The Pill

I had my first therapy session the other day, which once again, disssolved into a river of tears on my part. The talk was good, the therapist wants me to focus less on long-term “big picture” goals and more on small, workable goals I can achieve in the near term; easily achievable successess, benchmarks. Things to help re-establish my new reality.

Considering that I haven’t been getting much sleep in the last 7 weeks, and I spend most days in a state of anxiety, I was also directed to make an appointment with my Primary Care Provider about getting script for something for anxiety+depression and see if that helps with the insomnia.

All in all, it was a good talk, but I still felt like I was drowning in an olympic sized swimming pool of pointlessness. Still, I am patently in the wrong mindset to be making decisions for myself, so I am just going to obey the orders until I feel I can make decisions for myself again; healthy decisions. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to take any actions. I had spent all the “can do” I had in my system, so I just curled up to the sound of something streaming on Netflix and waited until I could get the moivation to move again. It really would be easier if this would all just end; one way or another.

I finally managed to get the motivation to make an appointment with my Primary Care Provider. They got me in the same day, which I guess was yesterday. Everything was sort of a daze. Nurse asked me what my visit was for, told them stress/anxiety. Filled out the stress/anxiety/depression/suicide form for “how are you feeling”; the “have you thought about …” or “have you felt …” didn’t have any granularity more frequent than daily. I wanted to add an extra column for “non stop”.

“Have you felt like this before?” “No”

“Have you ever been diagnosed with any of these conditions?” “No”

“When did all this start?” “02/10”

“Do you want me to put this down as a life event?” “That would fit”

Eventually sat down to talk to the doctor. It was another good talk, though I still spent half of it contributing to the rehydration of the deserts of the world.

In the end the Doctor perscribed Trazodone, bi-weekly therapy, a reduction in stress at work (going to start taking every Monday off for a while), daily exercise (at least a 30 minute run/walk every day), follow up sessions to monitor the effects of the Trazodone, and a stack of lab work (I was already due for some labs, and I guess the doctor wants to make certain that the stress hasn’t triggered anything else odd in my body).

I picked up the perscription on the way home and picked up some groceries while I was out. Once home I made an appointment with the therapist for the next week; wanted to update them on the doctors orders and get everything on the same page.

I can only take 1 pill each day before bed, it apparently has a side-effect of just knocking you out, with the primary effect of relaxing the anxiety/depression for the following day. It was a sort of long night of waiting, trying to figure out when I should even take the pill. Needed to take it with food; I am not usually an evening eater. Not certain how fast it would react. Not certain how it would leave me feeling the next morning. I normally get up around 0500, and so I figured aiming for 8 hours would be a good target; even before all of this I rarely slept more than 6 hours a night.

I finally took the pill and I noticed I was crashing out w/in the first hour. I eventually rolled over listening to whatever show was playing on the TV.

I woke up to the alarm, dismissed it, and went back to sleep.

Woke up to the second alarm, snoozed it, and went back to sleep.

Snoozed the reminder alarm, then snoozed it again, and again, and again; I finally dismissed the second alarm completely.

An hour later I woke up on my own.

I dunno how I expected to feel, I am not even certain how to describe it. I wasn’t suddenly happy or bouncy or anything, but I did feel motivated, and I wasn’t anxious about anything. While prepping coffee and emptying the dishes I started thinking up ways to start making a project chart. Start tracking all the little things around the house that I needed to get done. Prioritize them. Take notes. Making a list of small, easily achievable tasks, as I had discussed with the therapist.

While waiting on coffee I decided to do some morning exercises; jumping jacks, high knees, kinetic stretches. During this exercise routine I realized that I should be giving myself deadlines for some of these. To not just let myself get back into the habit of doing nothing.

That is when it dawned on me.. everything I needed to do was everything my spouse had promised to do for themselves, all the things they said they knew they needed to do. The planning, the scheduling, the taking control of daily habits. The exercise, the therapy, even the medication.

Here I am, suddenly standing in my spouses shoes. I would like to say that I understand them suddenly, but I don’t. I am willing to do whatever it takes; therapy, exercises, planning, whatever .. in order to get this feeling to go away. I am not used to this feeling, and I don’t want to ever be used to it. I don’t want to be a person with whom this becomes so normal that they rebel against life choices that remind them of the state they are in, feeling bad for doing nothing. Finding ways to blame others for their own inaction.

Sadly, before taking that pill I couldn’t get myself to be motivated at all. Yet here I am, making plans, moving forward, trying to get out of this rut.

Now I just need to keep the inertia moving in the right direction.