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yeah, NIK, I think I need at least several. Thank goodness I don't have very many responsibilities right now.

I am just starting to release on a gut level how much I've done in just the last month and a half, never mind the last year. I decided I wanted to come up here, and then in about two weeks I was here with my stuff, and then in about two more weeks I had found and moved into an apartment... not just that, but a nice one in a good location near good schools, and for substantially under my budget.

Nora, it was really good! I saw Guardians of the Galaxy. Really funny and very well executed. I might even consider watching it again if I can find someone who wants to go.

On the subject of humor.. I find it amusing that violence is so funny to American audiences (maybe it's worldwide, I don't know--I've only lived in the US). I definitely get and appreciate slapstick violence, but it's amazing how many people laugh at violence that's just part of the story and not intended to be funny. Catharsis, maybe?

Everyone seems to be seeing that lately! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Don't feel bad about the day of rest--you must have needed if.

I am thankful for days when I have more capacity to do stuff. Doing almost nothing is boring.

So I'm still keeping my thinking and activity level low, but I'm starting to see a picture in my head that after a few days of this I'll gradually get some capacity back. I don't think it'll just be weeks of almost nothing. I just want to make sure I do things to limit my stress and not go over capacity and get into another spiral. I need to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

I've been reading some stuff on stress.. apparently too much of it can damage your brain and can cause depression. It's thought that this can be reversed (especially with exercise and with antidepressants in some cases), but long term stress is a killer. It's like borrowing money at a high interest rate. And exercise, even if all you can manage is a daily walk initially, is really good at beating stress, both right after the exercise and cumulatively.

So I got up and got a couple errands done, and got some walking in, had some breakfast, and then came back home (was starting to feel a little overwhelmed). Progress. One of the things I did was walk around a store and think about furniture and decorations and stuff for my daughter's room.

I remember it feeling like this for a while when I was recovering from some bad stuff in '06. It definitely got much better over time.

Went out a bit later and dropped off some dry cleaning and did some cardio (half my usual time, but it's something).

Sounds good, PIC.

It feels really good to be able to start to do some simple things again and feel a little peaceful. It's scary to lose that, even temporarily.

Not as great today. Mild anxiety/depression. Got some phone calls done though, and I don't feel exhausted, so... standard nonlinear recovery so far. Up and down. Last night was really nice though. I was starting to feel a little like myself again.

I have an appointment with my new (assuming he works out) psychiatrist in a couple hours.

Saw the psychiatrist. Seems like a good guy. We're going to slowly reduce the antidepressant (he says call him or just go back up if I run into too much trouble).

Hopefully this will be a positive change... less numbness and side effects without causing any new issues.

PIC - Make sure you are on top of your self-care as you make the adjustment to your meds. Plenty of physical exercise, regular sleep, good nutrition - you know the drill.

Hmm.. sleep/exercise/nutrition are okay or near okay right now, but I'm just starting to recover from some recent stressors. I could put this off say a week or however long it takes me to get back to where I feel like I have them nailed down.

Basically ... sleep is good except I really want to pull my bedtime back to around 10 pm and not midnight. Exercise is three times a week of cardio (my normal goal is four, but three is about what I can do lately). Nutrition.. well, it was fine before I moved, and the quality after that kind of depended on what day it was and how I was feeling.

Oh. So this is kind of embarrassing, but I may as well admit it (I told the doctor about this). I did the 200 -> 175 on my own because I was fed up with some of the side effects. It's hard to say how I dealt with that because I had a stomach bug within a couple days of making that change. However, since then I have felt slightly more 'real' emotionally, less numb, slightly better empathy.

I very very rarely make changes without a doctor supervising, but I was really tired of waking up on random days and having my head pounding all day and nausea and unable to think straight. And I'm still not convinced that this med has anything to do with it--maybe it was some other factor--but it's at most half as bad as it was before the change.

I've thought about it for a while, and using my experience compounding my klonopin for gradual reduction (which I was doing with my previous psychiatrist until April, when we temporarily stopped it because of the career change stuff/stress), I'm going to use a compound to smoothly reduce my daily dose of effexor from 175 -> 150 over 14 days, and then hold for at least two weeks to see what happens. I was going to hold at least a month after the change anyway, so I don't lose time, but this way it'll be far easier on my system and I can halt it if there's any trouble.

Managed 15 minutes of cardio today (this is at a nearby gym ~1 mile away.. I used to jog a couple years back but I decided to stop before I hurt my knees or shins. I may take it up again after I lose more weight.)

[This message edited by ProbableIceCream at 1:00 PM, August 6th (Wednesday)]