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.