Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring – Tinitus!

Ok, it’s not as catchy as the Bananaphone song… but I’ve got a wicked case of the Ringing Dizzies this morning.

Doesn’t make sense though, I’ve been taking my meds like a good girl, I got into a new routine that helps me not forget. Except over the last few days it’s like they’ve just totally stopped working. Or maybe they were secretly replaced with sugar pills or something. It’s like the codeine last week, it was great the first day, then it just stopped having any effect.

Aside from the intense dizziness and ringing in my ears, the depression has come back hard recently. Things I enjoyed doing last week have lost their appeal. Food I liked to eat is now bland and uninspiring. I can’t sleep. My motivation and what little energy I had, has drained away. The only thing that hasn’t faded or dulled is pain.

Pain where my last wisdom tooth was recently removed. Headaches. Back pain. Pain is the only constant. To steal a line from HHGTTG, “I hurt, therefore I am.”

For now I’m still going through the motions. Trying to do things that were fun, desperately hoping to find some of the enjoyment that was there before. Eating because of hunger, but hoping that it will taste good or be enjoyable. It doesn’t work though, whatever I try, food, activities, etc. just leaves me tired and disappointed. I just want to lay down somewhere dark and quiet.. like a wounded animal, let me hide just undisturbed for a while, and I’ll either get better and re-emerge, or I won’t.

Roughly speaking, more or less, it’s been about a year since I started taking my mind-altering drugs – a year of cryptospam.

Originally I was just taking one of these a day. Then after a couple months, it went up to two a day. Two a day seemed good, worked well for several months. By well, I mean, you know, stable, steady.

Then lately, like end of October / beginning of November, I started having wild mood swings. One day I’d be up, bouncing off the walls, everything was cool. Then the next day or two or twelve, I’d be down, really morose, wondering what was the point of anything.

It was pretty messed up.

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I’m not much of a fighter. I believe in what I think is right, but I detest conflict of any kind. Often, I find it easier to just go along with things rather than put up a show of resistance.

The cryptospam has been fighting the darkness for me, but lately its been losing the battles, like its getting tired, or the darkness is getting stronger.

I try and distract myself quite a bit, with snails, cameras, pointless blather. It works more or less, but is definately just a temporary measure. No matter what, at the end of the day, night always falls. And then all that’s left is to wait and hope that dawn will come again.

Sometimes though, I wonder if fighting is the answer. If it might not be better to just embrace the darkness and despair, take it, hold it, own it, make it mine. Then maybe I’d be in control of it, rather than running from it or hiding from it. Though that sounds like a scary journey, and I don’t know if I’m up for it.

Still, doing nothing doesn’t seem like a good choice either. Things are feeling less real, different. My skin doesn’t feel like my skin any more. My hair feels fake. My eyes look different.

Logically I ‘know’ that the more-likely explanation is the only thing that is changing is my perception, but perception guides experience and vice versa. Right or wrong, if you can’t trust your senses, then you no longer know what’s real.

I don’t know what to do about it all.

Lack of motivation? Or lack of energy?

Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference; sometimes it’s both.

To some extent, the symptoms are the same.

And I’d write more, but seriously, I just don’t have it in me right now.

Sorry.

It’s been about ten or eleven months since I started taking the cryptospam pills to combat depression. If I remember to take them every day like I’m supposed to, then things are moderately ok. Nominally.

Remembering to take them on schedule is the tricky part. Memories add up and play tricks. I remember taking them, but am I remembering yesterday’s memory or today’s? Or have I just visualized taking them with enough clarity to think I actually did it?

Of course, after a day or two of uncertainty, if I’ve forgotten then it gets very obvious, what with the dizzy spells, lack of focus, discombobulation, heebie jeebies, and general befuddlement.

Wierdly, and this is appearantly not uncommon among anti-depressants, one of the potential side-effects is more depression. And another potential side-effect is suicidal thoughts. Now, when I read that, I thought it was kind of a crazy ass thing to be giving depressed people. Like, if you were taking medicine for your heart, would you want it to list ‘heart attack’ as a possible side-effect? It’s counter-intuitive. Almost like they slip that in there just to mess with those of us who have to read everything infront of us. (That’s probably another whole episode there – about the compulsive reading thing.)

Anyhow, with the funky side-effect thing – it’s not just a joke they put in the fine print, it’s appearantly serious enough for doctors to mention it when they perscribe it at first, like if you get this to contact them at once. I wasn’t too worried about it because I like to think I’m pretty self-aware. Even if I can’t always react or control things, I’m at least congizant of them, you know? Or maybe I just believe I can. Either way, it works out.

It was wierd though – back during the first few weeks on the cryptospam, sure enough I started getting these thoughts and visions of hanging. There’s lots of big sturdy trees in my backyard and I’d think about which were the best ones for fixing ropes to. Some parts of my house are really well-built and I’d think about if there were some good solid joists or whatever they call the structural things, that would be a good place for a rope. It wasn’t so much like actively plotting, more like an idle or passive thought. Like daydreaming, when you just let your mind wander. Mine would wander to ropes and places to attach them.

Although I did realize it was probably due to the drugs, it still kind of freaked me out, because normally my idle-visions / daydreams are about getting shot. I don’t really like the thought of hanging, it was strange and unfamiliar.

So eventually, after a few weeks when the majority of the side-effects were going away and I was getting used to the drugs, the hanging thoughts went away and the getting-shot thoughts returned. So things have been fairly normal in that department ever since.

The cryptospam still wasn’t working, but the wine was nice.

For a while, then it wore off.

Back to step one.

So, Saturday evening. Rainy out. Quiet, other than the hum and trickle of the aquarium filters. No more dizzy spells or heebie-jeebies which is ok.

On the other hand, the cryptospam doesn’t seem to be working at all. It’s like it switched off, and now everything starts with D.  Darkness; Depression; Despair.

Maybe some wine will help. Nothing like a depressant to chase away the blues, right?