I know I keep saying I am motivated to write but with 5 college classes to keep up with, by the time I have free time late at night, I am dead exhausted. This week has been a rough, yet really smooth despite the crap going on in my life.

First off, if you’re now stumbling upon my blog… Hi I am Dani and I am the owner and writer here at Precarious Aquarius. And to answer your next question, I don’t give a flying f**k about astrology but I care immensely about mental health advocacy. There are gonna be some pretty significant shifts in my writing because I got some news that I will share later on in this post with you.

Since the end of March, I’ve been manic for more than half of the month in April. Occasionally I would get some delusions but I have always had some mild to moderate delusions about other people mostly ever since I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 disorder. I was used to that once in a blue moon, but this past week and a half, I feel like I need to physically crawl out of my skin, I am shaking, I am hallucinating bright lights and kaleidoscopes with my eyes wide open and I know it’s a real hallucination and delusion because before that happened I was very cognizant about where I was at Kyle’s house (my boyfriend) and there is nothing there that looks like a kaleidoscope. I remember the hallucination vividly but the next part was told to me by Kyle… I apparently started sobbing saying I was scared which confused him because mind you, all this was happening when we were having sex lol. He thought my tears were on his performance or that I was scared of him and I wasn’t scared of him; I am scared of the hallucinations, the fear is so overpowering and as much as I love Jesus, I can’t pray for a gravely disabled gal such as myself to be cured of this disorder. It’s just not in the cards quite yet.

So on Wednesday I ended up calling my PCP for my meds and declared *another* mental health crisis with explicitly saying to the folks with the giant nets that I didn’t need “their” kind of help. It doesn’t help that the only mental facility that’s in-patient is my old job which would be a cluster f*** because of the major conflict of interest with my coworkers. Yuck.

I had Kyle drive me to the appointment the next day because if I got bad news about being hospitalized I wouldn’t take it well and would definitely be another bit of insurance that I don’t go back out to drink and smoke weed due to a surprising new diagnosis.

I told my doctor everything. I told her about the general disorientation when I go to places like Costco or the seeing things that aren’t real and rage quitting two jobs since February because I truly believed that people who actually liked me and my work ethic were “out to get me”. So for the last eight years I have been Dani with Bipolar 2 disorder. It’s what I identified with; it’s the disorder that actually encouraged me to make a mental health blog and why I have been sharing my experiences, strength, and hope with you all here. Over 4.5 years, I am at just about 20,000 total views and approximately 7,000 site visitors.

Today is the day that I am going to tell you that on May 2nd, my primary diagnosis for mental health issues is not bipolar disorder, but it is schizoaffective disorder. I will talk more about that in future posts as I do more research on that specific diagnosis, but I will tell you that schizoaffective disorder is basically a mood disorder with psychotic features such as delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations.

My medication changed a lot after having a consistent med routine for the past five years. Here is my med list:

Old Routine New Routine

lithium 900 mg (mood stabilizer) —-> 600mg – 300mg AM and 300mg PM

Prozac 40mg (anti-depressant) ——-> same

Abilify 30mg (antipsychotic) ——-> Zyprexa 10mg PM

Omeprazole 40mg (GI Issues)———> same

hydroxyzine 25mg (PRN) —————> upped to 50mg as needed

Zofran 4mg (anti nausea) —————-> same

modafinil 100mg (keeps me awake)—–> same

birth control ( don’t want kids at the very moment) —-> same

VItamin d3 10,000 iU ———-> helps with mental health

Dissolvable b12 (a lot of it) ——> see above

…

I think I’ll go more into detail when the initial shock dies down. I knew something was wrong but I didn’t want it to be schizoaffective. I feel as though my family and Kyle are walking on eggshells while they are around me so I don’t have an episode which is both sweet but also annoying because I am still me but this just proves that there is still a mental health stigma out there even though my parents and boyfriend are pretty supportive of the mental health movement.

But in other news I will start working as an overnight shelter counselor for youth with a Christian – value led organization starting Monday May 6th. I could’ve signed my documents yesterday afternoon but I kind of wanted my meds to start working before starting work so I don’t get fired for having a psychotic episode. They seem very friendly and happy to have me; meaning this new job. I am excited to be at place with the same values as me.

I have court May 14, 2024 at 10:30am because my treatment said I was out of compliance with my recovery plan because I missed two consecutive meetings due to my nasal surgery back in February. I was told by my attorney’s paralegal that it would cost $500.00 for each Motion to Revoke on my 2nd DUI case (the first case is officially closed and posted as a negligent driving in the first degree on my record.) Since I don’t have a spare $500 for legal representation, I started my Friday with going to the court house to file paperwork so I could defend myself. What is funny is once I turned my doctor’s notes in to treatment, I got an email from probation stating that I was back in compliance and they requested the prosecution to cancel my court date. But since lawyers are expensive, I figured I would put my old paralegal hat on and file things for myself to represent me in a couple of weeks. I emailed my lawyer with the plan I had and then they said the attorney was going to represent me for free since this won’t go to trial; it’s just showing up and saying I am doing good now and I will finish treatment and carry on with my two year probation.

I think that’s all I have for now; just wanted to give some ideas and put them out to the universe.

As always, thanks for reading and much love to you and yours!

Dani