I've had a really rough week and haven't been able to get out of my head to write here. I'm seeing my patients and feeding my kids and attending meetings I need to attend, and that's about all I have the emotional capacity to handle. Everything extra is just falling by the wayside right now, including research/writing, helping with the kids school, connecting with friends/family, hobbies. Even fun things just feel TOO MUCH right now and I cannot find the bright spots.
Its like I've fallen into the hole and I can't seem to climb out. The hole is familiar. This is basically where I was 4 years ago before I initially started medication for my anxiety/depression. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like, its untenable. I had decreased the dose last fall and was doing fantastic until literally last week when life just started to feel unbearable (Remember? I was baking bread and making goals for the month?). Suddenly everything was awful to begin with and some terrifying new fresh hell awaits around the corner.
I've reached out to my doctor (NP actually, the doctor I was seeing for 4 years left the practice location so they transitioned me to someone new that I saw for the first time by telehealth 2 weeks ago---when I was feeling great!) but I think I'm going to just go back up to my old dose while I'm waiting. Because trying to claw myself slowly out of this hole is no way to live.
I know that hole. I lived in it for so many years, trying different SSRIs, before I realized ADHD meds were what I needed. I think of my hole as the deep grooves of negative thought processes that I fall into when I’m depressed. These are the grooves that send me hurtling toward, “everything is awful and it will never get better and I’ll be miserable forever.” I haven’t spent this long in those grooves, or felt so unable to force my wheels out of them onto another track, since I was dealing with my ectopic pregnancy. I don’t know which is more terrifying - how familiar they still feel or how hard it is to see another way of thinking. It’s like I know I didn’t feel this way a month ago but I can’t remember exactly what I felt a month ago. That is depression for me, the forgetting what “normal” feels like. How do you will yourself back to something you can’t even picture in your mind anymore.
ReplyDeleteI’m glad you’re doing what you need to do meds wise. I’ve been thinking about going back to my old meds because I feel like they were better at keeping my moods stable than the new ones. It just feels like a hard time to make a change and I’m hoping I can push through. But reading your post I’m wondering if the effort would be worth it.
Hugs. I've been going through something similar lately, due to skipping the meds + another medication that also affects mood as side effect.
ReplyDeleteNot good combo with pandemic, quarantine etc.
I hope it lets up soon for you. This current environment seems like the perfect storm for mood disorders. Normally by mid April, I've reduced my fluoxetine to a half tablet, but this year I'm still at 1.5 and have no intention of budging from it... Even though I do think it makes me sluggish.
ReplyDeleteKeep putting one foot in front of the next. Baby steps. You’ll get through this.
ReplyDeleteI told someone this week, explaining why i couldn't make myself do one more thing: "My feelings are tired." I think everyone is just running out of cope and as a fellow scientist, my level of rage at this nonsense lack of a plan is also extremely large.
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