Ugh...

[posted on Xanga 4/19/10]

I feel like crap.

Last time I went to see my psychiatrist (she's actually a nurse with prescribing privileges but it's a moot point), I asked her to put me on ADHD meds. She expressed concern over my heart rate briefly being high three weeks ago (it's done nothing abnormal since). When that happened, three weeks ago, she lowered my Zoloft dosage and the heart rate thing went away.

So I told her to take me off the Zoloft altogether and just give me some damned ADHD meds.

She said she'd taper me off of it, and then she'd have to talk to a doctor, and then MAYBE she'd give me ADHD meds.

It's impossible to know whether taking me off the Zoloft but not the Wellbutrin will make my depression come back. Lowering the Zoloft dosage in the past had no harmful effects, but you never know with psychiatric meds. So effectively I'm gambling my will to live for MAYBE getting some ADHD meds.

It makes me furious that such a gamble should be necessary. I understand full well that stimulants are contraindicated for those with heart problems. I understand full well that my psychiatrist is doing the cautious thing (and probably the right thing) by not letting me have meds yet. And I understand there's nothing else she can responsibly do. But I feel helpless and I need to pass my classes and it's the last minute and I JUST WANT NOT TO HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THE ADHD, FOR ONCE, PLEASE.

...I started going off Zoloft a week ago. Took half-dose for four days and then took nothing. This is my third day on nothing. The discontinuation syndrome is kicking in. Nausea, headache, occasional chills, moodiness (today, anyway). The weirdest symptom is brain zaps. I felt them when I took my dose late while I was still on Zoloft, but now I have them all the time. They're not all that unpleasant for me by themselves, but they really suck combined with nausea and headache. For those of you who have never heard of brain zaps:

"“Brain zaps” are said to defy description for whomever has not experienced them, but the most common themes are of a sudden “jolt,” likened to an electric shock, apparently occurring or originating within the brain itself, with associated disorientation for a few seconds. The phenomenon is most often reported as a brief, wave-like electrical pulse that quickly travels across the surface of (or through) the brain. Some people experience these “waves”through the rest of their body, but the sensation dissipates quickly. They are sometimes accompanied by brief tinnitus and vertigo like feelings. Immediately following this shock is a light-headedness that may last for up to ten seconds. The sensation has also be described by many as a flashbulb going off inside the head or brain. Moving one’s eyes from side to side quickly while open has also been known to trigger these zaps and sometimes causing them to come in rapid succession. It is thought to be a form of neuro-epileptiform activity."

I couldn't really describe them better. No other medicine causes that, to the best of my knowledge.
Bluh.

Edit: Said psychiatrist gave a talk in chapel this morning. Went and talked to her after and she was sympathetic. Made me feel a little bit better. Also, I'm getting moodiness. Snapping about things for no reason. I should go to bed for everyone else's benefit...

Hey guess what!

I got a haircut, and I like it very much.

If something's hurting you then you have to know what it is to make it go away. If you're running away from something it's not going to stop chasing you until you turn around and face it. If you're afraid and alone and angry and ashamed and you want to be needed and you need to be needed and you're searching for something that everyone else already has, you have to know WHY you feel that way--you have to know why you need to be needed more than those around you. And if it hurts every time you try to face it, that just means you need even more to face it, before it can tear you apart inside even more than it already has, before you can get any more desperate, before you can feel any more lost. If you're afraid it will destroy you inside, if you are afraid you will have no reason to live or it'll take you apart, imagine running away from it for the rest of your life, feeling like that for the rest of your life. If you face it, if you endure it (and you can), if you weather the storm, you will feel better, you will feel alive, or at the very least purified, purged. And if you've buried it deeply enough that you don't even have an idea of what you're running from, you have to dig through your emotions and your past to find it to be able to make it go away.

Being needed by another person or having another person to need is not going to fix it for you. That's a coverup. That's something that keeps you from thinking about what you're hiding from yourself. That's escapism. No matter how much you smoke or snort or drink or cut or obsess or any other action like that, no matter how far you go, you can never run far away enough from something that is inside your own self. The more you try, the deeper a hole you dig for yourself. The more you try, the more days or weeks or months or years you've used up running away instead of being able to live your life without being afraid in your own mind.

Your best friend can't fix it for you. Your family can't fix it for you. The love of your life can't fix it for you. A psychiatrist can't fix it for you. They can help but nobody can fix it but you. Nobody can face it but you. I have done this. I've been through hell and back. I can tell you that it's worth it. Don't let your fear get the best of you. Don't let your fear condemn you to a life of running and hiding. Don't think it's not worth it.