Medication Changes

At my psychiatrist appointment on July 31st, after talking it through and seeing that after several medication increases recently have done no good, we decided to do a complete 180 and start over with the medication. I'd been on Paxil for four years, Latuda for two, and Wellbutrin for a couple years, I can't remember exactly now. I was at a high dose for all of them, and yet was feeling worse all the time. I know that sometimes medication loses its effect over time, and I think that's what happened. We talked it over and after much deliberation more so on his part, we decided to try Zoloft at 50 mg. Over the next 7 to 10 days I was to ween myself off the previous medication while immediately starting the Zoloft. After a week I was off my old medications and only on Zoloft. I've been on Zoloft for 16 days now.

I had, and have, hopes that this will work. That I'll get all the old garbage out of my system, and start fresh with one medication. I like that thought. I hate drugging myself up so much. I hate not knowing what medication is working and what isn't and what combo of medications to take, what to increase, what to decrease and when. It's a nightmare. It's only been 16 days. I haven't missed a dose. It takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months for the new medication to build up in your system and to be able to fully feel its effects. I'm slightly over 2 weeks now.

And, it's been rough. For the first 10 days or so I felt no change. I had no withdrawal symptoms, didn't feel better or worse. Just a flat line. I thought that was interesting and odd. But the past several days I have felt more of the effects of the change. I don't feel good. I can tell that whatever good the old medications were doing is gone, and the new medicine is not up to par right now. I feel shaky, fragile. I feel like I'm walking on egg shells and at any moment I could lose my footing and fall flat on my face. It's hard. I have felt this way at other times in my life and I hate it. I am desperately trying to be patient and hold out a little longer, but in those dark moments it is very, very difficult to hold on. No knowledge of how  medications work makes it easier in those moments. These past several days I have felt dead. I do nothing. I eat and I sleep. And I wait. It is all I can do. It isn't healthy. I am having a hard time. My sleep is so messed up. I sleep for 48 hours straight, then can't sleep for 24 more hours. I stay up all night no matter how tired I am. I sleep on the couch during the day. I miss life. It's passing me by. But I guess it always does.

Last night I cried. I don't cry very often. I used the Crisis Text Line. Or I attempted to anyway. I waited over an hour for a real human to text me back. I guess they were really busy. I finally gave up. I would have liked a trained professional to talk to, but it wasn't in the stars I guess. So that wasnt very helpful at all. After waiting for a half hour or so, the hot spot passed and I was back to cool. So I didn't utilize the suicide hotline, but I could have.

How do I be so open and honest? I'm terrified to try. I want to die. I want to get some terminal disease and just let it take me. Depression is a terminal disease though, but you have to end your own life and that sounds exhausting. Maybe that's a good thing. To be too tired and empty to kill yourself. I don't know. I feel like I hover between life and death almost every day. I haven't cut myself, it's too much effort. And I don't feel like it'll dull this pain anymore. At least not last night. I was just so sad. I know I'm not alone, I know I have my tribe who loves me and cheers for me. I've explained this before I'm not going to do it again. All the support in the world vanishes in the face of depression. And you walk the pain alone. It is a lonely disease.

So much sadness. I cry for myself. I cry for my family, for my friends. I cry because I feel like I'm losing. And I cry because I want it to end.

I go back to the doctor on Tuesday. One of my best friends is taking me, to ensure that I go and not give up. I will tell the doctor how I'm feeling. We both knew this would probably happen. Again, I just have to give it time. I know it was the right thing to do to switch medications. I'd been feeling that for awhile, even before we talked about it. But it's been a hard change so far.

And I am tired.