priorities and anxieties

It seems like I’ve been neglecting things here, but I’ve been too busy obsessing about things to write or think or breathe. I’m working on tasks to improve our retirement investments, and we are cleaning up our current finances a little. I’m procrastinating on a bunch of small tasks that will move us closer to likely selling our current house; those small tasks add up to a large effort, but I think it’s will ultimately help us. I’ve been scavenging used parts to build a new computer, but I decided to put that on hold due to time and cost. I have been extremely busy at work, putting in lots of overtime in the past two months to move along a few important projects (I’m sure the shareholders appreciate my hard work). So writing has taken a back seat lately, which I’m sure has disappointed my faithful readers’ need for fresh content.

Of course, mental health always occupies a lot of my time. I saw my psychiatrist last week to discuss the tardive dyskinesia and the medication I’ve been taking for it. I explained how is seems like the involuntary movements have mostly subsided due to the medication I’ve been taking, but I still have the semi-voluntary tics that have been present my whole life. Those tics and movements (see this old post) have been more obtrusive in the past few years, increasing during manic episodes, periods of high stress, or in relation to medication changes that didn’t work well. After our discussion, my doctor is not sure I still have the TD symptoms, but the Ingrezza will help act on the tics as well (although I’m not convinced on that). He wrote “chronic motor tic disorder” in my chart, and said that the first treatment for that is typically Abilify. Yes, my old nemesis Abilify, which has made me fatter and basically ruined my daughter’s life. I told him it was a hard negative on that, so at the moment we’re simply not addressing the tics. He also said cognitive behavioral therapy has been used to help with tic disorders, but he was as skeptical as me about the effectiveness of thinking your way out of a tic disorder.

Another thing consuming my brain cycles has been my relationship with my wife. Sometimes we seem to be thinking and working well together, and sometimes it feels like we don’t even like each other. I think we actively try to spend as little time together as possible because it’s so tense when we do. She has a lot of stress right now, and it is affecting things between us. She obsesses over money, she struggles with self-esteem issues, and she is worried about her job situation. Her anxiety level is very high sometimes, but to my knowledge she doesn’t really have an outlet for talking things out with someone, and she won’t consider taking medication to help. I can sympathize when she will let me, but I can’t fix her issues, and she hasn’t taken steps to address the problem. I’m not sure how this will turn out.

I’ll end with words of wisdom which I should trademark and sell to makers of motivational calendars:

Smart people make mistakes all the time. Stupid people make the same mistakes repeatedly.