Trade-Off

Ug, I dreamed last night I had a one-evening stand with a guy I had a two-evening sit (i.e., no Actual Doing It) with in high school. I dreamed I went to his house and then afterward he was talking romance and I just wanted to escape. I sneaked out and ran all the way home. I woke up feeling crappy.

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I reduced my psychiatric medication to the previous dosage level and I feel MUCH MUCH BETTER. I can feel my MUSCLES again. This is embarrassing to describe but it's such an indicator of How I Feel that I'm going to describe it anyway: normally if I, say, lean down to get something out of the fridge drawer, I'll stretch a leg way out behind me for balance, just because it feels nice to stretch/balance that way, or if I go down the stairs I might sort of PRANCE, horse-leg-like, delaying on each foot with the knee bent, again just because it feels nice to use the muscle that way---and I've started doing things like that again after a long time of my muscles feeling too weak and tired for that.

Unfortunately, I've also been crabbier and more snappish. These trades are very hard to figure out.

Three Days Unmedicated

Oh, uh. I forgot to take my psychiatric medication three days in a row. That is, today is the fourth day, so I've missed three entire doses. That's not good! Think I'd better start taking that again, huh? As soon as I remembered it (several hours late even for the fourth day) I took it, and now I feel a little light-headed.

Actually, I considered stopping altogether. No, no, not abruptly---I know that's a bad idea, though after missing three doses anyway I did let the idea flit briefly through my mind. But I did think maybe the three missed doses could be like an inadvertent diet jump-start (like stomach flu in the diet analogy), and I could cut back more quickly.

I'm not sure the medication's been helping, and certainly I've put on weight (though hard to know if that's connected), and it definitely reduces my energy (unfortunately I seem to be anxiety-fueled), and it makes me more worried about an accidental pregnancy because the medications I'm trying now would be bad for that.

And I've been trying different things since September of 2008, and I'm starting to get tired of this---especially after recently reading an article that presented a discouraging point of view about whether certain psychiatric medications (all the ones I've been trying, basically) work. Um, yay. Oh, and, AND! Mike found a bunch of stuff online about how a lot of people have found that one of the medications I'm on makes them CRAVE ALCOHOL! Awesome! I'd kind of like to go off EVERYTHING: off the anxiety stuff, off the Pill. And THEN see how things go.

Then I remembered that whenever I'm on psychiatric medication I'm thinking I should go off it, and whenever I'm off it I'm thinking I should go on it, and I decided to stay put for the time being. On the other hand, at least I have a psychiatrist now, so I could taper off and then it would be way easier to go back on if I wanted to. Well, I'm still thinking it over. My inclination is to plan on taking a break: taper off, then stop taking the Pill, then if that's a disaster go back on the Pill and then taper back on the psychiatric stuff.

Fine

So, hi. Nothing exciting on any of my Personal Hot Issues: mother, religion, psychiatric medication, alcohol.

I've been drinking less because alcohol seems to mess with my sleep and I think good sleep can really help with a mood slump.

I need to see the psychiatrist for a medication-check (and probably adjustment), but she doesn't have any openings when I can be there: she abruptly stopped doing appointments after 2:00 in the afternoon and the receptionist didn't know why. I used to take her last appointment of the day so Mike would be home. So. Uh. I've been indecisive about what to do. I don't want Mike to have to take a whole day off of work (unpaid) for one single 15-minute appointment. I don't want to bring the kids either. This is one of those times when a person close to me might feel like shaking me and saying "OMG THIS IS NOT SO HARD, JUST FIND A SOLUTION. A babysitter! Calling the psychiatrist and telling her what the problem is! Just bring the kids, who cares? Change psychiatrists!" But I get overwhelmed and then I avoid it. Someday I'll suddenly buck up and solve it, but not today.

My mom and I are getting along fine. We've even had several conversations that involved religious issues and we both managed to sustain a light touch. She even laughed merrily at several cheeky things I said about how I felt God could better run the world and/or write the Bible and/or modify creation. And we talked briefly about how hard it was for me when I just abruptly STOPPED BELIEVING, and how it wasn't something I CHOSE or WANTED, it just HAPPENED and now I Don't Believe in the same way she Does Believe: neither one of us could reason our way to the opposite position, even if we wanted to. I used to have a really hard time backing down when she said something religious I felt I MUST argue with, but there were a couple times recently when she said something like that and I just redirected the conversation without addressing it at all, and it felt good to manage to do that. I still don't think I could handle a comment about Teh Gay Issue, but the run-of-the-mill things I seem to finally be learning to handle.

Mike and I are getting along fine. He's drinking alcohol regularly now, which has dramatically improved the problem we were having about that before, but he doesn't drink to excess. He has an easier time than I do just having a drink or two and not drinking any more: when I have a couple of drinks, I feel like, "This is GREAT! I'm going to keep having another drink every time the greatness starts to wear off!" He doesn't seem to do that.

One reason I don't understand my persistent mood slump is that everything IS going so fine.