How to Lose Your Grip and Alienate People

I had two days off from work last week. For one day I went to the beach and I didn't get burnt to a crisp thanks to UV bands and disappearing potion sun lotion. The other day I had an appointment with Dr. Quackowitz. I sat in the waiting room for an hour. Pissed off, I wrote a note to slip under her door. She was there and she hadn't written down our appointment. Ladies and gentleman, this is the same person who I allowed to mess with my brain chemistry God help me.... The good doctor got very defensive when I listed all the medical problems I have being on Lamotrigine. She kept repeating, "That isn't normally reported..." My response to that was, "My brain isn't normal! I have less gray matter and my neurons aren't connected the same way as normal people's." I had to yell this at her several times. Look up what a stroke does to a brain- geez...

I went down to half my dose on these days off. It felt fine on non-work days but this work week has been rough. Monday was horrible not just because it was my first day back but also because Super Boss was out and the entire department collectively forgot how to do their jobs. I finished fixing all the mistakes from Monday today. To give you a slight taste of the insanity, Monday at 8:00 AM I had to show a woman who had worked at the company for 20 years how to print a report she has been printing every week. The lesson is that I will never take time off.

Super Boss got back and was pissed about what I had to deal with on Monday. Things were so screwed up, there were potential legal implications. Since this is a roller coaster week, I had an awesome Tuesday with accomplishments up the wazoo. Wednesday is when shit hit the fan as I started worrying if the Lamotrigine was the reason why I like my job. I screwed up on a report and revised it to what I thought was right but it wasn't. Super Boss called me and said that I needed to redo the report and he could show me what happened. I was in the middle of three things and it was after 5 so I asked him if I could be over in a minute and mentioned that I have been having a horrible week. Fast forward to me venting in his office. But do you ever hear yourself and just get so sick of yourself? So I trailed off saying, "Blah, blah, blah my feelings..." Super Boss insisted that how I was feeling was important. I waved it off, he insisted, and I replied, "Okay, how I feel is important to you."

As he was showing me how to do the report, I had to get up, go to the bathroom, and cry. The weird thing is I wasn't upset I made a mistake, I just felt like a raw exposed nerve. When I got back, I decided to give a very vague head's up that I was getting off a medication with difficult side effects and I am really trying to keep it together but I do know I've been off. Super Boss looked a bit overwhelmed/scared at the info but he did point out that I have been doing all this stuff to help him on top of doing all Benefits analysis, then taking on more. I appreciated hearing that I am actually helping then he informed me, "That's crazy." The irony was so strong, I had to laugh. 

I felt a lot better but when I got back to my office, dark thoughts started creeping in. The idea of possibly starting back on SSRIs while getting off Lamotrigine popped into my head. Right after that thought, the evil Depression mantra kicked in saying that I am a broken weakling. I sat crying in my office for an hour until I realized that I was in no shape to take a train home. Luckily, my brother was able to come pick me up and listened to me cry and feel.

Just a general overview of the side effects I have been riding; I am very dizzy, I have trouble sleeping, my thinking is foggy, I have jolts of nerve pain randomly, and I sweat buckets. 

Today started rocky since I got no sleep. It was a combo of being upset and discovering rusty brown water coming out of my bathroom faucet at 3:00 AM. The idea of calling my landlady the next day and being screamed at about how I broke the bathroom kept me up. I have been blamed for every repair needed in my shitty apartment BTW. 

I cleaned up a big billing process at work and Super Boss pointed out something I will need to check every month, so I got snippy with him because what he wanted to be done would take me months to figure out how to do so it kinda negated all my cleanup work. I got back to my office, sat down tried to start figuring out what Super Boss wanted me to do, and decided to go and apologize for being snippy. I explained that what he wanted was something I had no idea how to do so he said, "Okay, let's set aside some time and try to work on those queries." I told him, "You don't need to waste your time on this. I don't need you to be in the Benefits pit where everything is awful." He pointed out that I report to him, so yeah he does need to know Benefits, that me being alone in the pit and not accepting help won't work. He said, "You don't need to be a martyr." Yeah, Benefits isn't a live grenade I need to throw myself on. I got really badly dizzy so I had to sit down, apologizing. He said that we're human and I murmured, "No I'm not, I'm a super hero." It's a running joke explaining my crazy need to be all things to everyone and do everything perfectly surpassing expectations.

This is my favorite description of what we need to get out of our holes: