i recently went from 50 mg to 100 mg with my lamictal. it is all part of building up to the therapeutic dose of 200 mg. i had two great and wonderful days. i had hope that this would be the beginning of something wonderful. then came the next two days.
they have been crap i tell ya’, efein’ crap. today, i made it out of bed just in time for my wife to get home. more like i got out of bed because my wife got home. i told her my day had been crappy.
she suggested a walk. i figured that might be good. the thing is, we have a difference of opinions on how to walk jimmy. i walk him untethered with a 10 ft leash. that way if he starts to get away, it’s easier to corral him. i have also ben training him with voice commands. for the most part, does a good job of listening. i don’t feel out if control. this freaks Mary out; she can’t handle it at all. she is afraid jimmy going to run off chasing something or another. he has a history of doing that, but he hasn’t done that while i’ve been working with voice commands.
then, it happened. jimmy took off for some bushes. the long leash worked as planned as Mary caught jimmy before he got to deep into the bushes. she insisted that jimmy be tethered. i walked away.
when i got home, i went for a drive. the drive took me over two mountain passes. the pass has beautiful scenery. after going over the first pass, i went through an agricultural area. i had fields of blooming apple trees on both sides of me. i felt a little peace from the crap of the day.
Mary and i texted back and forth, both of us digging in our heels. i stopped along the way and answered text as i didn’t have my bifocals; it would have been too hard to text and drive through the mountain passes. at one point, i told her what happened with jimmy felt like a cherry on a pile of hot steaming crap. she claimed to understand i had a bad day.
she kept pleading for me to come home. wait a minute. if she understood i had a crappy day, she would have understood why i walked away and why i had to get away. the texts kept coming including,”it’s hard for me to understand why treat me this way. i’ve been there for you. making me worry about the one i love just is not fair. i just don’t feel like i’m good enough. why do i feel like such a failure.”
fuck, i’m having a horrible day and she’s making it about her?
by that time, i had driven two hours from home. so, i had at least another two hours to get home, or so i thought.
though i had nearly ideal weather over the first pass, i got treated to a totally different experience less than 20 miles south on the second pass. even though it is rather late in the spring, i hit a heavy snow. a chains required condition got called which means all cars must chain up except all wheel drive. good thing i have my all wheel drive subaru; that meant i could continue my drive without the drudgery of putting on chains. the snow kept building as the road got covered with 4-5 inches of snow.
at one point, i had a car following me looking like they wanted to pass at the first possible chance. about that time, my car broke loose. “steer into the slide.” oh shit! i over corrected. now my car wandered about 45 degrees out of the direction of travel. “steer back the other way. gettin’ back under control.” one more minor correction and i again had the car moving in the direction of travel. not unexpectedly , after that, the car following me dropped back into the slow lane.
being an experienced snow driver, i thought i handled the situation well and went on my merry way. sometimes that stuff happens. the point is knowing what to do when it happens and doing it.
the snow continued to fall. at one point, i passed a fender bender on the side of the road. it’s a common place for such things as it comes just after an entrance from the ski slopes and people coming home get on the road and drive invincibly. they end up going to fast and crash into the side barrier. in those conditions, there is almost an iron clad guarantee that someone cracks up there. the snow kept falling and hard. i ended up driving over twenty miles in this snow storm. on a good day, the travel would have taken 20 minutes. but today, it took at least twice that long.
i made it home about 11:15 to a supportive hug from my wife. i’m not sured i wanted it, but i participated. we exchanged pleasantries and went to bed. it is now 1:30 and i find myself tapping this out on my iphone.
i gotta say, i have a new understanding for the people with rapid cycles. if you have never experienced it let me tell you, it sucks! i tell ya’, it sucks. ill take my 4-6 months of depresion any day. this not knowing where ill be tomorrow is hard.
now i have tomorrow to look forward to. Mary has decided to take the day off to support me. after today, i’m not sure i want it. she says she’ll do whatever i want. i don’t think she’ll like the idea of me laying in bed until noon, but if i had my druthers, that’s what i would do. should make for another stress filled day.
joy of joys!
facing off with the big d 