So what! I take antidepressants

Good morning!

If it is indeed morning where you are reading this right now. I'm just sitting here doing my morning thing, trying to think of something to blog about and I thought why not tell you about my morning routine.

My morning pretty much starts the same way every day. My four year old, who sleeps below me, wakes me up with "what are we going to do today?". We chat about what is planned and what the possibilities are for the day ahead.

Next, I climb down from my loft bed, go to the loo and head straight for the kitchen. Pretty normal stuff really. Kettle goes on, coffee gets spooned into the plunger, porridge gets made and I throw back a handful of tablets of various sizes, colours and shapes with a big slug of water. Ok, so that is the bit that is probably different from a lot of you out there.

I have been taking medication for my mood since mid 2007 when I first started skidding towards Rock Bottom. That's almost six years of popping various pills into my system in order to keep me from being depressed. This is my normal.

After trying many different types of antidepressants over the years I have finally settled into one that suits me and has been effective in keeping my mood as stable as pharmaceuticals can. Yeah, I still have ups and downs, as any regular readers would know. But those ups and downs are nowhere near as extreme as they were before I took my pills.

People often ask when I might consider getting off my meds. My answer is always the same: never. I have accepted that I will need to take brain chemistry altering substances for the rest of my life in order to maintain my current state of well being.

I take 40mg of Citalopram (antidepressant for depression and anxiety), 36mg of Concerta (psycho stimulant for mood and ADHD), 20mg of Pariet (for reflux) and two Super Krill oil tablets which are suppose to help with depression, anxiety and ADHD.

Please no stigma

Unfortunately a lot of people think that taking pills for my mind is bad. I don't understand what the problem is. Do they think I must be a crazy person, likely to do something weird or erratic if I forgot to take my pills? Or that I should just get over myself, toughen up and deal with life without the help of psychiatric medication?

There is still so much social stigma associated with taking antidepressants and of course with mental health in general. I've talked to a lot of people who feel shame about taking antidepressants. They do all they can to go off them or avoid taking them in the first place. Stigma sucks because it causes too many people out there to suffer unnecessarily. Some people might even avoid getting help at all because they don't want to appear weak or be judged badly by their friends, family or at work. In my opinion it is stigma that is crazy not the person seeking help.

I was so stoked when mental health issues were bought back in the spotlight with the movie Silver Linings Playbook. Jennifer Lawrence plays a widow who suffers depression after her husband is killed and who falls for a guy who is living with bipolar disorder. Jennifer's wonderful performance won her the Oscar for Best Actress. After accepting her award she was asked how the film might help the people with mental illness. Her reply was golden:

"I don't think we're going to stop until we get rid of the stigma for mental illness. I know David [the director] won't. And I hope that this helps. It's so bizarre how in this world, if you have asthma, you take asthma medicine; if you have diabetes, you take diabetes medicine; but as soon as you have to take medication for your mind, there's such a stigma behind it." - Jennifer Lawrence

It is bizarre!

I've attended three blogging conferences over the last 12 months and at each we were asked to think about what goals we have for our blogs. At the Digital Parents Conference I was able to cement at least one of my goals for babblingbandit.me: By writing about my personal issues with mental health I hope I can help, even just one teeny tiny bit, to break down the stigma of depression, anxiety and ADHD.

I am not ashamed of taking psychiatric drugs every day. But I do feel shame that our society still stigmatises people who do.


What do you think about the stigma of antidepressants and mental health?


V.




If you are having trouble with mental health issues the following links may be helpful
Life Line
Beyond Blue
SANE Australia
Black Dog Institute

These sites are great for younger people
itsallright.org
Headspace

If you have a friend who you think might be in trouble
Reachout.com

Sunday morning, easy like

It is 7.27 Sunday morning. Sun is streaming through our east facing apartment. The toy car world Noo abandoned last night is casting long shadows across the expensive sisal I spend every day trying to protect from the hands, feet and mouth of the three year old who rules this place.

I heart Sunday mornings

As I look over my laptop and through the wide balcony doors I can see a trickle of traffic heading north and on to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. All is quiet, except for the sound of my overly long bright pink gelled nails tapping across the keyboard, thanks to some much needed and appreciated double glazed windows.

Noo is sound asleep in his little room he loves to call his own but of course we share. Tucked under his arm is his new best mate: Transformer. A black and white cat that has become the first plush toy to gain his love. It was a gift from a woman my mum has called friend since the 1960s. A woman who's generosity with little gifts I have known since I was a child.

As I sit here I contemplate what to tell you over my first cup of black Campos Superior Blend. The guilt I feel about the time between posts is incredible. But why am I feeling guilty? Who do I answer to? This is my blog. My project. My love. I have some wonderful readers that I know regularly check in but they are not turning on every morning only to be disappointed by the fact The Babbling Bandit hasn't babbled again.

The guilt lays with me. Each post that I write is done with love and pure enjoyment and when I don't blog I miss it. I admonish myself constantly for the time I spend staring at this screen; writing, creating, reading, absorbing, organising and collating. Or just staring. Dreaming. Ideas flowing in and out, around and about. So many ideas of subjects to write about. To explore. To personalise. But I don't produce enough output. That's where the admonishment comes in.

I want to learn and I want to connect. I become overwhelmed with excitement when I find an issue  that resonates with me and I want to explore it, dissect it, disseminate it with my fingerprints all over it. But then it slips out of my head and I'm lost again. Where was I? Why did I feel so good a minute ago? What was that flash of brilliance? Where's the rewind button?

The doctors say I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I got my second opinion last week that agreed with the first. The medication I take is helping but I could use a higher dose because my mind still wanders, my ideas still dart around, my vagueness still renders me mute for moments at a time.

I cannot tolerate the higher dose. If you've been reading here a while, you'll remember what happened when I attempted to take more of the methylphenidate or Concerta as is its brand name. The anxiety it causes is too much for me.

So I have had a week away from babblingbandit.me. I've not gone anywhere of course. My life rolls on whether I write about it or not. But despite my cocktail of medications I take every morning, despite my mood having benefited from me being almost completely sugar free, I've had an 'off' week. Off mood, off the computer. We all have them. And there's nothing wrong with that.

A new week begins. The sun is shining. We are heading to the Newtown Festival. Newtown: My spiritual home. Where I grew up. Where four generations of my family laid roots. Where so many memories of my past float around I can almost hear them speak to me. Near where my son was conceived and later born. More on Newtown another time.

Today life is good. Off and online.

What are you going to do on this beautiful Sunday? Even if the weather isn't good where you are?


V.

Disclaimer: Campos Coffee did not sponsor this post. Although, should they ever want to work with me, one of their most loyal and long standing customers, I'm available!

The BB sugar experiment: Don't quit sugar when changing psych meds

It has been a hell of a week. To give a score out of one to ten, one being an emotionally easy week and ten being the worst week of mental-hell-admit-me-now-I-am-a-danger-to-myself, I'd give this week around a seven. Bloody ADHD meds have f-u-c-k-e-d me up really badly.

Shrink and I decided to increase the dose of Concerta I was taking because I didn't think the lower dose was having as good an effect on my concentration as it did initially. The first couple of days of the lower dose was hard but I pushed through and when it levelled out by day three all was good. I figured the same would go for the higher dose. So wrong.

Day two was pretty bad. Cried a lot. The anxiety was horrific. I pushed on though and by day four felt a little better. By day five I felt terrible again. Took a couple of sleeping tablets because they were the only benzos I could find in the house and figured if I could sleep I'd be ok. Two temaz later and I was still awake and anxious as hell. Three hours after that dumped another two and finally got to sleep.

Now before you start to worry, I can take benzos now without getting all addicted on them like I have in the past.

So that was Friday. Saturday was kind of ok. Noo and I went to the Entertainment Quarter and we had fun in the sun. Saturday night was horrible again. I text a friend I knew had some Xanax and she said she could give me some Sunday morning. I knew then that I had to get off the Concerta. What the hell is the point of taking a drug if you need to take others on top to get past the side effects of the first drug? Fucking stupid as.

So what does this all have to do with sugar?

This cup of sugar had been dumped under a tree in our street just
down from our apartment. I thought it was weird until a Twitter friend
said it was a symbol for my quit sugar experiment.
Then I thought it even weirder!

Well before I reached for the benzos, I had some sugar to help me through. Not much. For me, not much at all, just a bowl of ice cream one night (damn you dad for bringing Connoisseur into the house!) and then on Sunday afternoon, after I'd had about three Xanax throughout the day I took Noo to a chocolate cafe on Glebe Point Road for a big chocolate treat. Not bad on the sugar front considering it has only been week 1 and the I Quit Sugar book says "pare back sugar and refined carbohydrates". It doesn't say go cold turkey!

I shouldn't even be admitting this here. I probably shouldn't have been driving the car on Sunday but I was fine, we didn't have any accidents but I was a mess. My motor skills were just normal but my heart was beating so fast and I was so paranoid that something really fucking bad was going to happen but I knew it wouldn't because I knew it was just the stupid Concerta but still that physically sick feeling I get with anxiety wouldn't go away.

Last Monday Shrink even gave me three different relaxation techniques to use if my anxiety got too bad but I fell back on my old standby - the sugar binge - because the other three never even entered me head.

I went back to the pharmacy today and had the repeat script for the lower dose Concerta filled and all was ok. I am ok. Thank goodness! The teensiest bit of anxiety but so much better than the last week. And I've not taken any anxiety meds or any chocolate. Happy me. Tomorrow should be even better!

So week two: Eat fat. I've stocked up on bacon and lean mince and chicken and lots of veggies. I have bought some fruit. I just don't think I can give up on fruit. I'm going to try for the sake of the experiment but I doubt the 'science' on this part of the whole sugar is the devil philosophy. The other hard part is sweetener: I've bought some Stevia but it isn't as good as the bad shit. I love me some aspartame.

Well this is all I can manage. I'm tired. Tuesday is our big play day so I should get a good night's sleep. This is a crap post I know but my imagination is off with the fairies trying to repair itself after a seven day thrashing by psychiatric pharmaceuticals.

I hope, if you managed to get this far, that you are well. That your brain is kind to you. That your soul is calm. Thanks for reading. All of you. It helps.

V.

Need versus want

This blog post has been empty for hours and hours.

I've been trying to decide what to fill this space with...for days.

I need to tell you that I've had a week that started in possibly the best mood I've been in for years. That is until, after a one hour therapy session, it turned into a four day anxiety attack and ended with Noo spending three days in his pyjamas with one of the worst colds of the season.

A sick Noo in a Slanket (a better kind of Snuggie)

I need to tell you that my Restless Leg Syndrome, which I thought was cured by my recent iron infusion, is back after only four months. I'm so pissed off and disappointed I could cry. I'm so scared of going back to that horrible place I was earlier in the year when I couldn't sleep because of the night time twitching and the anxiety dreams and in the daytime I was exhausted and felt like shit All. The. Time.

I need to tell you that although I had two great weeks on my new ADHD medication, Concerta, the positive effects I was feeling are now starting to wear off. The clear focused thinking, the motivation, determination, alertness, improved short term memory, the ability to speak more articulately, and to be less vague are becoming less and less. It is probably why I am struggling to write at the moment. My new mojo is fading. And there is still another week until I see Shrink again to determine whether or not I need a higher dose.

I want to tell you a completely different story. I've been avoiding writing because I hate just writing about my bloody problems. Surely people get sick of hearing others complain. But then I have to remember that first and foremost I blog for me. Readers are a bonus. A lovely, wonderful bonus.

I want to go back in time and feel the way I felt Monday morning as I was driving west through Sydney to my psychiatrist's office thinking about how good I felt. Back to that drive when I was going through in my head how I was going to tell Shrink how positive and excited and healed I felt.

I want to go to bed now knowing that everything will be ok tomorrow. But I don't know that. And even if I did wake up tomorrow feeling good, how could I trust myself that it would last?

I need and want some positivity right now.

So I'm setting myself a Monday Challenge. I just found this scrap of paper in the top drawer of my desk:

Original list came from The Happiness Institute
That's me in the background. It is a mouse pad with my picture on it
that I gave to my sister when I lived overseas. She recently gave it back to me.

I am going to complete all 15 items on the checklist and I will report back here tomorrow night how I go.

Maybe you'd like to give the checklist a go too?

V.

Blogging about blogging and ADHD

So...

I've got an ever growing list of blog post ideas, but I'm struggling to find my words tonight. I'm sure I read somewhere, sometime ago, that if you just type the first thing that comes to your mind the words will come. Maybe I have bloggers block. Maybe I've just spilled my guts too much this week already. Maybe I'm just dying to sit down and catch up on True Blood. Maybe.

The response to my post on Monday was overwhelming. The beautiful comments both here on the blog and through Twitter were humbling in their show of support. The number of page hits I received was encouraging. Encouraging me to (over)share, encouraging me that I have a voice worth publishing online here, in my little corner of the interwebs.

I feel I am spending an ever growing amount of time online (if it was possible to spend any more time than I already was!). As I click from page to page, link to link, I get an enormous sense of community here amongst the blogosphere. This is a place I want to be. There are so many amazing voices out there! It makes me think how lucky we are to live in this time where people can connect, at times at such a deep level, with people we have never met. May never meet.

In the past couple of weeks I have also read a lot of blog bashing in the traditional media and on other websites. I don't understand why blogging bothers some people. I am not trying to be a journo here. This is just little old me typing a few words on the 'puter as an outlet for my crazy brain. And anyway, you have the power blog-hating people! Choose not to click that link, choose to close that browser window, choose to move onto something else. Don't troll, bitch and moan, and carry on. It is unbecoming. It looks desperate and ridiculous because why do it? Nobody is hurting you. Oh, and setting up a pseudo blog that's sole purpose is to take the piss and ridicule is just downright sad.

Anyway, 'nuff said about that. Back to me! This is a blog about ME after all.

Last week I wrote how Shrink had diagnosed me with ADHD. I spent the week on Ritalin, working up from half a tab, to three days on one whole 10mg tab three times a day, then 3 days on 1.5 tabs three times a day. It was pretty weird shit.

The stuff made me feel focused, energised, less forgetful, more motivated, more confident, more creative, more happy, more positive about the future. Fucken bonus! Dream drug, you'd reckon. But that was only from when I first swallowed the little white pill til about 5ish. Then things changed.

By the time 6 o'clock came around anxiety had fully set it. I felt cold and slightly paranoid. I found it harder to speak in my usual volume, my breathing became laboured and I started searching my brain for something to feel bad about. I did not like it. Not. At. All. The first few days were ok. The anxiety only lasted about half an hour but as the days wore on it got harder to see the benefit of taking the medication at all. The positives must outweigh the side effects is my golden rule to drug taking these days.

On Wednesday night I had an anxious episode that lasted three and a half hours! Awful. That was the night I cooked the chicken pie (see Wordless Wednesday for pics). My parents were down from the Mountains and I asked them to look after Noo's evening time stuff (feed/bathe) while I cooked dinner. I just focused on the recipe and the job at hand. Several times I wanted to lay down and do my usual mantras (I will not die, I will not die, I will not die. This too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass.) until I felt ok again. I pushed on and by 7.30pm, like magic I was through to the other side. Weird. Beyond weird.

Had my weekly appointment with Shrink on Thursday and told him everything I felt. I told him I thought the best days were the ones I was only taking a single 10mg pill three times a day. He told me that this was only a trial week to find out what the right dose for me was. Then he moved me to a slow release form of methylphenidate called Concerta: one 36mg tab a day, taken in the morning. The first day of that pill was today.

How did I feel? Better than Wednesday, that is for sure. I liked only having to take one pill in the morning. The clock watching for the Ritalin was annoying and too reminiscent of my cocaine days. Feeling the up and the down and then gagging for the next up to avoid any down. Bloody hell! I do not want to be on that rollercoaster! I just want to be normal, damn it!

Noo was home with me today. I felt slightly agitated in the morning, not long after taking my first Concerta, but this could just have been because getting Noo dressed and out the door always agitates me. We went to the Entertainment Quarter to see the new Thomas and Friends movie. It was awesome! We had an entire massive cinema to ourselves! We got lollies and popcorn and sat right in the middle of the cinema. Noo could talk and scream and run around all he liked and I could relax! It almost made it worth the enormous amount of cash I haemorrhaged at the candy bar, just to have this huge massive room to ourselves.

Noo, looking so worried that Thomas might fall over the cliff.

Later we met my sister and a friend for coffee and everything was ok but I started to feel a little edgy as the day wore on. My thought processes continued to be more linear and my memory was amazing really. (Although I did forget to pack clean undies and trousers for Noo and he had an accident that required a major clean up but I won't go into that lest an anti parenting blog person reads this and declares all we blog about is our kid's poo!)

The anxiety at the end of the day was still present with Concerta but less so than on the Ritalin. The drug tappered off at around 5ish again but much more gradually. At that time I initially felt quite tired but that passed. I've actually felt kind of energised from about 7ish but I'm now (at past 11pm) feeling like it is time to go to bed. Except for one night I haven't had any trouble sleeping on the Ritalin. Tonight will be the test for Concerta.

I'm now buggered. I'm off to brush my teeth and climb the ladder to my loft bed and snuggle in for a lovely eight hours sleep (fingers crossed).

Good night lovely blogosphere. And thank you.

V.

Move it, bite it, sit with it, medicate it

Daft Punk - Techologic
Sing the title of my post to this song

I saw Shrink today. We talked more about my mental head shit and basically the message is this:

1. Move out of home. Living with my parents is bad for my mental health.

There are a few reasons why this isn't happening any time soon.

I am not moving out of home while my income is as low as it is right now. And I depend on my parent's company on the few nights a week that they are actually here. The thought of living alone with Noo seven days a week just seems too unbearable. Not because of Noo, of course, but because of being lonely for adult company.

It is so safe here. I live in a secured building with 24 hour door staff. There's a screen for me to look at who is buzzing down stairs and CCTV everywhere. We are high enough up so it is impossible to get in our windows or balcony. I need this feeling of security. When you've lived with that constant hum of fear that someone is going to get you in your bed, like I have in the past, and then you find a way to make it stop, the feeling of relief is palpable. You never want to feel that fear again.

2. Try to catch myself putting myself down. Bite my tongue.

I have a terrible habit of putting myself down to people in some sort of pre emptive move to beat them to it. But who is going to say mean things to me? Why do I have such a low opinion of myself that I think most all other people I come into contact with must think the same. Except for Noo. I know he thinks I rock.

3. Notice anxiety, sit with it, accept that it is ok. It will not kill me.

Anxiety sucks. I've noticed a lot of bloggers have been talking about it lately. It is so common! Especially among women, I think. What has happened that we are all nervous wrecks just trying to get about our daily lives? I have been pretty good in recent weeks, especially since I had my iron infusion. And I've created this little comfortable world where I don't get challenged too much by people I don't know that well. By their expectations or needs. Like a boss or a boyfriend. Too many expectations!

4. I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Take Ritalin.

So adult ADHD, hey. Comes as both a surprise and "ah, that makes sense". I did this test and I scored 77 the first time and then I went through it with my sister and scored 66 which is still considered high. 

It would explain why my school teachers always said on my reports that I distracted easily, that I 'lived in a vacuum', daydreamed a lot, vagued out. I have trouble focusing my attention on anything for too long. I get overwhelmed when I have too many things on but I always sign myself up for everything and end up doing nothing. I constantly walk into rooms and totally forget why I'm there. I forget what I'm saying mid conversation. It is so annoying!

Controlled drug! Sounds full on, which I suppose it is.
Photo from here.

So I'm on Ritalin. Or kiddie coke, as I found out it is also called when I Googled it today. It is kind of weird being on such a stimulant drug considering I used to take speed and coke recreationally all the time. This doesn't feel the same as the illegal ones though. I don't feel that wired excited arrogance that I loved so much with cocaine. Or that intense clarity that can come with speed. I feel kind of normal. So far anyway. I've only taken two very low doses to get started. I have to monitor how it makes me feel as I up the dose slowly over the next week and then I'm back with Shrink again next Thursday.

So there you (or I) have it. Analysis of analysis.

I'm overwhelmingly tired this evening so I'm off to bed.

Good night.

V.