How Much Is Too Much?

I’ve been off Effexor completely for about a month and taking CBD gummies, and I’m now asking myself a key question: how much loneliness is too much? When do I need to start asking myself: is this new mental health structure working?

I’m feeling a lot more these days. Like, at the drop of a hat, something will make me want to cry. I haven’t really gotten comfortable with letting that just happen yet, because I’m afraid of feelings. I’m afraid that they will overwhelm me, drown me, and I’ll have to do something about it. And what is left to do? I’ve done various stages of medication, and now no medication, and therapy and blah blah blah blah. I’m worried that it’s my environment that makes me sad.

I’m really disconnected from community. I haven’t liked to admit that, because it makes me feel like I’m dismissing or insulting the friends and family I do have, but at the end of the day, I’m very isolated. Sometimes it feels like days go by and I haven’t had a real conversation with anyone except Chris. I certainly haven’t done anything with anyone except Chris, because the friends I do have are not close by. Sometimes it really feels like I’m just standing on the edge of a cliff, shouting into the void. I’ve kind of felt that way my whole life, always trying to hear the echo.

Now, at night, I’ll have trouble sleeping because of an aching hollow in my chest. It’s the feeling of loneliness the medication has numbed for a long time, and I’m really scared that I’m feeling it again, and it’s scary that it’s never really left. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to ask from people. I’m trying to do things differently, create a different social structure for myself. I’m going to church now for god’s sake, but in a lot of ways, it brings up so much anxiety and fear, it makes the ache worse.

I don’t know what I need to make this ache go away, because what if it can’t go away? What if this is just normal for me, and I should just ignore it and focus on the positives? What if this is just what being medication-free is, and it’s the trade I make to not have side effects? How much pain is too much pain?

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Belonging

For most of my life, I’ve struggled with belonging. I distinctively remember being in 1st grade, six years old, on the playground at the international school I went to when we lived in Belgium, and getting hit by a wave of loneliness. I was on the swings, other kids swinging on either side of me, and I felt like I was about to sail off into the sky by myself, detached from the swing chains. I felt very old, like I’d lived a hundred lifetimes already. I felt…isolated.

That feeling has followed me my whole life. I never quite fit in as myself. If I wanted to “belong,” I had to change somehow. I had to listen to certain music, watch certain movies, and keep my mouth shut about the stuff I cared about. When I got older and more independent, I didn’t bend to peer pressure as much, but in order to feel okay with it, I had to take pride in my loneliness. “I feel this way,” I told myself, “Because I’m special.” That’s a dangerous way to live, because in order to feel joy or connection with others, I had to let go of that whole “special” thing.

I’m over that now. I don’t want to be isolated or lonely. I don’t think that’s what makes me special. But I still don’t feel like I really belong anywhere.

Chris and I have been going to a church lately, and for practically the first time ever, I actually don’t hate going to church. I feel safe there. But it isn’t easy. At one of the services, to celebrate the co-pastor getting her Masters of Divinity, one of her professors spoke. He spoke directly to the congregation, offering advice and encouragement and so on, and I got hit by that wave again. Specifically, a talking wave that said, “You don’t belong here.” It felt really strange, like I was looking in a window, spying on the service. He isn’t talking to me, I thought, because I don’t know anyone here. I’m not a part of this community. That sad little voice added, “And you never will be.”

My instinct is to say that voice is the devil, but I don’t think it’s that cut-and-dry. It’s fear, yes, which doesn’t come from God, but I am sick of identifying every negative thought as a demon hissing in my ear. I’ve lived that belief before, and it is exhausting. I think that voice is six-year old me, fearful, who is counting out all the times I’ve been lonely or rejected, and telling me that’s what will always happen. She doesn’t count all the times that hasn’t happened, though.

So, what do I do? My spiritual director has given me advice for when fear like that comes up, when our past selves try to convince us of something that isn’t true. I reassure six-year old me. I tell her it’s going to be okay. The idea of treating fear with compassion is still new to me. Since I believed every negative thought was a demon, I’m more familiar with going on the attack, like my head is a war zone. The result is always a bloody battlefield, without much peace or hope. I only succeed in traumatizing myself even more. It’ll be different this time.

I’ve been to church since that wave of isolation. I didn’t feel it as strongly this time, because I anticipated it, and I knew how to respond. When the little voice tried telling me, “You don’t belong here,” I knew what to say: “Maybe not yet, but that’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Location, Location, Location

Broken glass, pins, nails…these are the items that litter my dreams at night. They start growing from beneath my skin, they fill my ears, eyes, and nose, and they coat me like a suit of armor. When I told my spiritual director that these are the sorts of reoccurring dreams I have frequently, she looked taken aback. She asked if I had ever seen a Jungian therapist, or one who specialized in dream interpretation. Um, nope. That sounds…odd. Her concern did prompt me to start researching dreams, though. They are symbols of the subconscious. If something is bothering a person, it will eventually emerge in their dreams. There’s no escape.

That all makes sense to me. It’s how I know that I’m still not over my fears about witches, demons, and the trauma inflicted by charismatic, evil-obsessed spirituality. In my dreams, I’ll frequently get attacked by a witch or start getting possessed, and the language I learned from the old days comes spilling out, in an attempt to fight. It never works.

I can do work when I’m awake to try and decipher the dreams, to deal with what understanding I can glean from them, but while I’m in the dream, I feel powerless. I started looking into how dreams could be controlled, and “lucid dreaming” came up. It’s when you know you’re in a dream and gain a heightened sense of awareness and control. You can effectively create objects, conjure specific people, and perform actions from thin air, just like you would if you were awake and writing a story. This time, though, you’re living the story within the dream world.

I read “A Field Guide To Lucid Dreaming,” and learned that I mostly dream in the second tier of dreaming: I know I’m dreaming, but I have very limited control. In nearly every dream I have, I know it isn’t real, but I can’t do the things I want to, like fly or make nightmares go away. In order to get more lucid and improve my control, I’ve had to start keeping a dream journal again. It’s an overwhelming process, because I remember my dreams in great detail, and I dream pretty much every time I go to sleep. If I take a nap during the day, I’ll dream, so that’s two dreams per 24-hour period.

I’ve written down about ten dreams since I started my new dream journal, and I have dozens of dreams written down from a few years back. In going through them, there are patterns that emerge. The first one I’m going to take a look at is where the dreams are set. One of the most frequent locales? High school.

High school was really hard. Making friends was like trying to tame a wild animal, when the roles of wild animal and human switch frequently. The strict adherence to conservative evangelicalism and policing of thought ground me down to an angry, throbbing pencil nub that felt like it couldn’t be useful anywhere else. I loved a boy who couldn’t love me back the way I needed, and when he left me, I realized I had poured all my energy into that relationship and I had nothing left for healing. Depression hit hard and the medication trials hit harder, so both my mind and body were exhausted.

It’s been so many years since that time and I tell myself I’m over it, but when I go to sleep, I’m back in those hallways, and things are a little bit stranger. My uniform shrinks and grows, transforming its shape, so I can’t focus on anything else. I get lost and panicked that I’ll be late for class. I try taking a math test, only to suddenly collapse with blurred vision while the teacher remains uninterested and unconcerned in what’s happening. I get into fights with classmates from my past, screaming at them, but their faces are blank and they move like shadows past me.

In those dreams, I feel a handful of emotions depending on what’s going on, plot-wise, but there are trends: abandoned, voiceless, trapped, neglected, alone. These are all feelings I had in high school, and they all came to a peak when I was so depressed, I wasn’t going to school. I don’t even know how many days I missed. During that time, I don’t recall maybe more than one person reaching out and asking if I was okay. Some would ask my brother if I was coming to school when he showed up alone in the morning, but eventually, after getting the same answer every time, they just stopped asking. If I had gotten mono or something other longer physical illness, I might have gotten get-well cards, or flowers, or a visitor or two. For depression, dead silence.  

On the rare occasion when I was in at school, I was so lifeless, I just fell asleep during class. I couldn’t fight it; I had no energy for fighting. Someone trying to keep me awake wouldn’t have been helpful, but I can’t even imagine what a pat on the back or squeeze of the hand from a girl sitting next to me would have done for my motivation to keep trying to live. It felt like people were just watching me slowly die. I have no idea what they thought of it. Pity, probably.

The dreams I keep having tell me I’m not fully-healed from the feelings of abandonment and neglect high school spawned. Those emotions are a refrain in a song that will play in my head whenever my soul aligns a current experience with the past, and they send me right back in time. All the years of learning and maturity and recovery crumble, and it’s like I never left that building.

I’m not quite sure what to do about it. Well, that’s not true. My spiritual director recommends writing letters to myself as if I was back in the moment of trauma. I would be sending my own get-well cards into the past. That sounds like a good enough plan as any, especially since I’m a writer, it’s my strongest love language, but it’s also kind of scary. It seems so emotionally overwhelming and painful, like tearing the scab off a wound that never really healed. This is the year of wild emotions, though, so I have to start somewhere.

A Post About Sex

I’m usually pretty tight-lipped about stuff like this, (my family reads this blog after all, this may be one to skip, Mom), but I think it’s really important to talk about considering how much mental illness/antidepressants affects it, and how silent the Christian community usually is about sex in general. I was never forced into purity culture or wearing a purity ring or anything, but the book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” had a huge impact on my worldview from a young age, and I’ve definitely dealt with some shame issues. This post isn’t so much about that; just wanted to put that out there so you know where I’m coming from.

LET’S GET INTO IT.

I wish I had more of a libido.

There, I said it. If I had break down my feelings about sex into percentages, 90% of the time I’m completely uninterested, and 10% I’m basically on board, but I don’t have a strong feeling one way or the other. It wasn’t always this way, so that makes things even more frustrating. I used to think it could be related to my bisexuality, that maybe I went through phases where sex with a guy just wasn’t my cup of tea, but in the last year, the whole concept of sex has become just uninteresting.

Why has my sex drive shut down? I’ve been blaming most of it on my antidepressants, but as I’ve reduced my dose to nearly zilch, it’s clearly not why. That was a pretty major disappointment, to be honest. I really hoped, despite the fact that Effexor isn’t supposed to be affect libido, that I would be one of the few cases where did. Since I don’t have any depression symptoms either, I can’t even blame my old nemesis. I’m mostly medication and depression-free, and still totally frozen sexually.

Could it be my birth control? That’s very possible, and I’m kind of leaning towards that as at least part of the reason, but what should I do with that information? I don’t want to stop taking it. I actually lost a month’s supply and stopped for a week or so before calling in another prescription, because the cramping and bleeding was so bad. Seems like going off birth control would be another exercise in gradual reduction, and I’m not interested in doing that.

Maybe this is just the way I am? I’m generally fine with that, but I’m not the only person in this equation. I’ve read a lot of advice online, some of it good, some of it really bad, and I’ve talked to a few of my girlfriends, but nothing has really clicked. This really confirms to me how much sex and sexuality is an individual thing, and Christian culture discourages and oppresses pretty much all and any exploration or discussion of it. If it is talked about, it’s all male-focused and doesn’t get into how girls and women are feeling. There is no masturbation talk for girls or talks about different levels of libido and normality, and I don’t believe that’s limited to Christian culture. Culture as a whole is not a fan of healthy female sexuality.

So, is this my normal? Maybe. But how do I change it? Should I want to change it? Can I change it? There are a lot of questions. I don’t really want to think about them. My plan is to address the possible physical reasons, like the birth control. I ordered powdered maca, which has been used in Peru for libido with limited side effects. This is big for me, because I am very skeptical of supplements and herbs and what not, especially when they’re labeled as “super foods.” Not expecting miracles, but the bag cost less than $10, and just maybe it’ll help counter the effects of the birth control, if that is indeed part of the problem. I’ll let ya’ll know after I’ve tried it for a while.

If you made it this far in the post, congrats. Maybe this is all way too much information, but this has been a big part of my relationship stress and questions about my identity, so it would be weird to never talk about it. Thank you for bearing with me.

finale

My time on Effexor is drawing to a close, slowly, but surely. This week, I tried to stop completely. I was on half a pill all last week and experienced very few symptoms. Monday was a bit rough, but I was optimistic. Then Tuesday came. I woke up feeling like a can of soda pop that’s been violently shaken. The pressure in my head was so bad I felt like I might go blind. It got a little better after I had breakfast, but it was very hard to focus still. Luckily, I had a good excuse to not write very much: my computer’s keyboard broke. I used Chris’ computer for a while, but I hate it because it feels like the keys weight a million pounds and I’m always accidentally opening tabs, so I just worked on one project for a little while.

A nap will help, I thought. The pressure got worse when I lay down. It was like it all flooded into my brain when I went horizontal, so that was a no. I took a shower in the dark and felt a little better, but I knew that wouldn’t last very long. Showers are just temporary relief. Since lying down wasn’t an option, I decided to just read. I ended up reading like 300 pages of Tana French’s “In the Woods,” finishing it, and writing notes for my own mystery novel. The good news: I definitely have enough plot points. I’ve always been worried that my novel’s story was too simple, but “In the Woods” oddly mirrored mine in that it had plot threads going on in the main character’s past and present. I also figured out how to structure the law enforcement/police department, so it feels more real. That will mean going through my pages and changing every incidence of “Sheriff” to “Chief” and the deputy is now a detective.

It’s a really weird feeling to be starving, but then when you eat, you throw up. That happened twice yesterday; weirdly, the only thing I did eat that I kept down was Ben & Jerry’s Half-Baked Ice Cream. I spent the evening reading and propped up at a weird angle, and eventually my head felt so close to exploding that I took a quarter of the Effexor. I almost immediately felt better, though falling asleep was still rough and I started getting sharp chest pain.

Didn’t set an alarm for this morning and ended up full-on sleeping till 11:30 am. I took a quarter pill again, because I did not want to be completely debilitated. It’s been much better today. The usual neck and shoulder stiffness, some head pressure, but no throwing up and I’ve been able to catch up on my writing projects and clean. For dinner, it’ll be zucchini bread pancakes, bacon, and eggs, and I should probably stretch really well, since the last 30+ hours have consisted of moving as little as possible.

The plan is to stick to a quarter pill for a week. Who knew that 18 mg could make such a big difference? I’m happy to push off the withdrawal for another couple days, at least, because I have a fun weekend coming up with baking on Saturday at a friend’s, and then MST3K-ing on Sunday with another friend. I’d rather not be on the verge of head implosion.

Day Eight On 75mg

Oh boy, has this been a rough week. I don’t even want to reflect on it. Let’s just say it’s taken every ounce of will power to not explode like a balloon of puke and pain.

It’s every day. Pretty much all day in varying degrees. Again, mornings are the worst. I dread them so much, especially since I wake up feeling great. Then I have to take my pill, eat something, drink my ginger tea, and wait for the nausea and crushing head pain to start. It always does, and then I lie down in a fetal position for a few hours until it passes and I can start writing.

A few hours more and then the head pain gets really bad again. I think of it as a giant fist trying to open inside my head, but there isn’t enough room, so it’s squeezing against the inside of my skull. Tylenol doesn’t really do anything about that kind of pressure.

Haven’t been able to focus on anything for very long. Haven’t touched my book this week. Barely cleaned or cooked or exercised. Barely think in complete sentences.

Down to 75mg of Effexor

Well, I finally went down to one pill a day. I was happy about it, but also not so happy, because I knew I was willingly returning to withdrawal symptoms. They started pretty much right away that first day – a crushing, squeezing pain at the back of my head, headaches, joint pain, irritability, fatigue. It’s the fourth day now on 75mg, and I pretty much know that I’m going to be nauseated in the morning, so I head it off with ginger tea and lying down with my eyes closed until the wave passes.

The rest of the days haven’t been too bad. I even made dinner on Monday and key lime pie bars yesterday. They’re pretty much the only thing I want to eat. Well, that and ramen noodles. So I’ve mostly been eating that. Based on how I feel in the evenings, Chris is going to need to be taking of dinners this week.

I got a new job writing articles for a lifestyle magazine with a human rights focus. It pays really well and it’s right up my alley. This week, I’m doing human rights movies, LGBT movies, and human rights books published in 2018.  I don’t have linking info on the magazine yet, hopefully I’ll find that out soon.

Aaand that’s all I have the energy to do right now. Here are some pictures.

Key lime pie bar, but with orange zest added, and orange juice+lemon juice instead of lime juice

Going Into Week 4 On 150mg

This past week (the 3rd week) was the hardest I’ve had on the lower dose of Effexor. The first half was especially rough beginning on Wednesday the 29th. The nausea in the morning was so bad I couldn’t move, just lie on the floor. My eyes felt glued shut, like my body was forcing them to stay closed to survive. I started worrying that I might be pregnant, but that was an irrational fear that I refused to entertain. The nausea returned for a few more mornings, though it I headed it off by having a cup of ginger tea right away in the morning with breakfast. It helped, and I haven’t had nausea for the past few days.

I started to feel emotional symptoms, too. On Thursday, I cried in the morning about a dream and listened to “Gravity” by Sara Bareilles. The day got better after I Facetimed with my friend while her daughter took a nap. She’s the one who gave me the succulent in the photo above.

Those were the two things of note this past week. I experienced a lot of frustration and confusion about why the symptoms seemed to be getting worse, not better, but from what I’ve read online, that can happen. It’s all just part of the body adjusting. I’ve also been having a little nighttime anxiety about finances and not having nearly as much work as I would like. I’m looking for new gigs every day, but payments are low and a lot of the work isn’t relevant to my specialties. My plan is to work on what I have as efficiently as I can and then use the spare time to hunt for jobs,  work on short stories to submit to publications, and of course, work on my novel.

I’m planning on sticking to the two pills a day until September 12 and seeing how I feel.

Going Into Week 3

Tomorrow, I will have just ended two weeks on a lower dose of Effexor, and my patience is thinning. Looking at the positives is important – I only have to take Tylenol about once a day and I haven’t been throwing up in the mornings anymore. This weekend, I was at a social event for 4 1/2 hours and didn’t pass out or feel the need to bite anyone’s head off. Progress!

This week is also significantly cooler, I can actually feel some lacy edges of autumn in the breeze, and that really improves my mood. I’m still sleeping a lot and don’t have much of an appetite. Whenever I feel the tiniest bit of motivation for work, I try to churn out as much as possible, because after an hour, I want nothing to do with writing or thinking of any kind. Today, I have done some very half-hearted research for a new cookbook introduction and then fell asleep on the couch for two hours.

As for daily chores like cleaning and cooking, don’t even. I’ve made exactly two dishes these past two weeks – nectarine shortcakes and a salsa, which I’ve turned into nachos for my breakfast and dinner the past two days. I’m also very into this new peach tea I got from Plum Deluxe, an Oregon-based loose tea company. They have a vanilla latte black tea I want to get once it gets colder.

The withdrawal could be much worse. From reading online, some people experience horrendous symptoms after going down 75 milligrams. I am a little frustrated with my doctor for not talking about the withdrawal. If I hadn’t known about it and done my own research, I would have had no idea what to expect and been a lot more emotional. That seems to be the experience of a lot of people wanting to taper down.

My goals this week are to eat more vegetables, continue eating very little sugar, and get more exercise.

 

 

First Week On A Lower Effexor Dose

I just finished my first week on 150 grams of Effexor instead of 225 grams. How did it go? It was a mixed bag.

Day 1

To ease myself in, I took half a pill in the afternoon and the other half at night. Withdrawal symptoms included lightheadedness and irritability. I couldn’t sleep that night and experienced surges of anxiety about nothing. I felt really twitchy and when I did get to sleep, I kept walking up.

Day 2

Despite a rough night, I woke up feeling pretty good. Ate leftover pasta for breakfast, took my pill, and wrote. I started to feel more tired than usual, so I took a nap. I usually try to nap about two hours after waking up. If I can’t fall asleep, I just don’t take a nap that day. Today, I fell asleep pretty much right away. Had some fatigue the rest of the day and found it difficult to focus on anything.

Day 3

SO MUCH FATIGUE. Felt like a zombie all day, took forever to write just a few hundred words. I’m supposed to exercise to combat the withdrawal, so I managed to clomp about a mile with the dog. That night I had a lot of muscle and joint pain, especially in my head and neck.

Day 4

Nausea strikes! I threw up in the morning and lay on the couch. I drank a lot of water. Couldn’t figure out what to eat. Didn’t feel like eating at all the rest of the day, but I made myself.

Day 5

Saturday! Beach day! Yoshi was super obnoxious on the drive and I felt my patience wearing thinner than usual. Started getting headache and experiencing nausea. Couldn’t really focus, so I just sat on the beach and didn’t think about anything. Took a short nap and walked with Yoshi for a little bit.

Day 6

That’s today. I threw up again and I can feel a headache coming on just above my right eye, like a spreading sunspot. Thinking about going back to bed after I finish this blog. I wrote two work things already, so it wasn’t an unproductive morning. Going to see a movie this afternoon.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Withdrawal wasn’t too bad this week. I don’t like the fatigue part, because that makes working out SO DIFFICULT. Even just walking feels like my limbs are full of sandbags. Nausea is my least favorite symptom. I haven’t had any weird emotional symptoms yet besides some anxiety, racing thoughts, etc, at night. No weeping spells, which is good. This next week I’m sticking to my current 150g; I don’t want to taper down more until the withdrawal symptoms are completely gone.

What I’ll do differently: I’ve noticed that I’m really sensitive to sugar right now. As in, I’ll have one sugary thing and immediately start getting a headache. Will be avoiding sugar this week. Also making it a goal to get more exercise. Luckily it looks like it will be a cooler week.