It wasn’t a big surprise that I had a downturn. First there was the long quarantine because Bryan had Covid.

 

Then, I experienced a trigger that caused terrible flashbacks and felt like torture. This has never happened to me before. I did EMDR therapy to deal with the trauma, and it worked, but the whole ordeal was grueling.

 

Right after the trigger, our dog had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. Being the work-from-home adult in the house, I needed to take care of him for a couple weeks.

 

Finally, my mood was probably affected by the dwindling sunlight as winter loomed—I’m sure many of you are also feeling SAD (seasonal affective disorder) right about now.

 

So you might say I had some reasons to be depressed. I worked hard to fight my way out. I exercised often, went to bed earlier, kept acting silly with my family, and cooked dinner. And lo and behold, I started feeling better.

 

However, I was still experiencing the sleep disturbances that started when I was feeling depressed. People with depression can either sleep too much or not sleep enough due to waking in the night or waking up too early.  You can place me firmly in the “not sleeping enough” group. Since a lack of sleep can lead to mania in people with bipolar, a change was needed, even though my depression was abating. My psychiatrist told me to double my Seroquel dose in order to make quality sleep happen.

 

For me, doubling of my dose of Seroquel is now the problem, not the bipolar. Yet the Seroquel is the necessary evil keeping the bipolar from being a problem.

 

I have entered Seroquel nightmareland. Getting a ticket out of here as soon as possible is my goal, though travel during a pandemic is difficult, as we all know. I have never experienced this side effect previously, but it’s a common one according to Reddit. In my normal life, nightmares are very rare. Most of my dreams are happy or random or weird, but not scary weird. Now I’m dreaming about all sorts of scary weird things. I’ll spare you the disturbing details. I want to sleep, but what the actual fuck?! These aren’t the jolly, Christmasy dreams I expect this time of year.

 

My psychiatrist doubled my Seroquel dose, but he didn’t say when I could lower it. He wants to see me again the week after Christmas, so taking the higher dose until then was implied. Um, I’d rather not feel this way during Christmas. If these nightmares persist, I will definitely email him. It can’t hurt.

 

 

Last Friday we finally drove out to Simmons Farm and chose a Christmas tree. We picked a little one, as if we had all silently agreed to pick a tree fitting of the pandemic. We brought the tree home tied to the roof of the car, as one does. Then we left the tree outside all night. Still tied to the roof of the car. Encased in its glorious netting. The neighbors must think we no longer give a shit. Yep, that is correct.

 

This is how holiday decorating is going for me and Bryan. We’re exhausted by finding the right spot for a single puzzle piece, so we must wait awhile to find the spot for the next piece. A complete puzzle is the lofty and distant goal. I have my sleep-disturbed Seroquel struggles, and Bryan is battling being a teacher during the pandemic. Bryan’s days are filled with sheer exhaustion, and at the end of each week, nausea and bad headaches pile on top of that. Every Friday, Bryan has these symptoms and thinks he might have Covid again, although it’s not possible since he had Covid in October (maybe not). Eventually he realizes that being a teacher during the pandemic is doing this to his body. The symptoms mostly subside by Sunday night before he starts the cycle all over again.

 

Once Bryan gets some real rest on his well-deserved winter break and I am allowed to stop the Seroquel madness, life will go back to it’s normal, jolly self. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.