derien | dry boringness about my mental and physical state

I had an appointment with the doctor, Monday, to discuss the ultrasound test I had weeks ago. I had thought that the phone message which the dr's office left on my answering machine was referring to that, but apparently they were telling me my blood test had come back with nothing abnormal. (Which almost annoys me, because I feel fairly certain that my blood sugar has problems, some days, but apparently it didn't the day they did the test.) (Yes, I did fast. But maybe I did it right, somehow.) Anyhow, point being, ultrasound. The lining in my uterus is three times as thick as it should be. I guess this is a sort of almost endometriosis kind of state? She (dr) thinks I should do birth control hormones to regulate it. I opted for the patch, and she gave me a prescription for that which I haven't gotten filled, yet.

Then we went on to discuss my memory problems, and ... I don't know how I feel about how that discussion went. I feel as though I have huge holes in my memory. I forget things constantly, both long and short term memories. My concentration is crap. Motivation is non-existent. I talked to her about depression, and she thought I have a form of mild depression, she gave it a term something like disphasia (sound good?).

Now. Depression for me is a hard thing to pin down. When I'm in the middle of feeling like a complete and utter loser I feel as though I've never felt any differently. I've been feeling kind of like that for a while, and that's a major reason I haven't been writing in my LJ, or writing much at all. No letters to friends or family who I really should be communicating with, and very little on stories. I'm such a boring loser, after all, how can I have anything interesting to say?

On the other hand, I've had times in my life when I've been much more depressed than lately. I think. See, here's the tricky part about it. She gave me a sample of Wellbutrin XL, and I went ahead and took one as soon as I got out of her office (she gave me samples). I really shouldn't have jumped on that, but I was feeling so excited about the thought of not feeling wobbly, fragile, and like I wanted to either kill someone or burst into tears at any moment. I should have sat back and wrote about how I felt for a few days before jumping on that. I mean, just taking the time to write often makes me feel better, anyway, and I know that. But... here's the other thing. I opted for the patch on the birth control hormones because taking pills on a regular basis has not proven to be something I can do very well, in the past. I was on the Pill for years, and screwed it up all the time. If you screw that up you just take two the next day, or two for two days if you miss two days, and I was doing that all the time. You don't do that with Wellbutrin. I took the one Monday, I forgot it entirely Tuesday, and got a little wobbly Wednesday morning, so I took another Wednesday. I hate like hell taking things when I don't feel a need for them. I don't take painkillers until I absolutely can't stand the pain any more, it's making me too distracted to concentrate on what I'm doing at all. (Which makes her other suggestion - that I take painkillers for a week in advance of my period to help the pain - seem very unnatural to me.) I don't think I can do this on a regular basis like the stuff is supposed to be used.

But. I really like the idea of having it around, available, in case I do ever again get horribly depressed. It has crossed my mind to lie and pretend that they work for me, so I can keep the samples and get a prescription.

On the days that I did take it I can't report any major changes. I was in a good mood, but I might have been, anyway. I wasn't bouncing off the walls happy. I did notice that I was more resistant to the cranky passengers than I have been most days, lately, and that I was less self-conscious. Either of those is often a result of being in a good mood, or sometimes having one of those "I don't give a crap" attitudes can produce a somewhat good mood. I'm kind of afraid, though, that being in an uncaring attitude might make me lose my edge on my work. My concentration was just as bad, yesterday, possibly even worse, while I was on spot, and even though I constantly dragged it back I worried that if I got too much more into the "I don't give a crap" I might start just pretending to pay attention. I mean, a little of that is good, it takes the edge off, but too much and I could slip from my standards. I might hate my job, but doing my job well is something that's always been important to me, no matter what job I'm doing. Not giving a shit about doing my job well would be... wrong and bad. I'm a bit of a perfectionist about some things. When I get depressed it's usually because I'm falling short of the goals I set for myself. Even if they're easy goals like getting to work by 8am to do some overtime and now it looks like I can't get there before 9am. um. See? And I don't even care all that much, that's the bad part. I mean, it's not like they're expecting me, though, because it's completely voluntary overtime for spot, so maybe that's why I'm not so bothered.

must eat and shower.

Touchy subject

I'm on a mood regulator -- lamictal.

I hate psychiatric drugs. I decided to try it and stay on it after a brief stint in the hospital. After I left, I went through a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy course, and was on lamictal. I did not consent to drugs until it was pointed out to me that in cases of long term depression, you really do have physical differences in the brain (centering mostly on the hypothalimus (sp?)). After that, I decided to give it a try.

The combination did me a lot of good, I can tell you!

I am also crappy at remembering to take meds. They do make pill boxes with alarms... Dunno what else to suggest.

Date: 2005-09-22 02:58 pm (UTC)

mollyrazor.livejournal.com

no subject

The problem with only taking the Wellbutrin on days you feel crappy is that it doesn't work that way. It takes up to two weeks of taking it (or Zoloft, or Prozac, or Paxil) every day before you can really tell if it's making a difference. Any difference you feel from one or two days of taking it is probably a little bit of the pill, and a whole lot of the placebo effect. Here's a quote from the official website: "When you start WELLBUTRIN XL, you may begin to feel better within the first couple of weeks of treatment. However, the full antidepressant effect of WELLBUTRIN XL may not be seen for several weeks. It is important to be patient and give your medicine a chance to work, so keep taking it daily or as your doctor recommends."

I've been on Wellbutrin (SR, not XL, the only difference being XL is extended release so you only have to take it once a day) for something like 3 years. If you decide to stay on it, my biggest caution to you is that they make all this big noise about "a low risk of sexual side effects" but that doesn't mean no risk. It hurts my sex drive less than Zoloft did, but it still hurts it.

Date: 2005-09-22 03:08 pm (UTC)

dances-withcats.livejournal.com

The mild form of depression is called dysthymia, and it does sound a lot like the mental state you're describing. It's also the state I was in for many years without really knowing anything was wrong until I became suicidally depressed and finally sought treatment. I took Paxil for about 2 years, went off it (and promptly got depressed again), and now I'm taking Lexapro.

The SSRI antidepressants (like Paxil and Lexapro), and I believe the Wellbutrin (which is a slightly different type of antidepressant) generally take about a week to start working....so you can't really just pop one and instantly feel better, you've got to take it daily for at least a week or two before you can really tell if it works.

I was afraid at first that taking antidepressants would destroy my creativity, but I found it had the opposite effect. I had the energy to work at creative things and to do what I needed to do....because I wasn't so overwhelmed with feeling crappy and trying not to hurt myself. :-)

You can find good info on different medications, what they do, and their potential side effects, through a website called depression.com (I believe), in case you're curious.