Recreational Reading: Shrink Rap and other blogs

How good can it be for a psych patient to spend hours reading the blogs of mental health professionals? It's no wonder that the sick patient will walk into the doctor's office demanding a certain medication. And could it not take away the spontaenaity or innocence often present during therapy sessions? I have mulled over the many articles, podcasts, and comments of professionals and of other psych patients. Is there enough clinical information available to cause me to second guess my doctors? That might not be necessarily bad, but it might not be good either. I think I have read enough here to realize that there are manipulative patients. I hope I'm not one of them. Maybe no harm is done, after all Hannibel Lecter was only a ficticious character. Yet I crave the information. The two weeks between sessions are tedious. I can only write so much. So then I read. If not Dostoevsky and Plath, then Shrink Rap and Dr. A.

Monday Night Football

I slept 16 hours straight. This after my psychiatrist increased my Effexor dose to give me more energy. So much for that. Maybe it was a fluke of some sort. I'll give it more time.

But now I'm having trouble going to sleep tonight. I took my Seroquel at the regular time but I am wide awake. Thank goodness for football doubleheaders to keep me company.

The On-going Terror of Power Rape

This is what I learned this week. It isn't so much that I don't want to be seen, it's that I don't want people to know me. Not revealing who I am will protect me from the horrors of terrorism.

How can anyone terrorize me if they don't know my fears? Terror may seem an extreme word for blackmail or extortion. But as the victim, I feel the kind of dread that terrorism invokes.

Eye on the Prize

The more I think of it the more astounded I am that my shrink at the VA tried to use the doctrines of my religion to convince me not to commit suicide. What possible argument could be invoked to persuade a gay veteran to follow some religious doctrine? I have to keep my religion at arm's length of my spiritual beliefs. The desire to be solely in the company of God without the distractions of earthly existence reinforces my wish to stop living. I just cannot believe that God rejects me too.

Those Lying I's

I don't know why I do this, but I almost always embellish stories. It just happens and when I rehash what happened I realize that I did it.

During my last session w/ ologist I was describing details of my power rape and in response to, "what did you do after that?" I said, "I told him to get the hell off of me." then later I said, "I told him to get the hell out of here." Neither was true. To tell the truth, I never said anything. I just lied there feeling ashamed of myself for letting him coerce me.

So why the lies? Something to discuss during my next session.

No Eye Contact

My therapist suggested that I speak to strangers and make eye contact. I immediately realized that this would be difficult. I tried to discern if I wanted to avoid seeing people or if I didn't want anyone to see me.

I saw Bob Dylan in concert once and felt robbed that he hardly lifted his face from the keyboard or looked out into the crowd. I remember when I went home I wrote about my disappointment. I thought he was hiding. Now I wonder what he was doing. Maybe, like me he just doesn't want to get peopled up anymore.

My diagnoses are Major Depressive Disorder, Schizotypal Tendencies and PTSD. I work very hard at avoiding human contact. For almost two years I stayed in bed as much as possible, not answering the phone or the door. I couldn't even read a book. I have suicidal ideations, and I still work at a grand plan for ending my life.

I simply don't want to be alive. I don't laugh, I don't cry. I don't feel. I do the minimum necessary with my family. I have no friends, really - only acquaintances.

Why am I even creating a blog? I guess I found a way to interact with humans without that dreaded eye contact.