Testing My Mental Health Baseline Is Not Going Well

December 14, 2022 GenevieveLeave a comment

When some questions about my diagnosis arose a couple months ago, I realized that my medications made it difficult to determine which symptoms were side effects and which were stemming from me. I’ve wanted to get off my meds for a long time, partly because I have an unhealthy tendency to blame myself for my illness and expect myself to fix it through willpower. But that’s a whole separate issue. Don’t do as I do in that regard.

I decided to get off Emsam first, as I suspected that was the main culprit when it came to the occasional hallucinations and sudden mood shifts I was experiencing. Decreasing my dose was difficult, but when I stopped taking it completely, I felt better. Not by a lot, but it was noticeable.

The next step was to decrease my lithium dose. That process has progressed in the reverse of how Emsam went. Lowering it was mostly fine until I got to 300 mg. I started to feel worse, but I hoped that if I stayed at that dose for a while, my mood would even out. I started napping again. If I have nothing scheduled in the afternoon, I spend it sleeping. Walking Stella was one of the only activities I was enjoying before I started changing my meds, and now I don’t even want to do that. I still take her on at least one long walk a day because she needs it, but I find myself getting irritated and impatient the farther we get from home. Sometimes we go to the dog park so I can stand in one place and throw a ball for ten minutes before we leave. It’s a good thing she likes fetch.

A black dog tossing a tennis ball in the air

I stopped taking lithium over a month ago, and I’m still on the fence about it. I’ve definitely crossed into not-okay territory, but I’m stubbornly refusing to reverse my plan. Part of me thinks this is a bad idea and I should go back on lithium, but part of me wants so badly for it to work out that I’m willing to give it more time.

My determination to get off my medication, even though it has a slightly positive influence, seems confusing on the surface, and I struggle to articulate my reasoning for it. I always think that I’m not doing enough to help myself, and I have a long history of feeling ashamed of my reliance on medication. I think the most succinct way I can describe it is that I’d rather believe I’m failing at doing something possible than accept that it’s impossible. Truly accepting that I need medication in order to function would require me to admit that I don’t have full control over myself, and that’s a frustrating and scary thought for a perfectionist.

I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, but to be clear: I don’t feel this way about anyone else. It’s a bizarre thought distortion that makes me feel as though everyone else is perfectly justified in taking medication, but I am not. The more depressed I get, the harder it is to see the irrationality of that.

I’m trying to push myself to do things and go places because I want to support my mental health as much as possible while I make these medication changes. It’s hard, though. The holiday season is upon us, and the twinkling lights and pine-bough wreaths on nearby homes are making me sad. I automatically think about all of our holiday decorations burning up in the fire five days after Christmas last year. I felt like I was moving on during the summer, but the cold weather has caused a resurgence of painful memories. It’s probably not the best time for me to be messing with my brain chemistry, but here we are.

I’m just so frustrated with medications. The possibility that I have bipolar disorder offers a nice, neat explanation for why I’ve had such sporadic and limited success with antidepressants. Getting off everything so that I can tell where my baseline is (and whether I eventually cycle back into hypomania without the influence of mood stabilizers) might make a difference in my plan going forward. The diagnosis is arguably not as important as figuring out what helps me, but since I tend to spiral into believing I’m not actually ill but rather just low in the willpower department, having a name for what I’m experiencing would be helpful. I’m just not sure if it’s worth the difficulty of achieving confidence in one diagnosis over the other, and it’s obviously not going great so far.

In fact, my mood has sunk so low that I agreed to retry ketamine – but in a different format this time. My psychiatrist prescribed ketamine troches, which dissolve under your tongue. This formulation of ketamine can be taken at home, which would be new for me. I’m nervous about it – for one thing, it’s much less controlled, in the sense that an IV ketamine infusion can be stopped suddenly; once I take the troche, I’ll just have to wait out the whole dose. I started to really dislike the feeling of ketamine toward the end of my time getting infusions, and although I don’t think troches will feel as intense, the uncertainty is making me anxious.

I am, however, passively suicidal and having trouble keeping up with self-care. I frequently sleep in my clothes and re-wear them the next day, and my hair keeps developing hidden matted sections because I can’t bring myself to brush it. So, perhaps something like a short burst of at-home ketamine would help me get myself into a better routine.

My depression brain is yelling about how I got myself into this mess by stopping my meds, so I don’t deserve help getting out of it. But that’s not healthy at all, so I’m going to try to resist it. I’d like to do some research on ketamine troches tonight so that I know more about what to expect, and then I’ll try to pick them up from the compounding pharmacy tomorrow. Ketamine seemed to stop working for me after a while, so I’m interested to see whether taking a break has impacted its efficacy.

Writing has always been helpful for me, but I’m finding the motivation to do it hard to come by. When I was more actively questioning my diagnosis, having a written record of my symptoms and how different treatments have affected me was incredibly useful in trying to piece together a timeline, so I’m going to renew my efforts to keep up with my blog. It might come in handy later.

A view of green trees and shrubs on a mountainside

TMS, Seroquel, and Sudden Relief

July 6, 2022 Genevieve2 Comments

Initially, my extended TMS course didn’t seem to have much of an effect on me, except perhaps to kick my insomnia into a higher gear. After much thought and discussion, I decided to stop TMS suddenly rather than taper my appointments.

Getting TMS treatments every day had begun to feel pointless. We’d tried several adjustments and protocols, remeasured my motor threshold, and extended my treatments beyond the planned schedule, but none of it made me feel any different.

At this point, I’ve tried what feels like an exhaustive list of medications. Combine that with my lengthy treatment with ketamine infusions, years of therapy, and now TMS, and I can’t help but see a hopeless picture. I know I’m not out of options, but the pattern leads me to conclude that any further effort to get better will result in the same outcome: more depression.

However, I know that’s a logical fallacy. Just because many treatments didn’t work does not mean that the next one won’t work. It’s hard to grasp that when you’re deep in depression, though. I left the TMS clinic feeling hopeless. It’s indescribably discouraging to try treatment after treatment, clinging to a tiny scrap of hope that just gets smaller and smaller as you go.

I sometimes feel as though I’m trapped inside myself, carried along by my depressed body like a prisoner. I’m in here — I’m just unable to break through the impenetrable walls around me no matter how hard I try. At other times, I feel as though depression has eroded my mind, letting the essence of me wash away. The “me” I am when I am not depressed seems to be gone. The movement stops, the lights go out, and I wait in internal darkness for some motivation to stir in my mind. The little scrap of hope flutters somewhere out of reach.

The second version is how I felt when I stopped TMS.

Ending TMS meant that I needed to consider my next steps. ECT is one option, and I’m interested in doing a consultation, but the thought of actually starting that process is daunting. I had increased my dose of Emsam, the MAOI I take, and figured I would wait a little while before doing anything. In the meantime, I wanted to get a handle on my insomnia.

Sleep Meds

I did not sleep more than five or six hours a night in the last two months, so that’s been a barrier to my mental health, too.

Temazepam

Increasing my usual sleep medication helped but then plateaued, so eventually, I decided to try Temazepam. I was a little nervous about taking it because I don’t like feeling impaired, especially if I’m uncertain of how it will feel. But alas, I was tired. I read the medication info sheet front to back because that’s the kind of person I am, took the pill, and prepared for a blissful night of uninterrupted sleep.

Yeah, right. It was one of the most unpleasant nights I’ve ever had. I was unbelievably restless – not just my legs but my whole self. I didn’t stop moving for hours. I was too hot, so I moved downstairs to the couch, but then I could feel my heart beating, and the sound of my breathing was grating in my ears. Sometime around 4 AM, I fell asleep, only for the sun to come up two hours later.

Some people (but not many) have paradoxical reactions to benzodiazepines. I now know that Temazepam is not for me. It was a learning experience.

Seroquel

One category of medications that I had not tried before now is the atypical antipsychotic class. Seroquel is a drug in this category. It’s used as an off-label treatment for depression, and it is also sometimes prescribed for insomnia due to its sedating effects.

I decided to switch from Trazodone to Seroquel, and overall, it’s been a positive change. I started with too high of a dose and had an unpleasant day afterward, but I quickly adjusted. As long as I give myself enough time to sleep it off, I no longer feel sluggish and half-asleep when I start my day.

I’ve managed to increase my sleep to six or seven hours a night. Although it’s not an enormous difference in terms of hours, I feel like the quality of my sleep is better. I no longer wake up during the night, and I feel slightly more rested overall.

It probably helps that I reduced my lithium dose a little and don’t wake up feeling like a dried-out sponge several times a night. I keep my ridiculous 64-oz. water bottle by my bed for easy middle-of-the-night hydration. My psychiatric np finally told me so many times to drink more water that I stepped up my efforts and bought it. It’s so big that it’s basically an insulated bucket with a lid, and I love it. I don’t have to deal with the extra step of refilling a glass or smaller bottle frequently. It’s a silly reason to not drink water, but when I don’t care about myself enough to keep up with hygiene or eating, refilling a glass of water is surprisingly challenging.

Restarting TMS

But, I digress. After a few days of no TMS, I found myself feeling – impossibly – worse than before. Whether that was because TMS was helping in small ways or I was simply despondent after giving up on another treatment, I still don’t know. I decided to pick up with TMS where I left off.

The timing makes it difficult to determine which factor caused what result, but after restarting TMS, sticking with the increased Emsam dose, and adding Seroquel, I suddenly felt dramatically better for a few days. I found myself walking Stella with a decidedly peppy step instead of my usual brick-like feet. I suddenly wanted to go places and do things, which is the complete opposite of how I felt before. I actually felt like I could feel the dopamine I had missed so much. I felt happy about nothing in particular.

A closeup of a black dog with pointy ears panting while sitting in the forest.

I always marvel at how impossible it is for me to imagine how it feels to be less depressed. I know it sounds odd, but every time I get some relief from my symptoms, I find that the sun feels warmer, the breeze feels more refreshing, and colors seem more vibrant. I feel like I’ve been released from a state of deadened perception and pushed into a shockingly bright, intense world.

Despite experiencing such improvement before, I’m always taken aback to realize that I could not grasp how distant I felt while depressed. The memory of what improvement feels like disappears when depression returns, and the only way to understand it again is to experience it.

A closeup of the center of a yellow flower outside

The Current State of Affairs

I don’t currently feel as amazing as I did for that brief time, but I do think that I’ve maintained some improvement. I still feel considerably more energetic, and although my mood has embarked on a journey of hills and valleys, it’s nice that there are still hills.

I’m not sure where this will leave me. I’m planning to do three more TMS treatments and then stop. I don’t feel nearly as desperate as I did when I stopped TMS the first time, but I am concerned that some symptoms seem to have worsened slightly since my sudden improvement.

Part of me thinks that now would be a good time to look into eventually making more treatment changes, whether that’s ECT or something else, since I’m still relatively motivated. The other part of me thinks that I should just focus on adding habits and activities to my life that could help me hold on to the improvement, and see where that takes me. I guess I have some decisions to make.

How I Track Mental Health Symptoms

April 4, 2022April 4, 2022 Genevieve6 Comments

My therapist has been encouraging me to track my depression and various contributing factors for years. I’ve tried several apps, journals, and charts, but I always drop the practice after a little while. Eventually, I identified why those tools never worked for me and used that information to make my own system.

Why Motivational Journals and Apps Don’t Work for Me

I understand why a system with lots of elements appeals to some people, but I tend to find them discouraging – the opposite of their intended effect.

My Depression vs. Positivity

Whenever I tried an inspirational/motivational journal, I quickly lost interest. I’d open it up to mark down that I felt like a person-shaped vat of cold, unsalted mashed potatoes. The list of weekly goals I hadn’t met would be staring up at me. Some inspirational quotes would arrive in my brain through the filter of my depression, limp and meaningless. Over time, I began to avoid them, knowing that the initial excitement of setting up a shiny new tracking system would sour.

Apps Aren’t It, Either

Apps have the advantage of offering daily reminders, but if the app is structured like the previously discussed journals, a cheery notification that it’s time to check in only distances me further. I really wanted apps to work for me, and I’ve been consistent with them for two or three weeks at a time, but I always abandon them eventually. They’re too complex, they ask me too many questions, or they document more than what I want to track.

Mood Scales and My Problem with Numbers

Number-based tracking scales usually include too much choice for me and don’t allow for flexible indecisiveness. A 1-to-5 scale just paralyzes me. What if I say “3,” but I’m really a “2?” That would be catastrophic, obviously.

Perfectionism

Maybe it’s a vestige of perfectionistic test anxiety, like I have to choose the “right” answer and be consistent in my interpretation of the scale or else anyone who looks at my data will get an inaccurate sense of my mental health. So instead, I just stop using them. When there’s no data to look at, I didn’t do it wrong!

So in the end, I decided to go with what my therapist suggested in the first place (I must be exasperating when it comes to tracking), and just made my own system to track my mental health.

My Method for Tracking Mental Health Symptoms

I wanted something straightforward, easy to use, and without the frills of a motivational journal. I got a completely blank, unruled journal and a set of stencils. I found these stencils online by searching something like “bullet journal stencils.”

The Mood Tracker

Each hexagon represents a day, which I’ve drawn a line through to depict AM on the top and PM on the bottom. I chose three colors to be “good,” “blah,” and “bad.” This way, I only need to pick a color and fill in the shape. If I can’t decide on a color, I can mix two of them together or shade the shape according to how the day progressed.

I also write small notes every now and then for medication changes, ketamine appointments, and other factors. I like that the bare minimum for this system feels doable for me but isn’t so scant that it’s uninformative.

The Medication Tracker

The medication tracker is similar to the mood tracker in that each section represents a day of a month. The inner row is morning and the outer circle is night. I picked a color for “Yes, I took my meds” and a color for “No, I didn’t take them.” It does help me to see how frequently I’ve missed doses, partly because the perfectionist in me hates to see too much orange.

I keep the journal and the colored pencils in my nightstand so they’re easy to get to and I don’t have the excuse of already being in bed when I remember to track.

How It’s Going

I’ve been consistent with this method for a little over two months, which is probably the longest stretch I’ve ever gone with tracking mental health symptoms. I can’t say that anything groundbreaking has come of it yet, but it is interesting to confirm some of my expectations.

I’ve tried and abandoned so many methods that I don’t think I showed my therapist my journal until I had been using it for a month. I didn’t want it to be yet another dud in a long line of tracking tools. So, I kept it to myself for a little while and am only just starting to assess its usefulness.

Just like with any mental health-tracking method, there are gaps in the data that become evident over time. I’ve been adding symbols to my mood tracker for things like self harm and my period. It’s becoming more complex, but I think the fact that I decide when to add those symbols rather than having a dedicated section for them works well for me.

That said, I’m considering adding a way to track more factors, such as appetite, sleep, and exercise. I don’t want to make it too complex, but I might have the habit established enough to expand my system without abandoning it.

There are tons of ways to track mental health symptoms and factors, and you can find many of them detailed online. What way works best for you?

I’m Mildly Depressed!

May 15, 2021May 15, 2021 Genevieve7 Comments

This is momentous. I took my regularly scheduled depression questionnaire and, instead of the “moderate” or “moderately severe” that it’s been for a long time, it said “mild” when I submitted it! I’m mildly depressed! Hooray!

I’ve been taking Emsam for a few weeks, now. I don’t think I’ve felt such a dramatic improvement in my depression since the mega-high dose of lithium I was taking for a little while or the times I’ve done several ketamine infusions in quick succession.

Again – *knock wood, toss a pinch of salt, do all of the superstitious things to avoid a jinx* – it’s still early. I’m nervous about declaring it a success because my positive track record with antidepressants has always been sadly brief. But so far, it’s been very, very nice to feel better. So nice, actually, that I think I’m tricking myself into glossing over the symptoms that remain.

As soon as I hit “submit” on my PHQ-9, I considered that I may have been a tad overzealous in my answers because of how exciting it was to not be selecting “nearly every day” for every question. Not that I don’t think “mild” is an accurate descriptor, I just might have fudged on my answers a teensy bit.

Every time I’ve experienced a sudden improvement in my depression, I get really excited to, you know, not be so depressed and I get ahead of myself. I seem to think that a large improvement means I’m fine now and should push myself to do all of the things that I’ve been struggling to do for years.

And I do this EVERY TIME. It gets me into trouble when I take a nap and then feel immensely disappointed in myself because I expected to be instantly, spectacularly healthy. I’m reminded of this comic by ChuckDrawsThings:

Antidepressants don’t fix all of your life’s problems, but boy, do they make it easier for you to go about fixing some of them yourself. It’s amazing that I keep thinking, “I should do XYZ” and then finding myself just doing XYZ. There is so much effort that goes into every tiny decision and step of my life when I’m significantly depressed. It’s kind of mind-blowing how much easier it is to function as a human person. Is this how other people feel, or is this just early excitement of feeling better? I’m afraid that it won’t last.

I do feel a little less awesome than I did in the last two weeks, so I wonder if starting the Emsam right before a ketamine appointment sort of trampoline double-bounced me. It is unrealistic to expect that Emsam will just make everything better forever, so whatever benefit I can have, I’ll take. I’m curious about my next ketamine infusion; will it double-bounce me again?

Not everything is fixed, but overall, I feel remarkably lighter than I did pre-Emsam. Conversation is easier, I feel like I laugh more, and I find myself once again delighted by the little things – figuratively and literally – like this tiny prickly pear I saw yesterday.

An index finger and thumb indicating the height of a small prickly pear paddle growing outside

I love dopamine.

scattered-white-pills-in-upper-right-quadrant-on-light-blue-background

Goodbye, Wellbutrin. Hello, MAOI.

April 21, 2021 Genevieve5 Comments

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.

Search & Rescue Elephants and Other Therapy Tidbits

February 13, 2021May 5, 2022 Genevieve3 Comments

My mental health has once again taken a turn in a not-fun direction, which I attribute to some recent medication changes. So, instead of sitting here thinking, I should write something. I can’t think of anything to write, and then putting down anything I do write as being the worst drivel ever to appear on my screen, I’m going to take you on a little diversion.

Did you know that an elephant’s sense of smell is twice as strong as that of a bloodhound’s? (C, that documentary led me astray. Google says twice, not four times.) This is what I said to my therapist the other day in one of my many futile attempts to distract from the topic at hand. We’ve also discussed, among other things, a documentary I watched called “Octopus Volcano,” how scallops have eyes, and what “horse” is in ASL. Usually, when I share a fun fact like this, there’s a brief exchange, and then she goes, “Well, that used up about a minute and a half.” And then we’re back where we started, just a little more entertained. This time, I think we probably used up, like, at least three minutes with the elephant fact. It may have been the most productive time-wasting fact I’ve ever pulled out of my sleeve. We got going on a train of thought that I think has some incredible real-world promise.

Just imagine: search and rescue ELEPHANTS. The police force brings out the specially trained sniffer elephants in super-wide trailers. They step down, decked out in vests that say “DO NOT PET. I’M WORKING,” but the vests are really just tarps secured around their bellies with bungee cords because the elephant service vest market just isn’t there yet. Soon, they’re working in airports, sniffing for bombs and drugs. All floors have widened stairs and elephant-safe ramps, and next to the dog relief areas are rooms with piles of dirt for the pachyderms to toss over their backs. Retired sniffer elephants spend their golden years relaxing with their family herd with frequent visits from their old handlers, revered as heroes for their invaluable contributions. I think we’re on to something, here.

*“Sir? Sir! This is a service animal. Please don’t feed her the limp lettuce off your hamburger.”*

Is this a breakthrough? Did I have a breakthrough in therapy?! Yeah, yeah, it’s not about me, but a striking realization is a striking realization. Elephants are the next sniffer dogs. Maybe they’re not as motivated to please humans, and they do need to eat a tremendous amount of foliage as they travel great distances throughout the day, but I think those problems could be overcome with some creativity. There really is no limit to what you can take away from therapy.

Non-sequitur segue! Other problems that can probably be overcome include my current difficulties with changing my clothes and eating and getting work done and my general depression problems. Titrating down on an antidepressant can be tricky. I’m trying to figure out whether this dip in my mood is because this antidepressant was helping me more than I thought it was, regular old withdrawal, ketamine wearing off, or any number of other variables. I suppose time will tell. Let’s persist in our efforts to overcome wacky, theoretical elephant scenarios and the challenges of living life.

P.S. Good luck to the Google algorithm in trying to figure out what the heck this post is about. 🙂

green-mug-with-steam-rising-sitting-on-side-table-with-rumpled-sheets-on-bed-in-background

Anxiety is Keeping Me Awake

February 1, 2021February 2, 2021 Genevieve1 Comment

And I love it. Well, “love” is too strong, but I have distinctly positive feelings about this change in my depression. From the outside, it may sound amazing to take a four-hour nap every day. Living it is a different matter. When you’re absolutely exhausted all the time and you crawl into bed simply because you don’t want to exist as a conscious person anymore, it’s not rejuvenating. When you go to sleep because you just want the day to be over and at least that way, you won’t perceive the passage of time, it’s not indulgent self-care. Instead, it’s just a black hole siphoning days, weeks, months of your life away from you. So, when you suddenly have every precious second of the day to be awake, it’s wonderful – and a little bit uncomfortable.

Wellbutrin is what’s still making me anxious – a side effect that Google says goes away within a week or two. Not so, for me, although hopefully, for a more complex reason. When I started taking propranolol, a beta blocker, to counteract the anxiety and jitters, I hoped that I could start to really enjoy my improved motivation. I’ve been mostly feeling like it arose solely as a product of anxiety that propels me from distraction to distraction. Instead, I encountered a strange result. Two propranolol per day had minimal effect, but three made me so shaky that I struggled to type or to use a spoon. This is weird, and not at all what’s supposed to happen. Perhaps I had a paradoxical reaction to it, but it’s hard to say. As for the anxiety, my psychiatric nurse practitioner theorized that the addition of Wellbutrin made for three medications in my list that deal with norepinephrine. I was making too much of it, essentially leaving me constantly primed for fight or flight. I’m now tapering down on one of those meds in preparation to increase the Wellbutrin.

Although the anxiety is improving, it still keeps me from napping most days. It’s that odd combination of being tired and full of energy at the same time. I want to close my eyes and rest, but it kind of feels like my trachea is the size of a large straw, and I can feel my heartbeat in my ears. It’s a tug-of-war between depression, which still votes in favor of sleep, and anxiety, which votes for frantic activity. Consequently, many of my days feel much longer than they used to because I’m unable to sleep. I’m still not as interested in my, well, interests as I used to be, so although I have this itch to be active, nothing seems quite right. The anxiety is also not nice, but it is a novel experience to be conscious for an entire day. There are so many hours to pass!

In an example day, I’ve:

fixed my clogged bathroom sink
drawn some potted plants
accomplished my part-time work in one sitting
refilled the bird feeder
took the dog to the vet
*perused the web for “doggles”
went for a walk

There have been some recent days that included naps, but on the whole, I’m pleased with my daily awakeness. Now to try not to go too far in this direction and become more anxious that I’m only doing very minimal activity and it somehow feels like a lot to me. Don’t. Over. Think. It.

*Doggles, or dog goggles, are on my shopping list because my dog, Stella, habitually develops eye infections, likely in the course of her high-speed, full-contact dog park outings. The doggles are for her to wear while we play fetch, silly as that is. But hey – ten bucks for doggles, or $180 for each vet trip? They also look awesome.

Love, Your Brain

Tag: Medication