Posted by brian on June 14, 2000, at 17:43:29
In reply to Brian - hope all's well, posted by Kath on June 12, 2000, at 10:53:22
> Hi Brian - I'm just wondering how you're doing. Hope you're having fewer side effects now.
>
> I'm feeling a little more anxious yesterday & today, but I'm wondering if it's because my son was really sick all week (turned out to be severe tonsillitis & his whole body became inflamed). I was being nurse all week, so maybe I'm just worn out & maybe that feels different on Celexa than it does off it.
>
> I go on a camping holiday for 10 days on Thursday (by myself - I'm so excited!!) Actually, I'm sort of stressed about getting ready for that too.
>
> Take care, KathYes, It definitely could be the stress of taking care of your son plus the upcoming vacation. I suppose we should be thankful that these medications don't eradicate all forms of anxiety -- that would be far too Aldous Huxley, y'know?
My results have been exciting, exasperating, enervating and energizing, and all this in the space of a few weeks! When I started on 20mg, I had a pretty lousy first week followed by a couple of really good days. I'm something of an SSRI veteran, so I've learned not to proclaim "cure!" after a couple of happy days. But I was still disappointed when that initial flush faded.
After about a week on 30mg, I started felling really good. And it was a deep down kind of good. I didn't feel masked or medicated, I felt calmed -- elevated into a peaceful kind of rationality that allowed me to better interpret the daily stresses that before would toss me into teeth-clenching anxiety attacks. It felt liberating, like the stone had been removed from my back, and the rug slipped back under my feet.
That feeling lasted about 5 days or so. On Sunday I upped my dose to 40mg, and the initial side effects have thus far overshadowed the benefits. I'm hoping this is temporary.
The thing about when medications work... It's very difficult to explain to anyone who has never dealt with anxiety/depression, as I'm sure you're aware -- or any mental illness for that matter. When they work, it's suddenly like returning home. I again own myself. I've gone through such stretches of my life plugging along, in between health plans, on and off SSRIs, that sometimes I forget how it is to feel good. Or I just sort of mentally shrug off the hope of ever feeling any better.
Then the medication works, and it's a sort of elevation that I could never have willed or reasoned my way into. It's beyond reason, deeper and more intimate than words. Where before I was mislaid in a forest of cerebral convolutions, now I'm "magically" above looking down - I don't know how I got there and I don't care. I just wish to never descend into that thicket again. It's the kind of feeling that makes me want to kiss my med bottle, and psychopharmacology cynics be damned!
I often think that we anxiety/depression/etc sufferers see the world through a different lens; one that bends the world slightly, as a stick appears bent when dipped in a stream. And if we look long enough, we may just start to believe that the world is as it appears. Sure, we can reason around this - we know that the stick isn't really bent, that it's a trick. But that knowledge doesn't change our experience.
And I can reason away my anguish, or force a laugh and pretend to relax, but the anxiety is still there. The depression still roils under the surface. That is the most frustrating thing about the whole experience: to know that it is a mental phenomenon, barely measurable, highly subjective, often fleeting as a rainbow, but real; as impossible to brush aside as a shadow.
poster:brian
thread:37037
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000610/msgs/37307.html