Early Morning Rambling

It’s 5:41 AM and I am fully and completely awake. For what feels like the bajillionth day in a row, I have woken up for whatever reason before the sun, and been entirely unable to go back to sleep. It’s been somewhat helpful, as I’ve been taking the time in the morning before anyone else is up to shower, drink coffee, do some housework, and just in general enjoy some time to myself. It feels like a good thing. My house is getting cleaner by the day, which it sorely needed.

Unfortunately, my gut says it isn’t. My gut says it’s mania disguising itself as something productive. Since I started seeing my therapist and psychiatrist in July 2017, we’ve tried several medication and dosage combinations. Since we’ve started that process, the mania has continued to ramp up more and more. And I’m left wondering if what is happening is one of several scenarios:
1-I am really as lazy as I think, and this is true mania. Once it’s under control I’ll go back to being unmotivated and lazy
2-I was never lazy before, just depressed, and this is not mania, but rather me coming out of the depression and actually living like a “normal” person. The meds are working.
3-a combination of the above. This is in fact mania, but I’ve also come out of my depression, so it’s seeming more exaggerated.

When I first started seeing my care team, I was diagnosed with PTSD, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. After playing with a medication dosage for a while, my symptoms changed and got worse. The emergence of these things led them to a diagnosis instead of PTSD, GAD, and bipolar (type currently unspecified). I honestly understand now why it takes so many people so long to get mentally healthy. It takes forever to find the right diagnosis, and then once that diagnosis is found, the right medication and damage has to be found. It’s a long and arduous process, and I have no doubt it’ll be a year into my treatment before I really feel like we’re getting anywhere substantial.

In other news, I am still, STILL, STIIIIILLLLL waiting in the approval for my short term disability from my employer. To catch you all up to speed, I stopped working and applied in October. The way mynpaperowk was filled out made them require me to apply for and be denied by workman’s comp. once that was FINALLY completed, they approved a portion of my leave-through 11/10, and gave me the back pay owed to that point, however, most of it was eaten up by back payment to my insurance and 401k. Now, I am STILL waiting for them to approve the rest of my leave. The stress from this, and from having no income, has not surprisingly been contributing to my degraded mental status. I am so frustrated this is taking so long. Here’s hoping that this week is the week.