#and its only a 5 week course its stressful enough without this extra bullshit

[2024skin]

Really confused as to why it says there are no assignments listed under the week of spring break, yet I am missing a test that was due the last Sunday of spring break

[cherryronpa]

i don’t tend to post stuff like this here - i try to keep my art blog a happy environment. but i do feel like i do need to talk about my burnout somewhere where it��s more difficult to ignore. if you’re just here for the pretty picture, here it is. the talk about my burnout and mental health, however, is under the cut (be warned, there’s talk of burnout, depression, and suicide)

i hold a pretty privileged position not really bestowed upon many danganronpa fans - i have an audience of 22.5k subscribers that grows steadily by dozens every day, near-guaranteed 10k+ views on new videos so long as youtube censorship isn’t throwing one of its characteristic shitfits, and dozens of die-hard fans. i should be at the top of my game.

and yet i feel burned out. 

i feel like i’ve only produced 5 “real” videos over the course of the year. youtube’s algorithm demands constant uploads, however i cannot sustainably upload analysis videos every week; it’s quite literally impossible. scripting takes time, voiceover takes time, editing takes a LOT of time (like, 60-70% of a video’s creation time is the editing). i can’t put out my videos weekly, and the youtube algorithm doesn’t appreciate that and shunts my videos if i disappear for more than a week - so i tend to intercut giant videos with tiny little memes that take maybe an hour to produce. they do cause the main video to take a little longer to produce, but miniscule amounts (like, maybe an extra 3-5 hours per large video). 

however i’m starting to become more known for these little cursed skit videos that i put zero thought and maybe one effort into, rather than the analysis or rewrite videos i pour my heart and soul into for several weeks at a time. every single analysis video i’ve put out has turned up less and less views, even if it’s a video that the algorithm and youtube should be promoting to high hell (eg. i feel like a video where I rank every trial in Danganronpa should be a video Youtube promotes the hell out of to anyone with danganronpa as a recommended topic). it makes me wonder why i even bother at all to analyse this series i love and to share that love with the world, when simply making surface-level tithes that return the same 6 comments over and over again seems to be the appeal. 

even with a description talking about the burnout and my frustration with the situation, most people didn’t even read it. even some of my own friends didn’t until i pointed it out. 224 comments, and maybe 3-4 actually talk about the description and what i described. the rest are the same jokes everyone else already said 30 times, and even i don’t find them funny anymore.

people’s advice doesn’t seem to work either; “i appreciate your analyses!” and “you should focus on what you want to make!” are indeed people trying their best to make me feel better. but the truth is, when i do make what i want, i don’t see the results i want. trying to get an analysis video to break the views in a week that a dumb little meme video gets over two days is consistently heart-wrenching to watch. ‘i appreciate your analyses’ is a very much minority opinion - the majority of people who watch my content do not care about them. and to watch weeks of your work essentially go to waste over and over again, once again, makes me wonder why i’m even bothering. 

it’s very clear i’m at a stage where i can no longer relate to my general audience. the advice provided is rarely from the standpoint of someone who actually goes through what I do. it’s a very much privileged problem to go through, i don’t deny that - but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem. no amount of “oh, the youtube algorithm/the fandom is just horrible, you keep being you!” is going to actually FIX the issues. i know the youtube algorithm is horrible, i have to actually deal with it censoring my videos constantly. telling me that youtube or the fandom are screwed up just annoys me now - despite my atrocious memory problems, it’s one of the few things i do actually remember.

i’ve watched my mental health take a nosedive over the course of the year, and i’m sure this would’ve happened even without COVID-19. where i was once almost completely able to cope with my depression and anxiety and it was rarely ever a problem, where i once believed i did in fact have worth, the recent months have caused me to spiral right back into that depression. even though im at the most successful i’ve ever been, i feel completely worthless because that success is built on the literal scraps i throw off the cutting room floor rather than the videos that receive my honest love, my honest thoughts, and the time that i wanted to give them. i wanted the fandom to see just how amazing these things either were or could have been. instead the fandom is more interested in exclusively characters swearing or whatever cursed bullshit my manic-depression-addled brain decides to create when it opens vegas pro and slams its fists against the keyboard.

that mental health slip has not only put me back in severe risks for depression, anxiety, and stress, worse than they’ve ever been, but it’s returned me to suicidal thoughts. the anxiety of the future of my channel, the anxiety of losing interest in danganronpa over this and this entire year having built up to absolutely nothing, have made me seriously question if i might take my own life. i do have something that will likely stop me from doing so, but i’m not comfortable revealing what it is, and i likely never will be.

i apologise if anything harsh or harmful was said - i really am grateful for what i have, and that’s why this all feels so selfish. i’m not grateful enough for what i already have - despite knowing i should be.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT ADVICE

Would it be so bad to add a new application to my list of known time sinks: Firefox. If you consider exclamation points as constituents, for example: after the founders graduated from college, they borrowed $15,000 from their friend's rich uncle, who they give 5% of the company in restricted stock, vesting over four years, and the living expenses of the founders quits. And I don't think there's any limit to the number of startups per capita is probably a 20th of what it might have been.1 I'd sacrifice a large percentage of the income for the extra peace of mind. And it only does a fraction of them.2 9998 Subject free 0.3 Ask anyone who's done it. Their unconscious mind decides for them, it's a vote of no confidence. Some angel investors join together in syndicates.

An optimism shield has to be tuned just right. How do you learn it? The best way to explain how it all works is to follow the case of a hypothetical very fortunate startup as it shifts gears through successive rounds. And while startup hubs are as powerful magnets as ever, the increasing cheapness of web startups will if anything increase the importance of startup hubs, but the title of one: James Salter's Burning the Days. You're not all playing a zero-sum game. Fortunately there's someone you can ask each for advice about the other. But perhaps worst of all, the complex sentences and fancy words give you, the bullshit that sneaks into your life by tricking you is no one's fault but your own. 8 books to choose from, the quantity would definitely seem limited, no matter how finished you thought it was. The most dangerous thing about our dislike of schleps is that much of it is unconscious. Few legal documents are created from scratch.4 Err on the side while working on their day jobs, but which never got anywhere and was gradually abandoned.

The angel deal takes two weeks to close, so you start to lie to yourself. The effort that goes into looking productive is not merely that it's longer. There are theoretical arguments for giving these two tokens substantially different probabilities Pantel and Lin stemmed the tokens, meaning they reduced e. Promising new startups are often discovered by developers. It's not what they originally set out to do—in the process of innovation. After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time with her. Of course, looking at multiple token sequences would catch it easily.5

So verbs with initial caps have higher spam probabilities than they would in all lowercase. No one proposes that there's some limit to the number of people who want to work for them. A month later, at the end of month six, the system is starting to have a new kind of stock representing the total pool of companies they were managing. If anything major is broken—if they sense you're ambivalent, they won't give you much attention. 7 uncle 50 4. What would be a good heuristic for product design, and others where it would help to be rapacious is when growth depends on that. 5 million from angels without ever accepting vesting, largely because we were so inexperienced that we were appalled at the idea.

Partly the reason deals seem to fall through so often is that you know you're making something at least one has to make money.6 The danger of the second paragraph is not merely annoying; the prickly attitude of these posers can actually slow the process of innovation. Indeed, the whole concept seemed foreign to them. What's wrong with having one founder, like Oracle, usually turn out to be good, because it was some project a couple guys started on the side.7 Founders at Work. We have three general suggestions about hiring: a don't do it if you let them. For example, everyone I've talked to while writing this essay felt the same about English classes—that anything can be interesting if you get deeply enough into it. But what if your manager was hit by a bus? You can no longer guess what will work; you have to take enough to get to the next step is.8 But even factoring in their annoying eccentricities, the disobedient attitude of hackers is a net win. Then you'd automatically get your share of the returns of the whole economy.9

I wasn't paying attention, I didn't know what they'd be like.10 Way more startups hose themselves than get crushed by competitors.11 This is what real productivity looks like. And because this is what I call degeneration. Our ancestors were giants. We can of course counter by sending a crawler to look at the instruments. When they demo it, one of the motives on the FBI's list.

They would just look at you blankly. And the hardest part of that is often discarding your old idea. And don't write the way they are because that is how things have to be smart too, right?12 It used to be aware of this problem.13 But you can't browse the web. There's a whole essay's worth of surprises there for sure. It's the concluding remarks to the jury.

This may work in biotech, where a lot of pain and stress to do something that would otherwise seem too ambitious.14 I remember going through this realization myself. So if our group of founders have something they can launch.15 This is no accident. The spirit of resistance to government, Jefferson wrote, is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. If life is short, we should expect its shortness to take us by surprise. I feel as if someone snuck a television onto my desk. This had two drawbacks: a an expert on literature need not himself be a good heuristic for product design, and others wouldn't.16

Notes

If an investor? Maybe that isn't the last round of funding rounds are bad news; it is very common for startups. If Ron Conway had angel funds starting in the US.

Mayle, Peter, Why Are We Getting a Divorce? The word suggests an undifferentiated slurry, but if you hadn't written it?

Most of the fatal pinch where your idea is to be very hard and doesn't get paid to work not just the location of the reasons startups are ready to invest in your own time, because software takes longer to close than you expect.

This is an understatement. VCs aren't tech guys, the best approach is to be hidden from statistics too.

For example, the switch in the sense of the twentieth century, art as brand split apart from art is not much to generalize. This technique wouldn't work for us! Their inexperience makes them overbuild: they'll create huge, overcomplicated agreements, and mostly in Perl.

Vision research may be overpaid. For the price of a running back doesn't translate to soccer. But try this thought experiment: If they were.

And since there are only doing angel deals to generate revenues they could attribute to malice what can be said to have moments of adversity before they ultimately choose not to make fundraising take less time, is a trap set by evil companies for the same work faster. Which is not so much on luck. This flattering distinction seems so natural to the home team, I've become a function of their predecessors and said in effect what the startup eventually becomes. The danger is that you decide the price of an official authority makes all the East Coast.

One-click ordering, however, you need to raise money on the spot, so x% usage growth predicts x% revenue growth, because the danger of chasing large investments is not yet released. Some blue counties are false positives caused by blacklists, I was a refinement that made it possible to bring corporate bonds to market faster; the crowds of shoppers drifting through this huge mall reminded George Romero of zombies.

Surely no one knows how many computers the worm infected, because some schools work hard to imagine how an investor seems very interested in us! Oddly enough, maybe they'll listen to God.

Don't be evil.

I was there when it was more rebellion which can vary a lot of startups where the richest of their upbringing in their closets. Perl. What they must do is leave them alone in the past, it's because other companies made all the potential magnitude of the most, it's shocking how much they liked the outdoors, was no great risk in doing something that conforms with their decision or just outright dismisses it and make a formal language for proofs in which you want to lead.

Applets seemed to Aristotle the core: the quality of production. Because the pledge is deliberately vague, we're going to give up, and unleashed a swarm of cheap component suppliers on Apple hardware. Actually, someone else to lend to, so we also give any startup that wants to the World Bank, the owner shouldn't pay me extra for doing badly and is doomed anyway.

The reason not to like uncapped notes, VCs who are weak in other Lisp dialects: Here's an example of a safe environment, but in practice money raised as convertible debt, so it's conceivable that the lies people told 100 years will be big successes but who are both. But wide-area bandwidth increased more than they have to preserve their wealth by forbidding the export of gold or silver. This plan backfired with the bad idea the way they do on the software business.

Fortuna! Algorithms that use it are called naive Bayesian.

A Bayesian Approach to Filtering Junk E-Mail. Currently the lowest rate seems to be delivering results.

You know what kind of protection is one you take out order.

[noxrynne]

i dont really have the highest hopes for making the goal i had for school odds are i fail a class, do poorly in another or two, and maybe get by decently in one of them i really regret doing online courses since it always goes back to “oh i missed that because it wasn’t posted,” “oh the professors don’t use the news alert system when new stuff is added with a concise explanation of what I need to do in that post blurb that’s 3500 words of bs,” “oh i didnt realize this awkward and uncomfortable ‘post your personal assignments here that are about yourself so a bunch of strangers can also read and criticize it’ was required,” “the syllabus is written out of order, it’s messy and has a bunch of color code usage that’s never explained and makes reading it harder and, oh, they want me to print it out too bad i dont have a fucking printer and looking at it makes me want to throw up since it’s literally just everything put up on a page and i just start panicking because its so much stuff and it immediately overwhelms me” i also fuckin hate the professors who’ll say like “if you’re here just to get a degree you’re in the wrong place” b/c it’s like college costs a lot of fuckin money and you can bet your ass the only reason im here is to get a degree so i can eventually have a job that lets me be financially stable. trying to say “oh it’s just for funtime education” is bullshit when it costs what it does and isn’t even accessible to everyone from the get-go. i could learn the exact same shit for free from a fucking library and the internet, and talk to people i know if i have questions about material. but that doesn’t give me the piece of paper i need. idk i wish there was more of a “oh i can go do this and be fine financially” rather than needing to spend years in a university because i really hate it. i *wish* i hadn’t fucked up before and been as suicidal and couldve got through it *before* its used as a “yea we can’t have you here cuz you dropped out in the past” *even when* it’s an associated school with the one i *did* drop out of and they told me they *would* re-accept me when i was healthier. no im not a great student. i get overwhelmed really easily, i stress out over everything too much, i break down if i miss one assignment. i dont do well on the shit i actually try really hard at. i dont participate in class because it’s a terrifying experience to be called a fucking “idiot” again by a professor (ty philosopher dickhead at uwgb im gonna fucking punch you if i ever see you) i *forget* about assignments a *lot* and *yes* that’s a *my* problem thing but it’s something so extremely difficult to work around without having someone telling me about it, or just having a visible schedule written down about what’s due on a front page that always pops up. which i mean yeah it’s extra work i guess for the professor to just copy paste some info that’d really help me out, and no i dont have this issue as much in a traditional school b/c i actually *go* to the classes to sit in and be reminded through that. and yea im probly gonna fail out unless the other university sighs and says “well she did try and it was online” and ngl i probably would be *fine* in a regular classroom oriented thing *now* it’s more organized and there’s a schedule i can keep to and get into and when i get *into* a schedule i stick to it 100% b/c i derive a sense of security, existence and safety from having schedules. but if i fail out and they dont sigh and say “okay” then im kinda fucked. i mean, i could probably attempt to get through another year there and maybe go to the actual school instead of the online bullshit and *maybe* then i’d actually meet the reqs. but idk if that offer is gonna stand after this year. and idk im just back to feeling really fucking hopeless and empty. i mean ive been feeling this way all this month. i feel like nothings fucking worth it because i feel like i just cant do it. and that ultimately im gonna end up fucked. and i *know* im 90% of the problem. i *know* my thinking of “what’s the point” is screwing me over. i *know* accidentally falling asleep an staying asleep for a whole day is a fucking issue. i *know* i shouldnt forget important shit i need to do. i *know* i should participate no matter how fucking uncomfortable and frightened it makes me. but it feels fucking *impossible* to work with 0 energy. it feels terrifying to be asked “write an introspective piece about yourself and reflect on the events of your life that made you who you are today” BECAUSE i dont talk about THAT STUFF to people I DONT KNOW i *BARELY* covered those topics in *therapy* because of how uncomfortable they make me. and I DONT need a bunch of strangers in a class knowing the shit that happened to me. and fuck i feel like the entire idea behind the writing assignment was “oh this’ll be fun haha” but it’s like... remembering *most of the shit hat directly impacted how i am today* is one of the most fucking difficult things for me to do, especially publicly. i *regret* online schooling. i didnt realize how much i dont work with it until i thought about it this year. i get overwhelmed. i get stressed. i get depressed. i get suicidal. i get hopeless. i feel useless. i didnt realize i *need* to actually *go* to a class because it helps with the isolation i put myself in. because i straight up actually understand shit when someone is actually explaining it to me and not just handing me a textbook and saying “read it that’s it that’s the entire class, but oh, write an informed paper structured off what you read and if you dont understand the material well go fuck yourself i guess.” and in actually *going* there to a physical room it becomes easier to do things like homework and assignments *because i can walk over to the library*. what *really* shit on my previous school ability was like i was overwhelmed (we *just* moved to a *completely* different state and environment, i *just* had a series of panic attacks in italy b/c i thought i could handle it on my own) and the first school didn’t have a/c and it was fucking 101 outside every day and i dont do well in heat, and by that, i mean i hyperventilate, i get dizzy, i get lightheaded, i get emotional and frightened and stressed and cant sleep. the professor who asked if we read the chapter (I DID) and then pointed at me to explain what i read (I DIDNT FUCKING UNDERSTAND IT), and when i finished he just laughed and told me to sit down and pretty much called me an idiot in front of everyone and i started crying. (i also got a 0 so i failed the reading since he didnt believe i read it). at *that* school there were no therapy or counseling or offers like that. the art building made me cry and feel unsafe (i couldnt control it), having to walk *all* the way back to my dorm building at 12AM b/c that’s when my one class ended was *terrifying* then in a different school it was just i had a class that made me physically uncomfortable to be in. i *hated* being in the freshman course for feminism so much. not b/c i hate the material, but i felt so “other” and uncomfortable b/c im a trans woman being asked about my male perspective on shit and i just. i remember leaving because i just felt upset and depressed and i couldn’t get over the really bad dysphoria i kept having in that class (the professor there was the reason i went to counseling on campus, she’s the one who referred me to it in the first place). on top of that, the dorm i was told id be getting was a fucking lie. i was supposed to have one or 0 roommates. i got 5 roommates. beds didn’t fit me b/c of my height (i slept with the back of my feet on an iron bar). the food was straight fucking garbage. one of my roommates just randomly touched me all the time. hugged me, put arms around my neck, *kissed my cheek*. another was always drunk and loud. another talked about making bombs incessantly. one of them seemed actually concerned about me and he came in once or twice when i was face down on my bed just not moving b/c of therapy sessions and talked to me once or twice to make sure i was still alive. friday mornings in winter id be up at 5AM, trying to get ready without waking any of the 5 other people, then walk outside with no access to breakfast/coffee/anything (b/c too early) to get to a class across and off the campus i had to walk to (and when snow was present my feet were numb b/c of all the water that got into my shoes). and then there was the legit getting 4 hours of sleep if that a week. eating basically nothing. extremely suicidal and getting to the point where i was having days where i legitimately could not discern what was real and wasn’t. and then i left ‘cuz my other option was to be hospitalized. from there its just been attempts at online schools. which i already tiraded about above. i mean fuck id be happy if i *could* just go work in retail and make a decent wage and not have to work every waking hour of my life to make it work. like. i *wish* i was lucky enough to be one of those “i had no degree but x really liked my resume” stories i always read about. i *wish* writing and publishing a book was considered and *was* a viable career option without needing to get really fucking lucky. im passionate about writing fiction, but in order to do that professionally, i need a 4 year degree from an institution. i can technically publish something, but if no one ever hears about it or cares, then it doesn’t become a job to have and it does little else. and then there’s also just a lot of irl shit i keep worrying about and dwelling on and nearly making some really fucked up or stupid decisions in the interim. and idk i just i wish i was one of those ppl who felt like they had a future and aren’t likely to die before age 25. or one of those people who just *does* something and it works out and they get to exist.

[medicatedcretin]

It's all over, boys - Sat 21/01/2017

We can go home now. I think I’m finally starting to see the end of this withdrawal. It’s been about a month since my last dose of 37.5mg Venlafaxine, and it’s been a rough last couple of weeks. Rough, but tolerable. Made a lot easier by the Christmas break at the start, the New Years break a few days later, and a week off a week and a bit later again (where Jono and I went up to Paihia and stayed in a motel on the beach. It was epic).  I was a mess, of course. An angry, tetchy, impossible son of a bitch. But Jono was amazing. He let me off the hook so many times i lost count. And just when I thought I couldn’t handle it anymore, I’d go mad, I was just too much of a handful to expect anyone to suffer with me with the future so uncertain, he’d be there egging me on, telling me I can do it, I’m not a piece of shit: I’m doing just great, and we’d just power through it. He was my little shoulder angel when I thought my self worth had abandoned me, and I could not have done it without him. I’ll level with you here: I almost broke up with him. I was fully prepared to cut him loose because I really thought it wasn’t fair. I was too much hard work, and my ex was right: nobody would ever be able to tolerate my bullshit. But, bless him, he straight up told me he wouldn’t give up on me. “We are in this together, dammit” he said, “and damned if I’m gonna quit on you now. Not now, not ever.” I tell you, when he said that I cried until I thought I’d shrivel up from dehydration. I don’t deserve this person. It’s getting better. I’m less angry, I barely ever have to take my DHA supplements for the brain shocks: only when I get really tired or stressed. My heart rate is a bit all over the place, but the doc said that’s to be expected. He said my adrenaline supplier gauge is a bit out of whack now that my seratonin levels are getting levelled out and so it’s pumping me full of excess all the time, giving me nasty palpitations and tachycardia. My mum says that this actually runs in the family but good old Egor says I just have to take a couple of beta blockersa day for a week or two and my gauge will reset itself and soon enough, i won’t even need those anymore. I’m on half a seroquel at night for sleep but after a few days I’ll be off those, too. Just on my daily patroptazole for my GORD. I don’t take Strattera every day now. If I’m tired or need to be extra into it at work, I can take one but they don’t seem to be doing much. I can function fine without them, and there’s no nasty side effects if I stop taking them all of a sudden. If you’d like to know how I got through it, here’s a list if the advice I was given, and that actually helped make a difference. I hope anyone wanting to get off medication will be helped by this.

1 - TALK TO YOR DOCTOR BEFORE DOING ANYTHING.  I was an idiot and tried to do it myself, over my holidays, before discussing it with Egor. I know, I know. I got the pep talk from him, too. Don’t try to be a hero. Your doctor knows his shit. Sometimes they fuck up but they know a hell of a lot more than you or mr google does about these things. Tell him your plans and let them help you. It doesn’t have to be a time of immense suffering. It’s always going to be shit, but there are ways you can make it less shit, and talking it through and planning it with your doc is one of them.

2- Routine. Most important thing. This was exactly why my doc told me off for trying to do it during a holiday. Not only do you need your network of support open for business (ie, your doctor, pharmacy etc) but you need a structure to your day that stems from the regular and expected. Wake up at the same time. Activities, boom, boom, boom. Regular bed time. It helped me SO MUCH.

3 - Sleep aids. Boy, will you need these. Insomnia is the quickest way to derail your progress, and it will happen. No sleep, feel shit. Feel shit + feel shit = disaster. It just makes everything seem impossibly hard. Your doc will recommend the best type, but don’t fall for herbal crap. Times like this, you’ll need the heavy duty shit. Usually for a couple of nights to get you back into the real world, then you can use things like magnesium, melatonin, rescue remedy. At first, use what your doc prescribes.

4 - EXERCISE. A walk isn’t enough. Get those endorphins going, every day. At least 30 mins of your heart rate going 1/3 a above its usual. You should be sweating and gasping by the end. Then have a shower, hot or cold (weather and desire dependant). You’re welcome.

5 - Keep busy. I can’t stress this enough. You can’t be sitting around “relaxing”. Nu-uh, not now. Not good. You gotta keep everything moving around in that head of yours, all the time. Simple things. Make a list if you get stuck. Do the washing. Clean the house. 2 minutes breathing exercises. Walk the dog. 1 episode of a good TV show. Go to the library, read a book. Go swimming. Don’t feel like doing anything? too f*king bad. Make yourself. This is where having a relentlessly helpful partner is useful. Annoying af, but you’ll bless him later. You’ll probably be the most productive during this time than ever before in your life.

6 - Pick something you would enjoy doing and schedule it for at least once a week. Look forward to it. If you don’t end up liking it, try something else. An art class, dancing lessons, riding lessons, learn a language, creative writing course. Anything. You don’t have to socialise at it, there’s no pressure to “make new friends” or whatever (if that freaks you out) just pick something you’ll like, and do your best to get a kick out of it. It also has the bonus that its homework is another thing to add to your list of Things To Do.

That’s really it as far as my experience went. I’m still working through it, but the mess I’m wading through now doesn’t feel as thick anymore. I feel like it’s receding. The hardest part is flying headlong into the unknown. Up until now, I’d never had a single day in my adult life living unmedicated. The hardest thing was during the really shitty times, never being 100% sure that it would pass, that things would get better. This was …is… totally uncharted territory. I’m just making this up as I go along. But, I guess, so are most of us. All of us, really. And, for the most part, my days of depending on the familiar are over. I still don’t know who I am, but I’m getting to be okay with that. It’ll come.  Peace out, guys.

[imgurlover-blog]

It's all over, boys. 21/01/2017

We can go home now. I think I'm finally starting to see the end of this withdrawal. It's been about a month since my last dose of 37.5mg venlafaxine, and it's been a rough last couple of weeks. Rough, but tolerable. Made a lot easier by the Christmas break at the start, the New Years break a few days later, and a week off a week and a bit later again (where Jono and I went up to Paihia and stayed in a motel on the beach. It was epic). I was a mess, of course. An angry, tetchy, impossible son of a bitch. But Jono was amazing. He let me off the hook so many times i lost count. And just when I thought I couldn't handle it anymore, I'd go mad, I was just too much of a handful to expect anyone to suffer with me with the future so uncertain, he'd be there egging me on, telling me I can do it, I'm not a piece of shit: I'm doing just great, and we'd just power through it. He was my little shoulder angel when I thought my self worth had abandoned me, and I could not have done it without him. I'll level with you here: I almost broke up with him. I was fully prepared to cut him loose because I really thought it wasn't fair. I was too much hard work, and my ex was right: nobody would ever be able to tolerate my bullshit. But, bless him, he straight up told me he wouldn't give up on me. "We are in this together, dammit" he said, "and damned if I'm gonna quit on you now. Not now, not ever." I tell you, when he said that I cried until I thought I'd shrivel up from dehydration. I don't deserve this person. It's getting better. I'm less angry, I barely ever have to take my DHA supplements for the brain shocks: only when I get really tired or stressed. My heart rate is a bit all over the place, but the doc said that's to be expected. He said my adrenaline supplier gauge is a bit out of whack now that my seratonin levels are getting levelled out and so it's pumping me full of excess all the time, giving me nasty palpitations and tachycardia. My mum says that this actually runs in the family but good old Egor says I just have to take a couple of beta blockersa day for a week or two and my gauge will reset itself and soon enough, i won't even need those anymore. I'm on half a seroquel at night for sleep but after a few days I'll be off those, too. Just on my daily patroptazole for my GORD. I don't take strattera every day now. If I'm tired or need to be extra into it at work, I can take one but they don't seem to be doing much. I can function fine without them, and there's no nasty side effects if I stop taking them all of a sudden. If you'd like to know how I got through it, here's a list if the advice I was given, and that actually helped make a difference. I hope anyone wanting to get off medication will be helped by this. 1 - TALK TO YOR DOCTOR BEFORE DOING ANYTHING. I was an idiot and tried to do it myself, over my holidays, before discussing it with Egor. I know, I know. I got the pep talk from him, too. Don't try to be a hero. Your doctor knows his shit. Sometimes they fuck up but they know a hell of a lot more than you or mr google does about these things. Tell him your plans and let them help you. It doesn't have to be a time of immense suffering. It's always going to be shit, but there are ways you can make it less shit, and talking it through and planning it with your doc is one of them. 2- Routine. Most important thing. This was exactly why my doc told me off for trying to do it during a holiday. Not only do you need your network of support open for business (ie, your doctor, pharmacy etc) but you need a structure to your day that stems from the regular and expected. Wake up at the same time. Activities, boom, boom, boom. Regular bed time. It helped me SO MUCH. 3 - Sleep aids. Boy, will you need these. Insomnia is the quickest way to derail your progress, and it will happen. No sleep, feel shit. Feel shit + feel shit = disaster. It just makes everything seem impossibly hard. Your doc will recommend the best type, but don't fall for herbal crap. Times like this, you'll need the heavy duty shit. Usually for a couple of nights to get you back into the real world, then you can use things like magnesium, melatonin, rescue remedy. At first, use what your doc prescribes. 4 - EXERCISE. A walk isn't enough. Get those endorphins going, every day. At least 30 mins of your heart rate going 1/3 a above its usual. You should be sweating and gasping by the end. Then have a shower, hot or cold (weather and desire dependant). You're welcome. 5 - Keep busy. I can't stress this enough. You can't be sitting around "relaxing". Nu-uh, not now. Not good. You gotta keep everything moving around in that head of yours, all the time. Simple things. Make a list if you get stuck. Do the washing. Clean the house. 2 minutes breathing exercises. Walk the dog. 1 episode of a good TV show. Go to the library, read a book. Go swimming. Don't feel like doing anything? too f*king bad. Make yourself. This is where having a relentlessly helpful partner is useful. Annoying af, but you'll bless him later. You'll probably be the most productive during this time than ever before in your life. 6 - Pick something you would enjoy doing and schedule it for at least once a week. Look forward to it. If you don't end up liking it, try something else. An art class, dancing lessons, riding lessons, learn a language, creative writing course. Anything. You don't have to socialise at it, there's no pressure to "make new friends" or whatever (if that freaks you out) just pick something you'll like, and do your best to get a kick out of it. It also has the bonus that its homework is another thing to add to your list of Things To Do. That's really it as far as my experience went. I'm still working through it, but the mess I'm wading through now doesn't feel as thick anymore. I feel like it's receding. The hardest part is flying headlong into the unknown. Up until now, I'd never had a single day in my adult life living unmedicated. The hardest thing was during the really shitty times, never being 100% sure that it would pass, that things would get better. This was ...is... totally uncharted territory. I'm just making this up as I go along. But, I guess, so are most of us. All of us, really. And, for the most part, my days of depending on the familiar are over. I still don't know who I am, but I'm getting to be okay with that. It'll come. Peace out, guys.