Update

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Day: 77

writing is difficult--even these updates seem difficult--it is not the actual writing--but, and I think this is related to reading, my mind just has no patience for creating--I'm not sure that is right or accurate--why I can't/won't read is still a mystery to me--waves--sense of complete normalcy, which is to say, the normal drive to find work is clear and present--these moments are brief--very brief, but long enough to let me know something is not right--the rest of the day, in what appears to be med based, I just don't care--so I fiddle while Rome burns--and there is just no drive or desire to do what I know needs to be done--I know logically what I should do, but some internal process is disconnected by the medication and I seek to spend my time in mindless FB games and avoid anything, avoid is not the right word, but things of the adult world, and that is not quite accurate either, but many of the things (like finding work) that should be of extreme importance to me, on meds, just don't matter--logically, my mind is clear and I know what I should be doing (looking for work), but internally/mentally, I am like a child that either doesn't understand/comprehend duty and obligation and work or I am fuddled with meds such to make me act as if intoxicated, which is to say, just don't care--tied to this is a complete lack of vision--I seem not to be able to see or think beyond the present moment--what is ironic is I have worked for years to live in the present moment and now that I am here, in this med induced state, I find I am like the guy who jumped from a building and at each floor he passed on the way down said he was feeling just fine and the breeze was very nice

bookstore yesterday, first time in about six weeks--unheard of for me--the experience was nothing short of surreal--I had no desire to be there--had to force myself to browse, pick up books and read even a paragraph

riding as a passenger in the car yesterday, I felt like I did in second grade when my mother was taking me to LSU for speech lessons--just being carried away, a sense of wonder at a med based world as seen through eyes that understand and comprehend so little--I am like that child that will play until his parents tell him he has chores to do--when told, I do them very well and I do them right away and I have a good attitude about doing them--but without someone directing me, I will wile/piss away the hours--my days have a wave-like quality--still, the lack of emotion, the lack of that energy that comes from fight or flight, leaves me like a engine running in neutral

the one side-effect that has remained with me and perhaps even grown stronger is drowsiness--it is hard, very hard not to nap--let me explain how powerful this drowsiness is: I slept through the LSU/Penn State game--I slept through the second half of the Saints/Vikings game--I slept through most of the Packers/Cardinals game, even the exciting and thrilling final quarter--when I drive, I start yawning, strong, almost unnatural yawning that I can't stop--even when exercising (walking, uphill) there is the yawning

I do not feel insane or crazy, but when I project my own behavior on to others, assuming they were in the same position I was, there is not doubt I would reach the conclusion that something is wrong--and this is what is strange, perhaps, about madness--to be mad and know it seems so difficult--one never feels one has lost one's mind

the unnatural giddiness remains, but it comes and goes--it is the kind of giddiness that wants to dance and sing and takes nothing serious in the way a child takes nothing serious, which makes me nice to be around, because very little upsets me, but the other side of the coin is lack of ambition or drive to do anything of any consequence--not because I am lazy--or maybe I am--but it seems to my addled brain that the meds, in making me "happy," also make me just not care about much of anything other than the moment--as if I have lost the ability to understand that present actions lead to a future result

saw a movie two days ago--Sherlock Holmes--the soundtrack was not as bad as Avatar, bad for my medicated ears and brain--but there were still moments when the music was just too heavy-handed and I could not enjoy the visuals because the score was as fingernails on a chalkboard--music too remains frustratingly elusive--I can listen, but without the emotional response, it is just so much sound, of architectural interest--still, there is some vestige of emotional movement within me--just enough to remind me of what I am missing

I suppose the gift, and this occurred to me yesterday in the bookstore as I felt within the skin of a different person, completely dumbfounded as to my total lack of interest in being in the most sacred place I know, the feeling I suppose akin to a religious person walking into a chapel after they have lost their religion and the inside is nothing but stone and mortar and a few statues and candles, but no more--the gift is to have lived as another--not in the idea of it, but in the skin and mind of it--I sat in the bookstore and I thought, this is what it feels like to have no interest in books or bookstores--and I imagined there are people who have always been that way, who don't buy books and don't read and for the first time in my life I felt what that would be like, not thought it, but lived it, as me--I was that person--the same goes for music and I wonder how many people who don't listen to music and never have, are simply chemical inclined not to feel it--and then I wonder how many things I am chemically inclined not to know, to experience

make no mistake, on meds, you become a different person--cognition, perception, drive, philosophy, attitude and inclination all change--these are not conscious changes, changes of habit or will--these are internal, chemical based changes--and you are as different as if you went to sleep with brown eyes and woke up with blue

I went to the bookstore to purchase Bright Star on DVD--you see, I didn't even go to buy a book although I did pick up Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar--I saw Bright Star three times at the theater within a two week period (pre-med) and all three times had a rather strong (tears) reaction--I want to watch again, while on meds, as a way to further understand pre-med me versus med me--my fear is that I will only confirm how much I hate this emotional blunting, how much I feel as a chef that has lost the ability to taste

pre-med, I was in hell and knew it, felt it--on meds, I know I am still in hell, I just don't care, not because I don't want to care, but because the wires of caring about such things are simply not connected, except for a few minutes a couple times a day and it is then and only then that I know that I am not right, yet I feel powerless to do anything about it--like an inebriated person powerless to walk a straight line

Day: 74

two processes remain other, which, for lack of a better way to explain I will classify as music and words

music: emotional blunting, which is still in place, has, I believe, been the primary cause in the cognitive changes toward music--with no emotion, music becomes something of a structure rather than an art--something to be understood as mathematics is understood and enjoyed in the way that one enjoys the beauty of numbers but not as one enjoys the beauty of a sunset or waterfall--where this is most obvious is in movie soundtracks--and music in commercials--without the emotional component, music is heard and experienced as a device--not as integral to the whole but as something added, something that sits outside of the visual realm, the plot realm--music in movies is noticed immediately as an intrusion, as something someone has done to manipulate (in the worst cases)--it is as in writing when the author becomes visible in the prose and one becomes aware of the writer in the writing--I saw Avatar a week ago or so--the soundtrack, to my medicated ears, was so heavy-handed, so overwrought as to make me wish it gone--it felt as if the director thought the audience was too stupid to understand how they should feel, so he patronizes us with a score--I have noticed this in every movie I have watched since starting meds--to be clear, this is not something I ever noticed in this way before

words: this one is more difficult to understand--prior to meds, I stopped at every word I did not know, looked it up and wrote down the definition--I have hundreds of words and definitions sitting on my desk right now--but every single one of them were recorded pre-med--I look at them now, as I am doing right now, and I wonder why I ever spent so much time looking up words and trying to expand my vocabulary--it just seems like such a waste of time, such an interruption to have to stop reading--I've not recorded a single word in 74 days--somehow, this plays into reading and writing, both of which have held less interest for me--what is difficult to determine and is probably some combination is this: how much of this change is med induced and how much, especially with the writing, is anxiety based--I lean toward the med side--I always wrote and read before, regardless of stress--the only thing that has changed is the meds in my system--I have always loved words--I have thousands of self-created index cards from college--on meds, they just don't seem that important

__________

there is another process that has also changed:

pre-med, I responded to every comment as soon as it was left--on meds, I let them sit and sometimes do not respond at all

pre-med, I returned every phone call and every email as soon as I could, which was usually immediately--on meds, I don't answer the phone, I don't immediately return phone calls and I let my emails build up unread and undeleted

perhaps the main effect of medication is the general sense that you just don't care--my house could be on fire, no big deal--my car could blow up--no big deal--what people think of me, which was always very important, matters very little to me on meds--take this public journaling as an example--there is a certain need to simply say: this is who I am, take me or leave me, but you are going to see me as I am

Day: 72

after ten weeks of Sertraline, I can see three distinct phases:

phase 1:

lasting about three weeks--heavy sense of medication--side-effects strong--emotional blunting--lack of creative thought--music and poetry of no interest--voracious reading--darkness absent--irritability all but gone--everything seen on a logical level--mind is clear--body is oddly detached


phase 2:

the second three weeks--side-effects abate, mostly--emotional blunting still in place--music returns somewhat but not poetry--creativity returns somewhat--darkness absent but an odd sense of logical despair (circumstances) emerges--this period is dominated by the sense of stability of mood, a sense of normalcy, which in hindsight was noticeable by the contrast of the preceding three weeks--sense of being drugged fading--there is a sense that I am healing--that the meds are working and as one reader put it so well, better to be numb than dead--still, this phase is marked by hope, by progress, a sense that the cycle is broken--and a certain elation that the side-effects (esp sexual) have faded--this period is also marked by the emerging difficulty to distinguish what is med based and what is circumstance based--a subtle fear emerges that I am losing who I was--that the meds are changing me and I am not sure I prefer this non-emotional me


phase 3:

the last three to four weeks--an odd and artificial sense of giddiness has emerged--my body wants to dance but the desire seems med induced and not natural--a childlike playfulness has emerged, which again seems artificially induced--emotion still blunted and my frustration at a lack of an emotional life is growing--the sense, subtle but reemerging, of living behind a med induced mask is strong--I am fully aware that I am not the person on meds that I was before--I miss crying, music, poetry, (I've stopped reading in this phase and I miss it too)--the greatest concern is a complete lack of drive, the way one feels when taking cold medicine and all you want to do is vegetate--despair comes and goes but it does so without any emotional energy--I wish I could explain what that feels like and perhaps in time I will find a way to explain it--suffice it to say, the feeling is bizarre--wave-like mood states have returned on a much lower level--I am contemplating on lowering the dosage from 100mg a day to 50--my doctor has given me to green light to do so if I wanted--my greatest fear, which has emerged with force in this phase, is that nothing has been fixed, nothing healed, nothing changed--the sense is strong that all that has occurred is a drugged induced masking, a bandaid--like cutting weeds with a lawnmower that leaves the roots in place

Day: 71

I've been meaning to post an update for some time. Why I have not been able to do so remains a mystery to me. The task seems monumental.

since last update mood has remained steady--artificially so--drowsiness remains a problem, especially after eating, but not upon the taking--I've read nothing in three weeks--not even opened a book--I've listened to almost no music--no desire--I've written nothing and writing seems like something I used to do, a long time ago--I feel both medicated and not at the same time--I simply am not myself--emotion remains truncated and although this makes me a nicer and more amiable person, it has taken the joy out of most everything (music, poetry, reading, etc.)--I feel drugged without the fogginess of mind--I still think and process clearly--I just have no emotional energy and I am learning that so much of what drove me in all the things I did was emotional energy--without it, and I don't have it, nothing really matters--I don't get upset because I just don't care in the way that one doesn't care when on drugs--logically, I care--on meds, I'm just in lala land, with a clear head, if that makes any sense--to feel despair, and I still do, but to feel it without any emotional energy, is bizarre--I find I am continuing to withdraw--desire to interact with others is minimal at best--so I spend my hours vegetating, playing endless and mindless FB games, the way one would when taking cold medicine and just feeling beyond the desire and ability to concentrate on anything, to feel, anything, to care about much of anything--it is as if I have regress to a childlike state and all things adult seem foreign and distasteful

Day: 57

day fifty-seven:

emotional/mental state feels better than in months--attitude is solid--outlook realistic--although the meds feel transparent and side-effects are all but gone, there is no doubt that cognition and perception is/has changed/altered under the influence of these psychoactive elements--I am, in a very literal sense, On Drugs--as such, my decision making process is different--I do things now I was adamantly opposed to premed--good or bad is another question for another time but the fact remains, the meds have changed how I interact with facts/data/input and other people--these changes have been beneficial but there is also a sadness, as one feels with a death, when something that was, is gone--I am not as I was--nor am I self-aware enough to know exactly how, to the level of detail I would like--like shedding a skin but still blind--you know it feels different and you know it is different but you can't quite see it clearly yet--it is as if I do not know myself

emotions blunted at the high and low end--although I can't remember feeling the high in a long, long time so it might be better to say the emotional range on the bottom end is missing, blunted, removed, numbed, dulled--just gone--I miss feeling at my former depth--as painful as the pain was, I miss it--numbed or dulled is perhaps inaccurate--there is no sense or feeling of being medicated as there was in the first four weeks--I know the absence only by contrast with what was before and it just feels missing as opposed to masked

libido stronger than ever--sexual function fully returned--although ejaculation remains slightly more difficult, sensation is as it was and orgasms are as they were--and for the record, dosage, 100mg of Setraline a day, has not been altered or changed in any way--one thing is clear--I will never take sexual function for granted again and the ability to have an orgasm seems more magical and mysterious than it ever did before

Lilith and Riku

Castle Age

Day: 54-56

day fifty-four:

overall, mood consistent/steady/good

music still not as it was--poetry not of interest--neither is reading


day fifty-five:

if your life sucks, no amount of medication is going to change that


day fifty-six:

doctor's appointment--agreement that meds are working--next appointment in three months--we stay the course--since the meds have been working exactly as they should over the last several weeks and side-effects have abated to very low levels, this will be the last journal update (assuming nothing changes)--what I am dealing with now is no longer clinical depression but the daily travails we all have in our lives, both personally and professionally and I see no need to document beyond my experience taking a psychoactive drug--I am very thankful for each and every one of you that have followed me over the last two months and have offered me so much hope and encouragement--I would hug you all if I could--thank you

Day: 52-53

day fifty-two:

nothing of significance to report--mood remained consistent regardless of circumstance


day fifty-three:

anxiety reaching new heights (employment/financial)--internal bearing/mood/well-being remain steady/normal--another indication that the premed darkness was something outside the realm of circumstance--I have had dark/morbid thoughts but these thoughts, when they come, come from fear/thought, not from the brain itself--prior to meds, the darkness came as waves and came regardless of circumstance and too it left on its own accord--my anxiety is fantastically high but there is no darkness and my mind remains/feels grounded and healthy--I suppose I can say the meds are doing everything they are suppose to be doing--whatever side-effects still exist are subtle and difficult to distinguish and with current stress levels, almost impossible to attribute causation

yesterday, as I driving home from having dropped C off, the thought occurred to me, and I note it because this was a species of thought very different than any other at any other time that I have ever had--the thought was, I simply don't want to live anymore--this thought, and I can't emphasis this enough, was not a suicidal thought and when thinking of suicide, those thoughts are of a very different nature/energy--but this thought, which came out of the blue, was clear, calm and sat with me as if a visitor--there was no thought of suicide--only the thought that I was done--just done with life and all it had to offer--as if I could simply raise my arms and vanish--I don't feel like I'm doing a good job describing the experience--there was no emotion involved--no energy--no impetus to do anything--just a warm sensation that this was it--nothing more desired/wanted/needed--nothing more to do--no regret--no anger--no frustration--just a blank sense of nothing more (interesting that yesterday I felt no need to make note of this experience, but today, it seems important to document)

as I make notes like the paragraph above, I want to be clear that I am simply documenting my experience coming out of a dark clinical depression with the help of Sertraline--although I appreciate all the hugs and well wishes more than you guys know, I am not creating this record for support or sympathy--I am simply trying to make notation of what is occurring in my mind without editing, without vanity, so that the record might be as unfiltered as I am capable of making it--I am really quite amazed that anyone is still following what can only appear to be rather self-obsessed and redundant postings

to lessen the suffering of others--what greater work could there be

Day: 50-51

day fifty:

high level of anxiety (financial/employment)--mood remains steady, stable, neither high nor low


day fifty-one:

internals remain steady/healthy/normal--stress/anxiety still high (money issues)--high levels of stress make judging effects of meds difficult--the general sense is of transparency, which is to say, I cannot tell, other than a very healthy frame of mind, that the Sertraline is in my system--side-effects are virtually nil--general attitude the last two days has been very good, very level and a good countersink for the high levels of financial stress

as I reflect on the last year, I can say without any reservations, I am thankful for the humility and grateful for the perspective gained from having my financial situation turned upside down--my levels of compassion for others has grown as I have dealt with my own mental illness and how I have experienced first hand how dependent we are on the bucket of chemicals that make us who we are--rebuilding my professional career will not be easy but if I have learned anything in adversity, it is that there is more to life than what we do, more to who we are than the title on our desk, more to the value we offer than the checks we can write

I am also extremely grateful for the wonderful friends I have in this online world and their magnificent encouragement and support--don't ever let anyone tell you that online friends are just imaginary or pretend--sending love and hugs and kisses--you guys have meant the world to me