Well. I guess I said the next time I wrote up something here I’d try to make it a happy subject, but maybe I only get the urge to write stuff like this when I’m not feeling well. I find kind of upsetting that people that know me irl can read this, to be honest. I miss having a complete anonymous internet place to vent. At the same time, I feel bad for feeling that, specially since there’s this idea about being completely open with your partner, and why would you want to have secrets or whatever, which I actually kind of agree with.
Still. I feel like when I write, I tend to give voice to very dramatic thoughts, or even extreme, and I wouldn’t want people who actually know me to take them at face value. Or to act as if they’ve read it.
The thing is, I’ve stopped taking my antidepressants this month. And I really felt good at the start. It started accidentally, I kept forgetting to take them, or taking them every other day, I was too lazy to actually schedule an appointment with my psychiatrist, and I thought hey. The plan was always for this to be a temporary thing. I feel good even though I haven’t been taking them properly. I could probably just… Stop.
I’m not sure how much of that was a good idea. I feel the difference, definitely — the want to stay in bed all day, to focus on parasocial relationships and escape reality, feeling impatient with friends that I love and don’t want to be mad with.
On the other hand, it has made me think a lot about who I am and what makes that. I was more easy going this past year, happier in general, it was easier to do most of my chores, to live a “normal” life. And yet, this has been in part (maybe a big part) because of this magic little pills. Do I have to keep taking them forever to stay living like that? Honestly, it didn’t bother me during this year. In fact, it was pretty pleasant.
But maybe it wasn’t exactly me?
It sounds scary to say that, honestly. And I do feel like the way I was before I started taking the meds couldn’t work in the long term. I wasn’t getting out of bed and I kind of hated being alive, for the most part. But. I don’t feel like that right now, but I also don’t feel like the happy, easy going, capable of fulfilling simple tasks Helena. I feel a bit grumpier and a bit more online and a lot more unsure about my life and career and passions.
And I don’t hate a lot of that — actually, I think being uncertain about my career and life is actually good, wanting passion and art. Which for the past year I think I have been pretty neutral towards, only wanting to have something stable/functional.
But what if I can’t have one without the other? People say a lot of times that these depression meds make you kind of “numb”, but that’s not how I’ve felt at all. However, now that I’m back to no meds, I feel like a lot of feelings were suppressed by them (well, it is what they’re for, kind of), and some that I like having.
Mostly negative feelings. Sadness, irritation, uncertainty, laziness, obsessiveness (is that negative?). But life involves feeling these feelings too, right? And I have been a person that feels these feelings for a lot of my life with not “bad” consequences.
So I guess I feel like I am coming down from drugs and it’s strange that the pill wasn’t just a little magic thing that made me happier. It changed a lot of stuff. It’s weird to be coming back to myself, somewhat. Is that myself? Is there a “myself” to pinpoint? Wouldn’t I rather just be happier, just take the goddamned pills?
It’s a strange line of questioning. It’s a strange line of realization. I almost wrote “I hope everything goes back to normal”, and then I realized I have no clue what “normal” is. It’s like all of these feelings of uneasiness were still there inside me, but locked up under the watch of the powerful Zoloft, and now that they escaped they are running around my head claiming attention, and I had forgotten about them completely. And I don’t know how I feel about locking them up again.
Because that’s how I feel, ultimately, I think — they’ll always be there, inside me. It’s just about hiding them, forgetting them, dealing with them. I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve just been feeling a lot, and still not being able to make sense of these feelings. But I don’t want to deal with them by making them go away. I just want to deal with them. I just wish I could deal with them.
I’m not going to edit this stupid thing because they’re just thoughts thoughts thoughts and writing it has made me emotional and I don’t want to make it go through the whole rational performing editing process. So maybe it’s a mess. Maybe it’s hard to understand. Maybe when I read it again in the future it’ll make no sense. But I like to write it down. And I like to keep it somewhere.
Wish me luck!
Love,
Helena
