Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring – Tinitus!

Ok, it’s not as catchy as the Bananaphone song… but I’ve got a wicked case of the Ringing Dizzies this morning.

Doesn’t make sense though, I’ve been taking my meds like a good girl, I got into a new routine that helps me not forget. Except over the last few days it’s like they’ve just totally stopped working. Or maybe they were secretly replaced with sugar pills or something. It’s like the codeine last week, it was great the first day, then it just stopped having any effect.

Aside from the intense dizziness and ringing in my ears, the depression has come back hard recently. Things I enjoyed doing last week have lost their appeal. Food I liked to eat is now bland and uninspiring. I can’t sleep. My motivation and what little energy I had, has drained away. The only thing that hasn’t faded or dulled is pain.

Pain where my last wisdom tooth was recently removed. Headaches. Back pain. Pain is the only constant. To steal a line from HHGTTG, “I hurt, therefore I am.”

For now I’m still going through the motions. Trying to do things that were fun, desperately hoping to find some of the enjoyment that was there before. Eating because of hunger, but hoping that it will taste good or be enjoyable. It doesn’t work though, whatever I try, food, activities, etc. just leaves me tired and disappointed. I just want to lay down somewhere dark and quiet.. like a wounded animal, let me hide just undisturbed for a while, and I’ll either get better and re-emerge, or I won’t.

I’m not much of a fighter. I believe in what I think is right, but I detest conflict of any kind. Often, I find it easier to just go along with things rather than put up a show of resistance.

The cryptospam has been fighting the darkness for me, but lately its been losing the battles, like its getting tired, or the darkness is getting stronger.

I try and distract myself quite a bit, with snails, cameras, pointless blather. It works more or less, but is definately just a temporary measure. No matter what, at the end of the day, night always falls. And then all that’s left is to wait and hope that dawn will come again.

Sometimes though, I wonder if fighting is the answer. If it might not be better to just embrace the darkness and despair, take it, hold it, own it, make it mine. Then maybe I’d be in control of it, rather than running from it or hiding from it. Though that sounds like a scary journey, and I don’t know if I’m up for it.

Still, doing nothing doesn’t seem like a good choice either. Things are feeling less real, different. My skin doesn’t feel like my skin any more. My hair feels fake. My eyes look different.

Logically I ‘know’ that the more-likely explanation is the only thing that is changing is my perception, but perception guides experience and vice versa. Right or wrong, if you can’t trust your senses, then you no longer know what’s real.

I don’t know what to do about it all.

So, Saturday evening. Rainy out. Quiet, other than the hum and trickle of the aquarium filters. No more dizzy spells or heebie-jeebies which is ok.

On the other hand, the cryptospam doesn’t seem to be working at all. It’s like it switched off, and now everything starts with D.  Darkness; Depression; Despair.

Maybe some wine will help. Nothing like a depressant to chase away the blues, right?

So this isn’t the first time I forgot to take my pillz – it’s hard to remember ever darn day. And the cryptospam seems to have a built-in reminder mechanism – if you miss a day, then the following day there are dizzy spells, nervous twitches and shakes, and general heebie-jeebieness.  Hard to miss, really.

Yet I managed to completely forget yesterday, in spite of the brain-addling reminders.

Every time I’d get an attack of the dizzies, or a wave of nervous twitching or whatever, I was either in the middle of something, or didn’t have access to the drugs. Like, I spent a lot of yesterday at work, and was too busy to stop and take pills. Then I was at the grocery store for a bit. Then when I finally got home, I had a rest. Kept forgetting.

Read more »