New Medication For Depression

I've been battling depression since the beginning of November. I really thought it was situational. It normally is. I'm in a lull because the wedding and classes are over, but as soon as school starts in February I should be fine. Following that logic, it would seem that if I took myself out of my current situation, I would feel better.

I got to test that theory and it proved wrong. My friend's father passed away last Sunday. My husband (wow, still getting used to that) and I drove up the New Jersey for the viewing and the funeral. Now, a funeral isn't a happy occasion, but being off of work and traveling should have snapped me out of it. Instead, I was completely disengaged and down.

I feel like there are weights at the corners of my eyes and mouth, pulling the skin down. You can actually see it on my face. I always feel tired and in a haze.

I saw my therapist this week, but I found the appointment repetitive and pointless. Her theory that I'm craving chaos in my life and that's why I want to self-destruct seems inaccurate. Frankly, my life is in chaos. My basement has been flooding periodically since we got back from the honeymoon.

When the plumbing backs up we move out, the plumbers come, think they've fixed it, we move back in, the basement floods again, we move back out. I've been living out of suitcases for weeks. Finally we learned last week that we had to replace the main sewer line. There goes all the money we got for the wedding.

If that's not chaos, I don't know what is! ! !

And still I'm down... I saw my psychiatrist today to follow up on the higher dose of my mood stabilizer. I told him it left me too sedated, so he decided to add Wellbutrin to my daily regimen. He told me it would give me more energy, and there would be no weight gain or sexual side effects. Sign me up!

I start Wellbutrin tomorrow. I hope it brings me back. I don't want to feel this way any more.

Seasonal Depression or Something Else

I'm taking a break from vulvodynia and pudendal neuralgia blogging in order to share something else personal.

I'm having some trouble with sleep and anxiety. The last few weeks I've had bouts of insomnia and an elevated level of day-to-day anxiety. I know daylight savings time really threw me off, especially since I was out of time that weekend. The darkness that begins to creep over the skyline at 4:00pm is really getting me down. But despite of the lowered mood and the shift in time, I can't fall asleep.

This produces one nasty cycle: I have trouble initially falling asleep, then I worry I won't be able to fall asleep, my anxiety level increases, and then I can't sleep. You would think there was a pill for that, well there is, actually, there are a few, and nothing is working for me. I take a low dose Ambien, but it hasn't been able to get me to sleep. I have drugs for anxiety, but they haven't been able to take the edge off to help me fall asleep.

It's a mess. I'm seeing my psychiatrist on Monday to tweak my drugs, but until then I have feeling I'll be pretty tired.

On top of the anxiety produced by trying to go to sleep, I've been really anxious about school. I feel low and panicky when I think about having to go to class.

So this leads me to wonder, is this seasonal depression? I've always loved the fall, so that seems unlikely. Is it stress from the end of the semester? I'm in the home stretch, but the concepts in chemistry have become extremely complex. Could it simply be that the efficacy of my drugs have plateaued and I need to boost them? Maybe it's all of the above.

Whatever it is, it's taking a serious toll on me. I might go buy an over-the-counter sleep aid to get me through the rest of the week.