Very anxious, but good. Tools to cope with anxiety

 Lately I've been extremely anxious, but still doing good. I'm more anxious than I've ever been in my life, but doing as good as I have since junior high/high school. I have my drive and motivation back. 

I have been working on ways to share my story in part or in whole. I also got certified in national mental health first aid. I am now looking into becoming an instructor for them, but I have to come up with $2200 first. I'm attending a webinar tomorrow to learn more and find out if it'd be worth the investment. 

The tools I've been using to cope with the anxiety are that I've been listening to music constantly. At home, in the car, in the store, Dr office, etc. literally everywhere. 

I've been deep breathing in lavender essential oil and using a diffuser for the same at night when I go to sleep.

Otherwise I've just been using the extra anxious energy to clean the house.

Still doing good with intrusive/disturbing thoughts

 Overall I'm still doing really well. I'm driving again. I'm taking care of the baby well. I'm sleeping in spurts. I'm giving my older son some if my time everyday.

However, I still have swelling in my legs, a headache/migraine I can't seem to get rid of and a full body ache often. 

I'm also starting to have some intrusive/disturbing thoughts. So far they are more of the fleeting type where I can shut them off easily which I'm thankful for, but still they're there. I was really wanting to see my psychiatric np this week, but my appointment isn't until next week. I just hope the thoughts didn't become more disturbing by then.

Feeling good

 The past couple of days I've felt good. Good as I ever remember feeling. So good past providers would consider me hypomanic. However, I know I'm not hypomanic. I'm doing good. I'm at a place where they would medicate me so I wouldn't get too high. My closest friends, family and therapists all think I'm doing ok this time. So that won't happen. Usually this good state I'm in only lasts a couple weeks at most then I'm back to being depressed. I'm a bit nervous I'm going to start sleeping too much and end up back there.

Constant pain

 Today we took our older son and his cousin to the Harlem Globetrotters game. While there I got a constant pain in the right side of my upper abs that wouldn't go away. Now the pain is worse lower. Thinking maybe I just tried to do too much which is quite sad considering our newborn is nearly a month old now. Walking is what makes the pain feel the worst.

24 days post partum

 I have an abnormal amount of edema in my lower legs, ankles and feet. I have tried 6 rounds of lasics to get rid of it. My blood pressure has also been through the roof as a result. I have had a killer headache/ migraine that doesn't seem to respond to meds therefore I need a new referral to neurology I should be getting today. I've tried ibuprofen, Tylenol, nurtec and coffee. Dutch Bros seems to work best.

I am supposed to wear compression socks and keep my legs elevated as much as possible which includes taking it easy. Believe it or not this is actually the best I've felt in years.

Nursing school

 It has been 12 years since I have worked or went to school. For several years I have wanted to either use my husband's G.I. Bill to go back to school or get a part time job. However, my son has autism and requires extra help on school work and such. Every semester I reevaluate if I should keep him in the school he's in or switch him back to traditional all day public school. So far it's always been his needs above my own.

I have major depressive disorder and tend to isolate myself a lot. Any stay at home parent knows that's easy to do. I had a wonderful friend I used to see often, but she just pcsd with her family recently. So now I really don't see anybody besides family. While I love my family, friends would be nice to have to.

My time in the NICU showed me just how much I need adult interaction. While not sleeping much is bad for my mental health, interacting with people is exactly what I need. All of the nurses were so wonderful to me it actually inspired me to become one. I plan to use my husband's G.I. bill to go back to nursing school starting either in the fall or next January. I have looked into school multiple times, but ultimately can never decide what to go back for. I feel like I have it figured out now. I will go to nursing school and use part of the G.I. Bill to pay for daycare on the days my mom can't keep my kids. I feel like I need this for me and my own well-being.

PTSD trigger and ketamine

 One night I was just sitting there in the NICU pumping when my son's oxygen started to drop. It got all the way down to 65% before the nurse ever came in. I spent the whole time just staring at my sons face. I was confused because he wasn't turning blue, didn't appear to be in distress, he looked totally fine. I wondered what I was missing or not recognizing. If I hadn't been in a trauma situation before I probably would've lost it, but I completely kept it together.

A few hours later when I had a little time I laid down to close my eyes. And by laying down I really mean laying back more or less sitting up in the recliner chair. When I closed my eyes I saw the man shoot himself in the head again right in front of me. I believe they call that a flash back.

From then on whenever I would close my eyes and begin to doze off I would have a coughing fit followed by my throat feeling like it was closing in on me. I was having panic attacks. If it didn't happen right when I dozed off it would happen an hour or so later. I'd wake up in a panic and need to drink cold water and suck on a mint. Sometimes it would last 20-30 minutes, other times it would pass fairly quickly, but I never got right back to sleep.

They tried me on just about every sleeping pill possible to knock me out and have me sleep through it. Nothing worked. One night I took 10 mg Ambien and 100 mg of Seroquel at the same time. I can't remember if I when up in a panic or if I was throwing up, but regardless I only slept 2 hours 15 minutes. I woke up completely confused. I needed help walking to the bathroom step for step as if I had just given birth. My husband and I were arguing because I needed something to eat, but he wanted me to go right back to sleep. Finally I told him if he didn't wheel me over to the family room to eat something I was going to ask the nurse. He finally took me.

I ate something, came back to our son's room and was completely fine. An hour later I took 100mg more of Seroquel. Still fine. An hour after that I took a third 100 mg tablet of Seroquel. Still nothing. All in all I had taken 10mg Ambien and 300 mg Seroquel in the same night and I was up having conversations with people functioning just fine. How is that even possible?

I had at least one night with a bad nightmare. Thankfully lately I haven't had flashbacks or nightmares. Maybe it's the ketamine I restarted? The first couple ketamine sessions I felt nothing, but one did cause me to recall many events from the night of the suicide that I thought I had forgotten. I cried through nearly the whole session. Now I am going to start doing ketamine with psychotherapy at the same time so I can talk to sometime who is trained through these things rather than just the nurse, but it will be about a month before that happens.