Searching for my lost love of life

There are many challenges that come with progressing through anxiety and depression. One of the main challenges I am feeling at the moment is the loss of my love and zest for life. Those of you who know me know that I (usually) love life. I maintain a sense of almost childlike wonder for this beautiful world we live in and particularly nature. There’s nothing I enjoy quite so much as being out in the world, encountering all of nature’s beauty.

I also love to laugh, and smile, and talk to anyone and everyone and hear their stories.

Anxiety and depression have overtaken this love and passion that I have for life. I find it difficult to find joy in anything because anxiety and depression become so all-encompassing.

I find myself longing for the day when I once again find joy in the little (and the big) things. It will be a clear sign that I am successfully overcoming this mental illness and finding my old self again.

The waiting game

One of the most challenging aspects of going on antidepressant medications is the waiting game. None of them work especially quickly, with the general consensus being that they typically take between 4 to 6 weeks to take proper effect on symptoms of depression and anxiety. So you start a medication knowing this, but still hoping you might be one of the lucky ones who gets some good results more quickly.

The other challenging aspect is that you also need to give antidepressants this time to find out if the particular one you are trying is going to be right for you.

It’s a scary time. It’s a time that you try to maintain optimism and hope that you are on the right antidepressant to recovery. The optimism is hard when you are still feeling lots of anxiety... because you haven’t been on the antidepressant long enough yet for it to help with that!

I am choosing optimism. I am working hard on believing that Effexor is the right medication for me. I am reminding myself daily that I firmly believe this. Each morning when I take the pill I am telling myself that I am one day closer to feeling much less anxious. It had only been one week so there might be a lot more days I have to tell myself this before it comes true. But I remain hopeful and believe that I am on the right path and I just need to be patient.

Yesterday I was reminded that it is too early for tbe medication to have taken affect when I attended an appointment with my Psychiatrist and was extremely nervous about having to leave the house. I was anxious on the trip there, anxious for the duration of the 15 minute appointment (I think my Psychiatrist cut it short because she could see how distressed I was), anxious on the trip home and then experienced residual anxiety for some hours afterwards.

And that’s why I’m pinning my hopes on Effexor being the medication that will take away the worst of my anxiety and allow me to start working on exposure therapy and getting out of the house and back into the world top start living again. Because being agoraphobic is no way to live a life and I am so ready to start living again.

So, if you’re thinking what can you do as my friends to help me, please send some positive vibes my way that I am on the right medication and it will start to work for me sooner rather than later. Or send positive vibes that I can remain patient until the medication does its thing!

Patience is a virtue... one I usually have but at the moment it’s proving a challenge.

Paranoia

One of the worst things about suffering a mental illness is the level of paranoia you start to feel with things like medication changes. Now, in the age of the internet, you can feed that paranoia by over-researching.

Having just started my new medication Effexor, I have been doing lots of reading about it to know what I might be in for regarding possible side effects. What I also discover was that I had been given a generic brand of the drug by the pharmacy, which a lot of people have noted seems to have much worse potential side effects than the brand name version of the drug.

So in my paranoia I asked my Mum if she would go to the pharmacy today to see if she could exchange the generic one for the brand name version, which they were happy to do.

Great!

Except the brand name version capsules contain a number of tiny beads instead of the two tablets that were in the generic version, which made taking a half dose easy (as recommended by my doctor for the first four days to allow my body to get used to the medication).

More internet research. Apparently you can open the brand name capsule and sprinkle the beads on food if you don’t want to swallow the capsule. The challenge for me tomorrow will be trying to measure out just half the beads to take. It will be impossible to work out exactly half as the beads are apparently very small and numerous, but this is what I will try.

Hopefully all will go well and after the next two days I can just go straight to taking the full dose capsule as my doctor recommended.

Resurrecting the blog.

It’s been a long time since I last blogged. I’ve decided to resurrect my blog to document my journey back to mental health and well-being, which I have been doing on my Facebook account but some of my status updates were getting rather long and cumbersome.

For anyone who stumbles upon this blog and doesn’t know, the current point in my mental health journey sometimes feels like it is still just beginning despite the fact I had my breakdown in April 2018. I did rally somewhat from that initial breakdown only to have another in July. This one landed me in the Prince Charles Hospital for a 6 night stint in their Mental Health Wards. I really haven’t made much progress since then, despite a additional 3 week stay in the Mental Health Wards at Caboolture Hospital in November. 

Where am I today? Today was day 1 of starting a new antidepressant: Effexor XR. I have been on a bit of a cocktail of drugs since my breakdown with complete changes when I was in Caboolture Hospital. Unfortunately I haven’t yet found the right medication and/or combination of medications to get me to a sufficiently functioning place to be able to tackle my mental illness... a severe generalised anxiety disorder with (practically housebound) agoraphobia. I have been weaned off medications (sometimes much too quickly) and started on others that have had little to no effect. I have very high hopes for the Effexor because I need to - I am running out of options. It’s a scary thought.

Day 1 was not too bad, as you’d expect as the drug hasn’t had a chance to build up in my system yet. Despite this, I did spend a few hours this morning feeling anxious about potential side effects. The last antidepressant I tried (just last week) had side effects I found so unpleasant that I gave up after 4 days. This time I know I need to do everything to try and stick it out if side effects come on. The one that always gets me is nausea. Why is that, you ask? Well, nausea happens to be one of the main side effects I experience with my anxiety. My agoraphobia stems from a fear of being ill in public and embarrassing myself. This has never, ever, not once, happened. My rational brain knows this. My unhelpful thoughts choose to be intrusive and make me think ‘but this time might be different’. I’ve taken to carrying a sick bag in my handbag. I really look forward to the day I take that damn thing out of there.

So that’s a bit of an intro/where I’m at. I don’t know how often I’ll post but I might use this as a public journal of sorts. People say I’m brave for being so open about my mental illness but I see it as just trying to help people understand what I (and so many others) are going through.

My goal is to get my life back. One year ago I was working, spending time with friends, going to the theatre and for the most part, really enjoying life. I know that if I was there, I can get back to that. Also, I’ve beaten this before... but that was a long time ago and a different story to be told.