Tag: taking antidepressant

Memory loss and anti-depression achievements

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I realised I didn’t write in a long time; on one end it is a good sign, it means I am doing well, I have been busy, I have been my “usual” self (usual = pre-depression); on the other end I am sorry I have neglected you, diary, because this is a long term project and I want to keep a trace of my fight against depression.

I also realise I forgot about the diary. I haven’t thought about it in a long time.

Forgetting is something I do often, I have bad memory, really bad, from childhood in fact. This has been a disadvantage for studies, as I could not memorise much, but a good thing for social liaisons, as I forget easily why I am angry with someone, so I don’t hold a grudge, haha! “I was very angry with you, but I forgot why, so let’s stay friends”. I am a bit like Dory in Finding Nemo.

But this memory thing has gotten a bit worse with the therapy. I took 20mg Fluoxetine from December 2019 until Spring 2022: that’s a bit more than 2 years. Yesterday I went to a new psychiatrist (who needs to report that I am fine with pursuing a private pilot license) and he said that usually memory capabilities go down with psychotropes. This is less of a good news, and I hope it won’t get worse than this. I hope I won’t get Alzheimer. But that is another disease, I don’t see the link with psychiatric remedies.

In hindsight, looking at the last 3 years, since I was depressed and could not get out of bed, where everything was overwhelming, and I didn’t see the sense of life, I look at me today and I see that I have done tremendous progress. Medicine is not necessary, and I don’t recommend it unless you are really really low. I was at a very low point, and could not find in me the strength to get up again. I felt the world was collapsing onto me, too heavy to sustain. So I took some medical crutches, I took an antidepressant, which gave me the mental capacity to get up again on my feet. Antidepressant is not the goal, it’s the means. The most important work is with a psychological consultant who can study your mind, understand where you turn your thoughts in ways that lead you to depression, and prescribes you the mental weapons to grow stronger, avoid the tricks of your mind, come out of your fight with your brain as a winner. Winning is embracing your brain, understanding who you are (not easy at all), and remembering to be gentle with you whilst being demanding.

I don’t think that my psychologist is a great one, he is actually a psychoanalist (I didn’t know then, I just looked up a practice on Google that was walking distance from home….), but he did tell me a few things over 3 years that stuck with me. And I am daily using the exercises to strengthen my mind against the adversities that my own mind finds along the way. I do intentionally look for the elements in the day that make my glass half full instead of half empty. Empty glass is part of the glass, but I know I can make it fuller than emptier, it’s all up to me.

One great example I often think of, is Monsters Inc. Check this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35XcnPM68ro the one eyed monster finds out that he is on the front cover of the magazine, but his face is hidden by the barcode. And yet he is super excited to be on the front cover of the magazine! I find that so cute. Seeing good also when it’s not 100% perfect. I mean, better being partly on the cover than not being there at all.

Anyway, this was just a quick note to say I am back, I haven’t left now that I am feeling good. I am much happier now, quite satisfied with pretty much everything in my life, and working daily on my happiness. I have projects, and I stick to them. That is key for me. Podcast, naturalisation, flying license, sport, travels, work. The fight isn’t over, and I think it will be a fight for life. Winter is coming, I am getting ready.

More soon.

No Fluoxetine – so far so good

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I am almost through a month with 5 consecutive days off Fluoxetine. In a month, I am only taking 5 pills of 20mg Fluoxetine. In June I will go 6 days off. And after June I will stop completely. This year I have set the time right. I started reducing in February, 2 days off and 1 day on, then 3 days off and 1 day on, and 4 days off and 1 day on; I did this over the course of 3 months. Now I am off 5 days, in 2-3 weeks 6 days, and then the level of antidepressant in my body will be so low that it will be irrelevant. 20mg in 6 days is nothing. It means that the mood I produce is all natural. And this is great. Cause mood has been quite good.

Not much has changed in my life: no new love, work is up and down as in the last couple of years, some sport, not as much as I would like, some travel, definitely not as much as I would like, and I am still living in the same place. I am studying for my pilot license, and soon are the exams. I am following the psychological therapy by seeing my psychologist every 3 weeks. What is changing is the way I look at things, the way I let myself react to outside events. I can’t say I am truly happy, but most days I am serene. Once a month I feel like I want to cry, and I can’t put a finger to what triggers it. Sometimes I think it’s due to the Fluoxetine shot I take randomly (once every xx days) which must have an impact on my moods; and sometimes I relate it to the menstrual cycle and the swingy moods attached to it.

On days like today, where I tend to look ahead in time and can’t see an improvement of my work or love situation, I must make an extra effort to reduce my long term vision, not reflect today’s state with “the rest of my life” state, cause this is a dangerous thought that can lead to insatisfaction. And that is the true enemy for me. Insatisfaction. Seeing the glass empty instead of full.

So, on days like this, I’ll take some time to do an episode of my podcast, I’ll write a page of this diary, I’ll plan some good sport session, and I’ll work as if all was going in the right direction.

Summer has arrived in the North Hemisphere, and this is a huge help. I definitely look forward to the long sunny evenings, the 25 degree air temperature, and with some luck, I will meet some new nice people, and maybe love.

Three weeks with half dose of Fluoxetine

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It’s March 2022. I have timed it right: start reducing Fluoxetine in spring, and give it up completely by summer. It is a process that takes as long as it takes, I think it’s quite personal. I started taking one 20mg pill every other day, and see how it feels. Once I feel I am in charge, I reduce to 1 pill every three days.

While my psychiatrist told me I could do this whole process in 3 weeks, my psychologist warned me that I must take my time. The body has been used to receiving a chemical for the last 2 years, and it’s accustomed to whatever Fluoxetine does (it inhibits the presynaptic reuptake of the neurotransmitter serotonin…there you go). Not that I understand completely what it does, but it works by inhibiting something on the serotonin level. In normal cases, I am the one inhibiting this action, but for the last 2 years I have been helped by something external.

Hence, I need to start doing that action again by myself, serotonin and all. But I won’t rush my brain to produce serotonin, while my brain has been told to ease that action for 2 years. I am taking it off little by little.

So: how am I doing?

I am doing fine, working on my psychological well being by seeing my doctor every three weeks (or more often if I need to), and three weeks have gone by where I have done one day with 20mg, one day without. The first week I got spooked, cause about 3 nights after the new dosage, I had a crying crisis, and I felt really bad, thinking that I’ll never get out of this. Then I realised that I was close to my menstrual cycle, where I am moody and sad by default (thank you, hormones!) and got relieved. Also, I think that maybe my system started feeling the lack of the medicament, and had a first reaction, just like it happened when I first started taking Fluoxetine (I felt like shit, worse than with my own depression, for about 2 weeks, before the medicine seeped in).

Yesterday I started with phase two: Since beginning of the week I had one Fluoxetine only. I am doing 1 day on, 2 days off. I just started, so I can’t tell how I feel yet. Yesterday (two days in a row without) I felt good. Today (with Fluoxetine) I feel good.

The surroundings and the actions I take to feel good are super important. I am not waiting around monitoring my moods without Fluoxetine. I am doing an hour of sport every day (gym and swim), I am doing physio to heal my knee (ski accident, season is over), I keep working (despite frustrations at work), I keep following the flight course, I keep making one podcast interview per week, I make efforts in going out with people and feeling less lonely in the Swiss environment. All this helps, not only it helps, it makes the difference. Distributing my eggs in different baskets is key: if one basket is not going well, I have another 4 or 5 that my mind can bring its attention to.

My main focus is not to fall into the self pity trap. While there are tons of things I could be unsatisfied about, there are as many things that make me happy, little things and bigger things. I am learning to give more weight to the little achievements. I tend to disregard them as a given, while the non achievements take a much larger space than they should. Lots to work on, but this year the biggest achievement of al will be getting rid of Fluoxetine. One milligram at a time.

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?

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.

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.

Noise Off Distractions

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Last night I had dinner with my boss. I invited him over. It was a good exercise to discuss with him. this morning I figured out why. Waking up, while my thoughts are at best, free from distraction, and free to roam in my brain without noise, I realised : “noise”! That’s what it is. This is what I need to work on. I can best compute, reason, tink, work, judge, when I am free of noises. I am sharp when I don’t have distractions.

What I realise this mornign is that people are my main distraction. And by distraction I don’t mean something negative, I mean a distraction from my ultimate goal in life: be in peace with myself.

While waking up, the thought of distraction brought me immediately back to Will. The love of my life. Why did I leave him, why did I suffer so much for leaving him, and why this and why that. I think I know now: it is because he was a necessary casualty to free my self from distractions that don’t make me see me.

Distraction: something that prevents someone from giving their attention to something else:

Cambridge Dictionary

That’s exactly it. When I am with people, I am prevented from giving my attention to someone else: me. When I am with someone, I tend to reduce me in order to let the other express, shine, decide, say, feel respected. By doing so I let my own self pass on second rang. For the sake of others. I wrote a page of my diary about this, I need to find it again. ’cause its true. this has been one of my main difficulties in life: how to joggle between me and others, how to act and preserve my self against other selves. I see this in my present job, which I like very much, but it gives me pain as well, cause I don’t feel myself enough heard, appreciated and followed, as I should. And when I am with my chef, my superior, I lose my self, and he becomes a distraction, that doesn’t make me see me and my reasoning. How to pierce my own view into them. me against them, woman against a world of men. That too I am sure plays quite a role.

The medicine is giving me more strength and helps me detach from the situation. But I am still vulnerable, and I am still months away from being confident that I will make it without the drugs. I had a dream last night, that I was depressed and felt like doing nothing. The worst nightmare, it reminded me what it feels like to have no motivation.

But waking up, the motivation is there, and I thank God. Nature maybe :-).

Side effects of Fluoxetin

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The first few weeks, after the effect of Fluoxetin started to stabilise, I noticed that I remembered my dreams after every single night. I remember dreaming all along my previous years, sometimes I recollect very clearly what happened in the dream, sometimes not. Dreams have always been part of my life. But this is a very vivid experience. For about 3-4 weeks, when I was into my 5-6th weeks of taking the pills, I could notice clearly that whatever I had thought during the day, I would dream it at night. Did I think of my parents on day x? I would dream of them on night x. Did I picture a particular memory of my ex boyfriend on day y? I would dream it on night y. The dream was a distorted version of reality, but still very very vivid. That, for me, is the only side effect I can report of Fluoxetin. I don’t know how these medicaments work, but I figure all antidepressants must give a similar reaction. I would love to know if you have had a similar experience.

One particular thing about this dreaming pattern: I had come to a point, up until a month ago, that I could determine during the day what I was going to dream at night. That was powerful, and awesome! I remember talking to a young friend of mine, whom I am very fond of (as a friend purely) and whom I find very handsome (sweet, good body, young); we chatted on the phone talking about our lives, and catching up (he left Switzerland for a couple of years); I have no particular feelings for this young man, except for some physical attraction maybe; at night I ended up dreaming of him and me in an intimate situation; it felt really good, real and vivid. Haha! I had fund that night. When I woke up, I had a good memory of the dream, and till today (about 45 days later) I think of it smiling. I don’t think I’ll tell JC about the dream. I don’t want our friendship to be jeopardized. I prefer to keep him as a friend for a very very long time. Physical attraction, in my experience, ruins friendships. But that’s tropic for another day.

Going back to dreams and side-effects of antidepressants, I haven’t been able to sustain this dreaming habit for long. I think it lasted a month or a bit longer. Interesting. What happens now is that dreams still occur, and I still remember more than in the past, and day previous hours before the sleep still affect greatly the content of my dreams, but I don’t seem to have a grip on it. Dream just comes. This morning while meditating, I was thinking about the dream I had last night. I dreamt of going to W.’s wedding to his present girlfriend (who is W? Long story), he invited me. I went with my best friend M., we went with a VW, where I had put a change of clothes to get dressed, cause I was still in my PJ while driving to the venue. W. didn’t look like him, he rather looked like another guy I fancied in the past; his fiancée was not his actual fiancée, but my ex work colleague from the previous firm. When finishing up the meditation (as I was trying not to think…) I reviewed the dream in my mind, and realised that all elements of the dream had been in my mind in the previous 12h hours: W. looked like I guy I had just happened to think about a few hours back; my neighbor friend, whom I see every day for half hout in the public garden during isolation time, told me about our common ex-work colleague and her gift to her little daughter; the clothes were to change my PJ, which is what I have been wearing for the past 5 weeks in isolation (for Zoom or Whatsapp work calls all I need is to look decent from the waist up :-)). And voilà le cake is ready. Many ingredients (WV: not sure why it was in the dream). All make sense. Wow, it’s really great to follow this process as the studying subject and object of this phenomenon called healing from depression.

As for any other side effects of Fluoxetin, the only other thing I can remember is feeling stomach pains the first few weeks; the medicine was hard on my stomach, even if I was taking it after breakfast. And the heart beat growing faster a few hours after taking it. These effects have passed after 2-3-4 weeks. Sometimes I feel so good actually, that I need to calm down, to not explode of happiness. I want to preserve my emotions and be ready for when I stop the medicines. No intention of stopping as of yet. I am thinking another few months. I’ll for sure wait that Covid isolation is over.

Fluoxetin

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This is what is looks like, Fluoxetin:

Very unsexy name, I got it prescribed last week for the first time. My mood was too low and I couldn’t see any joy in anything I was doing. I have fought so many times to avoid getting to this stage, and here I am, taking antidepressants. Another unsexy word – antidepressants. We could have come up with a more compassionate word, one that includes the hope of healing. In Africa they use so many refreshing words (like Ubuntu – brotherhood, sounds so nice), we could have gone to an African tribe and asked “what healing name would you give to an epidemic disease that’s spreading in the first world?”. They would probably look at us in disbelief. Depression: what’s that? We haven’t got that far up into Maslow’s pyramid!

True, ‘cause depression is a disease of people like you and me whose basic needs have been already fulfilled. We are not fighting to drink, eat or find shelter. All of that is already taken care of. We are among the few lucky in this world. I have time to think of how to fulfill myself in this lifetime; I have money to take a holiday, buy furniture and new clothes; I never felt really hungry in my life; my grandmother used to describe to me what hunger was, during World War One and Two – I could try to imagine, but that was it.

I got sidetracked, but there is a reason for it: the very first psychiatrist I ever visited, who gave me the Fluoxetin you see in the picture, is a Congolese doctor. Man, he must be thinking “what a first world problem to have” …. I am not sure I trust him yet (I don’t trust doctors in general) but his jolly, bubbly, slightly over-weighted self is comforting.

It takes two to three weeks for the medicament to have an effect; I am down to week 1. First two days I cried, was anxious and panicking, I wanted to scream at the doctor that he should have warned me. Be warned: the first effect of an antidepressant can make you more depressed. Great! Had I known, I could have been prepared. Next few days have been better. I took three days off work, which helped.

It’s been now one week, and since a couple of days my afternoons are feeling normal, serene, like I haven’t been feeling in a long time. Since July 2019 (five months ago) I have been falling into a sad sad mood, not one day of joy and nothing to look forward to. So, this white and green pill I am taking is making me feel better, and hallelujah for modern medicine! Bring it on, inject chemicals in me that have been missing: serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, whatever works. It feels good.

Side effects: stomach burns (you need to eat well before taking it), one or two morning spasms when waking up (you know the feeling of when you wake up before you fall?), not a big deal, I guess, and anxiety in the morning – which diminished the last 2-3 days because I took 3 days off work.

A good friend (who has been through this) told me I should take time for myself, get a sick leave, and spend one or two weeks resting. I took 3 days only (I feel too responsible towards the company). Tomorrow I have to go to Lugano for work. I will be testing my moods, it should be ok. I have to work to earn money, but I may have to tell my Director to slow down on my tasks. Maybe work 80% (In Switzerland this is possible).

Another good day. I posted this note. Tomorrow is work day, we’ll see how anxiety goes. Thank you for reading. Eventually.

Podcast progress: maybe some today, after this post is up.