I saw my counselor on Wednesday, and she had some encouraging words for me.  However, she also had some pretty scary words.  She said she thought I was doing really well with this detour and in her opinion, it was more about relearning behavior than the medications not working properly.  She discussed how I really dislike facing strong emotions head on, and in order to traverse the detour I needed to start figuring out an appropriate way for me to do that.  The counselor gave me some suggestions, but did let me know that this was going to be a trial and error process, rather than just picking a strategy and knowing it will work.  I let her know that I really disliked trial and error, her reply, “I know”.

I have sort of fallen back into the pattern of going with the flow, only with some people, because it is easier than rocking the boat.  The counselor told me I needed to stop doing that.  So once again, I will be rocking the boat, which does not make all the people in my life happy.  In fact, it makes some of them very uncomfortable because when I change and put boundaries up and expect to be treated a certain way, that means they have to change their behavior as well.  Just like I believe depression is a family disease, recovery is a family thing as well.

I have a confession, I really liked when I first started taking this medication combo, because it really dulled my emotions, and I did not feel anything strongly.  Now that my mind and body are used to the medications, I feel emotions more.  Not as much as someone who did not take those medications, but more than I did when I first started taking them.  I would not have been upset if the counselor decided I needed my medications increased because I figure it would have dulled my emotions down again.  So now I have to figure out how to deal with my emotions rather than have them dulled down some more.

The counselor said something that I have been thinking about a great deal.  I am intelligent and I enjoy being intelligent.  She told me that my intelligence was getting in the way of my recovery.  Basically, I am spending more time examining how to deal with something, rather than just doing it.  I am over analyzing things.  At first I was rather confused by what she said, now I understand it more.

I saw my medical doctor yesterday, and he said all things considered, two hospitalizations which included steroids, he thought I was doing pretty good with my diabetes.  An unfortunate side affect of steroids is that it raises a person’s blood sugar and mine got o pretty high during one of my hospital stays. I have to have some blood work within the next few weeks, one test that will be done is something called an A1C test.  Basically, it gives you an idea of how your blood sugar has been over several months.  Ideally, a diabetic’s A1C should be under seven.  The doctor and I discussed the fact that it will be highly unlikely that mine will be within the target range because of the steroids.

Personally, I think everything I heard from both my counselor and medical doctor is good news.  Some of it challenging, that whole trial and error thing, but overall good news.