mental health (LIFE!) status: +++

[cimorene]

Life's funny, you know? Here I am in Finland. Sometimes the... existential overwhelmingness of cumulative choices and coincidences and that path turning out to lead here just gets to me. The entropy of the universe and the fact that a coin always has the same chance of coming up heads no matter how many times you toss it (or how many times it comes up that way in a row) (unless it's a trick coin) is amazing. Why any choice you might make? Why not?

Hm... I think my psychiatric medication has definitely been working. Like, better. In a way that nothing has worked for me since Paxil - paroxetene, that's it, I couldn't remember the name when I was talking to Dr. Steve the other day and he didn't know what 'Paxil' was. This seems like a change of subject, except that when medication successfully tamps down my depression and my social anxiety, I thrive on human contact and have a sunny disposition, and an energetic and creative one, keen to take on all kinds of projects and fix things and make things, and I'm aware that that's my true nature, underneath, but in the past couple of years I've rarely been able to entirely reach the outlook that first paragraph presents.



I don't have the emotional energy to fulfill those tendencies, I guess, when depression and social anxiety have got me down. This isn't to say that I am not socially anxious, now, because I think that is partially a treatable illness that leads to all kinds of irrational behaviour but also partially just a facet of personality. But when it's controllable, and livable, social anxiety becomes merely a certain introverted, slightly neurotic way of looking at social situations - not necessarily a handicap, or at least, not a big one.

Part of this is seasonal affectiveness, because I always feel both better, and more able to tackle projects, in the summer. But it's easy to contrast this summer with the summers before that to see that it's not simply the change of season that has me feeling better right now. Circumstances are changing to make me happier, but those are arguably a result of the change in brain chemistry in themselves, even if they're in turn a cause of making me feel even better.

So... Dr. Steve gave me a goodbye speech, because I won't be using the student health service doctors anymore next year. I gather that with the national social security I qualify for, psychologists will cost a lot more - 20 euros a visit, if it's the same as for Wax - unless I'm prescribed therapy and they think I need it. I do have one appointment left with him, though. I'm kind of sad - I like him and I think he's helped me; and I look forward to my psychologist's appointments in general. But since I feel better now, it may be that I won't need them at all frequently, in any case. I don't have an immediate problem that I can't handle that I'm struggling to the DEATH with, which is where I was with social anxiety last fall and winter. And I shouldn't have any trouble seeing a psychiatrist. I assume I will still be able to get an appointment for the purposes of getting a prescription renewal until the end of the summer.

Oh! And the side-effects are gone. I've settled into escitalopram now. It doesn't make me fall asleep all the time or anything like that.

Comments

[hollsh.livejournal.com]

Do they not have Paxil/Paroxetene in Finland?

[cimness.livejournal.com]

They have it, but psychiatrists avoid prescribing it because it can be (and statistically usually is) strongly habit-forming.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

G'bye, Doctor Steve! G'byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[kessie.livejournal.com]

I've taken to reciting bits of 'The Road Less Travelled' to myself, lately, mostly to remind myself that the easy path isn't necessarily the right one, you know?

Glad to hear the escitalopram effects have died down!

[cimness.livejournal.com]

My philosophy is to do what you really want to do if it's possible. Screw 'easy'.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

A very good philosophy, indeed. :)

[crowbars.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad to hear that you're feeling better.

[norah.livejournal.com]

Isn't it interesting how we know who we are? Even if it's not the way our brain chemistry is working a lot of the time? We know when it's *wrong*.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Hm, yeah. Sometimes when I'm really depressed, I start to doubt - or one might say forget - but I can still tell that I'm all wrong, at those times.

[dreamnnightmare.livejournal.com]

that's great. I like your description of knowing who you really re even when your personality has an overlay of anx. or depression. Your great grandmother was like that.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I don't think I ever saw any of her real personality. How awful to be so depressed for so long.

[kwirbx.livejournal.com]

I often wondered if I ever knew your real personality...ya know, whenever I knew ya I guess. You ever say something just because it was kind of the...idunno...I can't place it...like right now if I said the previous sentence to you in person, you'd try to finish the thought with kinda hail marry, rapid fire, suggestions even if you kinda had an idea as to what I was trying to say? Okay, that's kind of a bad example for obvious reasons...

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Um... wait... what?