That little storm I wrote about last week, the problems with my Wellbutrin, has turned into hurricane force winds that blew me right back to where I was in February. I have no energy, no motivation, no concentration. A steady buzzing or tingling underneath my skin that makes it hard to rest or be at ease. At night, my sleep is interrupted so often that I dread looking at the clock (“What? Only 1am? And this is the fourth time I’ve awakened?”) And everything just feels difficult and, I don’t know, grim. I didn’t get dressed until 1:30 this afternoon, and then only because I had a therapy appointment.

On the one hand, you might say, “That kind of sucks, but you have lived through this before. You know it won’t last forever.” And sometimes, I can kind of hang onto that thought.

But on the other hand, I feel like the happiness of feeling increasingly well over six entire weeks has just ruined me for this. I don’t have patience for it anymore. Or I already used up all my resilience. Or something. I feel grumpy, impatient, angry.

I don’t want to be dealing with medication hassles anymore! It’s been 26 months. Seriously, 26 months! Even when people write about it taking longer than doctors think to withdraw from psychiatric meds, people write about “several months.” No one writes about it taking more than two years.

And this latest episode means I’m not getting work done again, just when I was starting to move forward with things. It also makes me wonder if I’ll be able to finish our taxes on time (for non-US readers, our taxes are due on April 15, and especially now that I have a freelancing small business, I find it time-consuming and tedious to go through all the pieces involved). I feel stressed about lying around, unfocused, staring at the wall, wondering when my brain might choose to come back online.

Just having a bit of a rant, and feeling sorry for myself, I guess.

Big slow breath. I think I need to go back and re-read some of my own posts about acceptance and tolerating distress. I know that’s the right approach, but it really isn’t easy in practice.

CREDIT:  Photo by Gabriel Matula on Unsplash