Another medication post...

So I think that it's best for me to not think about medication again until I actually get somewhere in therapy. I have come to the realization that I was looking for a "miracle drug" that would make me feel better without side effects or making me feel medicated. Such a thing does not exist, and until I feel more comfortable with myself, or with my problems, I don't think that medication will be very successful, as I don't think that it's very possible for me to take it and not resist it, right now. My recent bout with Wellbutrin has made me remember how much I hate the 'medicated' feeling, and so if I can get around all this shit without medication, that would be great. However, if I do need medication in the future, I at least need to wait until I'm comfortable enough with myself and my problems to actually give the medication a chance.

Isn't this supposed to be done at Thanksgiving?

So, in light of my last post, I have decided to make a list for myself, of all the people and things that I really think are basically worth living for, that bring me joy, that make me feel alive, and that I feel are really worth my effort to maintain...


my photography
my silly filmmaking
Peter
fuzzy rodents
snow
sledding
Bryan and Anna
getting food at 2am
making up stories in my head about random people
movies
reading a book in bed with the heater on next to me
falling asleep in the crook of Peter's arm
driving to new places
flying
walks through woods or fields

So, next time I feel down, I will have this list, and it will hopefully help. I definately already feel somewhat better.

To medicate or not to medicate...

So I'm now doing some thinking about my decision to seek medication for my anxiety/emotions...and I'm thinking that perhaps I was a bit rash in deciding such. I think that, given the situation I was in at the time, it was a valid response, but with my current situation, I think that it is perhaps not quite so good an idea as it was then.

I'm generally happier when I'm at Hampshire, and thus I tend to cope with things much better here than I do elsewhere. I really feel less able to cope right now, and this has come about since I started taking Wellbutrin. While the two may not be related, I'm thinking "why risk it?".

I think that what I really need to do, before I consider medication, is find a good therapist. I might look into cognitive behavioral therapy, I might just go back to talk therapy. I think that, really, I should at least try therapy here, where I'm more comfortable, and with a new person I might do better with, before I decide to go back on medication. If the therapy is having problems, then I can consider going back on them, but right now, I think that they have the potential to do more harm than good.

And frankly, I have too much in my life right now that I'd rather not fuck up, for me to take that big of a chance. For once in my life, I can actually step back and see that there are things and people that I genuinely enjoy, and I really don't think that potential happiness is worth the risk.

Scheduling

So I haven't been able to contact any of the psychologists on the large-ish list that I have been given. This bothers me, because I was hoping to have some sort of regular appointment set up for the beginning of the semester, but that is looking like it may not happen so soon. Likewise, I have to reschedule my appointment with the psychopharmacologist for it to be sooner, because right now the appointment is three days after my pills will run out, and I don't want to go through a needless withdrawl. If I'm going to be going back off of it, I need a few days of weaning, and if I'm going to be staying on it, I need a prescription. That will also be the session in which I decide whether I'm going to stay with that doctor or try and find someone else. I think that actually a psychiatrist instead of a psychopharmacologist might be better. Initially I thought the opposite, but I really feel that the psychopharmacologists are less personal, and I don't like that. It feels like I'm being told to do something instead of it being a mutual decision, and being told to do something is a huge trigger for rage for me, so that's bad.

Hopefully I will get into the classes I want, because if I don't, I have to reschedule a lot of stuff, and in general I don't think that there could be a better schedule for me to have. I only have to deal with each class once a week, allowing me some freedom in deciding when is the best time of the week for me to get work done, and it also leaves me more time for working on my own independent work, as well as scheduling things like therapy appointments and appointments with my committee.

Having a good schedule is really important for me this semester. I'm going to be taking four classes, something I haven't done since my first semester here at Hampshire, and I need to pass them all. One of my problems with taking that many classes is that I feel overwhelmed by the amount of time I have to spend in the wonderful high-anxiety environment that is the classroom. The thing is, it takes me about an hour to relax in a classroom. This makes longer, single classes ideal, and shorter classes that meet multiple times a week very annoying and difficult. If I only have to deal with four class periods, I think that passing four classes is very potentially possible.

Argh

I fucking hate doctors...

Meds

Well, as of probably Saturday morning, I will be on some form of medication. I got an appointment with Dr. O'Connell's nurse practitioner, Barry, on Friday. Apparently you have to be very informative with him (i.e. be clear with what you feel you need), but he's pretty good. Hopefully this will get my foot in the door enough that I can then see Dr. O'Connell the next time.

I'm still rather worried about the prospects of what type(s) of medication they may put me on. One of the things that Liza has pointed out to me is that my extreme emotions tend to actually be the cause of a lot of my problems, with the anxiety following quickly behind. And by the way, just because you don't see my "extreme emotions" doesn't mean I don't feel them - I just expend an incredible amount of energy not to express them. With my emotions added to the mix, the prospect of medication becomes even more muddled. There are a tremendous number of drugs that, to some degree or another, treat anxiety. Granted, I can't take any of the largest, most commonly prescribed group of them, but still, they're easy to find and come in generally a wide range of strengths. Emotions, on the other hand, have relatively few medications which can be used to treat them, and tend to be more on the stronger end of the spectrum. I'm worried about two possible bad situations: that A. I am prescribed something too weak/with an incorrect focus and it doesn't really do enough but that I am told to 'keep trying' or that B. I am prescribed something too strong and I end up so zombified that I can't really cope with a full load of classes. I can deal with some degree of lightness of effectiveness, and some degree of zombie-ish feeling, but not overly much on either end. Anywho. I'm just worried, because there's a lot of room for things to go wrong, I feel.

You know, this all would be so much easier if I could just show people how I'm actually feeling. Unfortunately, I really can't. There's such a mental block against it that I literally physically can't do so, except in very particular situations and/or when I've simply had too much. Because of this, I worry that I must come off as a whiny brat who exaggerates her problems, when, in reality, if anything, I tend to tone them down considerably.

Kyudo

Peter is strongly considering taking kyudo this coming semester, from Marion, the best martial arts instructor Hampshire has, and, frankly, one of the best I've met. I think it would be good for him, and that he will enjoy it, if he lets himself.

Once I have my schedule set up, if I have the correct time blocks open, I may go back to it as well. I should probably go back as a beginner, since it's been a year and a half since I practiced, but I also don't want to make Peter uncomfortable by us being in the same class. I think that it might be good for me to get back into - maybe I'm a little better prepared now to learn the patience it entails, but then again, it may also be a little too much, with all I have heaped on my plate for this coming semester. Then again, that may actually be a good reason to do it again, as something to calm me down at the end of the day.

I'm rather conflicted about this, as it could go really well or really poorly.

Requests

You know, I think that with this journal, I'm going to try and write honestly about something every day. What I would like from you, my readers, is suggestions as to topics to cover. You can reply either here or to my syndicated feed on Livejournal. I will write about anything you ask me to, I just may get to some requests sooner than others.

I will also continue to write about things as they come up.

Beliefs

I believe that we are meant to learn something from almost everything, if not everything, that happens to us in our lives. I also believe that many things in our lives happen for a reason. Now, I don't believe in 'destiny' or what have you, but I do think that, whether by our hand or something else's, we're guided toward certain paths in our lives.

I believe in a wanky form of reincarnation. I don't believe that there's a straight soul-to-soul exchange, but I believe that when we die, we all rejoin with kind of an amorphous blob of energy/spirit/soul/whatever word you want to use. When someone is born, they are scooped out of that blob of energy, and so everyone is made up of chunks of everyone/everything else. It's very circular.

While I'm not sure I believe in any sort of 'head god', I do believe in spirits of a small variety of sorts, though I think that they can/do only have a small amount of influence, if any, over life in this world. This can relatively simply be summed up by saying I believe in positive and negative energies.

So there are a few of the facets of my beliefs. I'd love to answer questions, so I can explain more/clarify.

Listening vs Listening

You know, Peter brought up a very good point tonight, as I was putting him to bed - that I'm always worried about people not listening to me, and yet I seem in fact to have a hard time listening to other people. This came up in the context of me calling Dr. O'Connell tomorrow for an appointment. I said that I was really hoping that he'd be someone who would really listen to me about what I need out of medication, and Peter interjected with "well, just remember that you need to listen to him, as well". I think I can safely say that I had never really thought about that before. I'm always so concerned that someone isn't listening to me that frequently I realize that, in fact, I haven't been listening to them. I feel that I have a reasonable reasoning behind wanting a second opinion on stuff, due to all the weird stuff surrounding Mrs. Fox, but at the same time, I think that I need to talk to myself a little bit about just how far I want to take that. If I keep hearing the same thing over and over from people, how many times do I have to be told it before I actually listen to it. I guess it's somewhat related to my issues with trust, in that I have a hard time trusting people with what is essentially my life, or at least my mental well-being. Similarly, I don't seem to trust the idea that someone can actually understand how I feel or what I mean when I'm talking to them. So much of the time I simply feel like I must be speaking another language, because people seem to frequently misinterpret what I say.

It's hard for me to relate to other people, somewhat because of this. I'm a good listener, and I give good advice, because I have an excellent memory for conversations and situations, so I can access that little library of experience (mine or listened to) in the back of my mind and spit out the correct advice for the time, but I really don't feel like it's coming from me, much of the time. I've been told by dozens of people throughout my life that I'm a "really good listener" and that I "make a great interim therapist", but what I don't think anyone really realizes is that I don't really feel attached to any of the advice I give, etc. I know I give good advice, but to me I really feel like a specialized, humanized form of google, spitting out what is best for that situation with that person at that time - it doesn't really feel like it comes from me. I 'listen' to people, and spit back advice, but I don't really listen to them.

I really need to start listening more. Well, I need to start doing a lot of things more, like believing what people say, but hey, listening more is at least a start.

Speaking of changing my behavior, once I find a therapist, or even before I do, I need to talk to someone, perhaps Liza, about the differences between CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy), and which might work better for me. In reading up on them, it seems like DBT may be better, since CBT doesn't really deal with emotions much (which are my problem) and DBT does. I need to change some of my thought patterns as well, but it seems that DBT integrates that as well. Then again, CBT may in fact be better - this is definitely an area I need external advice on. Again, with the listening...

Medication

So tomorrow I will be calling Dr. O'Connell, the psychopharmacologist that everyone seems to be recommending to me, to set up an appointment. I'm a little worried about this whole medication thing, despite being very amenable to the idea of being on medication again.

You see, I've never had good experiences with medication in the past, though much of it was due, I suspect, to the nature of the people prescribing it, and how my parents deal with me when I'm on medication. I was on a few SSRIs, all of which ended up making me extremely depressed. I was also on various stimulants such as Ritalin, Adderall, etc, which did essentially nothing for me. I was also, I think I remember, on some other stuff, but I can't really remember what all there was, and/or what the effects were, except that nothing seemed to work enough to keep me on it.

Now, this doctor, according to the various people I've talked to, is very good about listening to the patients and working with them to find something that actually works, and taking them off of things that don't. Hopefully this means that he will also listen to me when I explain what I would like to get out of being on medication, which is a little complicated.

One of the things that Liza and I talked about is the fact that while anxiety is a huge part of my problems, it really doesn't feel to me like the whole problem. It feels like one chunk of a puzzle, but not all the pieces connect to it. I feel that my emotional problems are largely overlooked, and moderately unrelated to my anxiety. While I feel that if you got rid of my anxiety, my emotional problems would lessen, I don't feel that they'd go away. I do, however, feel that if you were to get rid of my emotional over-reactiveness, the anxiety would lessen even more considerably, or at least be far easier to stamp out. So to me, what I need, first and foremost, is something to lessen that over-reactiveness, and something else, probably weaker, to work on the anxiety. I mention two drugs because I suspect that such a magical drug that does those two things does not exist yet.

This brings me to the next point, which is how I deal with medication. I don't mind being aware that I'm medicated, in terms of feeling zombie-ish (though only to a degree), but at the same time, if I'm too aware, I start trying to resist it, and then it simply does no good whatsoever. So being able to find something that will straddle that line would be wonderful, but it's not likely to happen. Granted, part of what I need to learn as I go through this is some behavioral change, such as not resisting the effects of medication, but still, anything that will help me not feel the need to would be extremely helpful. Perhaps what might be good would be to be on two medications, one stronger, one weaker. I'd be on the stronger one right now, and for the early part of the semester, while I'm still settling into therapy and my new patterns, and then as I get better about things, the stronger medication could be weaned off, and leave me with just the weaker, as a little support. Anywho. Just a thought.

So yes, I will be researching my options so that when Dr. O'Connell (who is apparently a delightful Irish man) suggests something, I can at least have some idea of what he's talking about. I like to be an informed patient.

Arlington Street

So I think I'm going to ask Peter if I can go to church with him when we go into Boston. It's kind of strange, because I've never really wanted to go to a church before. I've wanted to go to church, but never felt drawn to any particular one. But after meeting his reverend, and reading her sermons, and reading in the unitarians community how positive the people there are, I really want to go. I've always shied away from churches because I felt intimidated, or anxious, or, most of all, judged. I didn't really feel any of that when I met his reverend, and the church inside (she let us wander around inside, alone, since it was technically closed at the time) is really quite magical and gorgeous. A very awe-inspiring place, that.

Then we get to the other reason I have never gone to church - despite the fact that I am in fact one of the more spiritual people I know, I feel silly for being such. I feel silly for believing in certain things. It really goes beyond a fear of being judged for such beliefs, of having to make excuses for why I believe something - it's really something in me. Often I really feel that my beliefs are silly, or unfounded, or whatever, and yet...I still believe in them. I think that one of the things I'd like to get out of becoming part of a church, particularly a UU church, is more confidence in my own beliefs.

Then again, I'm probably not making much sense at all.

By the way, feel free to ask me what I believe. It's really a little complicated to post here, but I can sum it up well when asked, and I can respond to specific questions in great detail.