grinninfoole

I started taking sertraline back in 2011 when I hit a serious depressive spell. I stopped last autumn quite abruptly when I ran out of pills in Andover, and didn't have any easy way to refill them. Apparently, 'cold turkey' is not the recommended way to go off mood stabilizers, as I felt really weird for about a month or two. My doctor was aghast when I told her.

Still, it was done, and I noticed some major changes: my moods were much more variable than I was accustomed to. I felt, at times, ebullient and, at others, deeply sad. All would wash over me like a wave and like a wave all would pass. My libido was more powerful and more insistent. This was all acceptable, even desirable, but I also found that I would fly into rages like I hadn't in years, and over trivial matters. I'd get frustrated with something in the kitchen at Mom's house, for example, and I'd be tossing things about, banging pot lids, and swearing up a storm. It was embarrassing for me, and upsetting for Mom. So, about two weeks ago, I started in again on the sertraline. I'm only taking 25 mg a day, but the way it has muted the emotional color in my life has been quite noticeable. Over the past week, I have been settling into a mild depression, a dysthymia, that makes it hard to take care of business–which is particularly embarrassing when I have no business but my own. Still, I'm holding my temper in the manner to which I have grown accustomed, and that's worth it.

Last week when I posted about contacting S again, and it being a major turning point in my life. Still haven't seen or heard from S again since then, but I notice two things:

1) thinking about her makes me happy, and is giving me a little spike of adrenalin I can feel behind my sternum.

2) I have been feeling BETTER since then. Depression has been dogging me for a while, and about a month ago I increased my daily dose of Sertraline by 50%, which helped, but I've still been feeling unable to do stuff like laundry or cooking. (I was seriously eating out every meal for a while.) Since seeing S, I have gone shopping, made food, changed my bed, and gotten niggling stuff done at work.

I don't know why I feel like this. It could be that I'm still deeply in love, or it might just be that I have undone a fifteen year old psychic logjam, but I have decided that I want to find out. I even have these moments where I feel like we're meant to be together, and all I have to do is let it happen.

I don't entirely trust that feeling, since I am a drama queen, but I have enough faith in my subconscious and my self-awareness to give it a try. I'm going to try something new for me, and not spend so much time and energy imagining how something would be that I don't actually do it, yet still entertaining the possibility of it, rather than assuming it's hopeless and giving up before I even try. In other words, I'm going to live in hope, but carry on with my ordinary life as best I can. If S and I are 'meant for each other', then it will work out if I just have patience. If we aren't, then it's still a great adventure for me to find out, and definitely worth the price of admission.

I'll keep you all posted, of course. My secret plan is to invite her over to dinner with me and M, and she'll have such a good time, she'll call me a lot.