A week ago, I stopped taking Wellbutrin so that I can try Emsam, an MAOI. (I have to wait two weeks between ending Wellbutrin and beginning the MAOI.) I think it was good timing that my most recent ketamine infusion was around the same time I stopped taking Wellbutrin because I’m already feeling pretty terrible. I have the sense that without it, this change might have been even more abruptly bad. Maybe it’s a good setup for when Emsam just blows my mood out of the water, right? A nice contrast will really emphasize its effectiveness. One can hope.

It’s safe to say that Wellbutrin was holding my hypersomnia at bay, and now that I’m not taking it, I’m basically a koala. (They sleep 18-22 hours per day, and not because they’re high on eucalyptus – they’re just dedicating lots of energy to digestion.) It would be great if I could selectively dedicate all the energy I save by sleeping to something else, like hair growth. I could be a brunette Rapunzel in no time.

It is endlessly disappointing to me that I can’t seem to function very well without antidepressants. You’d think I would have accepted it by now. And yet, every single time I change one of my medications and experience a sudden worsening of my depression, I get all upset with myself for not being able to handle it.

I considered this move for a while. SSRIs and SNRIs haven’t helped me much, so branching out to an MAOI seems worth a try. Wellbutrin was clearly helping, particularly in the motivation department, but it was still less impactful than I had hoped. Eventually, I decided that giving up the motivation that Wellbutrin gives me in the hopes that Emsam will help me even more is worth it. It does kind of suck that I can’t go directly from one to the other, though. Two weeks sans antidepressant is proving to be challenging.

A big part of me wanted to just leave things the same and continue to try to build on the benefits of Wellbutrin through my own “natural” efforts. Something that I wrestle with constantly is my uncertainty around what I should expect of myself. It never seems right to say, “I can’t do X because of depression,” because it pains me to be limited by my own brain. So, I continue to struggle far below meeting my perfectionistic standards for myself and then am crushed when “I can’t do X because of depression” turns out to be somewhat true. I never allow myself any grace when depression slows me down.

So, in the end, I’m feebly trying to convince myself that trying yet another medication is fine because if I could have worked my way out of depression by now, I would have. It’s important to do the work I can do day-to-day. But, as anyone with depression knows, it’s tough to do the things that you know are good for your mental health when your mental illness won’t get out of your way. Not impossible! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been exercising, keeping up with my job, trying to eat 3 meals a day – the works. But that can only get me so far, and most of it tends to fizzle out when I’m in a mental place like this.

I felt okay on Wellbutrin, but ideally, I don’t want to settle for okay. But if Emsam doesn’t work out, it is nice to know that Wellbutrin is something I could return to. For now, I’ll just keep working on my Rapunzel hair and waiting for Wednesday of next week, when I can begin my MAOI experiment.