synergy

PTSD?

I've been meaning to write about a bad week that K had, while I was taking care of my mother. The original posts can be found here. K didn't make it into the office once the week that I was out of town. Not a good thing. I wasn't so frustrated, as I was 800 miles away and not confronted with it day after day. She was very frustrated by it.

During that week, K made a special trip to her therapist to try and get her out of whatever slump had occurred. That session brought out an interesting diagnoses from K's therapist. Previously, she had diagnosed these episodes as depression, but she apparently felt that they never quite fit into the depression box. This time, after discussing some of K's childhood memories, she said that she believes that K's been suffering from intermittent bouts of post traumatic stress syndrome.

The only reason that I didn't laugh out loud is that I have an incredible amount of respect for K's therapist. K has been diagnosed with PTSD as the result of a physical (not sexual) assault that she suffered as a teenager. Afterwards, she had a psychotic break and was institutionalized for a week as she suffered from hallucinations. It was that hospitalize, when she began to smoke and didn't stop for 27 years, January 1, 2003 when she awoke in the ICU after her heart attack.

Okay, I've digressed. But K's therapist believes that K's episodes are caused by PTSD. She also believes that PTSD will be much easier to treat than intermittent bouts of depression. I hope she's right. Since that week, which was almost 4 weeks ago, K's made it to the office daily, as she had been doing before. K & her therapist have also been working to combat the PTSD.

Things have been going really well lately. If anything, I've been the grouchy partner. My stomach, after behaving for a few months, has given me a bad couple days this week. That makes me into, in K's words, a snapping turtle. I groused at her for things that I shouldn't have. I have been pleased that I am back on track with exercise. I'm going to the gym 4 times a week, 3x cardio and 1x weight lifting. I think it may slowly be starting to make a difference.

We are also beginning to be more social. Tonight, Ayelet Waldman is in town. She is an author (wrote Bad Mother blog) and
suffers from bipolar. We going to hear her speak. Tomorrow, there's a neighborhood get together and Friday we have tickets to a play. A definite change than last year, when we rarely went out and were usually too tired to do anything.

K has a visit with her psychiatrist on Friday. She's looking forward to telling him that she's reduced her trileptal by half and rarely takes either xanax or ambien. This is the plan that they set up in December to get her off some of the more tranqualizing meds and it's made a big difference in K's energy level with no negative trade offs. It will be great to report positive progress of the past three months.

posted by synergy @ 1:04 PM