conquer depression

Switched to Effexor a week and a half ago… realized the Wellbutrin was causing my ears to ring incessantly. The ringing finally stopped.

The Effexor kept me fairly nauseated for the first six days or so… I have gotten in the habit of taking it at the same time everyday, eating 2 slices of bread first and chasing the Effexor down with milk. That seems to stop the nauseating feeling.

I have less energy than I did with the Wellbutrin… but… I guess you can’t have everything, right?

Realized the SSRI I was on was just making me sleepy and wasn’t really helping. I got tired of crashing on the couch at 8:30, waking up at 11, going back to bed and sleeping restlessly until 6:00 or so.

I’m trying Wellbutrin. So far it seems to be giving me more energy, and I feel a little stronger and a little more happier. I’ve noticed a little weight loss (which may also be in conjunction with the fact that I’ve been trying to eat better) so… yep.

I guess we’ll see.

I still miss Gail and Mike. I could really use a captive audience for an hour or so each week again. That helped a lot.

This is really hard. Especially on a day like today, where I’ve spent the entire time (so far) feeling like I’m five minutes from completely losing my shit and knowing that there’s no one within a ten mile radius from my current location that really cares.

So, uh, anyway.

...but last night, I had a dream that my dose was upped by another 10 mg.

Doctor appointment on the 4th; I guess we’ll figure out what’s going on then.

I’m starting an SSRI tomorrow, to see if it helps at all.

Today I told my coworker, “Uh, if you see me acting manic, can you please stop me? I mean, you are the person who sees me most often.”

“Uhhh… sure…?”

Yeah, I am a little worried but at the same time, hoping for the best.

I’m having trouble with this one.

I went to the doctor the other day with a shopping list of things I wanted to talk about, two of the items being “weight” and “depression”. I knew there was a chance of me having a low thyroid thing, but there could also be a chance that I could be considered clinically depressed.

I’ve had symptoms for years. My family (I should note here that I have very few family members) has NOT been supportive AT ALL. Many of my friends do not understand what I go through each day, how hard it is to get out of bed, the fact that I sleep as a defense mechanism, the fact that sometimes I cannot make it through the day without bursting into tears for no reason at all.

The doctor took some blood to check for iron deficiencies, low thyroid, etc. I get my results from that in approximately two weeks. If I’m not iron deficient, and the low thyroid thing turns out to be a non-issue, I need to go back and talk to the doctor about it and see what I can do to change things.

Therapy is useful, but expensive. My insurance doesn’t cover it, at least not enough sessions to be productive and helpful.

I talked to my mom yesterday, and she was completely unsupportive. She said things like “you can’t drive on that sort of medication.” Apparently she is from the era where antidepressant = sedative. She freaked at me and wouldn’t take the fact that I need help seriously. She doesn’t understand that in order to fix a chemical imbalance or thyroid problem, you may need medication.

It would be really great if I were able to surround myself with more supportive, understanding people.

The call with my mom really stressed me out, made me wonder why I bother to tell her things at all anymore.