I’ve really been struggling lately and can’t seem to get anything done. Charley Project cases are piling up as usual and I just don’t have the energy to do anything about them. I don’t feel sad or anything like that, but I’ve got this feeling like I’m stuck in neutral.
There have been days lately where it feels like it takes tremendous force of will just to put on my shoes, never mind anything else. I’ve even been. Talking. Very. Slowly. And. In. Whispers. And on top of this awful lassitude I’ve felt physically exhausted, no matter how much I sleep. I’ve been sleeping basically all day, only getting out of bed to take the dog out — I won’t have her suffer on my account.
I was stable on my meds for a really long time, like a year, and was hoping I could stay on the current regimen indefinitely. I guess not. I wasn’t supposed to see my psychiatrist till like April, but I asked the clinic to bump my appointment forward and I will be seeing him on Tuesday instead. Just gotta last till then, and hopefully he’ll work some kind of magic and I’ll perk up.
A bit of psychopharmacology here: I take two antidepressants, one anti-psychotic, one anti-anxiety and one mood stabilizer. The thing is, you can’t keep bumping up a person’s anti-depressant doses too high before you run the risk of getting a thing called Serotonin Syndrome, which is potentially fatal. Plus, as I have bipolar disorder and not just depression, anti-depressants also have the potential of shooting me into mania, which is not potentially fatal but isn’t exactly good either. A lot of people with bipolar disorder who went missing, did so while off on some manic adventure.
So sometimes, when I’ve gotten depressed, rather than raising the dosages, my doctor will say “Take less of Antidepressant A and more of Antidepressant B” and that will fix it until suddenly it doesn’t anymore, then it’s “Take more of Antidepressant A and less of Antidepressant B.”
We’ll see what happens. I feel like a lazy bum for just sitting around doing nothing but it’s very hard right now to do anything at all.
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