a Scarlet D
My mental health journey
about
Category: Uncategorized
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That was a long winded way to recommend both Big Fish and Little Fish, and maybe hints that Finding Nemo might be worth a watch. Big Fish is a movie that may make you cry with it’s happy ending. Little Fish gives you a sense of the challenges of memory loss. And could give you…
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I was middle aged, lightly active and physically average. Which is to say, I could walk five miles around a local lake without any difficulty. Quick to kid, always ready with a joke or a pun. Mind like a steel trap – able to remember the smallest details, people, places and things. Self taught, learning…
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I haven’t been driving, because I’ve been in the acute portion of ECT. That is, until last week. This week I switch to maintenance ECT once a week. And we’re gently re-introducing driving for me.
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Something has changed in the last few days. This no longer feels like “depression, that old friend” but something less under my control. Scarier, more lonely, no end in sight. I spend much of my time trying to figure out what’s happening or what’s real or not. During Ketamine, I no longer track what’s really…
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Everything I said last week, but double. Between the ECT and the Ketamine I’m constantly bouncing between confusions. Today during Ketamine as soon as it started to hit I was completely lost. I had no idea what was real, what my purpose was, or when the ketamine ended and reality began again. It was not…
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That’s probably the best description of how I feel. The ECT has me confused, hard to follow a train of thought, and scattered. Today I don’t feel like I can do anything. Anything electronic has me drifting off within minutes. My phone, which is normally like an extra limb, is confusing. I’m having trouble finding…
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This week has been one of the toughest. Ever. First, the MAOI – the patch isn’t really helping, so we’re likely going to go over to the oral form, which includes the dietary limitations. This includes items with high tyramine. No, I hadn’t heard of it before either. Things included on the no fly list:…
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A week from Monday I will be restarting electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT. It’ll be unilateral this time, which is supposed to keep memory loss lower. That’s how we started last time but went to bilateral because it just wasn’t working. Unilateral means just on one side of the head, bilateral is both sides, which is…
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COVID. Yay. Always something new and horrible happening with the pandemic. This is a short (I think I’m lying about “short”) piece about my experience getting a booster, and how my cognitive, memory, and physical stuff got in the way. I needed the booster shot, and spent a bit of time looking for a location…
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I struggle with knowing how much to share and how much to keep to myself when it comes to the ketamine “trips.” I don’t want to sound like someone babbling about their acid trips or some burned out drug fiend. I understand that it’s very difficult to describe these things, and to the reader it…
a Scarlet D 