Day: 22

wrote this morning with the first inkling or trickle of genuine emotion--the feeling was slight and subtle but unmistakable and I held it in my mind as one would a lost heirloom found. A ray of sunshine though the cloud of meds--on perhaps a related note, I awoke this morning with a full erection, which is how I would always awake before meds--erections have not been a problem on Zoloft, only orgasm, but still, my mornings prior to this morning were different than before--yesterday, although the desire was not there, I listened to music and I felt there was some movement, some emotional movement, very slight, but noticeable that was not there before

sensation on crown of head is more intense today and is noticeable in and of itself, which is a change from the past several days, where, like the breath, one only notices it with attention--feels more like a bruise today and this is the first day I would use the word pain, albeit very lightly, with the sensation--the sense of physical dissociation (a sense of separation between body and mind) seems less today--when I look at my hand for example, it looks like my hand rather than a sense of me looking at a hand that happens to be mine--today has been the best day so far with regard to a sense of body/mind integrity--calmness in the face of adversity remains in place and I cannot tell exactly to what extent this is cognitive change as opposed to the med wall--it could be either or a combination--I seem not to be able to split the two

my mind appears to sit in neutral, largely thoughtless without prodding, as if I must engage it--I have had to actively ask myself questions in order to get thought moving and keep it moving--this is not an entirely new experience but what highlights this aspect of my mental wiring is the lack of keys I had before, which is to say, alcohol (which I've given up), music (not the same) and visual input (fractals and such)--without these keys, I'm left to the simple device of questions--on this same note, I continue to read at a pace not known before--in just a few days I've read over 400 pages of Bolano's 2666--something unheard of prior to meds--I was forced to read this way in grad school when one had to read a book a day--I developed a hatred, after three years, of this kind of reading--reading for plot, for information--as if the mind was nothing more than a hard drive--here is what has been interesting: prior to meds, I would read, sometimes even just a single paragraph and my mind would race with ideas as to my own writing and from this inspiration, a chapter would be written--not once on meds, with the hundreds and hundreds of pages I've read in the last three weeks has an idea caused me to stop and write--idea creation, to state the obvious, has changed--I refuse to label it as good or bad so that I might remain openminded to new ways of thinking, of embracing a new set of tools to accomplish the same task, but I would be less than honest if I didn't note the concern--experienced second orgasm with slightly less effort than two days ago--still not back to pre-med status but another small step in that direction--there is less of a drugged out feeling today than on any previous day, and I might cautiously add I don't feel drugged at all, which would be the very first day I can make that claim, although I'm not fully convinced of how I am processing my own self-awareness--I can say without any reservations: I feel good--for the record, days 1-4 were on 60mg of Sertraline (aka Zoloft)--I broke 100mg pills in half and took the larger half; every day since has been on 100mg--I've been given the leeway to drop back down to 50mg--which I will keep as an option depending on progression of side-effects--as of now, progress is being made on all fronts and I see no need to mess with dosage

there is an intuitive sense, and it may very well be pure imagination, but there is a very real sense of what might be called neuroplasticity--this may be happening in conjunction with the meds or it might simply be my own body creating workarounds with regard to the meds--then again, it might not be either or it could be a combination or I may have simply completely mislabeled what is occurring--let me record it this way: in the face of issues or problems or challenges not only is there a different emotional reaction but there is also a different cognitive reaction--a feeling that my own mind, outside of the meds, is asserting itself, trying to rewire itself in positive ways--of course I am fully aware that everything I've said in this paragraph could be pure imagination and fantasy--but I've seen the power of prophecy, especially as it relates to self-prophecy--sometimes the right question is not so much of truth but of skillfulness or usefulness