Today was a therapy day, and there was some resolution on recent issues, so I figured I would record them here along with whatever the heck else is in my head today.

There may be links, there may not be. I am flying high and wide today.

So I confronted my therapist about how unhappy I was with his response when I needed more Zopiclone on Saturday. I told him how I thought it was flippant and dismissive and how it really bothered me, and brought up a lot of issues with me, like how I feel like people just dismiss my needs and ignore me because that is how my parents treated me, and so forth and so on.

He explained that he did not phone in the Zopiclone because it is a fairly serious drug, and he was not prepared to give me more without my chart in front of him to make sure it was safe. I am not entirely convinced on that point, but it was plausible enough that I will accept it for now.

He also apologized for not remembering my issues and being more sensitive to the sorts of things I have been through in the past. I accepted his apology. It is not reasonable, I suppose, to expect perfect sensitivity even from one’s therapist. He has a lot of patients, I called him on a day off when his mind was on his own life, etc.

And I know I have some pretty enormous trust issues. It is not the sort of thing that is obvious when you meet me, because it is not like I am some antisocial curmudgeon who oozes misanthropy and is prickly and hostile all the time.

But I fundamentally have a hard time trusting people, and I especially have a hard time relying on people. My life experiences have taught me that there is nobody I can rely on to be there when I need them, and it is hard to overcome that inherent deep down mistrust, even with people I should be able to trust.

So when I reached out to my therapist, who is supposed to be there for me and who told me I could call his cell any time I needed him, day or night, 7 days a week, and he seemed to casually dismiss me for no apparent reason other than it was easier, that brought a whole lot of the Bad Stuff to the surface for me. I felt angry and betrayed and depressed.

How dare he trivialize and dismiss my concerns, my needs, just like my parents used to do?

So I am glad it was not entirely what I thought it was, and that he will be more careful in the future. Even therapists make mistakes. They are only human, after all.

But emotionally speaking, it will probably be a while before I am entirely over it. That is the thing with these deep issues you develop over a lifetime. When something hits a raw nerve like that, all the rational understanding in the world will not block the pain. It can only fade over time.

In other news, the other takeaway from today’s therapy is that I have a new sleeping pill, a major mouthful called Quetiapine. It is supposed to be better than Zopiclone in that it does not bind to the receptors it activates, and therefore does not build up drug resistance.

The main drawback is that some people find they sleep too long on it, and when they wake up, they are sluggish and tired and kind of out of it. Fine by me, to be honest. I already get that fairly often from my unbalanced, feast or famine sleep cycle. I can live it with it, if in return I get to sleep more deeply and get more of that deep restorative REM sleep.

I am perfectly willing to sleep for longer, rather than sleeping in two to three hour naps, if the long term payoff is in better sleep.

And what the heck, if I find I do not like it, I can always tell my doc that it is no good for me and stop using it. I am the health care consumer, after all. And my therapist is a reasonable fellow.

Maybe a little forgetful, but I am hardly in the position to fault anyone on that score.

Looking at the Wiki entry for this stuff, I see that, as my therapist said, it is not primarily indicated for treating sleeping problems. It is, in fact, primarily an anti-psychotic! Eek. I might be crazy but I am not that crazy, thank goodness.

But one person’s side effect is another’s sure, and so its sleep-inducing side effect for psychotics is now a primary effect for us people with Sleep Issues.

It seems like pretty heavy duty stuff, all told, although the “sleep” dosage is lower than the “make the voices go away” dosage, so that is not so bad. Well, I asked for something stronger than the Zopiclone, something that would give me the sleep security that I seek.

And that is what he gave me. He said to start with one pill, and if that does not do the trick to give 2 pills a try. And I will do so, but I am really hoping one pill will do it. I do not want to mess with this stuff any more than I have to, given its nature.

Then again, I am always sort of terrified after reading the Wiki page for a drug I am taking. Heck, I was scared about the Zopiclone after reading about it on Wiki, and it turned out to be a kitten. So I probably should not put too much stock in how I feel right after reading the Wiki page for a drug.

I do sometimes wonder if I would be better off not reading the Wiki page for what I am on, but I could not live with myself if I decided not to do so when I am put on something new. Curiosity alone would drive me nuts, let alone a sense of my own intellectual integrity.

So I am sure I will be fine.

I just have to make it through the post-knowledge anxiety.

But hey, the drug is supposed to be good for anxiety too, so… there’s that!

More on this experiment later.