My first ever psychiatrist appoint. 12 years too late, but better late than never, as they say!
We talked about my situation, my diagnosis of PTSD; he suggested (perhaps, due to some miscommunication) that my social difficulties reminded him of Asperger Syndrome. But, as I pointed out, Aspergers is developmental. I had a pretty normal social life up until age 12 - the age that my mother went through her 4 year long major depression. Once we got the Asperger suggestion aside, we got down to business.
He's got me going down from 75mg of Venlafaxine (effexor) to 37.5 mg; and with it, I'll be taking 10mg of Cipralex. My first ever SSRI.
Now I get to "enjoy" the transition period off a drug that carries with it a painful "discontinuation syndrome", to another drug with a reputation for also being difficult to get off of. Happy happy joy joy. That's the bad news. The good news is, this drug may be able to help improve my mood, and I'm hoping for it. I'm orienting myself in as positive a way as I can. It'll begins with how we situate ourselves.
I will have to be very careful in the next few weeks regulating my thoughts to the tensions that getting off one medication and going on another might create. I am going to have to keep focused on the goal: to maintain an awareness of my body - my emotions.
Previous entries, particularly the one before the last (sloppily written) entry, have really helped orient me. But reading it is more difficult than it first appears. I can't simply "skim" it. I have to put myself into the words. This means meditating upon them, to get into the mind frame that caused me to make these distinctions. At first, I didn't quite appreciate this, but as I returned to the words, I realized that I needed to better focus myself. My present "incomprehension" is due to the current feeling I'm experiencing. I need to quiet any feelings, meditate on the words, and by doing so, will bring myself back into the proper perspective.
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