Written yesterday:

I woke up feeling really warm and couldn’t even finish my coffee because that was making me even warmer, so I told my docs that I wanted to scale my dose back a bit. They told me that while it was my choice, they didn’t agree with it because they felt that cutting my dose back could make me feel worse.

But my TSH has been higher in the past during which I’ve had times I felt better. I get their point, but again, it just doesn’t make sense to me. If a higher TSH means feeling horrible emotionally then I would have been a complete mess before the diagnosis. It’s like this treatment has made me worse. Ever since I started this drug, my problems began and I felt worse for the most part. Yes, I know I went into menopause at the same time, but still. I’m really starting to suspect more and more that the meds have much more to do with what’s been going on with me than menopause. Not saying menopause isn’t a factor, but the fact that I’ve changed so much for the worse shortly after starting this drug kinda tells me something right there. Emotionally, I’ve never been the same. The emotional side effects have been way worse than any physical ones thus far other than in the very beginning when I had a booming heart and was absolutely terrified. I don’t even know that all these hot flashes really are hot flashes anymore. Maybe they’re side effects of the medication. I just don’t know what to think anymore. My gut instinct is on the meds as the main culprit. How I wish to hell I could quit the shit for a year! Then I would have my answer. For now, all I can do is wait a few more years until menopause can’t be a factor anymore. All I know is that a couple of months after starting this drug I have never been the same. I haven’t been the same since, and I don’t know that I ever will be. Instead, I’ve felt worse. Hell, I felt better even when my life was a mess! Really, when I think of my worst times in life, I still didn’t feel this bad. My life has been going well since the recession ended around 2011, yet my physical and emotional state doesn’t reflect it.

Why are the simplest of things in life so hard to ask for? Why can’t I just sleep at night every night and feel human? I just want to feel like myself again!

They pointed out that sleep apnea (after they asked once again if I ever participated in a sleep study) can cause some similar symptoms. I’m aware of this, even though I’m relatively sure I don’t have sleep apnea. But that’s the thing that’s so frustrating. When different things can have the same symptoms, you don’t always know what’s what.

I have never felt more hopeless about my situation than I do now. Each year that passes, I lose more hope. After eight years, I realize my only choices are to live with it or die. Knowing that I’m going to suffer for the rest of my life is a very hard pill to cram down my throat. I try and try, but I just can’t accept it. I know this is the way it will always be with a few scattered breaks in between. But I just can’t accept it. I wish to hell I could, but I don’t think there is a person alive who could accept such misery.

I just miss my old self tremendously! I know I’ve been running around in circles saying the same damn things over and over again, but it doesn’t make them any less true. I just want to get back to myself. I miss so many of my old feelings. But just like I can never get back to my old self physically with a working thyroid, good vision, a thin body, etc, I don’t see how I could possibly ever get back to my old self emotionally. If I could just know what the fuck was causing most of these feelings!!! That right there might help a lot because then it would be easier to know what to do about it. If it’s on the medication or just how the older me has become, I’m pretty fucked.

I made him promise that I would give it till I’m 60, and if that still doesn’t bring me relief, he would help me find a way out that wouldn’t come back on him. It’s just that I hate to desert him and leave him alone for so long and I definitely don’t want him to get in trouble for my own actions. But one can only take so much suffering, and sometimes we really do have to put ourselves first.

I started the St John’s wort supplement today and until that fucks up my stomach, I’ll be taking that daily. Also, they started me on hydroxyzine. It’s pretty much a kickass antihistamine that is supposed to be good for not only sleep issues but acute anxiety too. According to the forms I filled out, I have severe anxiety and moderate depression. I’m not going to lie and say that I haven’t thought how wonderful it would be if I ceased to exist. I really, truly do believe I’m beyond help.

I only took the hydroxyzine once, so it’s really hard to judge the stuff. You take it as needed, but no more than four pills a day which totals 100 milligrams. It seemed to help a little, but the trade-off is that it made me drowsy. Adult Benadryl has always made me drowsy and even sometimes causes me to nap so it’s no surprise. I’d rather nap than feel like shit emotionally, but I’m tired of being forced into this twisted game of Would You Rather? Why can’t I just feel good both physically and emotionally? I had five months earlier in the year of feeling good (I think I might have been mistaken and said it was six months in past entries). I wonder how long it will be before I get to do that again.

As horrible as I’ve been feeling, it serves as a real wake-up call that it really is time to get myself a new endo and a new therapist, even if nothing will ever change. Then I need to see a GYN. It’s just that trying to schedule all this with my type of sleep disorder is very hard. My sleeping pattern has become a little more irregular, and then even more so with the hydroxyzine so that’s going to make my schedule even less predictable.

Not sure a GYN would find me a good candidate for estrogen when breast cancer runs in my family history.

Med or menopause, I did a complete 180 and now I’m cold because we’re having a cold spell. Winter has finally arrived and it’s a lot like our old place out there. We went out walking in the evening and it was 54 degrees out which is freezing for me. Even in a sweatshirt and a hoodie, I was cold. It was cool to see the Christmas lights, though, and we even saw a possum dart across the street.

Tonight it was 62 degrees and I didn’t need my hoodie. Much more pleasant.

Okay, so I know I’m jumping all around here as far as subjects go. I emailed a therapist who does teletherapy, and on Monday, I’ll call the endo that they referred me to in Palm Harbor. If she can’t get me in soon, I’ll try to get someone closer.

They told me to be patient, saying that the new things I’m trying can take a few months to have their full impact, but they expect me to feel better in a few weeks. I feel like it’s going to be a long few weeks. And what if I don’t get better? What do I do then? If I’m not going to kill myself, what do I do to make life more bearable? Hope for a deadly disease?

My biggest fear right now is that more of this than even I realize is on the medication and that there’s no alternative for me. I hope to hell this endo can help me, but I don’t see what more she can do for me that Doc O didn’t already try. Same with the therapist. But it might at least give me some peace of mind to know I’m finally established with them and that they’re there.

Damn, do I miss Aly! I know it’s not like Jessie doesn’t care, but I am hesitant to cry on her shoulder because she’s just not as intelligent and she doesn’t have a good memory. It isn’t that she doesn’t get some of the suffering I’ve gone through, but there are some things she’s experienced that I haven’t and that I’ve experienced that she hasn’t. So it may be tough to fully grasp exactly what I’m feeling.

In other news, there was a woman in Phoenix that Tom and his brother David knew from working at the post office and that they would see at the horse racing track. Well, he was watching a race in Phoenix, and sure enough, he spotted her as one of the spectators!

I had this horrible nightmare where Tom died and I was suddenly at Chris’s place. I had no money and no means of support. On top of that, I was hungry. Chris suddenly left me in his place and took off walking somewhere. I watched through the window as he walked away leisurely, hands in his pockets. I hoped he would be back soon, even though I hated the thought of begging him for something to eat. A sense of hopelessness, loneliness and despair came over me to know that Tom would never be back to save me and be a part of my life ever again.

Written now:

Still hanging in there, but still not feeling good. It’s the weekend, so there isn’t much I can do until I get in to see someone or get a video appointment, even though I still say none of it is going to do me any good. It didn’t do me any good in California. No matter how many coping mechanisms, tricks, tips, and pointers someone gives me for handling this anxiety and depression, no one can make it go away for good and stop it from returning. No one can get me back to my old self where if I felt any negative emotions, it was for a reason and I knew what that reason was. It wasn’t some mystery thing going on inside my body.

I thought of taking the hydroxyzine earlier, but I don’t want to be knocked out or too tired to do anything. I also want to finish my wine first. I wouldn’t have gotten it if I knew I was going to start this stuff. I’m sure the two could mix safely. I would just be even more tired and out of it.

Body temperature is another issue I’m struggling with on the physical side. I just can’t get comfortable for long. I’m either too hot or too cold. Again, I’m racking my brain trying to guess if it could be the medication or menopause or both. I may have always been sensitive to cold, but I miss the days when I was a lot more oblivious to temperature.

I did update Jessie who says she totally understands and has teletherapy as well which she finds very helpful. She’s also backing off on alcohol because her liver enzymes are up.

The thing that’s compounding my negative emotions is that while I know that sooner or later I’m going to get a temporary break, I feel more and more certain I’ll never escape it for good. Each year that passes without resolving this, I lose more hope. It’s a very tough thing to have to face and accept. Some things just aren’t meant to be no matter how much we struggle to make them happen.

I can’t stop asking myself if this is all random or if something up there is doing this to me. If it’s not doing it directly, is it at least sitting back and allowing it to happen? What could possibly hate me so much that it would want me to suffer like this when it could have prevented it? Why won’t it let me help myself? Why won’t it let me find something that will help me? I don’t mean just a temporary solution. I mean something that will change things permanently for the better.

If no one and nothing can help me, I wish to hell I would just get a deadly disease and get it over with that way. But if something up there is actively cursing me, it’s not going to let me die any time soon. I may suffer in the afterlife too for all I know, but something definitely seems to be determined to make me suffer right here. I try to tell myself it’s all happenstance, but I don’t know that. Maybe it is, maybe it is it. I just know that the thought of any unworldly source doing this or letting it happen is pretty damn chilling. I’m no better or worse than the average person. So if there is anything out there making sure that I suffer, what the hell did I do that was so bad to deserve it?