Lexapro Diaries - Day 21

Day 21- Nothing interesting enough has really been happening on the medication front. I was moved up to double the dose I began with. I do not seem to be suffering too many side effects, but for that dreaded one, and I am not testing that theory yet.

I still HATE the idea that I have to take a pill to "be normal". Everyone else manages to manage their life just fine, but I need outside help, and that rankles.

I have been sleeping a lot, going back to sleep after kidkins go to school, taking naps when I get home from work, but I probably need it. I work hard, physically, and school really took a toll on me this semester. The sleeping could be a side effect of the medication, but honestly, it is nice to sleep peacefully for once. It has been months, maybe even years, since I have slept well, and I did not know how precious it was until I didn't have it anymore.

Lexapro Diaries - Day 6

Day 6- No tears today!

Awful anxiety about going to work, but it was okay once I got there.

Nothing much, really. I had 2.5 beers after work, at home, as a little Saturday treat. I don't know if that affects anything, but beer NEVER makes me cry, haha.

Lexapro Diaries - Day 5

Day 5 - Cry, cry, cry. That's all I did yesterday.

And had a full blown panic attack, when trying to drive in the blizzard to get my munchkins. Heart pounding, cold sweat dripping down my armpits, shooting pain in my arm. Fucking snow.

Lexapro Diaries - Day 4

Day 4- I had more energy today, though dragging myself to work was still a pill (*snicker*). I just don't like leaving my house, though, so whatever I am leaving for has to be darn good. I like to walk, I like to go boarding, I like to go to the park and sit in the grass and feel the breeze caressing my skin, but I despise having to leave for too many other reasons, grocery shopping, appointments, anythign at all, really. I am just happiest in my little house, puttering or working or writing, or doing nothing at all.

On the more energy front, I made dinner, AFTER working, AND cleaned it all up, which, honestly, I have been too lethargic to do lately. It was one or the other, for a while. I felt less anxious, and definitely less irritable.

Hmm, boring, huh?

Lexapro Diaries - Day 3

Day 3 - Tummy still upset. I don't think I really feel any different, and I have only cried for one brief spell, but that was justified, and it was just a couple tears, and so it just has to be okay.

I feel pretty lethargic, but then there are plenty of times I feel pretty lethargic for no apparent reason, so this could just be one of them.

I ate way too many Starbursts tonight with no real food, so I may be sugar crashing now, haha.

S told me once that he didn't want me to take an antidepressant because I 'have a wonderful inner dialogue and antidepressants alter a person's inner dialogue'. Well my inner dialogue is saying he is a self righteous prig right now. Just sayin'...

Lexapro Diaries - Day 2

Day 2 - My stomach was upset all day. I did not feel nervous anxiety much today, but I did not have to work or go to school, either, which seem to be the big triggers of it for me. If I could just stay home I would be okay, haha.

I wasn't going to cry at all today, but then I did. I found some old letters from S, but I guess there is improvement because normally I would have been off on a crying jag that lasted for hours, and left me with a raging headache, snot dripping down my lip, and simply wrung limp as a rag. Today's tears just slid out from my eyelids, and across my cheek. It was pain, but it was exquisite, razor sharp pain, it was focused and manageable, not the diaphanous cloud of pain with no beginning and no end. That is the worst of it, I think, when you can't see the way out. I don't mind hurting as much if I can know that there is a place where it ends.

Halfway considering a one night stand before I get side effects in earnest. That one in particular...

Lexapro Diaries - Day 1

I don't want to have to take a pill to just be normal.

I don't want to be that weak. Everyone gets sad, and so do I. Sadness is supposed to happen.

No one can be happy all the time.

These are the things I have been telling my doctor, who retorts with these other things -

You have cried nearly every day for the past two and a half years. That's not okay.

You have PTSD. You didn't ask to put in the situation that blossomed that little gift.

It will probably not be forever.

So, these are the facts - yes, I have cried nearly every day for at least two years, maybe longer, but I have had reason to. I went through an agonizing divorce with a man I was very much in love with, after being subjected to physical and mental cruelty for years prior to that. That, however, was not enough to cause me to leave him, oh no, not me. I couldn't do it until he also cheated on me for several months, and for some reason THAT was the straw that broke the camel's back, and every day since then has been a struggle, with him, to get food on the table, with the courts and my kids.

I am not asking for sympathy. I actually do not want shred of pity at all. I put myself in that situation with him. I should have left a long, long time before I did.

I have come to an agonizing decision, at the behest of my doctor, to add an antidepressant to a regime I have already begun, long ago, to battle this great, looming sadness. At first I told myself it was natural, and it was, and that I could think positively enough to pull myself out of the slump. But I can't, and it hasn't happened. Diet, exercise, meditation, prayer, self love, positive thinking, yoga, tarot, journaling, vitamins, herbal remedies - I have tried all of these things, and many more, to stop being so sad all the time, and they just aren't doing it. I can't blow sunshine out my ass just because I want to, folks.

I'm ashamed. I don't want to need a pill to combat sadness and anxiety. I just want to be normal. I don't think I should get special treatment, get a pass out of life's rough spots.

But I have worked, HARD, I might add, to learn what I am supposed to learn, to make my attitude better, to stand on my own, and I am still uncontrollable sad, and miserable, and alone feeling.

I didn't choose this lightly, but I am ready for this veil to be lifted, to see colors in vibrant again, instead of washed away pale. I am ready to not cry over nothing and everything all the time, and to be able to pull myself out of bed without stopping to consider if it might not just be less work to go ahead and slit my wrists.

I'm only sort of kidding.

Thus begins a new chapter in my life - The Lexapro Diaries.

Day 1: Taking the pill after breakfast, because nausea is a possible side effect and everything in the entire world seems to make me nauseous. On the list of other possible side effects are things like insomnia, ejaculation disorder, fatigue and somnolence, increased sweating, decreased libido, and anorgasmia. Well, maybe if I am sick to my stomach, I won't eat so much, and I will lose weight, although I am not fat, everyone wants to be thinner, right? I don't ejaculate, and I am already fatigued and somnolent. I already have insomnia, but not to worry, there is another pill for that, but the problem is that I have nightmares, and if you have taken a sleeping pill you can't wake up from them. I know a good deodorant, and I am not in a relationship, so no one will care if I have decreased libido. Actually, that might solve most of my problems, having a decreased libido, and I might not have some of the ones I already do if I had suffered from decreased libido before this point. It could actually be argued that I have suffered more from my libido at normal than I ever could from havig it decreased (but don't tell my kids I said that; I love the little boogers).

Anorgasmia, hmm, what's the that? God bless Google, really, and I mean that.

O-M-G!!!

omfg...

It turns out that anorgasmia is the inability to have an orgasm. So let me get this straight - you want to take away the ONE thing that consistently makes me less anxious and happier with a pill that is meant to treat anxiety and depression? How is ANYONE supposed to be happy, healthy, and normal, without being able to have an orgasm? This does not compute for me, does not compute.

That might be the deal breaker for me.

So I talked to my doctor about it, who, correctly, pointed out that I do not maintain a sexual relationship with anyone just now. I simply blinked.

See, I told ya up there that my libido causes me problems. Oh well, I guess, hope for the best, and just go forth, because I doubt the showerhead is going to get offended, and honestly, my general state of mind can't get much worse, so maybe I am over rating orgasms in my mind.

Seven out of ten times I just cry afterward, anyway. It's so sad to have been loved and now not be. And I am not talking about THE EX, either. Fuck him.