lowquality.net

Really never expected to be blog­ging this much about my per­sonal exploits with psy­chi­atric med­i­cine but I’m get­ting a lot of pos­i­tive (though not pub­lic) feed­back from peo­ple so I am going to continue.

Next appoint­ment with Doc is on the 1st of next month and at that point we will deter­mine whether this is some­thing I want to con­tinue doing or not. I have already decided that it is as I feel like the meds have been a huge ben­e­fit. How­ever, I am already con­cerned that maybe I will have to up my dosage by the time we get to the next appoint­ment. I do feel like the ben­e­fits of the med­ica­tion are taper­ing, even if it is slightly. I have not met with my ther­a­pist in awhile as he has been on vaca­tion, so I’m also look­ing for­ward to hear­ing what he thinks about this as I have not seen him since I’ve been on the med. Maybe it’s super obvi­ous that I am more relaxed and I am just feel­ing more accus­tomed to it and I don’t notice it so much.

It’s a very per­sonal expe­ri­ence and while I seek the advice of my friends with sim­i­lar expe­ri­ences I know no one can relate 100%. I find that I am very often ask­ing myself ques­tions like “Would I feel the same right now were I not tak­ing this pill?” and most times I answer with a resound­ing “No.” But the longer I spend time away from my anx­i­ety and depres­sion the harder it is to answer. I know the goal of the med­i­cine is to take the edge off and not to sud­denly and mirac­u­lously make me feel like a mil­lion bucks.

It’s been only a cou­ple of weeks. It’s still so soon to be requir­ing these kinds of answers from myself, but, even with­out the feel­ings of urgency that come from being pan­icked, I’m impa­tient. I want there to be a plan in place right now and that just isn’t prac­ti­cal. The med­ica­tion has helped me refo­cus my ener­gies to some degree. I can see now that some of my anx­i­ety and worry was com­pletely unnat­ural and, just as my doc­tor said, even the great­est job in the world would not have elim­i­nated this chem­i­cal imbal­ance. The med­i­cine relieves but also reveals that there is still a lot to be done and a lot that I was just unable to focus on fix­ing before. Hon­estly, I’m a lit­tle over­whelmed with it. I know that I am not where I want to be or doing what I want to be doing with my life and I think I can ulti­mately get there now but it’s hard to know what the next step is going to be.

On the unques­tion­ably up side, the car is get­ting paid off this month and this will free up some money every month for my wife and I to save until we do decide what the next step is.

Yes­ter­day I also found out that an old friend of mine who had fallen off the grid for some time after sev­eral bouts with heroin addic­tion is alive and well. While I would never wish such a hard­ship on myself I think it’s funny how, when you are truly in a state of dis­as­ter, it’s enough for your friends to find out you are still breath­ing. I’m try­ing to be con­vinced that it doesn’t take a state of dis­as­ter for me to be just ok with “alive & breath­ing” as an accept­able state of being for myself.