Third day with less risperdal and still not freaking out. Well, I got a little irritable after I’d got lost on the way to an activity in a community center this afternoon, but this is usual and it didn’t get out of hand. If anything, I feel better than when I was still taking my full dosage of risperdal.
Well, I’m not feeling well today at all. For a while now, I’ve had brief headache attacks just beside my left eye, spreading to my left ear. They tend to happen when I’m in the shower, for some strange reason. I may get mildly dizzy after such an attack. Well, since yesterday evening, I’ve had this mild headache almost constantly, and this afternoon, I was so dizzy that I fell. I went out anyway, thinking fresh air would do me well, but I bumped into a pole and got very dizzy. A woman brought me home. After this, I tried to reach Gerda to ask what I should do. After a while, I went to Marjolein, a girl I know. I didn’t feel better while I was there, and was not able to chat much. She gave me some water and brought me home - though I know the way, we were not sure I’d get home safely in this state. Eventually, Gerda called back. She thought I had something like the flu, and advised me to drink lots of water or tea - but I’m not sure I can make myself tea -, and lay in bed or watch tv for a while. I went to have dinner, watched tv, and then went online for a while. I got myself water and some fruit. I’m still having a headache, but don’t feel dizzy anymore.
As for the medication tapering, I didn’t freak out today, either. Do have constant worries - since I’m sick, this comes down to health worries -, but this is normal for week-ends. No increased appetite today.
Well, besides my really poor sleeping last night and feeling a little unquiet in the evening, I did not experience any symptoms of my irritability. In fact, today was the first day I didn’t freak out at university. So it seems decreasing my risperdal dosage is not affecting me adversely so far. The only weird thing I noticed was an extreme appetite, which is weird since that would be a risperdal side effect - but I do remember that my appetite seemed to have decreased after going on risperdal, for some strange reason.
Slept really badly last night. This is not necessarily medication-related, though it might be. Risperdal was meant to help me sleep, but it never really did and I didn’t notice an increase in insomnia the last time I lowered my dosage. Furthermore, I slept really poorly the night before Monday, too, so it may be school-related.
Worried about school a lot last night. I’m now only taking two classes instead of five, because taking the full load was overwhelming me. However, one of these classes, phonetics, is next to impossible to follow, because I don’t have the book yet, we can’t get the professor’s notes, and I can’t get the phonetic alphabet to work with my computer. I tried to E-mail my instructor, but he doesn’t respond.
School is really not what I’d expected it to be. My other class, language and communication, is very boring. It’s all language analysis, basically. Phonetics is a cool class, but next to impossible to follow. Further, everything outsdide of class is really hard. I freak out after class almost universally, because I can’t orient in the big building and I don’t know my classmates yet. Hell, was it ever easier when I still went to Saxion. Saxion was hard, but not as hard as Radboud is.
Called the doctor’s assistant this morning to inform her that I wanted to get off risperdal. I’m not sure if I was clear about this yesterday, since I had difficulty processing what was being said during the doctor’s visit and, as I processed what had been said, Marion and the doctor proceeded to discuss the nosebleeds. The assistant said she’d speak with the doctor, and call me back late in the afternoon. As she called back, she said that to come off risperdal, I’d need to go back to 0.5mg once daily first, and continue on this dosage for a week to see how it goes. She advised me to call back next week to discuss how things had been going. So this means I’ll skip my evening dosage tonight. Will keep a detailed diary, similar to the one I kept when going on risperdal, to monitor possible withdrawal effects.
Was just wanting to do some memes. These ones are about pets, since I’m wishing I had a pet here, and I spent a while this evening cuddling with another girl’s guinea pig. But guinea pigs ar enot for me…
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You Would Be a Pet Cat |
 Independent and aloof, you don’t like to be dependent on anyone. And as for other people, you can take them or leave them. You often don’t care. You live your life by your own rules. And you have deep motivations that no one truly understands. Why you would make a great pet: You’re not needy or greedy… unlike other four legged friends. Why you would make a bad pet: You’re not exactly running down to greet people at the door What you would love about being a cat: Agility and freedom What you would hate about being a cat: Being treated like a dog by clueless humans |
Your Ideal Pet is a Cat
Between all the bad things autistics can do, here is an example of what an autistic boy accomplished. The story ends by pointing out the need for people to recognize the good things some autistics do, such as saving someone’s life in this case.
Man, I wish I’d never allowed my old shrink to prescribe me risperdal. I’ve been taking it for two months now, of which it’s been effective for only the first two or three weeks, yet my current GP (don’t have a shrink cause everyone thought this’d be over quite soon) doesn’t want me to lower my dosage, because once I noticed negatively that lowering my dosage would worsen my irritability. Well, I only tried the lowered dosage for five days, so how can I be sure? Now she tells me to continue taking the med till at least early November, because, as she says it, there is too much going on now and the meds will only aid slightly. Well, isn’t that an indication that I shouldn’t be taking this med? I’m so pissed off. I know the potential dangers of neuroleptics. I know this isn’t candy. And when it doesn’t work, why continue? I wish I’d not been so stupid to let a doctor prescribe me an anti-psychotic. Wish I’d listened to my fellow autistics, who tell me to seek another doctor immediately once one prescribes a neuroleptic. Now it’s too late and I’m stuck with risperdal for at least another six weeks - and more, since you can’t stop risperdal at once.
Further saw the doctor for nosebleeds - yes, again, cause I’ve been seeing my old GP twice for them. My doctor prescribed me a nose ointmnet. I’ve had one before, but this one is different. She does seem to think the blood vessels in my nose are very thin - while my old GP thought it was an infection of the nasal mucus. Well, we’ll see if this works.
Today, I cooked Siamese chicken curry. I rarely cook, because cooking is not my most well-developed skill and I can’t deal with something unexpected happening when there’s no-one around or that I can reach. I used to cook completely independently when still living in the independent living training home, but there was always someone available in the house next door. I am not (yet) comfortable cooking with no-one around should something unexpected happen. So today Adrie, one of my support workers, came around and she had time to hang around while I cooked. Well, she cleaned my house in the meantime - another skill that suffers in my current living situation, but this mostly because I haven’t yet figured out how to clean this house, and everything seems to be different because my house’s lay-out differs from the one I used to live in. There are some things that I can still do cleaning-wise, but not many. Consequently, Adrie does some cleaning for me, while I’m waiting to get a professional housekeeper - or really, waiting for the funding to get one.
I had a discussion with Gerda about my living situation yesterday. She told me about two different living facilities - the one in Malden and one in Nijmegen - in which I might live eventually - both have waiting lists. Both are so-called residential facilities. This basically means that, if needed, there is support available 24 hours a day.
At training home, there was this belief about outcomes and which were considered most favourable. My living arrangement is the best possible outcome (aside from living completely without support, but I don’t know anyone who reached that point). Something in between is where there is support available at certain times of the day, such as between 4:00 PM and 10:00 PM - but these places don’t seem to exist here. Yet worse is residential living or so-called “24-hour care”. But is being in a living arrangement where there is always support available if necessary, such a bad thing?
There are several reasons why I consider going back into a living facility with more support available. One major reason is that I can’t seem to deal with not having someone available for support should something unexpected happen. Well, I can delay getting support, depending on what the problem is, for a short while (I rarely freaked out cause someone didn’t help me right away) to several hours (such as at training home when staff had their monthly discussion) to sometimes a full night, but not days. In my currnet situation, even little things overwhelm me cause I’m not sure when I will be able to ask someone for help. Duty lists for the moments when I do have support, don’t seem to work, and sometimes make it worse when support workers stick too much to their duty lists. This difficulty also seems to hold me back in doing things independently: because I’m not totally sure how to do it, and I won’t know what to do when something unexpected happens, I just won’t do it. This goes for stuff like housekeeping and cooking and going places. Though I do all these things, I’ve had more experiences of completely freaking out because something unexpected happened and I had no understanding of how to deal with it, than I would like, and this is not a good recipe for getting me to take risks - which I do think is something one should do if one is to grow.
This capacity to deal with unexpected events, however, is only one skill in living independently. There are many other skills, such as housekeeping, cooking, going places, dealing with paperwork, making phonecalls to people and agencies, etc. All of these were fairly well-developed when I still lived at training home - housekeeping and going places were better, paperwork and phonecalls were not my strengths, but I could deal with some of it -, and all are compromised in my current living situation. This is actually why I believe I would be more independent, not less, when moving into a place with more support available.
Now you all will jump up and tell me that it’s much better to learn to manage on my own. Well, it isn’t about managing or getting by, but you’re right that I’ll need to learn to deal with my current situation - if only it were because if I were to transfer to a living facility, there’d still be waiting lists to overcome. I’m trying to think out ways of dealing with my current situation. For one thing, I’m trying, as much as I can, to develop something like a social network here on the block. This isn’t working all that well so far. I hope I can find new ways of dealing with this issue.
