littlebeigepill-blog

[littlebeigepill-blog]

Wyoming

is a state where I can’t have weed. Today I haven’t even finished a burrito bowl from Chipotle (10:30PM). I’m here with work, so I was interested to see what going a week without my appetite aid was going to do. So far I’ve spread a single meal over an entire day each day I’ve been here.

But! That isn’t why I’m writing. Since my depression has eased up, I have a lot more time to do things that make me happy. Which brings on a bit of an identity crisis, because I don’t know what makes me happy anymore. It’s hard, because I’ve always had high-functioning anxiety, which kept me constantly busy. Now I’m realizing that I don’t like that as much, but I don’t know what I do like. 

Reading used to be a thing I enjoyed, but now it’s harder to pick up books. I want to get into swing dancing, but I don’t have a dance partner/money. I would like to join a fighting gym and learn something new, but again--no money. I don’t want to seem like I’m making excuses, because I am trying. I like playing video games, which I didn’t know until recently, and I love spending time with my partner. I love my cats, and I love being home and cozy. I like whiskey, wine, gin, and good music. The issue is that these things aren’t the same as having hobbies.

And because I moved to this state when I didn’t have the best mental health situation, I haven’t made many friends here. Adult friendships are hard and my social anxiety still prevents me from keeping all my social engagements. I feel like I’m a hard person to be friends with right now, but I also know that I really, really want to form friendships out here. 

[littlebeigepill-blog]

Because this is a more vulnerable post, I’m going to institute a policy regarding this blog:

You are allowed to read these very sensitive thoughts, but unless you are a person who I already discuss my mental health with, I will not begin discussing it with you now. I assure you I am doing fine. This blog is not an invitation to start worrying about me or intruding into parts of my mind that tend to be more private. 

So. I have been on antidepressants for about 2 months now. This is the point at which I’m truly supposed to be noticing the effects.

I have been feeling good and motivated and only occasionally depressive. I even started doing dishes on a regular basis, and that’s the one chore I could never motivate myself to do. I cooked lunches for myself this week, and I’m reaching out to people instead of sitting at home alone all the time. My stomach has started settling, but still gets feisty at times. My appetite is almost back to normal? I don’t know if I’ve ever had a great appetite, but this feels healthier (but today I’ve only had a single bite of muffin and its already 3 sooooo). 

This past week was crazy at work and so I had a 3 day weekend in anticipation of the boyfriend leaving for tour. Saturday he left and now I’m living alone with the cats. Since Saturday, I’ve been far less consistent with my pills (partly because I let myself sleep in late). 

Now I believe you have all the context to accompany me on the anxiety fueled freakout that I’m about to share.

I’ve been feeling slightly more depressive recently. Yesterday I called off of work because of it, and today I left early because I had forgotten my pill. Last week I was tired, and so I attributed my crankiness to that, but now I’m starting to wonder if I’ve messed up my mental health by being inconsistent. What if it affects my work? I’ve already used a sick day for my brains recently, and I have a lot of stuff I have to get done this week. What if this is the sign everyone needed to discount me as incapable and take away the promotion I may be getting? Am I sharing too much about my mental health at work? Really only my direct supervisor knows anything for sure (as confirmed by me) but if I get this job should I tell my new supervisor about starting new drugs? I’m sure he suspects something already, but I don’t know if he’s narrowed it down to anxiety/depression or if he just thinks I’m really, really detail oriented. 

Do I need to start looking at taking a new medication or will getting back on schedule make this all okay? What if I’m just freaking out and depressive because my main support/roommate/lover is gone? How do you answer those questions?

I know that generally I’m fine; that I’m no risk to myself or others, and so I can ride this out on my own. Anxiety makes knowing those things irrelevant because I have to run through every single option that ends poorly, and none of the options that end well sound genuine. 

It also doesn’t help that most healthcare professionals don’t know much about mental health, so the first nurse I called to get some advice knew less about what drug I was taking than I do. Fortunately I called a second facility, which specializes in mental health, and the nurse there told me I probably need a higher dose.

It is amazingly frustrating to feel like I was finally making progress and to now start backsliding. I know what “normal” feels like now, so when I start feeling like the drugs aren’t working as well a fear sets in. I want to live my life not hating myself or feeling like it would be easier to not be here. I just got a window and the grass really is greener on the other side.

If you are one of the people who answers the phone for me when I’m having an anxiety attack: Thank you. I will never be able to say how much you mean to me and the support you provide in the face of my irrational fear is invaluable.

If you want to know how to talk someone down from an anxiety attack, you can check out this link: https://medium.com/@gtinari/how-to-handle-someone-elses-anxiety-or-panic-attacks-51ee63f5c23b#.3rwjunswz.

[littlebeigepill-blog]

Yesterday I took my first antidepressant

CW: Mental Health, Medication, Food

How long does it take to brace yourself to take your first dose of a drug people will judge you for your entire life? Do you count all the time before you asked for it, when you were steeling yourself for that moment? What about the time it took to acknowledge that you may be mentally ill in the first place? To acknowledge that your brain was sabotaging you and you couldn’t fix it alone? At least a minute or so.

My doctor prescribed me Celexa after my first appointment. I moved recently, and didn’t have a doctor here, nor had I ever had a history of managing my mental health in any real way. But I’ve had mental health issues for years.

My freshman year of college I started the birth control shot Depo Provera. It was birth control I had to think about once every three months, which was perfect until the middle of my sophomore year. One of the potential side effects of Depo is depression, which I had discounted when I started it, because thinking about birth control four times a year was all I wanted. But, in retrospect I was digging my own grave. I have a genetic predisposition to depression, which I hadn’t really processed at the time.

My depression was big and ugly. I got stuck in dark periods of self-loathing which would be hours long and the only way to really end them was to go to sleep. I was skipping classes, which was making my grades worse which fueled my depression. If you don’t have experience with depression (or even if you do) read these comics: pt 1 pt 2. I saw myself in them, and I think Allie Brosh explains the feeling of depression better than I can.

At one point that year, I could predict that I’d have a breakdown on Thursday night. The other one or two a week were random, but Thursday was consistent. I had biology quizzes on Friday that I would always do poorly on because I was having an emotional breakdown the night before because I was going to do poorly on my biology quiz. Which would spiral into self-loathing, suicidal ideation, and a genuine belief that I was a burden, that I was broken, that I didn’t deserve to be alive or at this prestigious institution.

I got to the point where the people who were supporting me needed me to get help. I had just had my world turned upside down and didn’t even know myself anymore. I didn’t know how to deal with everything I was feeling, and I had too few people who I allowed to see me broken down.

One sat with me when I called mental health services and told them that I had a plan to kill myself. After my second appointment, I quickly realized I was depressed for a drug I was taking strictly for convenience. I stopped, I got better, and I was ready to not be depressed anymore.

But that isn’t how depression works. Because it didn’t go away.

It was a non-factor for a while, but then when it came back the depression itself wasn’t the worst part. The depression was familiar; I knew how it felt and what to expect. But I realized I was always going to be broken. I was always going to have a sheet of glass between me and mentally healthy people.

Let’s fast forward to about three months ago:

I moved in with my boyfriend of a year or so, lost my (termed) position, and started looking for work in my new city. I found 3 different jobs and weaned down to two. One for my career and personal development that paid practically nothing and one for supplemental money at a restaurant. I work 60-70 hours a week.

For a while, I was elated to be busy. Then I lost my appetite, which I’ve known is part of how I manifest stress and anxiety. I started getting nauseous with no reason, in the mornings in the shower before I had eaten, in the afternoon if I had waited too long for lunch, in the evening after I had finally been able to eat some food for the first time that day. All the time, without warning I could be rushing to the bathroom.

I asked friends and family what they thought could be happening and the explanation that resonated most was the idea of the ‘gut as the second brain.’ My anxiety has been through the roof, which I’ve been managing by self-medicating (yay weed), and because I knew my anxiety could affect my GI system in one kind of way, what’s to say it couldn’t be working in another?

So naturally, I let it go on for months before I tried anything (because I’m an ADULT). But yesterday I went to my doctor and told her what I thought was happening. I finished a survey on how depressed and anxious I have been in the past two weeks (a lot). She asked if I was interested in medication and I don’t know that I’ve said yes quicker to anything.

I’m not supposed to notice the changes for 6-8 weeks.

So you’ll get some fun information dumps and reflection on depression before we get to talk about improvements. And if you think you’re ready to hear about improvements, imagine how I feel.