Alice

Ya know that, mood-wise, I kind of crashed after that relative high I reached in the Silica lagoon – right? I’ve been eager as ALL fucking hell to temper, to balance out my state of mind even to the point of, temporarily – until the worst has passed, taking antidepressants.

I’ve always bucked meds. Why? Pills scare me. Yeah, pretty funny from a woman who spent a solid month on beauties (Hey, it was during my carnival years and that was EONS ago!), has no prob taking Ibuprofen for headaches or back pain and, in MUCH younger days, was totally cool with booze and weed fueled self-medication.

Mind you, I’m no paragon of healthy living now BUT compared to my youth (which, yes, was more than a little protracted) I’m practically Michelle Obama crossed with Rich Roll!

My docs first got me to try antidepressants the year that my hearing tanked.  I was depressed beyond belief (OF COURSE) and desperate to snap out of it so that I could face all the brand-y new challenges of life without sound.

How’d that go? Not good, not sweet at all. There were a few breeds of psychic energizer and I tried em all. Nope. No good. They all robbed me of energy. I became the Nap Queen of the Neck.  This naturally caused me to become even more depressed. I needed to be up, moving, learning fresh coping skills AND I had a full time gig in the hearing world that I HAD to get back to if I wanted to keep my health insurance (this was in the Dark Ages before the ACA).

What worked? Time plus long fast walks/hiking around the Neck. Later I discovered the monster joys of triking. Exercise succeeded where better-living-through-chemistry failed.

This time around on the holy-fucking-shit-I’m-1,000-miles-past-misery-merry-go-round my docs suggested a new/different type of antidepressant. This one wouldn’t knock me out, they promised. Worth a shot, we agreed.

Yesterday, I was four days in and decided to quit the rat bastard bupropion. Yup, that was fast. On top of nausea, headaches, the shakes and tiredness (!!!), my sadness became much darker, stranger and desperately intense. In fact, as I was driving home from the Y early Sunday morning, I found my thoughts had turned to suicide. I found myself in planning mode even. Upon crossing Valhalla's threshold, I texted Jen – she came right over. I gave her the pills as well as the coupla bottles of vino I had on hand – given my dark thoughts, they all felt too dangerous to have around. She and Oni had noticed the very negative, downward spiral in the tone of my sadness and were planning to talk to me about it that morning. Hah! Beat them to it.

I’d thought I was, generally, allergic to antidepressants before – now I know for sure. Yep, I am. No more trying new kinds of mood helpers. Fuck that shit but, what to do? What to do?

I'm upping my workout regimen. As it is, I’ve been going  to the Y 5-6 days a week. I've been building up time in the pool (laps) and cardio machines and just added some weights too. I figure that, on days when me sched allows, I’ll swim in the morning and do the cardio machines in the late afternoon. Or something like that. Starting a new painting will probably help too.

The holidays are gonna be way fucking hard, particularly TAB's bday (Jan 10) and our anniversary (Jan 27th). Dunno how this is gonna play out but between gym-time, cats, J&O, painting, good friends and more I WILL get through this. Today is the 151st day without The MOST Amazing Bob – I still feel like the nightmare will end and he'll return to me all healthy and snarkarific.
White Rabbit – Jefferson Airplane