Tag: anxiety attacks

Settled In Fluoxetine

Bones

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I’ve been on fluoxetine (prozac) for about 6 weeks now (maybe 7).

The first week was amazing and weird – I felt like I was high all the time, and I fell asleep less than an hour after I took it.  I decided to take the fluoxetine at night so that I could sleep through the worst of the side effects, if there were any, and it seemed to put me to sleep really quick.  It was a good choice for me.  That first week I felt what it was like to have no anxiety or depression, and it was incredible.

The second week was okay.  I had a clear mind, I was more awake and alert, and overall I had more energy.  I just didn’t want to do anything, and that was fine.

The third week was pretty shit.  I had all that clear mind and awake and alert and a shitty brain.  My thoughts were very negative and anxious and I couldn’t shake the mood.  It didn’t impact my body the same way it normally does, though, I didn’t feel completely exhausted and wiped out.  I still wanted to be an amorphous blob, but I at least had the energy to do what I needed to do.

I did discover, part way through the second week, that my sleeping patterns were turning to crap and I wasn’t getting solid sleep (thanks Sleep Cycle), and I was tired.  I wasn’t achingly tired, but I was wired and tired.

Fourth week I realised I was getting back to me, the sassy little sasspot I used to be before I was wrapped up in narcissists.  I was no longer desperate to please people and to be non confrontational.  One of the people at work said something passingly racist about one of the people I work for, and instead of doing my usual pinchy-smile and feel uncomfortable, my first reaction was anger, and I let it show.  I couldn’t vocalise it, but I could at least show it in my face.  This was a huge moment for me, because I hadn’t done this in almost a decade.  I have been conditioned and abused hard to just not.  People please.  Make no waves.  Submit.

It was at the start of week five that I switched my fluoxetine to morning – I did a 6 hour step each day for two days to shift my medication taking the full 12 hours.  My sleeping patterns began to improve, although they are still not quite back to my usual solid sleeping.

Fifth and sixth weeks have been good.  Really good.  I’m much happier, I’m much sassier, I’m much more honest with myself and others about my needs.  I am more able to say ‘I just need to check out a bit’ when I’m in a situation that is overstimulating.  I am more able to say ‘no’ to people and situations that are not good for me.

I still have anxiety.  I still have depression.  I still have PTSD and panic attacks and meltdowns, but they’re more manageable.  I have enough headspace to take action to make my severely anxious days … less shit.  The depression doesn’t suck the life out of me.

And I will say this:  I wish I had been on prozac a decade ago.  

If you are thinking about medication, talk to your physician about it.  Organise your life so you have absolute minimal to-do for the first couple of weeks.  Go to absolute bare minimum, and let people around you know what’s happening so they can check on you.  And then take the plunge.  You may need to try a few different ones – everyone is unique, and every drug affects people in different ways.  Talk to people about your side effects, any quirks you’re having, and take their input on board, and give your physician honest feedback.  Don’t be afraid to say, after 3 weeks, ‘this isn’t quite working for me, can we please try something else’.

You are worth enjoying your life.

Social Anxiety

Bones

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Today my mind is racing.  Yesterday I was invited out to a social gathering by a neighbour.  They have dogs.  I have dog.  There was going to be a big dog meet up nearby with a walk and a trip to the cafe.  At the time I thought it was a great idea!  So I said I’d probably see them there.

I got home and panicked.  I slept badly.  Now I’m sitting in my house, hours past the meet up, wired up and anxious and trying to figure out where it all went wrong.  My mind is pulling up all sorts of excuses – my dog wasn’t too bright this morning, I slept badly, I couldn’t afford the coffee (I’ve just over-extended myself sorting out two very very large bills), I’m not feeling well …  at the end of the day, I suspect it’s a mixture of social anxiety and an element of too much sensory input.

It’s even harder when you don’t have their number to say ‘hey sorry, anxiety is really bad today, I’m going to camp it out inside’ and you actually have to go over there and say so.  Which I will do this afternoon.  I have found people are a lot more understanding when you say ‘I have anxiety and today is a bad day’ or ‘I have autism and need a quiet day’.

But as a result of all of this anxiety, I’m shut down today, down to emergency services only.  I don’t feel up to cleaning, I don’t feel up to doing anything except wrapping myself up on the couch and watching TV.  Which is compounding my stress a bit because I have things to do and I just don’t have the energy.

So I’m going to tell myself it’s okay, wrap up warm, put on something nice, have a cuppa tea, and we’ll try again later this afternoon.  The world is not going to end because I didn’t vacuum this week.

(In writing this I’ve calmed down considerably, and now feel like I can relax.)

Narcissistic Abuse And Money

Bones

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Budgets inspire a meltdown.  Unexpected expenses have me panicking and shaking for days.

This is the result of nearly a decade of abuse around money and budgeting.  I would budget.  He would blow it.  I would budget around that, He would blow it.  He wouldn’t allow any surplus in the budget, He had to get the next thing, He had to get another big expense, He had to buy more things.  I distinctly remember a discussion where he wanted a new car and I said if we got the large purchase he wanted on finance, we would have no wriggle room in the budget at all, and he replied with “that’s fine, we don’t need it anyway!”.

I’m talking no savings, no ability to go anywhere or do anything other than survive.  Literally living paycheck to paycheck.  In the end, when it had gotten really bad, we were on a combined income of nearly $200,000.  He spent every cent and more.  He would bully me to get a credit card, and put things on it.  I had to, to make ends meet, and then, despite budgeting to put it back on the card, he would spend it.

He would spend it.  He would spend it.  He would spend it.  He spent it all.  Because he wanted to Keep Up With The Joneses.  He was obsessed with the idea of wealth, of having it, and the approval he would receive from it.

It has taken me years to get a healthier relationship with money – I can actually put money aside and not compulsively spend it.  But I still want to vomit every time I work on my budget.  Unexpected expenses may always send me into a panic.  But the most difficult thing?

He is still doing it.  Through a series of decisions and a complex situation on both our parts, I am still somewhat reliant upon him to provide a small amount of money to pay off the debts I incurred at his behest.  And he’s not.  He was great for a while.  Now he’s not.  He’s spent it all, and I am once again scrabbling to make it work.  Except I no longer have any sway, I no longer have a way to cover for it.  So I become somewhat catatonic.

Which basically just involves me lying on the couch staring blankly at the TV while I’m at home, and spending minutes at a time staring blankly at the paper in front of me when I’m at work, and just generally wanting to not exist.

The day I no longer rely on him to pay off that debt will be the happiest day of my life.

Today Was Not A Good Day – And That’s Okay

Bones

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The day started out wrong – my phone had reset during the night and my usual alarms didn’t go off.  Instead, I was woken by my partner’s later alarms, and couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.  So I hauled myself out of bed (admittedly after a bit of prodding – mornings suck) and pottered through my morning routine, which all went well, and I was off to work at a good time.  I just didn’t want to do anything, I wanted to be an amorphous blob, right from waking up.  I just didn’t care.

Nothing really bad happened at work.  We found a couple of old things that really should have been done a year ago (left over from the person in my role previously), and discovered a frustrating error that’s been repeated across a number of projects from someone who’s long since gone … and this may actually be a problem for this project.  It’s all gone up the chain and greater minds than I are deciding on things and will handle it.  Nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing I haven’t handled before.  And yet, by about 11.00am, I was silently panicking.

So I was panicking and I didn’t care.  I was sitting at work, in a job I know, around people I love working around, in a safe environment with two wonderful bosses who never get angry when I mess up, are always quick with praise, and who I get along with … and I was panicking and I just did not care, I did not want to be there, and I hated my job.  I got the frustrated fidgets – what can I do to get ahead, can I get another job on top of this one, what can I sell to get a bit more liquid assets, how can I maneuver myself into a position where I don’t have to do this anymore.

Instead of resisting the feeling and getting grumpy about it and saying I have no reason for it, like I always do, I took a moment to go home for lunch, sit down, and go ‘no, this is okay.  I am having a shit day, and there is no real reason for it, and that is totally okay.’  I felt a little better.

I went back to work, sat down, and within 30 minutes I was nearly jumping out of my skin again.  There was a cacophony of voices in the office – it’s all open plan, and we have a few Capable of Outside Voices Only people there – and too much auditory input is one of my major panic triggers (which I usually put down to the fact that I can’t filter any of it out).  I put my earbuds in and listened to a few minutes of white noise rainstorm, and that gave me just enough headspace to breathe, to sit back and let the noises wash over me, instead of slam into me.  It gave me just enough headspace to go ‘no, this is okay, accept this feeling, stop resisting it’ and really feel it.  It gave me just enough headspace to relax my stomach, my shoulders and the muscles in my face.

I checked myself at least 5 more times in the next few hours between lunch and home, reminding myself ‘I am having a shit day and that is totally okay‘.  By the end of the day my skin felt tight, my chest felt strangled, and I just wanted to scream at the sky.  I resisted the temptation – it’s rather alarming for people in the surrounding area – but that feeling stuck with me until I got out to do a bit of manual labour that evening.

That, along with listening to podcasts, helped flush out the last of my negative and anxious thoughts, and while I’m still feeling the after affects of an anxious day, I’m beginning to relax.

I will say that admitting ‘I’m having a shit day’ and then saying ‘and that’s okay’ made the usual frustration fidgets a lot less severe.  While my brain was turning things over, it wasn’t the usual desperate churn, and I never once felt physically affected by the desperate need to do something, but also do nothing, and be anywhere but here right now.   Definitely something to continue working on.

Fluoxetine: Day 2

Bones

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Fluoxetine, also known as Prozac, is one of the generic “catch all” SSRIs that are often tried first and foremost, unless there is anything that would indicate another medication would be the best starting point.

I have just started it.  Last night I took my second dose of 20mg Fluoxetine.  I’m on ondansetron – although protip:  do not take this combination if you have a heart problem, and be aware that it does increase the risk of seratonin syndrome.  I’m taking this combination because, if I don’t, I will vomit.  I’ve taken ondansetron before, and it works incredibly quickly as an anti-nausea, and I was not going to be taking anything with a side effect of nausea without an anti-nausea and anti-emetic.

So far it’s quite a pleasant trip, and it really is a trip.  It’s like being permanently lightly high on MDMA – everything feels a little different, positive emotions are more colourful, and the filter that usually exists between your brain and your mouth (or in this case, the fingers) is largely absent.  Thus the rambling.

I have had minor excessive salivation.  I have had hyposalivation (drymouth) – which is handy because it makes me drink more.  I have had gastrointestinal cramping (honestly fairly typical of my GIT system with anything new).  I have had headaches.  I have had fairly intense nausea (thank you ondansetron).  I have had moments of light dizziness.  But overall I’ve had a sense of … relaxation.  Looseness.

I have also had a couple of small, but intense … anxiety / overstimulatory / wrong stimulation attacks.  I don’t know what they’re called, and I don’t know quite how to describe them, other than the visual and auditory stimulus is not something I like, want, or am interested in, and it is in such a way that it is … uncomfortable.

But overall, the first two days have been … loose, relaxing, verbose, cuddly, and not bad.