So I saw the psychiatrist, Dr. C, yesterday. This was at the Expo Center. The setup was a little different. The building didn’t consist of only doctors. There were lawyers and other things as well. Usually, the nurse takes me into the exam room, takes my vitals, then has me wait for the doctor. In this case, a nurse took me into a small room off the waiting room and took everything but my pulse. Then I went back to the waiting room where I had to fill out a ridiculous amount of paperwork asking me the same damn questions that should already be on file. I did most of it but not all of it. It was just too long and too irrelevant as to why I was there.

Then, just like Stacey would come and get me herself, the doctor came to get me. She didn’t really make an impression on me either in a positive or a negative way. She was just average, I guess you could say. She didn’t make any small talk unrelated to the visit by commenting on the weather, whatever I was wearing, etc., but she also didn’t come off as rude, insensitive or like she was trying to rush me along. The staff wasn’t all that friendly except for the nurse that took my vitals.

Dr. C was a lot like Stacey. She had a very calm and “neutral” demeanor. The kind you couldn’t picture freaking out and that probably had a dry sense of humor. While they may have been comparable in personalities, they looked nothing alike except for their thinness. I first thought Dr. C might be a guy because her hair is very short. She might be a lesbian, but as long as she helps me or at least doesn’t make me worse in any way, I don’t care what she is. But just being the observant person I am, she wore no make-up and was very plane-faced, almost ugly. While she looked as Chinese as ever she had an American accent.

I noticed her noticing my scars just as Dr. G (GYN) did. Yeah, a few more months and they’ll be gone and my past will no longer be so obvious. Either way, I’m doing this for me. This scar removal thing. I don’t care if others judge me by the past and I don’t care what they think either, but I personally don’t like seeing them sitting there on my arm, just like I wouldn’t want to see a picture of my parents sitting on my desk. I have a few pics of them on my hard drive and online, but I don’t need a reminder of them sitting in front of me any more than I need to see the scars. How would that help me?

What I liked about her was that she stayed in the present and let me bring her up to date on the last few years and what led me to see her without interrupting me. Dr. L may have been friendlier, but she was harder to talk to because she interrupted a lot and went off-topic. I almost felt like I was going to chat with an old buddy when I would see her, LOL.

She told me that the ADD might have been what made going through perimenopause so hard on me, and explained that ADD is common and that those who have it often do better in crisis. Haha, could’ve fooled me. I had to be EMDR’d, didn’t I? I get what she’s saying, though. As Stacey pointed out, the day I freaked out thinking I was having a heart attack, I acted quickly and was able to think fast despite how terrified I was, call for help, and get out of the house.

Dr. C also confirms that once I go from perimenopause to menopause, things should stabilize. They feel like they’ve been doing just that since February, but now my body is making its third attempt to generate a period since mid-March, and this time I’m afraid it might succeed. The last couple of times I would get watery, and then the water would back off. Now I’m getting watery and my boobs are tender.

She took a moment to read Doc O’s notes and commented about her being a very smart woman.

Then she asked questions like do I get headaches? Any rashes? I told her I did have a rash under my arms (these little red bumps that won’t go away), and she said what I figured she’d say. It probably needs an antifungal cream. I’m going to start with trying an OTC one. If it doesn’t help, I’ll show it to Doc A when I see her.

Just why am I getting all these fungal issues these last few years anyway? Because I’m fat? Older?

She also asked me if I’d ever been diagnosed with Graves’ disease. I’ve heard of it but didn’t know it was the term for hyperthyroidism like Hashimoto’s is the term for hypothyroidism. The neurologist I saw said it was likely that I did have Graves’ disease when I was younger, and even though they never tested me for it, I agree, based on the symptoms I had back then. I didn’t have such terrifying anxiety like the last few years, but I would get overly hyper, my heart would race, and I couldn’t gain weight if I tried.

Once it got to where I could no longer lose weight in my 40s, I wrote it off to age. But then I was like, hey wait a minute! I exercise. But even with treatment, diet and exercise do me no good and I’m forever 30 pounds overweight. Therefore I have set more realistic goals for myself, which is not to gain any more weight. So far so good. :-)

Then she asked me about joint and muscle pain and I told her that my hip joints have been particularly stiff lately and I’m losing flexibility. I first wrote that one off to being fat, but there are people a lot heavier than me who have more flexibility. She recommended some stretching exercises, which I’ll be doing for a few minutes each day.

She mentioned memory loss, and yes, I’m still dealing with the brain fog from hell. I have trouble focusing and will often think of something I need to get from another room, walk into that room, then forget why I entered it in the first place. Sometimes it takes me a minute to remember my own damn address and phone number.

So I told her that while I’m trying to remain optimistic, I don’t want to get my hopes up and think that the worst of the anxiety is over, and so I requested one more refill of lorazepam, which she gave me. If all continues to go well, though, I won’t finish the bottle I still have, let alone need the refill.

She asked me about beta-blockers and I told her I took atenolol once when my heart was racing when the perimenopause was at its worst and they were adjusting my levothyroxine dose, and while it slowed my HR, it also made me very cold and sluggish. I also told her about the nightmare I went through with Prozac.

I was surprised to learn that lorazepam isn’t a narcotic but a benzodiazepine. Still, she said it not only quits working after a while as the body gets too used to it, but it’s addicting and I shouldn’t tell anyone I’ve got it. This is because she’s had a couple of patients have their homes broken into just for that. They left the laptop and other valuables and took only the benzos.

She feels clonidine would be better for me in light of the ADD. She says it will also help with any additional anxiety I may have and help me sleep better (we discussed the insomnia and the CRD as well). She understands my phobia of medication and recommended I try the short-acting version before bed and see if it helps me sleep. Another reason she thinks this will be better for me is that it’s not a stimulant like levothyroxine or a controlled substance like lorazepam. I asked her if there was anything I should worry about if I decided to try it and she said it can make you tired, so take it before bed as needed for the next six months and see if it helps with sleep as well as better concentration and all that. As I told her, I don’t have insomnia all the time. Sometimes I’m up the standard 16 hours. But when it’s been 18 or more hours and Tom’s home (just because the EMDR has made me braver doesn’t mean I’m that brave), I will take a 0.1 mg tablet; the lowest dose possible, which they give to kids.

“If you like it and you want to take it every day, let me know when you see me again in six months and we’ll switch you to the long-acting version,” she told me.

I guess those are taken twice a day. Either way, I wonder if I should have just said no. The ADD and occasional insomnia haven’t killed me yet, I don’t need the clonidine to keep me alive, and this is just adding one more drug and yet more appointments. Nothing wrong with trying it at least once, though, and again, I’m my own boss. I can stop taking the medicine and cancel our November appointment anytime I want.

Later…

This is the first time after bombing that I’ve continued to find things in here… 2 silverfish and 3 spiders. Oh, they were on their way to the pearly gates, but still…

The weather was perfect for bombing yesterday because it was cool and windy. That way it wasn’t too warm in the storeroom for the rats, and the house didn’t get too warm when we were airing it out.

Since my one-year prescription is up, the pharmacist left a message with my doctor to refill it, but as far as I know, she hasn’t responded yet. It says it can take up to 72 hours and we did this just yesterday morning. She better hurry up, though. I only have four pills left. The last thing I want is for her to screw me out of a few doses right before labs, then not get an accurate reading. I will so let her have it if that’s the case!

I’m looking at the notes I scribbled down as I always do when I get up to help me remember my dreams. Well, I don’t know what “work at restaurant” or “guy opens door” or “banana chips” means, but I vaguely remember Steve, a neighbor I had back east. He entered a room I was in, wanting to be sure I was ready to give a speech that night.

“But what do I give a speech about?” I asked him, and he said it could be about whatever I wanted it to be about. Everyone was giving a random speech that night. So I thought about it for a moment and decided I would do a speech on PTSD.

Then Tammy appeared to be upset that I wasn’t wearing a particular shirt that I guess she hoped I’d wear for that event.

Speaking of Tammy, she’s failed every “test” I set up for her. She’s definitely ignoring almost all my emails and messages. But why? I wonder. If she can take the time to check into Facebook multiple times a day, couldn’t she leave a quick reply to at least some of the messages? Just wondering if she’s having doubts about being in my life. Or maybe she really is that out of it. I guess only she knows for sure.

The loud car has a new habit and I’m wondering if the driver got a job. They leave at 6:30 AM and they return around 5 PM. Yesterday I was hoping they wouldn’t want to go out again after a long day at work, but they did. They weren’t gone long, but they left after 9 PM and returned an hour later. So I’m still hearing it about four times a day.

Still hearing the woodpecker at times too, and I really don’t think there’s anything we can do about it. I’m just too noise-cursed. It’s like the more I try to fight it, the worse it is.

Tom’s enjoying it, but I just can’t get into the new Twin Peaks. Therefore, I’ve begun watching 13 Reasons Why on Netflix. It has to do with a high school student who committed suicide. She leaves behind some old fashion cassettes for a handful of people that are supposedly some of the reasons why she killed herself.

Jumping back to Twin Peaks and all its weirdness. When I think of the afterlife I sometimes wonder how similar it may be if there really is one. Maybe it’s just a bunch of mismatched shit that may not be real but that’s very real to our spirits. Maybe you could appear to be sitting on a serene beach for a few minutes. Then maybe the next minute you’re being devoured by a pack of wolves. Or maybe we get to live out the dreams and goals we never achieved in this life. And maybe we get to do things and go places we’ve always been curious about. Maybe we suddenly know it all and have all the answers to the things we’ve always wondered about.

Some people believe that if they’re cursed in this life, then that has to be a sign that the afterlife is better since they’re kept alive long enough to continue to suffer.

But what if it’s the other way around? What if the bad things that happen to some of us here are to later show us that the afterlife is so much worse?

I decided to make my group ‘closed’ just to see if it generates new members. Maybe they’ll be curious as to what they can’t see and feel compelled to join.

I’ve been configuring iTunes, as well as playlists on Amazon and YouTube, so I can listen to music on my Mac only without having to record and transfer songs. Tom can use my ancient Windows laptop we got in Oregon for other things. Doing it this way has its pros and cons. Some features are cool but then there are other things that aren’t as convenient. I can’t jump a few seconds over boring parts of songs, but I love how iTunes has an equalizer with each song that you can set to customize each song.