magic number

Numbers play a huge part in our lives. It was numbers that told us dad had hep c and then cancer. A number that dictated when he would get a transplant, numbers that told he needed a second one. Numbers that decide if you graduate college or not, numbers that separate a felony and a misdemeanor. Numbers determine if you’re eligible for welfare, how much you can pay your staff, if you can go on vacation. Right now I’m entering numbers that help fund our center, every person is a set of numbers, rape 201, physical abuse 101, stalking 104, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse 215. and how do we deal with these? With more numbers, counseling 35, shelter info 34, PFA info 23, relocation 30, crisis counseling 07. The list of numbers that we work with are endless: ages, dates, times, grades, zip codes, phone numbers, addresses, crimes codes, height, weight, personality, it all comes down to numbers. Yesterday I was assigned two numbers, 10 digits, that hopefully will help change my life in a good way. My new numbers are 300.01 and 296.32. Panic disorder without agoraphobia and Major depressive affective disorder, recurrent episode, moderate degree in the DSM respectively. Numbers went into the diagnoses even, how many panic attacks, how long until you felt calm, how much sleep are you getting, how many nights a week do you eat with your housemates, how many people do you live with, how old are you, how often do you see your therapist. And a question with a one word answer that got me even more numbers: are you willing to take medication? Yes. Ok, you’ll start out at 20mg a day and in 2 weeks come see me and if it’s going ok we’ll up your dosage. I’m not sure how I feel about all of it. In some ways it’s liberating to have a label. To be able to say, this is what’s wrong. It’s still hard to describe the depression; the panic is easier to put into words. We’ll see how it all goes. The drug I’ve been given, Prozac, might work, might not. In some ways I’m not sure how I’ll know if it is working, I mean if the panic attacks stop then that’s one thing, but it’s so hard to describe the depression, I’m not sure how to describe coming out of it. A coworker said when she went on antidepressants her daughter described her as ‘mom without the cloud’. So we’ll find out. I’m not on a therapeutic dose yet, I’ll presumably get bumped up in 2 weeks when I go back. For so long I’ve felt like every ounce of my energy was expended just getting up, going to work and volunteering. And every answer to any set of feelings was to start crying. So maybe I’ll know if the drugs work if those things start to change. I know there are varying opinions on the subject of medication for mental health issues, all I ask is that if you’re reading this you respect the fact that I’m trying this. It’s been tough to come to terms with it and I’ve waiting quite a long time to admit I want to give it a shot. I don’t take it lightly for a whole host of reasons and if you want to chat more about that drop me a line. For now I’m going to finish work (137 minutes left) and then have a lovely 3 day weekend. Happy Memorial Day weekend to you all, I hope you spend it joyously! Love and hugs.r