Tourette's/PTSD Update

There have been some ups and downs in regards to my mental and physical health in the last week. First, I have noticed a steady decrease in tics since being placed on Invega by my neurologist. So far, so good. The nights of restlessness and pacing back and forth seem to be a thing of the past as well. Most nights I am still only getting 2-3 hours of sleep. I wake up anywhere between 3:10 and 3:45 in the morning. Sometimes, I am able to force myself back to sleep until a little after 5am, but most mornings, I am up for the day by then. It's a strange feeling. Feels like you're the only one in the world. No one you can call. No one online. No one you can chat with on Facebook. Just you, your laptop, and your boredom for 5 hours until the baby wakes up. You never get used to that.

Since seeing my therapist the other day, I've been having a hard time with my PTSD. I've been having more flashbacks than I've been able to count. It has been extremely tough. Something in particular has been bothering me that I haven't thought about in over a decade. It's very hard to discuss, embarrassing in fact, but I have to get it off my chest.

From the time I was in my early teens, until I was in my early twenties, roughly 8-10 years, I had a problem with bed wetting. This wasn't the occasional piddle on the sheets at night. This was something that happened every single night. I would wake up soaked in my own urine, and would have to change my sheets, find towels to soak up the mattress, and start a load of laundry to wash my underwear, sweats, pajamas(whatever I was wearing to bed that night). It was routine. I must have wet the bed thousands of times over the years. I could never figure out why.

It was the ultimate embarrassment. I wouldn't spend the night at any of my friend's houses in fear it would happen there. My family was afraid to take me on vacation. When on vacation, I would be so nervous, I would try to stay up for 3 to 4 days straight. One time I stayed up at Disneyland for 3 days straight. I finally fell asleep the third night. I woke up the next morning with the bed so soaked, my hair was wet. I was so tired, I didn't even wake myself up after wetting the bed multiple times.

I was afraid to fall asleep on the couch at home or in the living room floor. It got to the point where I wouldn't be allowed to drink anything with dinner or afterward. I still would wet the bed. I finally confided with my doctor and was given a prescription to help stop urine production at night. After my first day on the medication, I stopped wetting the bed.

The thing that is bothering me now is this, did that medication just give me a placebo effect? Was this a psychological condition and not a medical one? I was on that medication for a little over a month and haven't taken it since. That was 12 years ago. Could the reason I was wetting the bed have been because of the abuse and not because of "urine production". Was this all a way for my brain to deal with trauma. My brain basically did the same thing with my bowels back in 2000 and again this year and we just now realized that was part of the PTSD. Why wouldn't my bladder do the same?

The whole idea of this being a possibility is really upsetting me. The trauma of the bed wetting experience itself is devastating. I can't think of anything that can make a teenager feel more alone, more shamed. It's such a personal issue, that even in my mid 30s, I still feel uncomfortable talking about it. The reactions that often come from the parents and siblings often fuel that shame. There is no support. Just finger pointing, giggling, and embarrassment. My mother even made me go into the grocery store to by my own Depends once. There is no support in that.

I am now starting to wonder if, not only was I showing signs of Tourette's as a child, which I am slowly starting to have memories of, but, was I also starting to show symptoms of PTSD as early as my late teens or early twenties. If I have been going untreated for the better part of twenty years, how long will it take me to recover from this? How many hours of therapy will it take to undo the damage that has already been done?

Update From The Neurologist

So I finally got to see my neurologist today. The guy is great. He really seems to know what he's doing and is really willing to work with me and try new things. Since my migraines have pretty much started to go away, my tics have been pretty consistent. I have been on 300mg of Topamax and 10mg of Abilify a day. Since starting the Abilify, I have been restless 24 hours a day. My mind is racing CONSTANTLY. At 10pm, I am literally pacing in my living room, every night.

It was driving me crazy. I can't sleep. I feel like I continually have cabin fever. Nothing can mellow me out. Something has to change. So, I am discontinuing my Abilify and starting on a new medication called Invega. Supposedly, it works the same as Abilify, but doesn't have any of the side effects. It's expensive as all hell though. $742.15 without insurance. Um...so I can either have two PS3's or not tic for Christmas. Still about $100.00 WITH insurance. With two psych appointments, a neuro appointment, and all of my new meds this month, it's still going to be an expensive month.

I've been getting up in the middle of the night lately, only getting about two hours of sleep. I wake up and can't go back to sleep unless I clear my mind of just useless shit that I'm thinking about. Checking account balances, things on Amazon, movies, song titles, etc. Most nights I don't go back to sleep. Sometimes, I resolve my issues and go back to sleep in a matter of a half hour or an hour. I thought it was all as a result of the Abilify. I never thought of it as being OCD behavior. As Dr. Flitman said, "Welcome to the world of Tourette's Syndrome".

"And I think to myself....
What a wonderful world....
Oh yeah...."