Breakdown

I have to say that today was not my best day. I had what you might call... a relapse? I’ve been feeling horrible lately. When I start feeling this way over a certain period of time, it becomes a very bad sign. Not only do I have the anxiety disorder I’d previously disclosed, but I also happen to have dysthymia. It’s a type of chronic depression and well... it’s not very fun. I’d been doing pretty well until recently. Today and last night I had a breakdown. Again, not very fun.

So after crying my face off in therapy, my therapist suggested talking to my doctor about raising the dosage of my medication. I’m not particularly fond of the idea. Actually, I hate the idea. But I’ll talk about it with the doc regardless. Talking never killed anyone. I don’t think so anyway.

I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that anti-depressants are NOT happy pills. They do not make me feel happy. They do not make me high. They do not induce any feelings of good will or euphoria. What they do is put me at the “normal” level. The average baseline if you will.

I don’t take the pills to make me happy. In fact, it bothers me to no end that I have to take medication to feel “normal”. I hate that when I don’t take it, I’m trapped in an unbearable mental state. I’m very uncomfortable raising the dosage I’m on. How high will the dosage get? Sometimes it feels like a lose/lose situation. But when it’s working, it really is working and I feel right. (And no, I did not easily jump on the “take a pill and fix it” band wagon.)

I am defensive about this because it’s once again something a lot of people don’t understand and are rather quick to pass judgement on. The people I live with for instance.

That’s about all I have to say today. Not very uplifting. I’m actually kind of neutral about all of this right now. Should I mention that I’m okay and that you’ll probably see a very different blog post tomorrow?

Lauren.