(no subject)

[cimorene]

[Poll #1113990]

Happy New Year, guys. It snowed all night and it's already melting, and I'm supposed to walk five blocks in the slush to the nearest open store to buy catfood. There's always puke all over the sidewalks on New Year's Day. I'm surprisingly mellow, though. I heated a pot of glögg last night and ate gingerbread with it even though my tongue was slightly burnt.

It's funny how frustrated and angry I am at my anti-depressants. They were prescribed for social anxiety, because my depression's been manageable and barely noticeable for years, but my anxiety is actually, like, debilitating. Not only does it do nothing for social anxiety that I can tell, I can't write it off because it keeps lightening more and more depression that I didn't know I had even at the same dose.

First it unlocked all this writing that I didn't even know was being repressed and I've written, well, several novels' worth of stuff since last summer. When I'd just gotten more or less used to that, and actually wrote to the point of exhaustion and started taking a little break, a little while before Christmas suddenly all this visual creative energy emerged. I've almost filled a sketchbook, and used up an entire ballpoint pen, since the 22nd (and all the pages aren't even in pen). I haven't drawn this much since the summer in Japan when I ran out of books and didn't have anything to do but draw and listen to music all day. And if you count times when I didn't run out of reading material I haven't drawn this much since I was a kid, not even the end of high school when I made sure to take 98 minutes of art every semester because it was the only way I could cope with the stress from all my other over-achieving, honor-society-and-Girl-Scout-and-ten-million-extracurriculars life.

Well, I kind of probably NEED to get rid of this medication because I need to find something that works so I'm not all panicky about leaving the house and seeing groups of people and going to lectures. But it's making it hard to make that decision - it's really hard to give up creativity when you find it again. It's so nice to feel all productive.

Comments

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

When I'm at the computer I like my music just barely audible. If I have it any louder I will focus on that to the point where I'm just sitting and listening and not able to do anything else. So I only turn it up when I am listening to new music and need to tell if I like it or not.

When I'm in the car, I like it pretty loud if I'm alone (and I often like to sing along). When I'm with someone else, I like it loud enough to hear over the car noises, but quiet enough to easily talk over.

[vass]

I don't know which antidepressant you're on, but the one my GP prescribed for me is meant to be particularly good for depression, and my psych's dubious because it not only doesn't help anxiety (my primary diagnosis) but he thinks it might exascerbate it. We're slowly weaning me off it (slowly because it has the worst discontinuation syndrome of any drug of its class.)

I totally know what you're talking about, about having manageable but still unpleasant depression, and debilitating anxiety.

Your doctor might prescribe you something in addition, rather than instead of, since the drug you're on is actually doing something to help, just not for the main problem.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Well, actually, he has done; I'm on citalopram and I take alprazolam as needed. I'm very cautious with the alprazolam because I know it can be habit-forming, but the doctor keeps telling me I am too cautious, and he's just recently said I should take it before doing something that will cause anxiety. This is good advice, but part of the problem with me is my avoidance reaction to stress that leads to compulsive indulgence in coping mechanisms (usually reading, usually badfic). This makes me think I probably need a medication that can do more for the background levels of anxiety, because the pressure is there all the time, and not just when something stressful's about to happen. It usually starts weeks in advance.

[basingstoke.livejournal.com]

I was having panic attacks, and the doctor put me on Prozac for a while. That stopped them DEAD.

I switched to citalopram for long-term maintenance because prozac has more side effects. I so know what you mean about having depression cured that you didn't even know you had; things are easier now that I didn't realize had been hard. Stupid brain chemistry. Wonderful drugs. *heart*

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I still had both black, sludgy soul-destroying depression and the worst panic attacks I've ever dealt with when I was on Prozac (shich is to say it did nothing detectable at all), besides the constant nausea and how I lost twenty pounds and became quite weak. The shrink should've taken me off it long before he did. In fact, I have been on a drug that worked really well, though: Paxil. At least, it worked well for social anxiety, although I still had panic attacks sometimes. But the psychiatrist I'm seeing now was reluctant to prescribe it again because it's known to be severely habit-forming (although it wasn't for me).

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

Happy New Year!