thank god for drugs October 26, 2008

I started the Webbutr!n last week and I am over the hump of the jittery-speedy-floaty feelings. I feel like a cranked out freak the first week I take it and then it mellows out. To answer a commenter’s question, yes I have tried therapy. HAH. Have I ever. Many times. I am a therapy proponent, and I would be a mierable looser without it, but when I take Wellbutr!n (this time and one other time at the beginning of the year – I stopped to attempt breastfeeding), it is so clear to me that something is wrong with my brain. This something is correctable through medication (shocking) and not really so correctable through therapy. Well, maybe I could change my own brain chemistry if I could go live in an ashram for a few years, but that is sooooo not happening.

I only wish I had tried this earlier. For some reason (stigma? stubornness? fear?) it took me years and years of being depressed, and anxious, and loop-thoughty to finally try medication. Instead I went to therapy (to great benefit). I went on spiritual journeys, I was rigorously honest with myself, I surrounded myself with good, honest, loving people. I went to more therapy. I have done it all. But not until this past January did I finally try some effing medication. Like, hello!? Anyway, this pill does not make my problems disappear, but it takes takes a HUGE edge off the depression, and makes it so much easier for me to cope with my problems, even at the lowest prescribed dose. And thankfully, it does not flatten the top end of my emotional range. So things are better.

funk October 13, 2008

I am in a funk, but I elaborate about that later.

First, the drinking. It has been mostly very, very FUN. Wine tasting, tipsy sex, a glass of wine after putting the kids to bed on a Friday night. Searching for wines is also amazing and overwhelming. And I discovered that I get quiet and observant when I get a little drunk, which is hysterical if you know me IRL, being an intrinsically unquiet person. The process is also confusing. I think most people my age (33) have, by this point, figured out how much they can drink, if they can mix different alcohols, how much water they need to drink, if there will be any consequences the next day. For me it is all new, and I am discovering that too much wine and no water = parched feeling of wanting to die in the middle of the night, crappy sleep and grumpy me the next day. Does drinking make any of you more depressed the next day? Just so you know, by ‘too much wine’ i mean 3 glasses, which is the most I have had so far. Sometimes I wonder if I like it too much, talk about it too much, think about it too much. Maybe that is good. Some checks and balances. Ultimately I know I cannot avoid a period of thinking about it mucho after 17 years of abstinence. It is just too damn exciting.

What I want to blog about today, however, is the subject of me being in a funk. Depressed. Insecure. I have made some new friends lately (the last 6 months at my new job) and that is a vulnerable process for me. One friend in particular, I really like and we became instantly close. We planned a number of trips together, both alone and with our families. Ah. How do I write about this without it being boring?? And long?? Um. I am just always wondering if people really like me and it takes me a long time to trust that someone does…that I am worthy of smart, funny people liking me. I make everything they do personal. Do you know what I mean? Like if New Friend is a little off one day, or doesn’t return my call the same night, or tells me that she would rather we take two cars on our upcoming family vacation after we planned on all going in her minivan, I get all ’she doesn’t like me anymore’ instead of thinking maybe she had a bad day, or didn’t get my message, or just wants some quality time with her husband. Why must I be so insecure and self centered? I think about everything too much. Today I just wish I was someone else. Someone who wasn’t so hard on myself. So needy. This leads me to thinking I should go back on antidepressants, because when I was on Wellbutr!n, I ruminated so.much.less. But I was a little angrier too. Anyway thank you for reading this self indulgent post when I hardly ever post anymore.

p.s. amer!cas funniest home videos is so.much.funnier after a beer. for realz.