Nyx's Journal

My therapist has been pushing to medicate me more for anxiety lately. My antidepressant, while doing what it says on the tin, hasn't done much of anything for the anxiety; the trouble is that I'm very sensitive to medication. My pdoc nominally put me on a benzo, but I suspect more to get her off his back than because he felt any particular need.

1/8th mg of lorazepam per day. Is that even a dose? Apparently yes, because my coordination has sucked ever since, and while it doesn't totally knock me out like a whole .5 does, it does make me tired.

It also does not last quite an entire day. Blegh. I hope this all sorts itself out soon. I suspect it will, actually, once the holidays are over, but in the meantime it's either vent about it briefly here or totally lose my cool. This is probably the preferable option, no?

•Astrid just posted the entries in the first Blog Carnival of Mental Health. You can find the full list of submissions here. Definitely worth a read!

•The second round of the carnival will be hosted at CBTish on the theme of 'night.' If you have something to submit this month, you can do so here.

•The Disability Blog Carnival this month will be on the theme of long nights and what we need to get through them and hosted by Rolling Around in My Head.

My therapist has been making noises of getting my psychiatrist to change up my meds again. I'm really not sure I like that idea, and not just because I'm getting sick of the constant switching– four meds over four months– or because of my general distaste for being super medicated.

Meds and I, we don't get along great. I started out on Cymbalta and (after a period of violently nauseous adjustment) it helped for a while. But only a while. Prozac left me numb and aggravated my seizures to intolerable levels. The lorazepam I take as-needed for anxiety does its job, but knocks me out flat for a good ten hours, so I prefer not to use it unless I have to. My current Pristiq/Deplin cocktail, however, actually seems to be working, and doing so without any adverse side effects (save for my irritation at the idiots who decided that square was a good shape for a pill). My depression has been under control for once; my mood has been stable and in line with my actual experiences. I'm even able to get things done, when I need to.

My anxiety, however, is decidedly not remotely close to being managed at this point, and the recent absence of major depression symptoms and/or episodes has left me fairly at its mercy. Whenever one half of the problem is being dealt with, it seems, the other takes the opportunity to invade my conscious all the more aggressively. The anxiety issues have led my therapist to bring up possibly switching me over to some kind of anti-anxiety drug instead of the antidepressants. The thought of switching is fairly horrifying to me– it's been so long since I haven't been feeling depressed 98% of the time, and I really don't want to go back to that place. But trying to cope with my current levels of anxiety is not exactly a great prospect either.

I always feel so ambivalent about psych meds. This is really not helping.

I had a nasty anxiety day yesterday, the kind of day where I am constantly aware that I'm bordering on a panic attack. The best metaphor I have for it is that it's as if I'm a kettle full of water on the stove– sooner or later, it boils and the steam has to escape in a whistling rush. The only hope is to turn the heat on the burner down.

Except it's really difficult to do that. It's one thing when anxiety is centered on/stems from some identifiable fear, even if it's a ridiculous one– my therapist and I have been working a lot on self-talk, and on calming those fears and letting them go. I still have a lot of work ahead of me to get good at that, but I'm improving, and to some extent I can quell the irrational panicky feeling. Yesterday, however, was the sort of anxiety that is utterly baseless and unfocused, just bouncing around inside me and leaving me restless and tense, a bundle of nerves.

In situations like that, the only thing I've found even remotely helpful is meditation. Sometimes I can calm myself enough, at least, to keep me from spiraling into any of the major physical symptoms I experience– panic attacks, seizures, ect. I felt proud of myself when I managed to remain okay-enough that I didn't have to resort to my anti-anxiety meds (effective, but they knock me right out).

Jittery dreams, though. Does anyone else experience that, I wonder? My dreams themselves become anxious and stressful sometimes during these flare-ups. They're also some of the few dreams I tend to remember.

You can get the basics about me and this blog from my profile. Aside from that, let's see. I'm an only child with two parents who I'm close with and extended family that drives me up a wall. I went to a small liberal arts college, where I started in the sciences but ended up in the humanities; this means I can do a titration and talk about Faulkner with approximately equal levels of comfort, but am not particularly employable.

I like traveling, writing, baking, the Food Network, photography, activism, biology, trivia, hats, singing, French, and most animals. I detest closemindedness, bad drivers, cleaning, brainless so-called "comedies," pundits, religious extremists, centipedes, and being bad at things.

So there's your basics. Feel free to drop me a line on any of my posts or message me if you have comments/questions/concerns, ect.