NaBloPoMo: day 1

Today is 1 November, the first day of National Blog Posting Month. I've been pretty slack with posting the last couple of weeks (mostly due to an extreme lack of energy), so I'm going to use NaBloPoMo to help me push through the fatigue (as well doing stuff to help overcome the lethargy).

Today is also the last day of my five-day extra-long weekend. I had plans to make the most of the break, but I've ended up doing very little. I spent most of the weekend horizontal, often asleep but not always. Part of me feels I've wasted the whole five days, but mostly I don't feel bad about it because I needed to rest...and I think I feel better. 

I only have to work three days this week. I moved my day off this week from Friday to Monday, which meant I didn't need to use a day of annual leave, although I would have happily taken a day of leave and worked only two days if I didn't have to contend with monthly billing.  It will be a short week, but a busy one. 

I've been back on anti-depressants - the very small dose I was on before I weaned myself off them - and I feel so much better already. I'm much nicer to be around. If I have to stay on this low dose, then so be it. 

Grumpy, but not totally without glee

I might have spoken too soon about doing well off my meds. I've been in a rotten mood since yesterday, although it could be that I've only had one good night's sleep in the last week and I've been feeling very average for the best part of a month (current state: exhausted + vertiginous). Or it could be that everyone and everything is effing annoying. I just don't know. 

But! I have had some laughs. I finished watching Raised by Wolves last night and cackled and guffawed my way through it. The final episode made me cry laughing - when Yoko (the sensitive/ anxious/depressive daughter) punched a hole in the caravan wall after Germaine killed a rare bee! - and it also made cry  - when Aretha was falling for her economics teacher, but her poor heart was crushed when she saw her teacher kissing her (own) boyfriend on the street. Long-suffering Aretha, the second eldest, nerdy, cynical, sharp-tongued daughter, is my favourite. 

The show was axed after its second season, but there are moves afoot for it to be resurrected. I shall keep my fingers tightly crossed.  

I also had a good laugh at these photos of googly-eyed grass monsters taken by my friend Victoria. I love them. They are ridiculous, adorable and hysterical. I love the playfulness, humour and imagination. 

I'm tempted to head across to the Botanic Gardens with a stash of googly-eyes, since I have no garden of my own.  (Apparently The Reject Shop sells these ones.)

I went to the chemist for something to help me sleep tonight. I'm sure I'll feel better if I can get some quality sleep.  
  

Small binge, socially anti-social, happy

Corner Flinders and Exhibition Streets the other night

I was flicking through the TV channels on Wednesday night when I came to Raised by Wolves on SBS. I'd heard the show, written by writer/broadcaster/feminist Caitlin Moran and her sister, was very funny, so I stopped to watch it and I bloody loved it. It is HILARIOUS. Nearly every line is quotable. Funny and ridiculous and, more often than not, completely gloriously wrong, but quotable. 

I'm not much of a TV watcher and thus not given to binge watching anything (except the screen of my phone), but I decided on Thursday morning I was going to spend today watching all of Raised by Wolves. I realised after two episodes that binge watching is not my thing though, no matter how much I love a show. I was feeling restless and ready to get up and do something else, but I persevered (lying in bed watching TV is such hard work) and watched all of the first series, which is only six episodes long. Then I went back to sleep (I hardly got any sleep last night, but not for any fun reasons). 

End of month drinks at work happened last night because of today's public holiday. I wasn't planning to go because I'm anti-social and still feeling poorly, but it was a friend's last day with the firm so I went and it was fun and now I wish it always happened on the last Thursday of the month.

I've been completely off anti-depressants for about two weeks now and I'm still happy as a pig in poop. Yay. 

  

Happy, happy, happy

Even the rain can't dampen my mood 

Remember that mysterious lightheartedness I wrote about six weeks ago when I went back to work after my holiday up north? Well, it continues! That makes it less of a mystery: I'm happy!

I'm exhausted and I feel like I've been trampled by a herd of wildebeest, but I'm still happy. I wasn't unhappy before, but now I have that little spring of happiness bubbling away inside me and it's delightful. 

Life is pretty good. I absolutely love my four-day weeks and I'm enjoying my job. I'm relishing being free of the urge to splurge on clothes and shoes (three months and counting...). Luke's almost-three-week absence in July/August seems to have made our hearts grow fonder, and not just for a weeks or so. I actually feel excited about seeing him every day when I get home from work. It's like a new romance all over again (only I don't need to shave my legs regularly or leave the room to fart). 

Although I'm not feeling great physically, there has been some improvement on the migraine front. I've gone off prevention medication and I'm only taking a supplement recommended by my neurologist called MigraineCare, which is mostly magnesium and B vitamins. I'm still getting migraines, but the frequency and duration is significantly reduced, and that's gotta be good for my state of mind. (It's no surprise that chronic pain and depression often go hand in hand.) 

Speaking of depression, I decided about a month ago to reduce my (already fairly low) antidepressant dose by half. I tried to halve my dose at the beginning of last year, but it was short-lived because I very quickly returned to being my unmedicated moody, cranky, negative self again. This made me wonder if my recent happiness was really 'real' while I was on medication.

But I'm pleased to report my happiness does indeed seem real. It's actual happiness, not chemically induced. I have noticed a difference, but not in a bad way - I just feel a little more emotional when I see sad things on TV. For example, last week Foreign Correspondent was about China's so-called left-behind children - kids whose parents have left them, usually in the care of relatives, to move to far-away cities for work, ostensibly to earn money to give their kids a better life. But those poor kids barely had any contact with their parents and they were not always treated well by their relatives. One little girl's fondest wish was simply to have a birthday cake. I nearly cried. But I don't think it's bad to feel more if your feelings are 'normal' and healthy. 

I've pondered why I'm doing better on a lower dose this time around and I suspect it's related to my belly. Yep, my belly. Sounds odd, but there is increasing evidence of close links between mental health and gut health. Back at the start of the year my gut was basically a cauldron of nasty bacteria, but after months of diet modification and supplementation to heal my gut, it's functioning vastly better. I can't know for sure, but I reckon a better balance of gut bacteria is related to my more balanced mental state. 

But I'm not spending too much time analysing it; I'm just enjoying it. 

Blog therapy

Grey

I haven't been particularly gleeful lately. I halved my dose of anti-depressants in January and I thought I was doing fine, but in the past few weeks I've been sliding back into feeling grumpy, impatient and flat. I'm so grouchy - often angry - that I'm sick of myself. I should be writing a blog called Grouchy, not Gleeful. 

I'm also still struggling with fatigue, which can't be helping. It's hard to be cheerful while exhausted. I'm trying to do something about the fatigue, but there's no quick fix. 

I'm bored at work.  Since the junior secretary left in October I feel as if I spend most of my work days on menial tasks.  I'm a senior secretary. I have a brain in my head. There has to be more to life than f*cking filing! 

But I like the people I work with and I have a good boss. I worry if I leave I could end up in a job with unpleasant colleagues and a horrible boss and that would add stress to the equation. Except I'm too tired to even think about trying to look for a new job anyway.  I want to do something different, and it's challenging to find your way into a new career even when you know what you'd rather be doing (which I don't*). 

Even if I somehow managed to step into a new career, I don't think I could muster up the focus and alertness to cope with a steep learning curve. The fatigue affects my memory and concentration. Some days thinking is like trying to swim through custard. "Oh, she seemed like such a good fit in the interview, but now I'm starting to think she has custard for brains. Hey, is she sleeping  at her desk?"

So I'm exhausted, grumpy, bored, dissatisfied, unfulfilled... I'm thinking of going back to my original dose of anti-depressants. Yes, I should be looking at non-drug ways of moderating my moods, but taking medication is just easier and I'm not ashamed to say I want to take the easy way out right now. Going to make a doctor's appointment this week...  

I am going to do one non-drug thing to help my moods - March is going to be another blog-every-day month. Blog therapy.  I'll try to actually write about gleeful things, rather than whining. 

* well, actually I do: I'd like to spend six months relaxing at a health resort while someone else pays the bills. 

JayBloPoMo: day 5

Oops. Forget to post yesterday. I'm blaming my medication. Really. For the past few months I've become increasingly worried that I was in the throes of early onset dementia because my memory has noticeably deteriorated. Trouble finding the right word in conversation was the main 'symptom', but there were other examples - forgetting the last digit of the debit card PIN I've had for more than 15 years, forgetting entire (albeit brief) conversations and trouble remembering names. 

I've been genuinely scared about it. There are nearly 25,000 people in Australia under 65 - including in their 30s and 40s - with younger onset dementia, so it's not as crazy as it  might sound. I am going to be 42 in a few days...  

But some quick googling revealed verbal memory problems, especially difficulty finding words, are a side effect of the migraine prevention medication I've been taking for about six months (Topamax for anyone who wants to know). Talk about a huge relief! I'm not demented! 

I saw my GP on Friday and I've started weaning myself off the drug. Hopefully it doesn't take long for my memory to come back.  I like being able to think of the right word when I need it.