As some of you know, I am having a wild adventure with psychiatric medications, or rather the lack thereof. The stuff I had been on for over three years has stopped providing enough benefits to justify the level of side effects, so my doctor thinks there is something better for me. The fun part is that before I can start on anything new, I have to get the old stuff completely out of my system. I am currently down to the 37.5 mg dosage of Effexor once a day, which is really not much at all. I take this dosage for two more days. Then I am officially unmedicated for the first time since the era some of you may recall as "the drunk and naked years," during which I did a lot of exactly what that sounds like, as well as being unable to do much of anything without having insane crying fits.
Well, I guess I won't be *completely* unmedicated. I have Lorazepam! Yay! Or something! So basically, I still can't really do anything, but it's because I'm unconscious. It's like I'm a crying baby, and my doctor was like, "here, have some scotch" and BAM it's quiet time for the next few hours.
This has basically led to me being a complete failure at everything. I sit around my house and have panic attacks, then take a pill and nap for like seventeen hours, then do it all over again. I can't keep plans made with anyone, I can't have Ronin around, I can barely shower. Apologies to anyone who has been subject to my "hey that sounds awesome, I'll totally leave my house and do stuff with you...oh wait I'm insane and I can't."
Yesterday was in all honesty the worst day I have had in a long time. I woke up from an incredibly bizarre and frightening dream in a panic, feeling this deep sense of hopelessness. Honestly, the only coherent thought I could formulate was "I am going to die before ever being ok again." (To clarify- I am not feeling at all suicidal, thankfully. I do not *want* to die, and have no intention of speeding up the process. I just felt that I would never get better.) I can't even fully express how awful it was. The panic, the sadness, the hopelessness...I just really don't have words for it. It was like floating through space, being pulled closer and closer to a black hole and knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it. I ended up spending almost the entire day in bed. I just couldn't face consciousness.
Today I feel a tiny bit better. I'm still in a near-constant frightened state, but it's a low-grade "everything is terrible and scary" rather than a full-fledged panic. I can't really see colours like normal, and I kind of feel like I'm covered in bubble wrap and can't really interact with the world. But in retrospect, that's pretty much how my life feels when I'm unmedicated.
On a slightly more cheerful note, dessert! I had been seeing pictures all over the place of these delightful, pretty little cookie things. I did some clicking, and discovered that they're called macarons. I did some more clicking and found a recipe, and said to myself, "hey, those are basically the meringue cookies I sometimes make when I'm feeling fancy. Except they are even more fancy, seeing as how the batter stuff is delicately piped onto baking sheets instead of just slopped on with a spoon, and also they have lovely filling." So sometime soon maybe I'll try to make the extra-fancy filled version. Lemon and raspberry, perhaps.
For now though, I have a family-sized package of croissants and some squeezable jam.
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