Something different?

I've been off my meds for almost a month now and I'm feeling ok. I'm not sure why this time is different than other times that I have tried to go off. Maybe I gave up too soon? I've had a plan this time, maybe that helps. Maybe it is because I know that while I can exist on meds, to truly live I need to be off of them. I don't know.

I have not stuck to my plan as well as I'd intended to. I bike to work maybe 1-2 days a week instead of the 3-5 I was aiming for. I've tried to increase the healthiness of my food, but if I don't get something cooked on the weekends, it throws the whole week off. I am taking my B-vitamins, and trying to reduce my sugar/junk food intake. I think that has helped.

I think the main reason for success is that I've been changing my thought patterns. I know the consequences of failure. Because antidepressants leave me living a half-life, having to stay on them is like a life sentence. I've become more aware how I think, and when I start to obsess in a negative manner, I tell myself that my thought pattern is destructive and force a change. Sometimes I have to repeatedly force the change, but I have not been spiraling downwards.

I've also come to accept that my emotions work in their own ways. If I need to cry, I go to my room and cry. If that isn't available, a public restroom stall will do.

By redirecting my thought patterns and accepting my emotions, I'm doing pretty well without antidepressants. I'm not sure how I'd weather a traumatic event, such as job loss or the loss of a friend/significant other, but I'll cross those bridges when I come to them.

Living Within One's Means

Financial matters are at the root of much unhappiness. Couples fight about money more than any other issue. People with substantial incomes spend more than they make, yet they still want more stuff. With a few exceptions (like when my employer was 9 months late getting me tuition reimbursement checks I'd been counting on) money isn't an area that causes me great stress.

I chalk most of this up to one thing: I live within my means. With the exception of a house, I don't buy stuff I can't pay for in cash. I do use plastic for convenience, however I pay off my credit card in full every month. Even when I bought my house, I bought a house that I could afford to put 20% down on. I pay a little extra on my mortgage each month so that I can pay off my house as quickly as possible.

I make less than 30k/year. I dated someone once who made 4x that, yet my net worth was greater than his. I could have afforded to lose my job and take some time to find a new one, he could not have.

I am changing jobs soon, and with that will come a nice bump in salary, along with professional status and more vacation days. I don't expect my spending habits to change much. I plan to put a little more into my retirement savings, a bit more into my mortgage, and go to a few more dog shows. That's about it.

I'm not so good at being happy, but I am pretty sure that after one has enough to eat and a comfortable place to sleep, happiness doesn't come from money spent. It comes from living one's life as best one can and filling it with meaningful relationships, paid and unpaid work and experiences.

My advice: Fun doesn't have to cost lots of money. Host a game night with friends - it's virtually free, especially if everyone brings a munchie and/or a favorite game. Plant a garden , or go hiking with the dog. Look at your monthly income and expenditures, and at least force income to be a little bigger than expenditures. Use the excess to pay down debt or build a little cushion. By increasing your financial stability, life will feel a whole lot better.

A Happy Diet

This weekend I am going grocery shopping, and I'm going to focus on creating a planned, healthy and happy diet for the week.

I'm going to start taking a multivitamin, folic acid and a B-vitamin complex.

I'm going to reduce my sugar intake by eliminating all prepackaged junk food, and most other desserts. I am making an exception for Sunday evenings when I eat dinner with my family. My mom's pies are worth it! Instead of chocolate and cookies, I will treat myself to homemade quickbreads that are at least partially made with whole wheat flower. I love baking with Garden Way's Bread Baker's Almanac. It's a wonderful book with excellent recipes that never seem to fail.

I'm also going to try and boost my omega-3 fatty acid intake by eating more fish. I'm going to aim for at least two fish meals a week. Fish isn't too hard to cook, and should be absolutely delicious with fried sweet potatoes! If I decide cooking fish twice a week is not going to work, I'll add a fish-oil supplement to my diet as well.

I need to do more research on what nutritional improvements I can make to optimize my mood, but I think this is a good start.

Do Something!

Today is not a good day. It is a verge of tears day. I had planned to bike to work today, but needed to drive as a friend needed a ride. Maybe I should have said no and gotten the exercise. I will ride tomorrow.

I'm at work. There isn't much to do at work. That is a problem. I have too much time to think. When thoughts go sour, changing the trajectory of one's thought is important.

For now I will listen to happy music and sing along in my head. When I get home I will walk the dog, cook the soup I was planning on cooking last weekend and work in my garden. If that isn't enough, I will go to the library or bookstore and pick up a good read.

Sadness vs. Depression

I just read Chandra Alexander's post on whether a person is sad or depressed. After surviving for several years in the numbed state that antidepressants put me into, her motto "to heal is to feel" makes a lot of sense to me. It is natural to feel sad sometimes, and accepting sadness as a normal, healthy emotion is important.

I'm not sure that I agree with Chandra that depression results from not dealing with sadness. Maybe it is the phasing, but she makes it sound as if depression is a choice or personal failure. I've been pretty much as low as someone can go. I don't know that I would be alive today without medication. When depression hits, it can be so debilitating that dealing with one's malaise on one's own isn't a viable option.

That being said, I think Chandra is correct that there is a lot of power in dealing with one's emotions and accepting that sadness is a normal part of life. As someone who has been on antidepressants long term, I am embracing the ability to feel again. Even "unpleasant" emotions such as sadness and anger are amazing to feel. I can't believe how alive I feel as emotion over emotion washes over me.

Accepting one's emotions and allowing oneself to feel them fully, yet not allowing them to spiral out of control is a fine line to walk. Sadness is often an appropriate emotion. Allowing oneself to accept sad feelings as a normal part of life is important for maintaining emotional balance.

5 Techniques for Breaking Negative Thought Patterns

As the meds clear my system, I have noticed my tendency to focus on negative things is returning. My neighbors stole my trash two weeks ago and returned it yesterday filled with their garbage. This is annoying, and is part of a pattern of misbehavior on their part that needs to be dealt with. Their misbehavior is not worth putting myself in a negative frame of mind over.

Five techniques I can use to break a negative thought cycle are:

1. Listen to music AND sing along. I find that just listening to music is too passive and allows my thought cycles to continue. When I listen to music I can sing along to it uses a larger portion of my brain and I can't as easily think about other things.
2. Try and think of 2-3 positive things about the situation/person. Most situations are not all bad. If one can think of things about a person or situation that one likes, it is harder to stay upset and angry.
3. Read a book, preferably engaging fantasy that easily transports me to another world. I'm a reader. It's always good to have a book around that one can escape to. I recommend Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy for good, escapist reading. I don't recommend my Regression Analysis textbook. It takes too much effort to get into and is too easy for one's mind to wander away to uncharted territory.
4. Tackle an project that needs doing. Doing something productive gives one a sense of accomplishment and pride that helps to chase away negative thoughts. Choose something manageable that can be accomplished in a few hours. For example, my house needs cleaning and organizing badly. Trying to tackle the entire house is a project I can't accomplish in one afternoon. Choosing to organize and clean the spare bedroom is something I can accomplish in an afternoon.
5. Take action to change the situation. If this involves confronting a person, make sure you are not too angry or upset while you are doing it. Try using steps 1-4 first to get yourself in a better frame of mind before initiating a confrontation. Make sure you know what you want to get out of the confrontation and give the person something concrete they can do to fix the situation. A good approach for the problem with my neighbors would be to tell them that I would like them to get their own trash cans and keep their trash at their house. A poor approach would be to tell them they are noisy messy slobs.

Things that upset are a given in life. Sometimes actions can be taken to correct the situation. Other times these situations are out of one's control. In either case, dwelling on the negative does not help and leads to negative thought patterns. I am trying to use these techniques to be a happier, more productive person.

Just to be clear...

I have nothing against antidepressants or other medications designed to treat mental illnesses. My choice to go off of antidepressants is purely a quality of life issue. If antidepressants worked for me with acceptable side effects, I would not have considered going off of them.

There are times in my life when I needed to be on antidepressants. My mental state had gotten so bad that I couldn't pull myself out of it on my own. My mind worked in irrational, paranoid ways. I am not sure I would be alive today without medication. If my mood and/or mental stability takes a nosedive, I will go back on lexapro or some other medication.

Treating depression is not formulaic. Different things work for different people. Going off of antidepressants is a serious issue and it can have dramatic effects on one's life. I neither encourage nor discourage others from doing so. The techniques I am using to try and live my life without antidepressants are things that may make people happier and healthier whether or not they are on antidepressants.

Going off SSRI's

I've been on 10-20mg of Lexapro for at least 2 years now. I've tried going off before with rather bad results. This time I'm going to make it. Other than my sister, I'm not telling my family. My mom would freak out and accuse me of being depressed even when I was not.

My mom often sees what she expects to see. When we go out to dinner, she accuses me of being grumpy before the food comes because I often get cranky when my blood sugar is low. For the last 6 months or so I have been eating before I go out to dinner with them so I do not have low blood sugar when I am in her presence. She still accuses me of being hungry-grumpy. She tends to voice her assertions repeatedly while invading my personal space. I eventually snap, and that is used to prove her point. I digress.

I have several reasons for wanting to be off Lexapro. The least of these reasons is that it costs me $480/year. I would gladly pay for happiness/sanity if that were possible.

I need at least an extra hour of sleep a day when I am on lexapro. Even when I am awake I feel tired. I'm often dizzy when I wake up. There are days I have called in sick to work either because I didn't feel safe driving or because I was too tired and foggy to get out of bed. I generally nap through my weekend afternoons in addition to 10+ hours of sleep weekend nights.

Even when I am awake I am foggier and slower than when I am not on lexapro. Emotions are muted. I still have emotions, but they feel flat. Anger is pretty much nonexistent. It's kind of like the difference between mac and cheese made from scratch by my mom and mac and cheese from a box. Maybe other people's emotions are more moderate all the time. Those who have grown up on the boxed stuff don't know the difference. I do.

There are good reasons to be on lexapro. Roller coaster emotions are difficult to deal with, both for me and other people. My emotions have a tendency to get stuck in the down swings. My thoughts get stuck in obsessive circles. On a grid floor, I can feel the need to move like a chess knight, obsessively. Pretty much anyone who knows the difference between drugged me and real me likes drugged me better. I like drugged me better, but I would rather be real me.

Interesting side note: Colors are brighter when I am not drugged.

My first week off meds:

• Day 1 wasn't bad.
  
• Day 2 was hell. I felt nauseas and sweaty for a good part of the day. I was both extatically happy and incredibly sad, and I couldn't tell you about what. I couldn't control my tears. I went to play a board game with a friend and I think I was crying half the time. He was polite enough not to notice, but I feel bad for him because it must have been somewhat awkward.
  
• Days 3 and 4: My stomach was a little upset, but other than that I have felt euphorically happy.
  
• Day 5: The stomach upset is pretty much gone, and I am still happier than I have any right to be.
• Day 6: I made a mistake at work and was on the verge of tears for the rest of the day, sometimes breaking down.
• Day 7: Pretty down. Doubting my decision to try and go off meds.
  

There are studies that show exercise is as effective as medications in treating depression. The amount varies. One of my ex-shrinks told me that she knew of someone who treated bipolar disorder by 4-5 hours of exercise a day. Some sources say that 20-30 minutes of walking 3x/week will do it. I know that isn't true because I do more than that already.

The proposed plan is to bike to work 3+ times a week (that is about 45 minutes 1 way) and to walk my dog briskly at least 45 minutes a night. That sounds a bit time intensive, but the biking will only really cost me 40 minutes per day as I would need 50 for commuting anyways. The 45 minutes of dog walking should be done daily for the dog's sake at least a few days a week. If one factors in the amount of time I save by not needing the extra 1-2 hours of sleep/day that lexapro costs me, the exercise should pay for itself.

I'm also going to try to optimize my diet and supplement with beneficial vitamins. I'll talk more about that later as I don't have as much knowledge about nutrition as I should.

I expect failure, but what do I have to lose? As I don't have a huge support network of friends, I'm going to use this blog as a sounding board. This is a learning process for me. I don't have answers. If anyone has suggestions or tips, please feel free to comment. I can use all the help I can get!