Amber graduated! a mental health and friends thread

Spoiler: Big images of sentiment

 

askdjfl;ksjd dad's talks are always such a mix of support and ughhh

like yes i get it you're hesitant about antidepressants because of some bad experiences. but i really. really. dont have the time or mental presence to do a whole healthy diet/exercise lifestyle change to make me magically more self-responsible
i get you grew up on a farm and think that faith and honest work fixes everything but oh my god i just want pills. ive been trying to fix myself for so long just let me get official medical help.

edit note: my dad is not actually going to try and stop me from getting pillz he's just voiced his hesitancy like thrice already and ive been home for less than a week

 

Sounds super frustrating, no matter how much you know he's well-meaning and no matter how confident you are in his support. Sometimes parents just have to invoke the facepalm I guess.

 

huh. i just realized i may have been conflating 'generally unhappy' for depression with 'unable to feel happiness' and felt i was less depressed than other people or that maybe my problem wasn't depression because i am able to be happy when i'm not faced with stressors (most of the time)

in other news i am not productive during break and no one in surprised. rly need to contact group members tho as i told ppl i wanted stuff from them a week ago.
lol this is why im a crappy director.

 

hh im sorta pissed that the crew members i asked to get stuff done all didn't turn in shit. like. one of them is the person who said they'd be really disappointed if i dropped the film and offered to be my producer
like if u care about the thing that much show it and do your fuckin work. i specifically don't have the executive function to rag people about deadlines i need these people to actually get their stuff in on time

im gonna schedule a meetin for the group and just be like. if people dont start getting their stuff in on time im canceling this film. i dont have the energy to drag this thing along

 

MEDICINE GET! I'm not gonna start it tonight because I drank and I don't wanna mess with that immediately l: but tomorrow night!!

 

Med get!!!! I didnt start it last night cause i drank and i didnt want to worry about that interaction already. I forget its name and cannot be bothered to go look at it in the bathroom, but my doctor said it should reach its full potential in about two weeks and that its main common side effect is nausea, which i'm used to dealing with anyways, and should be a temporary side effect. im really hoping its gonna work; and if it doesnt the dosage i'm starting shouldn't have withdrawal symptoms so i should be able to just quit if it doesn't do anything for me.

 

My doctor was so nice; even tho she hadnt gotten the forms from my psych she talked to me about what i was experiencing and suggested a few meds for me anyways and managed to get me two weeks' worth of this one cause she had samples with her

 

Yaaaaay! Hopefully whatever med this is will work for you

(But also don't be discouraged if it doesn't, or if the side effects are too bad to handle. It can take *several* tries to find a med/dosage combo that works, so don't give up!)

 

Can I ask if it's Trintellix (vortioxetine, formerly Brintellix)? Because I've taken that before and am currently starting it up again and wish to offer my support. If it's not okay, I apologize and please ignore me.

(The support is offered regardless of which medication it is.)

 

Yeah that's the one!! 10mg daily to start with! How'd you do with it?

 

I wish I had a more compelling answer, but I honestly have a terrible time monitoring my own mental health. I think I did pretty well, in that I think I may be doing a lot less well without it.

The nausea gets me pretty bad. Every time I raise the dose or start up again after any significant discontinuation I probably will throw up at least once. It only lasts three days, so that's not so bad. It does seem to interact (or something) with any other medication that may cause nausea, sometimes including antibiotics. That doesn't seem to improve over time, but I haven't found it to be a very big deal.

I started on 5mg and had some serotonin syndrome issues when I tried to go up to 10, but I seem to be unusually sensitive with antidepressants.

I found I can't take it at night because it keeps me awake. My doctor said other patients have reported similar issues.

I really hope it does good things for you! It's been very good for other members of my family who are better at self-reporting. The speed at which it produces results is definitely a blessing.

 

alrighty!! I'm really hoping it does not give me much nausea, definitely not to that level cause i've got a bit of a phobia of vomiting lol. but we'll see >>; my doctor gave me a prescription for antinausea stuff i can fill at any time if i want so that is a good. my mom actually has some of the same meds that she got after her surgery so \ o / hopefully i'm all good. i would love to not be nauseous

 

Let us know how it goes! I've only been on various SSRIs and Trintellix is an SMS so I don't know what you should expect, but a bit of research says that nausea is generally the worst side effect, but watch for an increase in anxiety. (Folks on Drugs.com seem to either love it or hate it, with very few "meh" responses.)

 

Thanks for advice! I'm gonna start vaguely journaling here to help me sorta keep track of how my mood's going and such, since i can be sorta bad at remembering how i've been feeling after a week or two (makes the 'how youve felt in the last two weeks' things difficult lol)

Spoiler: journaling goes in spoilers

Sooo. Took my first pill at around 8 pm today, I'm usually home at that time and I figure it's best to leave time for me to push taking it back if I get forgetful, since i'm always more cautious about taking things even marginally earlier than 24 hours later. the day was pretty alright; i had a bout of brainfog in the afternoon but that's pretty normal because i got less than 7 hours of sleep and we were watching movies all day (it was hobbit marathon today, lotr marathon's tomorrow). Tried and failed to get art done earlier, i think i'll do a half hour or less tonight after i finish writing this. After I took the pill I had a two hour little anxiety freakout about nausea, which I think was a nocebo instead of the meds, and completely normal for me. Now that I've calmed down and the only unusual thing happening is i'm burping a lot ?????????? if that's my side effect like, heck, i'll take it, but im weirded out.
oh. saw my syllabi for next term today, mixture of excitement for learing things i want to learn and fear because there's SO MUCH rn, hopefully i can make the excitement persist. i'm more well equipped to take on a busy schedule rn than i ever have been before, so... hopefully it goes well. i really need it to.

 

side effect update: so i guess this is nausea? it is not normal nausea, it's like.. when you eat just a bit too much food. vaguely uncomfortable but not alarming. which is nice but I also don't feel like eating at all ever. well hopefully thisll only last a few days
(note: I did manage to get myself to eat a lunch, i had a bowl of mashed potatoes w/gravy, i wont starve myself do not worry)

 

eyyy the journaling continues

Spoiler: whooo

so despite it being probably way early for any behavioral changes to make themselves known i'm already analyzing everything, thanks anxietybrain. its not really any more than my anxiety brain already does in stress situations tho. I felt some minor restlessness (like, just needed to shake my leg for a little bit) last night falling asleep and again a few minutes ago. after some leg shaking and deep breaths it goes away though. Continued to struggle with focus today, but again, like yesterday I got less than 7 hours of sleep and watched all of lord of the rings extended, so i didnt expect to be toooo focused anyways. did manage to get a littlee bit of drawing done earlier today, none last night, i just managed to go save reference images for my senior film like id been meaning to n the middle of this sentence lol so thats good. i am getting a passing vague nausea but it's not really interfering much; with taking the pills at night it's gone by mid-afternoon and i usually dont eat much earlier than that anyways. might be eating a bit less but mostly in that i'm not having a nighttime snack.
i am worried a bit about the restlessness but hopefully that's more something from the sleep schedule than the drugs. oh!! it was a bit difficult to fall asleep last night but not terribly so, i'm gonna keep taking it at night for a while longer and see how that continues to fare, i think i just stayed up past the time my body wanted me to and it got angry last night.
sooo yeah. not really any negativethink today other than some frustration at not getting work done all day but i sorta cut the day as a loss earlier because i realized i just wasn't gonna get anything done.
god i hope this med helps with my productivity

 

Sorry about possibly psyching you out about the side effects. I feel like I should have thought that through more before posting.

From my own experience, if the leg-centric restlessness at night gets worse, the dose may be too high. It might also go away after a few days, though. If you start getting muscle cramps, it's probably a good idea to call the doctor.

It didn't personally do anything for anxiety for me, but no antidepressant has ever done much for my anxiety. Neither does exercise. I'm sorta benzos or bust with that.

It may not be too early to notice effects, I'm not sure. Last I heard (maybe a year and a half ago?) it was the fastest-working antidepressant available. It was one of those drugs that confuses people and shakes things up. Iirc, it works on serotonin receptors that people thought had nothing to do with depression and it does it faster than anything else. I think that's pretty cool, myself.

 

No problem!! I psyche myself out about nausea reallyyyyy easily (i've thought my way into hours-long bouts of nausea ever since i was 13 or so) and this episode of worry was reallyy chill compared to some i've had over lesser things.

I'll definitely keep an eye on the restlessness and keep that in mind! My GP also gave me a site where I can directly message her with questions and such. I'm at 10mg right now with the smallest possible dose being 5mg so i doubt it's too much? but it'd be convenient if that's the case, eyyy tiny amount of drugs in me

Yeah; It'd be nice if it helped my anxiety but I don't feel like it's hugely necessary... my nerves I can generally deal with, and there's an over the counter med that miiiight work on acute stress that i might try (if it isnt in the dont take with trintellix list lol) because hey even if it's just woo medicine, i know my brain is GREAT at nocebo and placebo effects :3. and I haven't had my anxiety really.. prevent me from doing too many things? mostly it prevents me from binge drinking :P I feel like i can learn to deal with my anxiety through therapy, what I really want is something to help with my productivity, because I am sick and tired of lying around getting nothing done while I want to get things done and feeling horrible about it

yeah; my doctor said i shoudl be seeing some effect by the end of one week and full potential at two weeks, pretty dang fast! And I'm starting school in 5 days, so if it works it should be awesome timing

 

Eey my brain's psyching itself out again. I've got a slight hand tremor today, not enough to affect handling anything and I don't notice it when I'm not paying attention, but when I am paying attention my brain is screaming SEROTONIN SYNDROME nonstop.