I’m cutting back on my anxiety meds, from the already-low “trial dose” I’ve been on for the last year or two to half that. I’m pretty sure they don’t even make pills in the size I’m now taking. It’s weird that I need that tiny bit of medication every day to feel normal, but thems the breaks.

And I’m sticking to it this time. I’m in therapy now (the free kind the school offers, but still) and an anxiety-and-stress group (also at school). I don’t feel like I’m making much progress in either of them so far: I’m not sure my therapist understands why I’m there, and none of the people in my group are like me (i.e., physical symptoms for no apparent reason).

I’ve been keeping a chart of my moods and all that, as my therapist recommended, and that’s going okay. It’s given me an excuse to track my weight, which is something I’ve been planning to do for a year but had never gotten around to doing. The goal of the chart is to help me figure out why I get sick, so I can make it stop without meds. But because I’ve been on the meds the whole time, I haven’t been getting sick, so the chart hasn’t produced any great insights so far. The only times I’ve felt sick are in the couple of days leading up to getting on a plane, and when Sam woke me up in the middle of the night to go poop and I was all disoriented. No surprises there.

And that’s why I’m cutting my dosage, to induce the sick feeling so I can try to figure out what triggers it. The dosage changes are supposed to take a week or to to take effect, but I’ve only been cutting back for two days, and I first noticed an hour ago that I was feeling a little unsettled. Finally, some data for my chart! A change in the dependent variable!

I am also reminded that the sick feeling sucks. When I’m not sick, it’s easy to visualize myself handling it with grace. When I am, it’s a different story. Anyway, it’s manageable so far. Let’s see if I still think so in a week, when the levels of whatever-chemicals-this-regulates in my brain have dropped to their new normal.

I board the first of four flights tomorrow afternoon. It’s not a big plane, but at least it’s a short-ish flight and I’ll have a window seat (in the exit row, no less). The weather looks pretty promising, too, which is always nice.

I’ve managed to stay distracted over the last week—sitting for four finals will do that. But now finals are done, and I’m left working on my totally uninspired Space Law paper and, of course, thinking about airplanes.

My entire body is a ball of tension that starts with a knot in my stomach and branches out to every muscle. And of course thinking about feeling sick only makes it worse. The best solution I’ve found—and I know it sounds stupid—is to smile. I look at Samson, think the words “my dog is cute,” and force a smile. And it works! For a moment, I relax a little.

If only I could bring Sammy with me for cuteness support. Maybe I’ll load some pictures of him onto my phone, so I can be the weirdo apparently praying to my dog as the plane lifts off.

So that settles it—only funny podcasts for the plane ride. My current favorites are Jordan, Jesse, Go! and Stop Podcasting Yourself. I would bring some You Look Nice Today, but I’ve listened to every episode of that show so many times that I can almost recite them.

Wish me luck! Once I get through the first flight, the rest should be easier.

Over the last few months I’ve stepped my Lexapro dosage down to 5 mg per day, which is less than the 10-mg test dose doctors first prescribe to make sure you don’t have a bad reaction.

I think, though, that I’m going to have to ratchet it back up to at least ten. I’ve been getting dizzy spells about every other day in the last week or two, and I feel like I’m extremely sensitive to anxiety triggers. Right now, for instance, I’m in Space Law listening to a presentation about all the disasters that have occurred on space missions. It’s interesting, to be sure, but I feel like I’m about to pass out. I know I won’t actually faint, but, as always, it’s unnerving.

As far as I can tell, this regression is mostly due to my having to get on four planes about a month from now. I’m flying to Nashville to see my brother graduate, then to Canada with John for vacation. Consciously I feel semi-okay with the plane thing, enough that I’m pretty sure I can go through with it, but apparently my subconscious has other ideas.

I hope that upping my meds will make me feel okay again. Once I get through the first two flights (on small-ish planes) I know I’ll be okay for the second two. Between now and then, though, I might be pretty miserable.

If anybody knows of any good resources that can help me to do some cognitive-behavioral-therapy-type stuff on myself, please share. Maybe I’ll go hang out at the airport a couple times, watch the planes take off. Rationally I understand that planes are extremely safe, but there’s something physical that goes on in my brain that triggers an anxiety reaction when I even half-think about a plane. Arrrrrrrgh.

Lately I’ve been having long, involved dreams every night. I’ve read that extremely vivid dreams are a potential side effect of quitting Lexapro (which I am currently attempting to do, so far successfully), but these aren’t any more vivid than my usual dreams, they’re just longer. Previously I’d wake up most mornings remembering bits and pieces of several dreams, each feeling like it lasted at most fifteen minutes, but now I’ll have one giant dream that seems to have gone on for an hour or more.

Each bit of storyline morphs into the next in that way that dreams do, where all of a sudden a new idea appears, and your brain invents some way to insert it into the action that’s sort of continuous, but in the light of day makes no sense.* And this goes on and on and on.

(more…)

Jonathan Coulton, anyone? I’d have that song playing right now if I weren’t in class, because I feel wonderful this morning. Not sure why, though.

It could be the four taiko sets we performed this weekend at the Houston Japan Festival. I spent two whole days outdoors hanging out in the lovely Japanese gardens, playing drums, moving drums on and off and on and off and on and off the stage, eating yummy food, drinking tapioca tea, and perfecting my sunburn.

It could also be that I’ve switched from taking my Lexapro in the evening to taking it in the morning. The doctor said it might make me sleepy and recommended that I take it before bed, which I’ve always done, but lately I’ve been having trouble sleeping through the night. Every night I wake up at least two or three times, and sometimes it takes me up to an hour to go back to sleep. If I lie down in the morning after I get back from walking Sam, I will fall asleep within five minutes and sleep through noon. I’ve missed many a morning class this way, and even a few in the afternoon.

(more…)

I need to write about this because it’s been on my mind a lot lately. It’s about my wisdom teeth and their continued presence in my head.

I first found out that my two bottom wisdom teeth were growing in sideways and would have to be removed when I was seventeen, and for the seven years since then I’ve been (1) putting off having it done and (2) worrying about it.

I actually made and kept a preliminary appointment with an oral surgeon last year, but that was around the same time that Larry I was causing trouble, so I dealt with him first. But that surgeon’s office was done all in matchy browns and oranges with fancy chairs, like someone’s living room. Even the exam rooms were painted a soothing, sumptuous brown. The staff all wore identical burnt-orange scrubs. Would YOU want to undergo minor surgery in someone’s living room? I thought not. Garish hospital white, practical furniture, and bears-and-hippos scrubs for me, please.

Plus the surgeon was too jokey, and his hands were cold and stumpy. Needless to say, I didn’t call those interior decorators medical professionals back, even after I’d recovered from my surgery.

(more…)

The crumminess I was feeling the night before last eventually got much worse. John came over, which kept me calmer than I would’ve been, but I (we) still had a pretty shitty night.

Yesterday I went back to my doctor, and she checked me out and told me that the cause of my misery was almost certainly stress. So I’m doing it to myself, in a sense, which is good because it’s fixable, but bad because it’s up to me to fix it. The good FAR outweighs the bad.

(more…)

Today, writing about Polybius, I have seized an opportunity to casually refer to a certain stage in a government’s evolution as a metastable state.

This is easily the high point of my day. I have written about 2300 words of this assignment so far, and it has taken me five days. I have about 5000 words more to write in the next 25-ish hours. I have a final this afternoon, so even if I don’t sleep, that’s still only 20 hours or so. I wish I would write faster—I can do the math on this one, and it makes me want to punch things.

———
P.S. Wouldn’t it be nice if metaphory (second-syllable stress) were a word?

I thought I could get some work done between classes. It’s such a gorgeous day that I’m sitting outside, taking advantage of the not-too-bad wireless network at school, but I’ve accomplished almost nothing in the hour I’ve been here because I’m about to explode with frustration at all the noise around me.

Must everything be so goddamn loud? Every bus that goes by, every flop of sandals or click of heels, every laugh or shout from a passerby three floors below, every rustling of paper by the girl at the next table makes me want to tear out all my hair and throw things. Dear world: SHUT. UP.

It has taken me almost twenty minutes to write these paragraphs. I have to stop every few words to clench my fists.

I should’ve gone to the library, I know. I’d be on my way there now if my next class didn’t start in fifteen minutes. If I stay here any longer, though, I might just claw my face off.

If you’re looking for a present to get me (not that you would be, since Christmas is still 4 months away and my next birthday more than 10), I would appreciate a pair of those nifty noise-cancelling headphones pleasethanks.

I am easily distracted, especially by noise. If people are talking around me, or cars are driving by, or there’s music playing somewhere, I can. not. think. Most of the time I don’t need to think very hard, so it doesn’t bother me all that much, but some of the work I have this semester* is complex enough to require more than half of my attention. Even in the “quiet study areas” of the library there is enough noise and movement to annoy the crap out of me when I’m trying to concentrate.

*** Several days pass ***

Now that I’ve thought about it a while, I’m not sure I can blame it on the noise. I think I’m just distractable in general, and I’m still trying to figure out what sorts of things affect my focus level, especially after Sunday, when I could suddenly concentrate much better than usual for no apparent reason. Is it food? Caffeine? Sleep (or deficiency thereof)? Temperature? Other environmental factors?

I feel like every day is an experiment and I should be recording and analyzing this data. The sticking point is that “focus level” isn’t exactly quantifiable, but I could keep a journal of my qualitative assessment of how I’m doing. Hmmm.

Gawd. I can’t decide whether I should be disgusted with myself for being so self-involved or whether I should have started this earlier, as it’s clearly no one’s job but mine. I also can’t decide whether the second ‘whether’ in the previous sentence is appropriate and/or necessary.

———
* viz, Physics lab reports, some Analysis proofs, and Greek anything