A Day Late and Likely a Few Dollars Short

     I seem to have settled into an every other week type groove lately, and, as that is working for me, I plan on continuing that trend. However, it's Sunday as opposed to my quasi-usual Saturday update, and that's a good thing, this week. Friday is what I want to base this entry around.

    I had a psychiatrist appointment on Friday. I see a psychiatrist because, at some point, it became clear that my depression was problematic in a couple of ways. One way, of course, is that it's depression. Depression, as many know, sucks. Even when it's not that bad, it's still an issue. It sneakily causes all sorts of things, from lack of motivation, to very dark thoughts, to anger, to...so many things.

    As many of us have heard over the years, depression also lies. It lies in sneaky, smooth-talking ways, too. Depression is kind of like every narcissist you've ever met. It gaslights you into thinking nothing's wrong. It destroys your impetus to do things that you actually like, even though you know doing that thing would cheer you up for a little bit. I've heard depression described as everything from a black raincloud that follows you everywhere to a venomous snake coiled inside your mind.

    I believe those to be accurate descriptions. 

    I've likely had depression for a long, long time, but it was discovered and first treated by a nurse practitioner I went to way back in 2019, before the stroke. I may have related this before, and if so, please excuse my repetition, but I recall the appointment pretty well. 

    I was likely in for something having to do with my migraines, as they were a major problem at that point for about 8 years. So, I checked in relatively often, with my care provider. I had to. I had been on several different meds to try to corral the extreme headaches, and those meds needed to be monitored. I was on a blood pressure med, as well, which also needed to be monitored, I had allergies I needed to keep in check, the usual stuff you see a care provider for. 

    I can't remember exactly what we were talking about, but in the conversation, she stopped writing, looked directly at me, tilted her head to the side and said, "You're depressed."

    The thought had never occurred to me before that moment. Sure, I had a few things to be depressed about. My eldest son was about to reach adulthood, graduating from high school. He'd told us since he was 3 years old that he was moving out when he "grew up," and had experimented with living away from home a few times. My mom had moved out of state to live with my dad, so we had no backup care for my then 8 year old son, and no one to help if my husband and I wanted to go out on a date. My job was stressful as it was, though I loved it, and was not made easier by those every-other-day-migraines. I did have hobbies, mainly theater and singing which I was doing regularly, but that, too, was affected by my migraines.

    She was right, of course, I was depressed. She was just the first person to see it.

    So, she put me on an antidepressant. It helped, however, it also completely erased my libido and most of my general emotions. I could act emotions, and did that onstage and also in the rest of my life, but inside I felt, well, flat.

    Not too long after that, of course, I had the brain hemorrhage. The med did help me through the immediate issues with that, and for that I'm very grateful. I still had a lot of depression to deal with, though it was more situational, as one might expect. 

    After I got home, I decided that I wanted to try a different antidepressant, and asked my new nurse practitioner. She put me on another one, which, like the first, was an SSRI. That one didn't help in the libido department, plus, my mood was still just...off.

    Third antidepressant was an SNRI, which worked better, but I had no patience.

    Third one, a different type, made me ultra dizzy, on top of my usual super dizziness. No go there.

    The next one felt almost magical. It worked! I had a sex drive, and I didn't get angry for no reason! I was super happy. But I needed to keep going up on the dosage, and ended up hitting the limit of what was considered healthy.

    At that point, I just decided to not do another one, and try to see what I could do with nutrition and a tincture that had mood regulating qualities. That was a nice thought, but yeah no.

    Then I decided I would find a psychiatrist. They have a tendency to know more about brain meds than other providers. So I found one about an hour and a half or so from where I live.

    Our first appointment was...I'll just say I think I caught her at a bad time. But, she was able to prescribe me a med in the same family as the one that worked best (classified as a tricyclic antidepressant). I could go higher in the dosage than the other one was able to be prescribed for.

    That one worked and is the med that I take today. But, of course, there's a bit of a catch. It started raising my pulse rate and blood pressure. I'm still within safe levels, though, and have decided that I can handle this without freaking out. Well, without freaking out much, anyway.

    Now, on to yesterdays appointment. I've sucked at sleeping since I was a baby. It's just a personality trait at this point. Some people are funny, some people are grumpy, I don't sleep worth a crap. I've tried a lot of things. I wound up taking 10 mg of melatonin for a while, after going up from 1 mg. I decided that if I kept that up, I might never make my own. 

    So, I tried certain gummy supplements. Those work really well, but now, they can interact with my antidepressant, so I don't use them unless I really, really need to.

    Then, I decided it was a good idea to talk to my psychiatrist about it. Lack of sleep causes problems for me during the day. I know it's a problem for anyone. For instance, though, I've been having a hard time just lately with some just not ideal nights of sleep. I was walking in to the gym at therapy the other day, and just as my COTA said, cheerfully, "what's your number for dizziness today," I unexpectedly tilted into and almost knocked over a partially full water cooler.

    So, I laughed, looked at her and said "Let's call that a 6." She grinned as well after she was sure I was ok and said, "OK then! Let's get to it!"

    And we did. 

    Whatever the case, I can't just go lurching around, possibly murdering water coolers.

    Luckily, my appointment with the psychiatrist was the day after. So, I let her know about how things were going, and she had an idea she'd been thinking on since the last time I'd seen her. The idea is a mood stabilizer that has an added bonus of making your mind quiet down after you take it. My mind races, pretty much constantly, so I'm totally onboard. 

    I start that med likely tomorrow. I'm hoping it will help, I'll let you all know either way.

    All of this blog entry is to say, really, don't give up. If something doesn't work, try a different way. If you can't figure something out, find someone who can. There's no shame in needing assistance, we all do. We live in a global society, really, and everyone has something to add to it.