MeghanIsMe

My brain is a bit odd today. I think it's partly because I didn't manage to take my Wellbutrin and Lexapro yesterday. I'm feeling a bit flighty, scattered, and impulsive. (The last mostly in regard to food.)

That gap must have been the longest span that I haven't posted here in a very long time! Unfortunately, it reflects my state of mind and general capacity for action during that span quite well. Major depression and anxiety symptoms were a daily fight. We've been approaching this in therapy in a really interesting way and I want to write about that soon.

This post, though, is about meeting with a psychiatrist for the first time and getting a new medication. Holy shit! This has been night and day! Four days ago I started on 150mg of Bupropion daily with breakfast to supplement the 20mg of Escitalopram. I honestly can't remember the last time I've felt as good as I did by that first afternoon. The endless, numberless, ever-present little worries and stresses are gone. The things I've worried about are still there, and I know they're still there, and I know that some of them need to be addressed, but I can think about them and prioritize them rationally.

I've been out on my bike three days in a row after months of feeling like putting on my gear was way too much effort. I've gotten four hours of housework for Danae done for three days in a row: it's been a long time since I've done that, and never have I done it with so little anxiety. And at the risk of providing TMI, Danae said that never in our entire relationship have I been, to paraphrase, assertive that way in bed. She said that it made her wonder how much of the time I was anxious during sex. That was an easy question to answer; all of it. I was anxious 100% of the time, during every single instance. It's an amazing thing to have unself-conscious, anxiety-less sex.

I'm supposed to move up to 300mg of Bupropion after the first week, but I'm going to talk to the psychiatrist about that first. I'm doing so well on the single tablet that I'm hesitant to change things. I don't want to either be on more meds than I need to be, or more importantly, break something that's working.

I'm also being careful not to dive headlong into too much right now. Several times in the past months, I was on a slow recovery trend but crashed after biting off more than I could chew. I'm going to take it slow, and enjoy feeling this way. I honestly can't say whether I've ever in my life had so little anxiety and worry.

I'm trying to balance numerous things lately as I approach schoolwork.

I'm trying to listen more to my physical and mental state and not force myself to work when I won't be productive. I'm trying to sleep when I'm tired and work when I'm clearheaded, rather than the reverse. (I napped for four hours early today between my meeting with student services and my class this evening.) I'm trying to accept my limits, as well as accept the possibility that I may not be able to work within my limits and meet my responsibilities. I'm also trying to balance those realizations against a worry that I'll use them an an excuse to not work when I should be working, or see them as an excuse to give up on what I'm doing here entirely.

I told Danae that sometimes I worry that my limitations are somehow performative with myself as an audience. That I'm building up justifications to leave the stressful situation I'm in. "That's not a productive line of thought," she said. I think that regardless of whether it's correct or not, she's right. I'm trying to be a little bit less self-analytical in that area, which is odd for someone as prone to deep introspection as I am. Rather, I'm trying to keep abreast of how I'm feeling on the surface, in terms of energy level, state of mind, and physical needs, and react to those things in a way that lets me apply the resources available to me to my work.

I have a fifteen to twenty minute presentation tomorrow that I did slides for last night. I'm not that happy with it, but I accept it. I'll practice a few times tonight and tomorrow morning. My urban social justice paper is due on Monday and I have not yet even begun on it. I'll dig into that tomorrow after my presentation and it will be as good as it will be. I should have been working on it for a long time already, and I'm trying not to feel bad about what has passed, and think about the future instead.

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I had a strange experience in the seminar today; an altering of visual perception. Someone was wearing a white and blue plaid shirt and gradually it seemed like the contrast of the blue and white was getting stronger and sharper. Then everything in the room seemed like it was more sharply defined than usual. It was accompanied by a little bit of vertigo. I assumed it was the escitalopram, and looking up the side effects whirling and spinning sensations are some of the less common ones. There are visual ones too, though nothing described quite that way, so I'm not sure what the cause was. It wasn't exactly unpleasant I suppose, but I'll mention it to the psychiatric nurse when I talk to her again. I don't like that feeling of some external thing I'm not controlling acting on my perceptions.

I'm still feeling socially avoidant. This was my last session of that class and the professor is buying everyone a drink at a local pub. I don't drink, I don't like the noisy conditions of most pubs, I don't feel like I really know anyone in the class very well, and I have so much work to do still: I decided to just head home. Where I haven't actually started doing work yet, so I think part of that decision was just wanting to be somewhere familiar and safe instead of in an environment that I know I'm not likely to enjoy, even though I feel anxious about not being social with my peers this semester. This is not like the me of the last four or five years; instead, it's a lot like the me that existed before I split up with my ex and learned to be social. I do not like this. Not at all.

Despite being really tired last night, I couldn't sleep until five in the morning. I'd planned to go try the other Indian lunch buffet here in town before getting to work, but I only just woke up. And now I'm ravenous. I'm tempted to go out for Chinese buffet somewhere....

I felt odd, waking up. Kind of floaty and a little like I was still dreaming. Danae says this is normal and ok, which relieved my anxiety about the situation. Still, my schedule for school and my psychological services evaluation and my meeting with my advisor may be difficult depending on sleep schedule.

---Ooops, The nearest buffet to me is closed. And I don't want to bike as far as the other two right now. No Chinese for me I guess.