I realized recently that I haven’t really written at all about my depression, how I’m doing lately etc., not since I crashed after coming off medication and every post was angry and F bomb everything. I think I haven’t been able to for a number of reasons but am feeling well enough now that I think I’ll give it a shot. I know I also mentioned I went back on medication but I think I kinda left it at that. It is a real brain screw to go from having convinced yourself you are ready to come off even when your Dr. has advised against it and being again fully convinced you DON’T NEED IT to being where I am now which is scared as shit to ever come off again and convinced I will be on them for life and for once I really don’t care if I am. I am on a lot though, but I won’t be on this much forever. It is a lot more than before, but I hadn’t had a crash that bad in ages and I work so hard in therapy I really thought I’d be fine. I used to only take two drugs, Effexor and Clonazepam but now I also take Risperidone.
In the morning I take an Effexor two Clonazepam and one Risperidone.
Before bed I take a Clonazepam and a Risperidone.
When I first went on the three combined it was a lot. I was so tired, I looked different, I looked dazed and a wee bit confused and didn’t need the pipe to achieve this look. I was embarrassed by it but played it off. I’d stare off into space for AGES and couldn’t tell you even in the moment what I was thinking about. I was getting up with Adam in the mornings around 7ish and would be back sleeping each day by noon and would basically sleep until Adam got home from work. I tried to get out for as many morning walks as I could with the baby mama but found many a day I made excuses not to go. All of this and then some made me even more flaky than I already am in general with plans and I hardly left the house and would cancel almost all commitments; I never answer my phone anyway so I guess that doesn’t count. Although I was still keeping up the apartment it was on an extremely sporadic basis and I really didn’t give a shit how many days the dishes sat there. The depression was still bad and it was bad for a while, I wasn’t sure this new dose was going to work. The Dr. offered to lower the dose but I was still so depressed I said no because I secretly liked sleeping all day. If you watch TV you may have noticed new ads which advertise adding an additional medication to the medication you’re already taking because what you are on isn’t working. These commercials really piss me off being a depression sufferer on more than one drug. I get my medication through my psychiatrist who is covered by my medical he isn’t taking a penny of my money and being on more than one drug is still not going to instantly cure you.
I think with this crash being as long as it was that I’ve learned an immense amount about myself and my depression, not that learning about you ever stops. I knew it was coming but felt it coming on for serious on our honeymoon [early September 2006]. Not wanting to ruin our honeymoon I only got upset about it once and cried once and through those tears said I can not fucking believe I am in Mexico on my fucking honeymoon no problems not a care in the world and I’m fucking DEPRESSED WTF?
I know definitively that medication does not eliminate my depression symptoms. But it does help my temper and I could not handle that my temper came back times a million, I had so much rage and no where to put it. My anxiety and paranoia were insane again and my emotions even when happy came in tempest form. I recently had a friend tell me that they were actually afraid and seriously worried about me. I think a few people were but no one actually told me they were afraid for me until last Saturday.
Therapy in the last few months while I’ve adjusted to the new medication dose has been fully centered on reprogramming my brain and accepting that depression is NOT all of me, I am very multifaceted and it is simply a disease I suffer from. I used to let it run my life and I have felt that others have seen me as completely fucked up and JUST depression. I’m learning to not give a shit if they do. I’m learning to use new words and speak in a completely new way. For example I have stopped saying I suffer from paranoia and paranoid delusions and now say I suffer from a Negative Attentional Bias. And it works. If I feel those kinds of thoughts coming on renaming them has given them less power over me.
Right now I still have bad days hate myself, there are no tunnel lights and I still spend hours if not the full day fighting off suicidal thoughts but they are fewer and further between. It took a long time for this cocktail of meds to fully kick in but they have now for sure. The apartment has never looked better; I haven’t taken ‘a nap’ in almost two weeks. It started where I’d go maybe two of five days with no nap etc and etc to I’ve made it two weeks. I had a friend over last Friday night went out to see another friend on Saturday have lots of up coming plans and am not dreading them like I used to. And I’m learning to say no so that I don’t have to cancel as many things. Perfect.
