Can that phrase be used enough? Nope!

I was relieved today to receive my appointment card for my next meeting with my mental health doctor-ma-bob, and more so relieved because it’s before I’m going out of the country to visit family and friends stateside. The traps there? Oh my, oh my…

First of all, we here know that I’ve been in an extended depressive slump of several months. It has been less than ideal. So I expect I’ll suddenly swing into full happy-slappy (hypo)mania just in time for the appointment. While I very much would like a spell of such, I really need to relay that my depression has been severe enough to prevent me from doing more than going through the motions of life. I fully intend to ask him to increase the Seroquel to the level he’d initially recommended (300mg versus 200mg), as well as asking what else he’d recommend. Of course, this will immediately trigger the pregnancy that has eluded me all year, but yanno… swings and roundabouts.

Second of all, the whole dealing with my family thing is going to be insanely stressful at best, and comatose-rendering at wo… no, at middle, heh. I’ve been working with my mother and one of my sisters to establish the healthy boundaries and rules that I need in place to relate to them, but that doesn’t take care of my other sister (who seems to think she has carte blanche to treat me horribly, and that because I decided to do one nice thing for her that we’re somehow made up?), or my (step)dad’s psychotic relatives. I wish I were being mean, but they’re all pretty batshit in dangerous and sociopathic ways. Oh sure, there’s a few good seeds, but getting to them amongst the crazies is going to be a miracle. Add to that the obvious disruption to my sleep schedule  (which I am sure will bite me severely), and I need to make sure that my doctor is on board with thinking up a solution to get me through that time. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a pill-based solution; I just know I’m going to need a full set of tricks and tools to get through it.

And thirdly of all – making myself ask for the help I need. While I am getting better at saying what I need and what is on my mind, it is still my nature to not make a fuss. But I think that making myself write about it here serves well to remind me to do the right thing for myself. So hopefully, I will when the appointment rolls around. And if my mood improves before then? I won’t complain about it, but I’ll do my darndest to not let it deter me from getting things where they need to be.

<3