Scanning my posts from the last couple weeks I noticed that I’ve been avoiding writing anything too personal.
Yes, I’ve been busy (grad school app, GREs and rehearsals for our next reading started) but the Lamictal is also changing my thought and feeling patterns and it’s taking time to adjust.
New recurring thoughts are:
- Is this how normal feels?
- Do I like it?
- It’s very flat and empty.
- Is the improved concentration worth the effect of feeling like my skull would echo if you shouted into it?
- I feel stupid and I don’t like it.
I’m still having suicidal thoughts – much, much fewer, perhaps between three and ten a day (as opposed to 20 to 1,000); those that remain are very strong.
My anxiety is through the roof, mostly because I’m not depressed. Actually, am I depressed? I can’t even tell anymore because everything feels so different. My M3 is only 43, which is significantly lower than usual.
Regardless, depression trumps anxiety and without depression, anxiety reigns. Anxiety is partially why I’ve had trouble generating words.
I’ve been having incredibly vivid dreams (not due to meds) and all can be analyzed to suggest loneliness, disconnection, and isolation. One of the dreams involved adopting a child who grew up to be an African war criminal/genocider, fun fact.
Sidebar: For years, one of my most vivid visual flashes is someone standing in front of me, looking me in the eyes, and holding their hand to my chest. If this were to happen in real life, I would break down very quickly. It’s the “It’s not your fault” moment from Good Will Hunting.
I also have no desire to socialize. The headshrinker has rightly commented that at my best I don’t want to socialize and don’t care about whether this follows social norms. Gchat is generally enough for me.
As I start to feel worse I feel guilty about the expectation to socialize. I wind up socializing more when my mood is worse, mostly out of feelings of obligation. I wonder what it would be like to socialize because I want to, not because I have to.
How can you defeat feelings of loneliness and disconnection without socializing? Even though I’m comfortable alone it’s unsustainable because I’m going to continue with the same cycles unless things change.
But then I ask myself: What is it you want? What’s the endgame?
To which I respond, I have absolutely no idea.
Bottom line is that I’m afraid of feeling better. When you feel better, you have to be better…and I can’t imagine anything other than failure.
EJ
/ March 1, 2013You said it at the start – it takes time to adjust. ‘Normal’ is different for everyone, and your normal pattern of thoughts is changing.
But if normal is flat and empty now, that doesn’t mean it always will be – just means it’s a blank canvas!
Good luck
Jessica Dendy
/ March 6, 2013I’ve felt like that. Oh god, I’ve felt like that (re: getting better means you feel you have to be better). How long have you been on Lamictal? I find it settles down after a little while and with me, it depended on what I was taking it with? Thanks for your post, it’s always good to hear that you’re not alone.