CHRONIC FATIGUE IS A BITCH!

I was up until about 6:00 this morning, and was woken up at precisely noon by my pain. I'm trying not to use sleeping pills anymore, and to get into some sort of natural sleep pattern.

Unfortunately, for someone with chronic fatigue syndrome -- which goes with fibromyalgia like peanut butter does with chocolate... In a world where the two can never be separated, though -- my natural sleeping pattern is probably one of the worst things for me.

I used to take, nightly, 200mg Trazodone, a Sonata and a Remeron. Taking all these allowed me to determine what time I would go to sleep, and kept me in dreamland for about seven or eight hours. Since I have been in Lummox, however, I have used these sparingly... Usually when I am trying to correct a botched sleep from the night before, and to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Which means that, tonight, I plan on taking a handful of Traz and a Sonata at about 11:00 to get my ass back on track. In the meantime, I probably will have to drink a lot of green tea -- my favorite caffeine delivery system -- simply to stay awake until then. What is absolutely fabulous is that caffeine ensures that my anxiety will kick up like a tornado in the Dust Belt. And the amazing height of my generalized anxiety disorder, when it's fed caffeine like coal used to be to locomotives, ensures that not even 6mg of Klonopin will be able to topple it.

Getting by on a daily basis and not feeling like shit is amazingly difficult sometimes. Even most of the time...

But it is funny that all these problems have caused me to become extremely self-aware... Mindful, in new-new-age-speak.

So there's always some good in the bad...

What I probably should do is simply let my person do what it will: stop taking caffeine, never touch another sleeping pill. But that would cause problems... I'd be awake when most of the US is asleep, and taking naps throughout the day... A freaking wreck.

--So I take the above back. What I really should do is get new prescriptions for Traz and Sonata (the Remeron is pretty useless). Then I should be able to sleep when normal people sleep and be awake when normal people are awake... And when grocery stores, restaurants, etc. are open, which I need to be able to patronize to remain alive.

...What to do...

Mixx it!

MUSIC TO SOOTHE SAVAGE FIBROMYALGIA: BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE!

Now that I'm used to OxyContin (the side effects are gone, the pain relief is not and, I have every reason to believe, never will be), it's back to insomnia.

I'm seeing a new shrink tomorrow morning, so hopefully he writes me a script for Trazodone, 200mg of which allows me to sleep... Or has in the past, anyway... I haven't taken it in a while and antidepressant drugs have a funny way of not doing what they once did after they haven't been taken for a while, or after they've been taken for a few weeks or months.

Which is to write that drugs like Trazodone (an atypical antidepressant best used for insomnia) can crap out on you at any time. They're magical that way.

...Or maybe I can get my Klonopin back up to 6mg per day. Having a lot less anxiety would allow me to get much more sleep (8.5 hours is my personal requirement... It's what I needed -- and got -- almost every night before I had fibro).

Anyway, I'll write about what happens tomorrow at my shrink's. He's in a place that advertises itself as providing "Christian Mental Health Services." ...So hopefully I'm not taken off all drugs and told to simply pray away my anxiety (and fibro, for that matter, which could just be god's way of telling me I'm pissing him off with the atheism thing...).

Until then, enjoy Lover's Spit!

Mixx it!