interactions mixed with the overdose. He completely disregarded our feelings in favor of getting drunker. He was not making good decisions, but seemed convinced that because he had tried something similar before, he was automatically going to be fine again.

So naturally this whole situation was making me deeply uncomfortable, especially given the alcoholic step-father who just left. More than anything, I want to never see my brother again.

And you know what really irritated me last night, instead of just upsetting me? At one point he decided that while I was on my computer, he was going to show me pictures on his phone regardless of whether I wanted to or not. I in fact told him that I didn't want to, and he insisted, "Just look at them all, it won't take long." Since he was shoving it in my face and not moving it until I looked, I didn't really have a choice.

Once again proving that he doesn't care about what I want, and will force me to do things against my will. And that ticks me off.

Dinner and a trap

[Content note: This blog entry discusses abuse, first in the abstract and then with an example. It's my own story. Triggering content is marked before it moves into a detailed description of an abusive situation.]

[If you or someone you know is in an abusive situation, physical or not, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline (US & Canada): 1-800-799-SAFE* or check out their site. RAINN is a site particularly for sexual abuse.

*1-800-799-7233 if you're like me and have a full keyboard on your phone.]


This is probably my third or fourth attempt at blogging on this topic. Likely, I'll continue it later, but it's something that's been on my mind a lot and I would like to share, even though I have lots of voices in my head telling me that family things are private, that I have no right to talk about abusive behavior because it's not mine to share, that I shouldn't ever embarrass people in public, because being embarrassed in public is worse than being tormented in private, that...

To those voices I would like to say: Shut up and go to hell. I write because it's healing. I write because those who perpetuate abusive systems and situations, and then demand the right to privacy, are asking me to shut up and deal with the very real emotional stress it puts on me without ever being able to get help for it. They're asking me to participate in my own abuse.

I write for those who can't say these things.

----

Power completely restored!

So. That thing that happened. I've already posted about the blackout. This past weekend, the university put my building on partial generator power so that emergency systems, heat, and some lights came back online. I believe many of my residents and the Light house residents upstairs chose to come back at that point. I didn't. I didn't want to sleep where I didn't have power enough to see anything after ~5:30pm. I also went to Massachusetts, as mentioned in my last blog post, and my anxiety levels dropped some. My friends are awesome, and they have two adorable kitties, and they also gave me use of the spare bedroom/craft room, which meant I wasn't sleeping in the same room as someone else. I unfortunately couldn't let the cats in without supervision due to issues with one of them possibly spraying, and the possibility of either of them digging claws into the air mattress. Still, I spent a lot of time hugging cats and convincing them to purr.

Monday, my boss emailed all residents of my house to tell us that CL&P power was restored to all campus buildings, including ours. He didn't, however, check to make sure we were back to full power. We weren't. The extension part of the building had no electricity, although it did have heat. The main building had everything, I think. Facilities and Physical Plant were in the house on Monday and Tuesday doing something with breakers, and replacing (?) the boiler. By Tuesday afternoon, we had power back, and my temporary roommate and I moved back into the house as fast as possible.

I took a mental health day on Tuesday because I was still stressed about not having my own room back. This morning, I woke up in my room and alone. There was more relief associated with both of those things than I would have believed had I not just spent 10 or 11 days not having one or both. I feel so much happier today, just because of those simple things.

Yesterday I *also* went to see my therapist, when I asked for an urgent care session (I made the appointment before I moved back to my room, although the appointment was after). I talked through just how upset I've been for the past week, and he assured me both that it's completely normal that all the changes in my routine would cause this level of upset, and that my self-advocacy was excellent and really wasn't asking for favors so much as leveling the playing field since most of my peers had power back well before I did. That was the basic thing we talked about anyway. I'm not going to go into more detail on that.

Two other things came up during the session: the doctor who prescribed amitriptylene had called my therapist to discuss how I'm doing on the 10mg dose and whether I would like to raise it. After a short discussion, I decided that yes, I would like that, so last night I took 20 mg. Today? I walked to all my classes, even the one that went after my voice lesson, which normally makes it difficult to go anywhere. I was in mild pain by the end of the day, but it wasn't impeding my ability to do things, which was awesome. I just hope that I don't keep having to up the dosage of the medicine, but even so, it was such an amazing relief not to have to deal with the extra pain.

I said two things. The other was that the class dean had called him to ask about the email I had cc'd her on informing my professors that I would be taking a mental health day and not coming to class. She was on my side, apparently, but unsure why I needed the mental health day. Dr. A told her, without going into specifics, that just not having my room available was an incredible strain, etc. Apparently, a lot of students have been stressed out in different ways by the power outage.

Now that I'm back in my room, I've noticed a number of stress responses have gone away or lessened: my face is no longer extremely oily and extra-pimply; all-around pain has lessened (although a large part of that *is* the medicine); and I'm much happier.

I think, at this point, I may just be able to handle the rest of the semester. So long as nothing else happens. *knock on wood* All the same, I think it would be good idea to start meditating again. It did wonders Monday night when I was upset, and lately it takes a lot to calm me down.

So yeah, in general: huge improvement today as far as physical and mental health go, and I hope to continue with that.

New (?) symptom and general updatery

Today, I've been having problems with my left foot. It keeps hurting the way my hands sometimes do, except that it's been a shooting pain while walking or leaving my foot in a specific position (apparently). I've also generally been having problems with my feet hurting when I move them into weird or different positions, usually involving something that should merely be a stretch. For example, I sort of spun on the front of my right foot in order to turn around, and suddenly there was pain through my big toe and area around it. I don't really know what's causing this, or why it's happening now.

In other news:

• I had a voice lesson today. Made it through all 50 minutes without too much pain, and then realized when I left that my knees were really objecting to standing up for that long. I ended up taking the medical van to and from my last class.
• My sleep pattern has evened out again. I'm no longer having a hard time waking up, although I really wish I had been able to sleep a little longer this morning. However, someone in the neighborhood using what sounded like a heavy, continuous machine caused those plans to change. Constant droning noise that just grated on my nerves.
• Pain levels are relatively under control, all things considered. I only experienced mild discomfort in my last class, and that was mostly in the last 20 minutes or so of the 80 minute lecture.
• I'm doing better mentally, but am also kind of dreading the weekend. We'll see what happens then.
  

That's all for now. I think I'll try to update at least twice weekly, despite the frequency of posts so far.

Mental Health and Support Systems

[trigger warning: mental health issues, discussion of suicide]

The problem with having a chronic condition is that it takes a toll on my mental health. I've stopped being in so much pain since I started amitriptylene, but my mental health didn't improve at the same time.

Pain causes a very emotional response in me, because I fear it, hate it, and can't function well with it. It's a loss of stability. It's knowing that I can't rely on my body to do what I need or want it to do. It's grief for what I used to be able to do. It's crying for hours because the pain won't stop no matter what I do, and then being exhausted by the emotional outpouring.

When the pain is temporary, has a definite and easily identifiable cause, and lasts only a few days, I can handle it. I might not like it, but I won't fall too far behind in anything in that time span.

When it lasts three weeks, on the other hand, I fall into a danger zone without even realizing it. I neglected to call my school's counseling center at first because I thought I was okay enough to handle it, and that the severe pain was over. Then the pain lasted, and lasted, and lasted. I would be in relatively little pain one day, and then crippling pain the next. I missed classes, I didn't do (still haven't done) reading assignments. I stopped being able to do things I take pride in.

I finally called the counseling center last week, but the psychologist I see didn't have an appointment until tomorrow. I thought I would be okay.

And then the weekend came. With it came relief from pain, but increased emotional distress likely caused by having too much time on my hands to think about it.

Last night, I finally reached out to all of my friends via a private facebook group we use for communication and asked them to check on me constantly. I then emailed three of my most supportive friends and cc'd my class dean and my psychologist on the email. I told them why I needed people to be around me or asking me how I'm doing so often.

I told them I've been having suicidal thoughts, and that none of my coping strategies were working. The coping strategy that has worked was sending that email, and within 15 minutes getting two positive and supportive emails in return. I also had an off-campus friend IMing me while I was awake for the last two nights, which helped with the immediate problems.

I'm better today. Not completely okay, but better.

I had at least six people ask me how I'm doing over lunch. The friends I emailed separately last night are texting me and making plans so that I'm not left alone for too long.

And it turns out that the people I've talked to or ask for help in the last couple of weeks have communicated with each other. A professor called the Dean for Students with Disabilities. That Dean and my Class Dean called my psychologist. One of the doctors I see at the health center noticed the recent visit with someone else that resulted in a new prescription for pain, and called my psychologist and called me. She asked if I wanted to have appointments every other week to keep up with my medical issues. I said yes. All of these people have called or emailed me to see what they can do for me and make suggestions.

I don't know how this works when a student isn't reaching out the way I am, but it's good to see such a response. I suppose that's what ResLife staff members are for: we're supposed to notice the kinds of behavioral changes that indicate a problem like this. Either way, it's amazing that this system is in place here where faculty and staff talk to each other. My friends are equally amazing.

One last note: I had debated putting this out in such a public place, but I decided that it's important to do so. Not just because I needed to sort through the thoughts I've written out here, but also because I know I'm not the only one who has or has had this kind of problem. And it's nothing to be ashamed of, no matter what society might tell us.

If you or someone you know is suicidal or on the edge of being suicidal, ask for help and if you can manage it, keep asking until you get it. There are people out there who want to help you.

http://suicidehotlines.com/ has national and local numbers for suicide hotlines, many of which operate 24/7.

I now have two national numbers programmed into my phone, just in case.