15 feb 2022: first day off meds

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Since last year I have been preparing for this day: getting off Fluoxetine. I spoke about it with my psychologist, and on 15 Feb with my psychiatrist, ’cause it’s her who needs to give the go ahead. And so she did. She asked me (to confirm) if I was feeling good, strong and self confident. I sort of am, I have had stronger times last year, when work was going well and I wasn’t doubting my skills. Today I feel good, not “happy” but good enough to give it a go. And I have a concrete reason to do this right now: I want to succeed at my flight school. They won’t let me fly if I am on antidepressants (makes sense). This means that I won’t be able to pass the medical test until months after I quit. The psy said that I will be able to pass the medical exam by July, by then there’s nothing more in my system and I will be stable in my moods. I will do that.

How does it work? I take one tablet every other day on week 1; then one every 3 days on week 2, and by week 3 I stop. Yesterday I didn’t take it. Today I did. Tomorrow I won’t. Spirits are quite high (despite the shitty weather). I am working it out: as soon as some negative thoughts come in (which they do constantly) I acknowledge them but let them go, just like meditation. However, I haven’t been able to sustain meditation sessions over the years, I just find it too numbing in a way, I prefer to have my eyes open and deal with my reality with all my senses. Kudos for those who can meditate, I envy them.

I am definitely scared about letting go of Fluoxetine, no doubt about that; however, I have never gained any benefit from being scared or worried, it just makes things more difficult. So, how about I put aside fear and worry, and let things evolve?

Stay the course, stay the course. Your objective is: by 2024 get Swiss nationality, live in a new home, be a pilot, stay off meds, and keep working at the same company. It’s a big objective for the next 24 months, but feasible, and it gives me reason to be here in Switzerland, and justify the hard times when I say “what the hell am I doing here”.

I am going to better weigh the significance of positive events in my life. Instead of undermining them and taking them for granted, I will pause, observe them and rejoice for every single positive drop in the ocean. It will counterbalance the negative drops that my brain so easily fuels into my body.

Also, 20mg of psychotropes a day, how much can it really be impacting on my whole body? Last night I had dinner with a friend who is taking much more than that. And after 3 years he is still stuck with them, his psychiatrist doesn’t want him to get off meds. Mine does. So that’s in itself a victory. I am ready to let go. My body is. 20mg: goodbye. I will replace it with another 20mg of self induced good mood. Like in the good old days.

Wish me luck!

Time to cut off Fluoxetine

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One of the three objectives of my next two years is getting a private pilot license. The other two are: becoming a Swiss citizen and moving to the new house. But I forgot one major, major one: getting off Fluoxetine and stay away from medicaments for ever. This is a big deal, because I tried once before, and I slipped into another phase of depression. So I had to go back to my meds. It’s been over 2 years with Fluoxetine (the equivalent of Prozac) and this year, in spring, I want to do it again and this time, I want to succeed.

Last week I learnt that I need to pass a medical test to be allowed to fly for my pilot license exams. I told the doctor at the aviation club that I am taking antidepressants, and he said that this is a no-go by default. I need to be off medicaments for a number of months, and a follow up from my psychiatrist must ensue, before I can have the ok to fly. That has created a negative effect on me, as I almost found a good reason not to do the license. But then I thought that this can go to my advantage: I will eliminate Fluoxetine on 1st March and if all goes well I will be able to get the green light to fly by fall. This is my thinking.

It is easier for me to see the half glass empty, but I am working to see it half full. This is what my psychoanalyst is saying: train yourself to turn the negative thoughts to positive. Make a conscious effort, now that you are still using the medicine and feel strong, to actively turn the sad or negative into happy and positive. It’s all in the mind, and the mind can overtake decisions if we give it too much room to act. The other mind, the positive one, must take counteraction, and fight for the good of my whole being.

I would lie if I said that I am fine giving up Fluoxetine. I do know the good it did to me, and I am quite terrified to abandon this comfortable crutch. But man, it’s time to continue life, and to get back to normal; I want to rely on my own strength, my own self confidence.

What if I start feeling depressed again?

Well, what if I won’t?

Was Nelson Mandela ever depressed?

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Staying the course is definitely difficult, whatever course you set out to follow, but it’s doable. It “just” requires assiduity, diligence, even when I don’t see the end of this course.

I have set my course in a time where depression can creep in easily: in winter time. That is my strategy: set a course, and stick to it. Not only it is winter in the Northern hemisphere, but my function in the company has a lot of question marks, and I am living in a country where the past 6 years have been a roller coaster of depression and search for stability. Mix all that, and my anti-depression efforts can easily get down the drain in one nanosecond.

My personal course is: stick to this job (=don’t leave right away, just because i am not satisfied at the moment), apply for Swiss citizenship (it will take 2 years) so I can stay in this country (that was the idea 6 years ago = seek stability), complete the private pilot license and see where it leads you, regularly work on the podcast (publish one episode per week). This is my recipe to stay the course and counteract my depression.

That’s the thing: it is soooo easy to relapse, to look behind you and see everything that doesn’t work, for me it is so easy to look at the half empty glass. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the strongest, I feel I need 2 to bring myself down, and 8 to counteract with good and positive thoughts. That’s why I say it is hard. But doable, with effort and discipline. I am counting on the fact that, with time, the effort will become less and less difficult, and that the discipline will make my exercise for happiness not feel like an exercise anymore, but a normal way of life.

Looking back I miss the age when I was happy by default, and it required no effort. I think that the years where depression started to creep in were between end 20s and end 30s. Now I am in my 40s and I am consciously arming myself to conquer the happy place that was so natural back then. Funny to think that unconsciously I let my mind play with depressive feelings over the course of 10 or more years, and that now it will take at least as long, if not a lifetime, to chase those feelings and clean my spirit from sad thoughts.

The difficult part in this process for me, is to motivate myself to stay the course during times when I don’t see the point, or the end of the tunnel. It is hard to motivate myself when I wonder whether the effort is worth it. But then I think I am not the only one, and if others can do it, I can. Think of Nelson Mandela, who stayed in prison for almost 3 decades. He kept fighting and survived the cold winters of Robben Island year after year, not knowing whether he was ever going to be set free. But after 27 years he got out. And at the end of his life, his life started again.

That’s how I see myself. The end will be the best part of my life. Cause I will have earned it, and will be consciously happy and glad of what I have done in my life.

Booklet from my health insurance

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Today in the mail I received a booklet from my health insurance entitled “Guide – Depression”. I didn’t have to do much research to figure out that Switzerland has the world’s second highest count of suicides – great! Before us is a country that lives 6 months in darkness. Wow, that must be soooo hard! Tough people, the Nordics. Those who don’t commit suicide I bet they live forever.

Enough with suicide, which is not the topic of this diary. One thing I know for sure is that, despite the lowest, saddest moments I have had in my life, I could never take my life, cause life is too beautiful, and kind of the one precious thing we have. Depression, I admit, makes you think about death a lot, often as sort of a liberation from the unbearable sadness that devastates our souls while depressed. But we know what life is, we don’t know what death is. As my grandma used to say “chi lascia la strada vecchia per la nuova, sa quello che lascia ma non sa quello che trova” (the one who leaves the old road for the new one, he knows what he leaves, but ignores what he is going toward). I don’t know, I just find that this planet is so amazing, and there’s so much to see, so many people to meet, whereas eternity is what, eternal? That sounds boring to me already. So, I tell myself “get your sh*t together and enjoy this world”.

My insurance must know that I am not the only one who tends to be depressed in winter. They must have printed thousands of those booklets. Thousands of potential depressive? In 2020, more than 265 million people were depressed around the world. Proportionally, the African countries are the most affected. I would have not guessed that. I always think of the Africans as of someone dancing, happy, like this guy Mufasa!

It seems that depression is a disease because something changes in our brain, specifically in the way the neurons transfer information. Hence it become a disease. I always considered depression as something we could and should solve with our own efforts, not with medicine. That was true until 2019, when I could no longer get out of bed. Terrible feeling, I don’t wish it to anybody. It’s worse than pain I think, because you are completely unable to control your mind, although you ARE your mind. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like pain, on the contrary, there is some excruciating pain that I don’t even want to imagine. The best is to have no pain and no depression, all right!

Jim Carrey, John Lennon, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robin Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Van Gogh and many other artists were suffering from depression. Incredible that art and depression can go so hand in hand. The good news is: they were not alone in their struggle.

Anyway, all that to say: I found that the health insurance did a good thing by publishing this booklet. It helps take off the stigma from depression. I was in denial for many years. I still wish that I didn’t have to take medicaments, but I tell myself that I’d rather have a fine, serene winter with the help of Fluoxetin than feeling helpless and unmotivated without it. God bless medicaments. I am working on getting mind-stronger with the help of Dr. G, my psychologist. That is actually the biggest weapon to gain strength and avoid relapse once healed.

My biggest fear, after 2 years of medical treatment, is what will happen once I walk on my own again, without the Fluoxetin crutches. Dr. G. says I am doing well, and I am practising with positive thoughts, exercises and putting my eggs in different baskets. It is a daily work, and winter makes it harder, but I am doing well, and today was sunny and I felt especially well. I worked, swam and recorded a podcast episode.

Stay the Course. It will pay off. One day.

Very hard to stay the course

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Day Two of my resolution, and it’s already a challenge. Damn…

I have the will power of an ant… or maybe ants have a ridiculously big will power despite their size…. insomma, I am having trouble staying the course. As always I look at the big picture, and I see there is road work everywhere: my job, my pilot training, my podcast, my swiss naturalisation, my physical well being. Oh yes, cause when it rains it pours, I bring in all of my weapons to feel worse than I am. Piling up elements that give me a good reason to be self pitying. Great!

No, I won’t give in. Now I am going to concentrate on the good things that happened. Since yesterday, what did I do? I worked, albeit very slowly, but I made an effort to advance with emails and leads. Then I took a break to go to the swimming pool with the intention of swimming 2km; they didn’t let me in because I didn’t have the third vaccine shot; but the good thing is that, instead of feeling defeated, I went back home, changed wardrobe and went straight to the gym for an hour. I’ll do the same today. Friday is my third shot, so the pool isn’t a long wait.

What else did I do to be proud of? Oh yes, I logged in to my bank account to order a credit card; this may sound like a no brainer, but I have been procrastinating this for some time. First I checked Paypal as a method of payment (for my podcast) and when it didn’t work I blocked the process for a couple of weeks. This adds to the other things that don’t work right now. See how easy it is to get demotivated? Man… But I know the trick of my mind, and by writing this here, I am committing to take steps, from the credit card to the vacuum cleaner (my apartment looks like my soul) and the naturalisation quiz… I need to calibrate my mind to take one step at a time, to be ok with seeing imperfection in the big picture, I need to figure out a way to give value to every little move I make towards perfectioning the big picture.

Ok, so today I didn’t order a credit card, but I logged in and realised that logging in won’t help, I have to make a call to the bank. The ideal big picture is a picture with a nice credit card ready for my podcast, but to get there I need to make all the steps that are required to obtain the card. Today I took the step of logging in. It doesn’t show in the big picture, but once I get my credit card, the big picture will be more complete.

What else is missing in the big picture? Motivation at work. I will send more emails and will advance every day, even if I am moving at very slow pace right now. I want to use this slow time to advance with the other things are are part of the big picture. Like the swiss naturalisation test. So after this diary I will read some more swiss history, and get closer to my 19 jan goal (the written test). If they ask me about William Tell I know the answer :-).

What else is in the big picture? the pilot license, called PPL (private pilot license), which worries me because there is a lot to learn and I feel my head will explode. However, I am a smart person, and should be able to make it. Plus I love flying, being in the air, and skydiving. So piloting should come easy…. ok, since the naturalisation test is on 19 jan and the pilot classes start on 31 jan, I will not worry about the latter yet.

I feel a bit better than before. Jotting it all down helps.

When the damn winter ends, this will be good too.

Stay the course

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Resolution of the year 2022: stay the course. Even if the mind plays you tricks. Mine does.

The year 2021 has ended with uncertainty with regards to my work evolution. I spent the last months working hard, and dedicating lots of time to my job, as I was finally enjoying the aviation aspect of my sales role. But the product I am selling is not in the roadmap of our R&D department, hence it is unclear whether the company will properly invest in aviation, or not. And this will determine whether I can continue or not with my present job.

As I would normally do, my mind starts telling me “get away from this situation”, everything starts rapidly to look like a disaster, negative thoughts start overcoming the positive ones, and when I look at the big picture, I get overwhelmed, thinking I will never get there. There where? not sure, but there.

But! Two years of psychotherapy have taught me that I tend to be attracted by dissatisfaction, and especially in winter, the short days, the cold weather, the darkness, and Switzerland make me miss what I had before, my love, my life in the Caribbean; I miss other people’s lives, thinking I could be a kitesurf teacher and spend half of the year in Bresil like some people I know, or I could be a video journalist and travel the world etc etc… but this time I have munitions against my own thoughts. Even though it is still super hard to counteract my own negative thoughts, I have decided that I will stay the course.

And the course is: do the Swiss naturalisation process and complete the pilot license. Two years. I must do it, it’s about my own sanity. So, at the same time as doing naturalisation and license, I will continue my work of business development in aviation, and will continue believing in it. I will gain more know-how, instead of losing the competitive advantage I gained in the past 15 months, and I will be patient until something comes up from these actions.

Patience is not my forte. To stay the course is to be patient, and not look at or envy other lives. I had a good year 2021, for work and social life, I travelled a lot too, despite Covid and all, I want to remember this and not take it for granted. I want to put all the positive elements on the right side of the scale, to counterbalance the negative that necessarily comes to my mind.

So, resolution 2022: stay the course, don’t panic about things not being perfect. It’s ok if the big picture isn’t perfect.

The feel-good checklist to survive November and December gloom

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I managed to get by November by staying in Switzerland only 1.5 weeks in total. I went to the warm country of Oman for 12 days, and to a university friends get together in Spain for a long weekend. Not as warm as Oman, but sunny and beautiful as well. December is going by relatively quickly, with the first real snow falling, and the excitement of being able to go skiing.

November and December are the worst months for me, I don’t like autumn, I don’t like its dying colors, and I sadden as the days go darker and darker. This is what I am feeling now that I am back in Switzerland, at my place; it’s light at 8am, and it’s dark at 5pm. exactly at working hours. I feel like sleeping and staying in bed. If I hadn’t suffered from depression, I would find this amusing; feeling like a bear, understanding why certain animals hibernate in winter; but it raises alarm bells everywhere in my system. Last year, when I was depressed, staying in bed for 10 minutes was the beginning of a disguised turbine that dragged me down a spiral of wanting to do nothing; today I have the experience of two years of that feeling, and I know I want to resist the temptation of doing nothing, and lying on the couch, because this is dangerous for depression relapse. I don’t have the certainty, but even with Fluoxetin and all, I don’t trust winter and it’s tricky moods that reflect on my own self.

This morning it’s dark even though it’s 8.30am. Clouds are hovering and it has been snowing quite a bit. I woke up around 6.30am (late for my usual wakeup time of 4.30am) and started with breakfast, then I took the laundry downstairs, stored the Oman tent in the basement, and started to write this page of my depression fighter diary. Oh, I also made a list of things to do in the weekend, putting on every line that matters; this makes me feel I have accomplished things, and remind me that I am not being inactive and depressed. I am moving and make things happen.

My list of today:

  • Sell 4 items on marketplace
  • water plants
  • wash dishes
  • wash hair
  • iron the wax on the tupperware/cloth
  • take expense report to the office
  • study 45 min for swiss naturalisation
  • buy groceries
  • buy one winter plant
  • go to the gym (1h)
  • prepare ski-gear for tomorrow
  • ski in St Luc
  • glue laptop loose gum
  • search interviewees for podcast
  • store travel luggages
  • wash laundry
  • wash floor
  • podcast: study donation scheme

What I find good about this list is that there are lots of items, and I can already check a few of them, at 8.30am. Wash hair, wash laundry, which makes me feel good. I put it on an A4 paper, and every time I check one item, it’s success and I acknowledge that I have done well. No matter how little the todo thing was. I won’t throw away the list after this weekend. I will keep it for a while and add it to the upcoming weekends.

I see that I can do better yet: the very first item is in truth 4 items, cause I want to sell a small drone I don’t use anymore, a cappuccino maker a friend gave me which is too big for me, a 3D goggle, and a powerbank. That’s 4 times the effort. So I think I’ll split the first item.

And I will add one more item: write diary. check.

Latent Depression?

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Strange. Yesterday I wrote a page of this diary saying how much I had enjoyed the different sense of time in Oman, where everything flows so slowly compared to Europe; and I mentioned that I took the afternoon off, snoozing on the couch, doing nothing but watching TV and some favorite movies. I did that twice actually, on Saturday and Sunday. Today is Monday, back to working mode. The morning went well, that’s when I am most active. But: right after lunch, here comes the same lack of drive as yesterday. I lied down on the living room parquet to catch the shy heat of the winter sun, and have laid there for almost an hour. I am feeling, although not as severely, the same lack of drive as I had last year when I was depressed. And yet I am taking Fluoxetine, 20mg per day every single morning. Why do I feel like this then?

I am worried because I know that sense of helplessness, which comes from inside, a plug that is pulled out of my body and mind. I didn’t like feeling it today, while I was sunbathing to catch some vitamin D on the floor. I recognise this feeling, and I don’t like it one bit. It scares me. And I know that when I think of W., the love of my life whom I left 5 years ago, it means that I feel vulnerable and I wish he were there. Today I thought of him a lot.

Back to work now, but first I am going to write these words here, to make a point. A point of warning: I must be vigilant, depression isn’t over, sometimes I wonder if it will ever be. Are there people out there who were depressed, went on Fluoxetine, and got out of it? Doctors say that this molecule is not addictive (unlike Xanax), but is it really? Or are they just saying, so that we don’t worry?

Today for the first time in ages I felt the need to pull the plug, the inside black hole coming to surface again. I know it’s winter, November is the month I most hate, days are short, it’s cold and dark, it’s depressing by definition, but I am doing better than last year, and I am taking antidepressants, so where is the problem? It’s been two years now since I started taking this medicine. My intention is to reduce to 10mg in spring 2022, and stop early summer. See how it goes. Last year I stopped in September, just at the beginning of autumn. Not a clever decision. this year I am smarter. Come on L., get it together. You can do this.

A Different Sense Of Time

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Wow, already a month since my last post. I was on holiday in Oman, a beautiful place, full of different landscapes, and full of adventure, just like I love it.

In Oman I was happy, I did holidays the way I haven’t done in a long time. I went with a friend, so no emotional complications, good company, similar interests. We made a good choice to go there, just before the 5th (I think) Covid pandemic wave hit Europe and the rest of the world. We went without worrying too much about this and that. I did my PCR test on top of the vaccination, then a few papers and apps to fill, and off we go to Oman. 30 dry degrees in November was fantastic, and sunshine every day. Vitamin D a gogo.

Time passed in a different way there. I really enjoyed not having a schedule, not reading emails, not responding to SMS, just going with the flow. Wild camping is allowed everywhere in Oman: we drove on our 4×4 Toyota Land Cruiser, found a place to stop for the night, and pitched our tents. It could be the desert, the ocean beach the riverbed or the mountains, we did it all and nobody ever complained.

The day was rhythmed by the sunlight: 5h30am sunrise, 5h30pm sunset, darkness shortly before and after those times. During the 12 hours we had a our disposal we drove, we cooked, we ate, we swam, we hiked, we sightsaw, and we interacted with the local people. What struck me most was on Masirah Island, where our car got stuck in the deep sand, and local people started to help. They came and assisted, and when they realised that only another 4×4 would help us get out of the sand, they said we had to wait for the fishermen, who were all fishing until about 5pm. The fishermen are the people on the island who have 4 wheel drive vehicles. The great thing is, the locals who came to assist earlier that morning waited with us, for at least 2 hours. Time was not a matter for them: they didn’t have busy agendas with calls to make, they didn’t have traffic jam to drive through, their kids didn’t have hectic plannings.

They didn’t speak much English, so we used Google Translate to communicate. My friend had bought some data on a local simcard (Omantel). One of them, an older fellow, drove us to a neighboring parking area where some friends came to greet us and say hello. Nobody was angry, upset, or stressed; they all smiled. As to say “it is what it is”. How refreshing, how different from the hustle of the society I live in. Time had a different dimension there. And I enjoyed it fully.

Being away from my regular way of life has done good to me. I am happy I went, and my heart and soul feel lighter. I have charged my batteries and feel serene. Nothing compared to last year, when I went to Egypt, and I had to push myself to do whatsoever there; I was alone and I was depressed. This year I went for almost 2 weeks, with a friend, and we had good fun. I still feel the sunshine on my skin, the warm air caressing my hair, the smile of the villagers. Yesterday, first day since I am back, I did nothing all afternoon. I layed down and watched a lot of movies. From 12h30 until 22h30 I was on the couch. Feeling somehow guilty for not doing anything, as if wasting time, but then I decided to enjoy the nothingness. And I slept a lot.

Tomorrow I’ll work again.

It’s not about me

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It’s been almost two years since my first Fluoxetine dose. December 2019 was when I started. Then I took it until June 2020, and reduced the dosage by half, until September 2020, when I stopped completely. By end of October 2020 I was depressed again and had to resume Fluoxetine early December 2020. Today is 24 October 2021. Unlike last year, I have not attempted again to stop Fluoxetine at the beginning of autumn, but will do so next year, 2022, around March-April, when the best season for me starts.

This is an introduction to say that the way I feel now is different from last year. Today I feel confident, not depressed, I have energy, not lack of living fuel in my veins; the problems that arose last year with work (a contract that has deteriorated over the months) is persisting this year, with a new challenging turn, but I am taking it in a different way. This is a progress, and I’ll take anything but depression. Depression is a plug that is torn from my body, energy that turns off without a turn on button on the instruction manual. Anger, on the contrary, is a feeling, it makes me feel alive, although it’s not as pleasant as joy.

Anger is what I feel today, and what I have felt the past weeks. I have given so much to my job, working more than necessary, believing in the product, and I have received zero recognition and support from the management. I told this Mr. G., my psychologist, whom I see every 3-4 weeks, and I expressed him my frustration.

Frustration: the feeling of being annoyed or less confident because you cannot achieve what you want, or something that makes you feel like this

Cambridge Dictionary

So, I’ll take anger, because if I think back only a year ago, I could not move from bed. But I need to harness this feeling, which I consider not a happy one, and transform it to a positive one; Mr. G. told me that I want everybody to love me, and I seek everybody’s approval and recognition, whereas this is not what I should be aiming at. I should be happy with how I feel about me. It’s ok if not everyone loves me, it’s ok to have “enemies”, I need to remember that these are all feelings, not the universal truth. Reality is the way I perceive myself within my own circle of relationships.

It’s not all about me. I came across this video on Youtube and it made me think. Frederik Imbo, the author of this Ted Talk, says : do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy? He advocates to use discipline and training, to train your brain not to take things personally. He became a referee to train himself to not take things personally. He shifted the focus from Me to We, and look at the other person’s intention. ’cause it’s not about me.

And what if it is about me? In this case I doubt about myself, because I haven’t come to terms with parts of myself, I am not confident. And I don’t take into account other people’s needs. This is probably rooted in childhood (maybe you were never good enough, or you were spoiled too much, always having your dad’s back).

I have started exercising not to take things personally. Easier said than done, but at least by trying I am training my mind to protect myself. It’s usually not about me, in which case the problem isn’t there, it’s the way others see themselves. When it’s about me, what can I do? My ego wants to be right, it wants to be acknowledged. Me, myself and I.

I am sad if I don’t get recognition. Imbo says: then open up without blaming the other one, vocalise your needs. Give yourself empathy, speak up.

I will adopt this strategy next time I am sitting in the same room with the CEO.

PS: did you know that we have 50’000 thoughts a day, and of them 10’000 are positive. 80% of what we think are negative thoughts. We might as well concentrate more on the positive.