Late July Monte Report

My medical leave of absence from work expired this week. I was hoping that I would remain an employee with a status of "intermittent" -- which would allow me to do some work at times, but without any particular schedule. Specifically, there is work on a large spreadsheet that I was hoping to have the opportunity to do. Unfortunately, my boss decided not to retain me on the payroll, and so I'm being terminated. Part of me expected this to happen, but it turns out I wasn't prepared to hear the news. I had worked there for more than thirteen years, and I feel even more lost than ever now. The intermittent status that I was hoping for would have provided me with a small link to the organization, and since I hope to work there again some day, that small link was very important to me. My boss assured me that I would have every opportunity to return once there's a turnaround in my condition and I can make a commitment to the organization again, provided a suitable position opens up. But still it feels like a physical blow, as well as a psychological blow.

I'm at my parents' house right now. In a few days I'll make my seventh (and "last") trip to Washington since early April. My new house is still without carpeting, and so I've been sleeping on a mat in the kitchen. I've been basically living out of a suitcase for four months now, and it has long since grown wearisome to be separated from 99% of my stuff. The carpet people are supposed to show up on August 6th. At that point I can begin to unpack and hopefully some normalcy will return to my life. Maybe at that point I can begin to try and unravel my brain and really focus on getting better. It's going to take a lot of motivation, though: at this point I just keep wishing I'd die in my sleep or something easy like that. Now that the wait for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is over, it's hard to find something to look forward to. You'd think I'd look forward to living in such a beautiful location. But instead I'm fretting about money (my disability insurance company is still being very unhelpful) and whether I'll ever feel safe going back to a normal full-time job again. Ostensibly I'm interested in birds and butterflies and dragonflies and other nature-oriented things. But it's a struggle to pay attention to these things, just like it's a struggle to get out of bed each morning.

One big hope that I had was that I'd find a psychiatrist in Washington who would come up with some new master plan for my meds and then I'd have a miraculous recovery. My new primary care physician all but squashed that idea when he told me that there are hardly any psychiatrists in my new county, and so I've had to settle for a psychiatric nurse. My appointment with him isn't until August 10th, so maybe a miraculous recovery is still in the cards. But I'm not optimistic -- and I'm especially worried that my disability benefits will be disqualified if I'm not under the care of an actual psychiatrist. Sigh. I'll let you know how it goes.

Mid-July Monte Report

Nothing much new to report. I'm keeping busy driving back and forth to Washington. While in Washington, though, it is tough to keep myself occupied during the heat of the day, even though there is an infinite amount of weeds to pull and other work to do. I take long midday naps, and promise myself I'll work in the evenings and mornings. But instead I go to bed early at night and sleep in, so I end up sleeping through the coolest parts of the day as well. One of these days though the heat ought to let up, I imagine.

I got an unexpected chance to meet with my old psychiatrist again, and he tweaked with my meds a little. Maybe that will help. Later this week I'll see my new Washington primary care physician, and hopefully he'll have good recommendations for a new therapist and a new psychiatrist.

I just attended a family reunion where most of the family were people I'd never met before. Socializing with new people is tough for me, and even with a handful of tranquilizers I still had a hard time reaching out to anyone. I did enjoy, however, visiting with those family that I already knew.

Anyway, the struggle for existence continues with plenty of troubled thinking. My hope is that once I'm settled in Washington I can concentrate my energies on "getting better" -- by reading and writing and using Cognitive Behavior Therapy exercises that can help me to disempower the triggers that besiege me every day. When I had my breakdown in 2005, this seemed to work -- at least, it worked well enough to get me back to work again after being out for six weeks. This current "breakdown" is more severe (it's been fifteen weeks since I stopped working), and the danger is clearly much worse. But at the same time, I haven't yet gotten to the point of setting a date for committing suicide. That's what happened after the awful company holiday party in 2002. That night I was triggered so badly that I set a six week "cooling off" period after which I would kill myself if I didn't feel better. Six weeks later though, I was getting admitted to the hospital in Kansas instead.

Anyway, the point is things are bad, but they've been worse.

Today's bird of the day is the magnificent Pileated Woodpecker, the second largest woodpecker in North America (after the Ivory-billed Woodpecker). I got a great look at a Pileated the day before the family reunion this past weekend.

Early July Monte Report

Although at the moment I'm feeling relatively normal, I have had some really bad days since my last post. I've been back to ruminating at length on ways (and wheres) to commit suicide. I find myself triggered very easily. Pathetically, my "best" days are days when I have little contact with other human beings. My social anxieties are just at the extreme end of the spectrum lately. Paradoxically, though, I also crave contact with other people. I've been trying to take one friend's advice of focusing on "one day at a time." By pretending that tomorrow doesn't exist yet, I've managed to stumble through an endless series of todays. But some days just seem to painful to endure.

By the end of this month I should be firmly settled in my new Washington home. I don't know if that will be good or bad. One good thing is that it will give me the opportunity to focus on getting better. But will I be able to make good use of my time? We'll see. Right now I'm spending about 12 hours a day in bed, sometimes more if you take naps into account. At the same time I'm experiencing an awful lot of insomnia (even with my sleeping medications).

Some of you have inquired about my Mom -- she's doing pretty well, having finished all her chemo and radiation. And she's not bald anymore. Now it's a game of wait and see, to see if any problems show up over the next few months. But considering the fact that the treatment was aggressive, and that the cancer was confined to the breast, the outlook appears good.

Today's bird of the day is the Brown-headed Cowbird. Next time I see you, ask me about its strange nesting habits.