Ok, you've been diagnosed. Now what?

7/13/2010 7:01:24 PM #

Wow, I remember calling 911 on myself because of my first overwhelming anxiety attack.  I hadn't slept for 48 hours, I was seeing angels everywhere, and I never saw THIS coming.  Straight to the ER in the back of a police car with the modern equivalent of the men in the white coats.  I sat there with all the 'crazies', unable to see out of my glasses because they were wet with tears--I was ranting and couldn't stop crying about everything that had ever happened to me in my life.  I wasn't like the people in this room.  I wasn't an OD or a degenerate street person.  The uniforms sat quietly, reassuringly at my side while I waited for an evaluation.  After all was said, the doc pronounced me 'safe', gave me a scrip, and I got through the pharmacy drive through in the back of the police car!  The 2 policemen(by now my REAL angels)escorted me to the door of my little house.  Thank goodness because I lost my legs underneath me for the 1st time in my life halfway down the path.  When I asked them why that would happen, they reminded me I had not slept for 2 days.  I was not diagnosed with a personality disorder until 6 years later, but I was never the same after that.  Very impaired, I noted, in my ability to calculate numbers in my head or to cope with stress.  I write poetry now.  Good stuff too!  People actually read it and I get compliments and prizes and I've written a little book.  Published it.  Therapy.  Seems to work for me, though the government says I can't work with the public anymore, then so be it.  I've done my bit.  Worked from age 16 to age 53.  Trying to make the best of a forced retirement.  I've been prescribed no meds.  I've only ever taken Ativan for that one crisis, and Wellbutrin for about 6 months.  Went off it.  My doc got upset with me.  No wonder I got the creepy crawlies.  I didn't realize something that didn't seem to help much was addicting my body.  Forget it.  I'll drink chamomile tea.  

Michele