The hole gets blacker and blacker.

Still not in the greatest place atm. I have an urgent Drs appt this afternoon, I'm asking for a referral to a psych; an older {than me by a good 20 years} woman with a wonderful reputation. Works very close to us and my Dr, and a friend of mind found her wonderful. The psych I saw the public hospital left me feeling worse about myself every time I saw him, so it's time to ditch the public system and go private. Am embarrassed to admit this is only possible because I now have a disability pension card.

I'm a little unsure of where to start with her. Do I just let her do a complete history, without mentioning bipolar {as I'm not 100% sure I agree with the diagnosis, considering I haven't had anything close to a manic phase in 2 years, despite only being on ADs}. Do I just start all over again and see what she thinks?

Or do I go in, say I have this, this and this, and work from what may be a slightly questionable diagnosis?

Either way, something's got to give. My fear of leaving the house has turned into a fear of leaving my bedroom.  I don't mean that I can't actually leave. Of course I can. I have 2 children and I cook and clean where I can.  But there is what almost feels like a physical pull to bring me back to my 'safe' place. This room, this bed, this computer.  All I want to do is read, browse, blog or sleep.  I don't want to talk to a soul.

Joel said something to me the other day {He'd asked me the day and I mentioned that I never know anymore. When you don't leave the house for weeks at a time, they kind of fun into each other. Especially on school holidays}.  He offered to rearrange his day and come home early on Friday, so we could all go to the park.  He said I must just be so desperate to look at something other than this house.

I smiled and murmered something in agreement. We'd take the boys somewhere. But my stomach fell and I felt I'd be sick. It felt like there were rocks in the pit of my stomach. Just dread. Dread at having to leave my sanctuary.

I blogged last week about my 'friends in my computer' and someone (I think it might have been Bron -  Maxabella?) very gently and sweetly pointed out something I know to technically be very true, and very important.

I agree that the blogging community is supportive, caring and marvellous, but it can't take the place of the wonderful world outside your door. What I think some of us forget from time to time is that bloggers are just a random assortment of people, so it leads me to believe that everyone (blogger or none) is supportive, caring and marvelous if only we would open up to them...

And of course, she's right. Kind of. There are lots and lots of lovely people out there. It's just that a)the ones I want, the ones I opened up to and let myself love and lean on are not available to me anymore. And b)I'm utterly incapable (terrified?) of getting out there and facing anyone else. I can't make eye contact anymore and I can't do small talk anymore. I can't tell you I'm struggling, I don't have the words. I would just end up sobbing and embarrassed. But I no longer have it in me to pretend I'm anything other than a blubbering mess.

So it's easier {on them, on me} to stay in. Stay away. Keep my phone off the hook. Keep my door locked and my window closed. Use the computer and {if I absolutely must} text messaging.

And I can lean on you. Because I'm not sure how random we are. I think that even in the blogging world, for the most part {certainly there are plenty of exeptions} like meets like. I can point to more than a dozen blogs of people struggling seriously with major mental illnesses, major social anxiety, depression/bipolar/PTSD/PND etc. People who would be happier never to leave their houses again. Of course I know others who feel the opposite and feel that being cooped up inside is contributing to the problem.

I know it's worse since I stopped driving. Since I became vision impaired {for want of a better term. I don't know how to refer to it. It's one number up from legally blind? Impaired enough not to see across the street or read a sign or watch a normal tv or read a book or ever drive again, but not enough to be legally 'blind'. What do we call that? Sif, do you know?}

Without the ability to just get in the car and force myself to visit Tam, my sister in law and probably the only person I could actually visit, it's gotten far worse. I don't do the shopping anymore, it's split between online and Joel on his way home from work. No chemist runs. No Drs appointments without Joel and the boys with me. No trips to the library. I'm too sore, cannot physically walk around a shopping mall anymore {we tried it yesterday. I'm paying dearly for it today}.

But for now, there's just this. There isn't much I can change. There's nowhere within walking distance {especially in my current physical state} to just 'go', to get out. Noone I know within walking distance. No groups I could join {I'm going to be honest. That's a terrifying thought}. Noone is coming to me. And now I'm more terrified of them coming to me than I am of me going to them. At least if I go, I can leave when I need to. Someone intruding on my safe place...that's the worst thought of all.

I don't have anything specific I'm afraid of. I know I keep mentioning 'terrifying'. And one of the things that used to annoy the ever-loving-crap out of me with my last psych and with the mental health nurse was mid anxiety attack, or when I was in a state of high agitation, they would say "what are you thinking about?" "What do you think is going to happen?" "What do you think will happen if you go out?" "what do you think will happen if you stop scratching?".

I don't F*ing know. Am I the only mental case {excuse the term, it's just how I'm feeling as I sit and analyse this} who isn't really congnizant during all of this? That doesn't have a specific fear? Simply a compulsion? A piece of imaginary elastic tethering me to my home? A compulsion to scratch,to do something with my hands. An absolute inability not to shake my legs.

I'm not curled up scratching my arms thinking something bad is going to happen if I don't. My legs aren't shaking because I think I'll die if they don't. They shake because they must. I'm not scared of leaving the house because I think something terrible is going to happen {except that I may be looked at and there is literally nothing worse than that thought. There's nothing I won't do to avoid being looked at, even by Joel, my Dad, our family}. It just is what it is.  I don't have any of the answers they seem to want from me.

Am I alone in this? Friends, when you have an anxiety attack, what are you thinking? And do those stupid, F*ing breathing exercises do anything at all for you? Other than make me literally want to hurt the stupid b!tch that keeps telling me to do them? What the hell does she know?

I'm rambling. This wasn't even supposed to be a post. This was supposed to be a Pinterest pic post, using a colour I'm drawn to at the moment, with a quick "I'm not myself at the moment, Sorry". Look what I did. I vomited all of my angst and some of my anger and my fear and my frustration all over this stupid blog {let's see how long it takes this new Psych to ask me what a blog is and make me feel like a moron or an oddity, amongst oddities like the last ones did One of those computer people....}.

I know that she will tell me {or I can tell me} to eat better {absolutely essential, I realise, though hard with the Pred}; get exercise {even my Rheum agrees this is currently impossible} and get good, regular sleep.  I don't even know where to start with the sleep. My sleep patterns are all over the place. I'm rarely asleep at night before 2am. I wake and sleep for 3-4 hours until 5ish before I get up to get my boys off to school & work. By which time I have Sammy until 5ish and everyone comes home.  On the weekends I sleep each afternoon, for as long as I can get away with it. Partly through exhaustion. Mostly through escape.

The escape is worrying me. It's hard to admit this on here, but usually my diazepam lasts months. My last packet has not. It has lasted about a month. In the past few months I've gone from needing them occasionally for panic attacks/agitation, to needing them at night for muscle pain to now needing 10mg-15mg every night to calm the agitation and let me sleep. I'm afraid of that. I know it's addictive. I know I have an incredibly addictive personality. But already, my brain wants something stronger, something that will make sleep dreamless and deep, easy to come by.

But to her {and I will understand why} I will sound like I'm just making excuses. How do I get a Dr who understands the multi-disciplinary medical issues I'm dealing with and look at the big picture, the entire story. Not just the depression or bipolar or whatever it is.  Not just the diabetes. Not just the Fibro. Not just the auto-immune that's still up in the air. Not whatever the hell happened to my eyes. Not just the obesity. Not just that I have a strong family history of screwed-up-ness and am the mother of one {possibly 2} boys with autism {not that that's nearly as stressful for me as it is for most. I'm incredibly lucky there}. Not just that some really,really bad stuff has happened to me {I did have a Dr joke to me, after I'd kind of hinted at it that I was a psych's wet dream! He didn't use those words, I used them and he laughed nervously and kind of agreed,lol. I have a bit of everything, he said}.

So what do I say? Where do I start? And is there anyone out there that this makes sense to?