conquer depression

I know I could accomplish so much more if severe depression stops paralyzing me. I’ve tried so many things, but nothing has worked permanently for me. I don’t know how much is physical/biological and how much is discouragement and disappointment or negative thinking. Sometimes I can handle life and even accomplish good things. Other times I make suicide plans because it gets so bad.
I know I have so many things to be thankful for, but the depression seems to have a mind of its own where everything feels completely black. I can’t imagine what life would be like to actually feel good for once.

I’ve tried 27 different medications for depression over the years. Finally, it looks like I’ve got one that works. My psychiatrist prescribed Abilify. Initially, I had trouble with it (rapid weight gain, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, paranoia) but it appears those were all due to the dosage. I’m taking one quarter of the dose now, and (except for a little weight gain) I’m doing well on it. To help boost my chances of success, I have started to work out about 5 times a week and get more involved in local activities, such as volunteering at church.

i have hit rock bottom. things cannot be worse than this. that’s a good thing, right?

things are going well the past few days… i’ve been socializing and keeping active and eating well and not drinking more than just a glass of wine. hopefully the weekend proves awesome, too!

gonna make a better go at this workbook i have, “Mind Over Mood”
we’ll see how it goes

part of my losing weight involves exercise, which is also good for the blues.

a big thing would be to go to the clinic tomorrow (they have open days on thursdays) and get signed up with a counselor again. big and scary and easy to put off. we’ll see.

i’m feeling a lot of pressure from sean today, to get well.

slow and steady. i am slow but steady.

edit: i just went into the other room and told sean i was feeling pressure. i know he totally doesn’t mean to, and i know that i NEED it. but i figure it’s better to clear the air than to dwell and not get set straight over it. now i filled with guilt over being sensitive, but he understands i hope.

beating myself up, already???

BAH MOVE ON

there’s too much going on right now.

but i’ll be okie.

i noticed my lad isn’t doing too well either. he said

“i miss happy.”

& i realized, i really do too.

Ok, this is starting to scare me… I don’t even know where to enter this entry. It is SO fucking strange. Well, to me it is.

Let me start by telling the story and then moving into musing about it. In fact, I’m just going to ramble and try to edit at points to make something cohesively readable. I have been dreaming alot more than usual. In some of my dreams there is a blonde than seems to be a hash of several other blondes I know, including Sarah ( Pee-Wee/Short Round/The midget wonder ), Debbie ( This is the only NORMAL entity ), Juliana ( Yes, THAT Juliana ), my cousin Ashley ( Ok, now it’s not only scary, but also depraved ). What’s most kooky is that I feel like this blonde is real. It’s to the point of .. wow Ogden Nash comes back to mind… Schizophrenia. I will not tell my psychiatrist about this. I am so very attracted to whoever this blonde is.

Over this week I’ve been very tired. To the point of sleeping 10 to 12 hours a day. Whenever I sleep so much I tend to remember the dreams I have. Admittedly the sleep is broken into portions. 5 hours at least a night. 2 to 3 more after I wake up in the morning at 8. At least 2 at work, sometimes even upwards of 3 to 4. I am writing this now at work. Today, I put my feet up on my desk and tried to sleep off this odd disorientation. The disorientation was alot like being drunk.. I think it was because I haven’t had my meds in three days. WHILE I was asleep I incidentally dreamed several portions of A Beautiful Mind. Bits and peices of it are flying about in my head right now. The part where Ogden is explaining his original idea by way of comparison to the 4 women at the bar. The part where Ogden is on his front porch with his wife and is asked by the imaginary CIA agent to “do yet another mision”, and the part where Ogden “plays Othello perfectly” against his real life college rival yet still looses are all part of this mystic collage of imagery right now.

Whoever this blonde is is also in my dreams. I throw a softball back and forth with her at the park. I sit with her at a picnic table and share a few laughs with her and her friends. She’s beautiful whoever she is. Those are the two fleeting images I have of her. I don’t even have a thing for blondes, but this one I’ve now dreamed about at least twice. Fuck me running…

I need a cigarette, a decision on what girl I’m going to stick it out with.. Carrie, Steph, or whoever this blonde is.. and a steady sleeping schedule.

The mind is an interesting place, but it has not been so interesting a place for me … ever. I’ve had some wicked strange dreams in the past with details so numerous that I’ve not been able to place meaning on all of them. Then again, where mountainous numbers of details are concerned sifting through them is time consumingly difficult. I usually just take a new route. I’m a thinker, yes, but more of a doer. I’ve also discovered that I’m more of a feely bitch, than a doer.

Anyway, cigarette time. I’m not so disoriented.

HAHA! right…

I’ve been on Effexor again now for a month (75mg). It seems to have been helping, but not as much as I had hoped. Killians Irish Red seems to be a larger contributer to my social successes. In any event I am going tommorow to see the psychiatric nurse again. I think she’ll end up increasing the dosage to 150mg. I have been on this dosage before. It has the added benefit of increasing dopamine levels ( which I probably need considering that I have had halucinations before ).

Oh yes! I have been experiencing halucinations since I was a child. The first time I spoke to this nurse she asked me the direct question “Have you ever experienced haluciantions?”

I immediately thought of Ogden Nash in “A Beautiful Mind” and his life of schizophrenia. I thought and then subsequently answered, “No”. Then curious asked, “Well, what do you mean?”, still thinking that I never had. What was mentioned matched the description of my up till then unknown halucinations perfectly. I was asked had I ever heard the TV on in the next room only to discover that it wasn’t, or the phone ring when it actually hadn’t, or heard people talking in the next room that were not there. I realized that I had demonstrated every minor case of false sensory perception that she described. It was eye opening to say the least.

She then went on to explain that those who have been depressed for an extensive period of time can begin to experience slight hallucinations due to low dopamine levels. That being the case, 75mg of Effexor is not an adequate enough dosage to affect the brains neurotransmitters in this fashion. Only beyond the typical 75mg dosage does Effexor begin to display an SNDRI-like affect on the brain. The 150mg dose is beyond that ‘typical’ dose and would help to curb any dopamine deficiency.

.. that I want to do this all over again. It’s that I NEED to do it again RIGHT NOW. Suicidal thoughts reigned supreme for the last two weeks subsequently after having some women problems. I realized that I hadn’t been in go mode for about 6 months. I need to get off my ass!

Now that I have insurance and a roommate I can afford the meds again. I wouldn’t mind taking them for the rest of my life aside from the fact that I worry about long term side affects. Ritalin I took as a child and I fear that it destroyed my short term memory. I don’t want something even worse to happen!

I was able to write about this today because I had a fairly good day at work. Now I need to confront inner demons again in the next few months.

- “There is no try, there is only do, or do not”