Next appointment with Doc is on the 1st of next month and at that point we will determine whether this is something I want to continue doing or not. I have already decided that it is as I feel like the meds have been a huge benefit. However, I am already concerned that maybe I will have to up my dosage by the time we get to the next appointment. I do feel like the benefits of the medication are tapering, even if it is slightly. I have not met with my therapist in awhile as he has been on vacation, so I’m also looking forward to hearing what he thinks about this as I have not seen him since I’ve been on the med. Maybe it’s super obvious that I am more relaxed and I am just feeling more accustomed to it and I don’t notice it so much.

It’s a very personal experience and while I seek the advice of my friends with similar experiences I know no one can relate 100%. I find that I am very often asking myself questions like “Would I feel the same right now were I not taking this pill?” and most times I answer with a resounding “No.” But the longer I spend time away from my anxiety and depression the harder it is to answer. I know the goal of the medicine is to take the edge off and not to suddenly and miraculously make me feel like a million bucks.

It’s been only a couple of weeks. It’s still so soon to be requiring these kinds of answers from myself, but, even without the feelings of urgency that come from being panicked, I’m impatient. I want there to be a plan in place right now and that just isn’t practical. The medication has helped me refocus my energies to some degree. I can see now that some of my anxiety and worry was completely unnatural and, just as my doctor said, even the greatest job in the world would not have eliminated this chemical imbalance. The medicine relieves but also reveals that there is still a lot to be done and a lot that I was just unable to focus on fixing before. Honestly, I’m a little overwhelmed with it. I know that I am not where I want to be or doing what I want to be doing with my life and I think I can ultimately get there now but it’s hard to know what the next step is going to be.

On the unquestionably up side, the car is getting paid off this month and this will free up some money every month for my wife and I to save until we do decide what the next step is.

Yesterday I also found out that an old friend of mine who had fallen off the grid for some time after several bouts with heroin addiction is alive and well. While I would never wish such a hardship on myself I think it’s funny how, when you are truly in a state of disaster, it’s enough for your friends to find out you are still breathing. I’m trying to be convinced that it doesn’t take a state of disaster for me to be just ok with “alive & breathing” as an acceptable state of being for myself.

Since I switched the time of day that I take my anxiety meds I have felt like, maybe, the drug’s effects were tapering off a bit, but I also thought maybe it just seemed that way since I was probably asleep when the drug was at its most potent. Nevertheless, I’ve been– perhaps irrationally– concerned that the usefulness of the medication would eventually wear out completely (something I’ve read about that does happen, but usually over a considerable period of time). Since I seemed to recognize changes resulting from the use of the medication almost immediately (which I didn’t expect) I have been wondering how long it would remain as effective as it has been. I have no real reason to believe itbecause I don’t feel anxious or panicky but I am starting to get to a point where feeling relaxed is “normal” and that’s just unusual for me.

At any rate, last night may have been the first I’ve gone out to some kind of activity since taking the medication and my concerns that the drug was no longer working as potently were dismissed immediately.  I found that playing music while on the anti-anxiety med allowed me to focus much more on following the song (I was improvising unrehearsed with other players and didn’t know the song) and get more into the music. I even felt myself moving to the music more than I normally might.

There’s always a little bit of stage fright before I perform and the drug didn’t remove that completely (which I am thankful for.. if this were to become a completely fearless activity I don’t think I could keep doing it) but instead of feeling like my heart was beating out of my chest (which is often the case for even the most rehearsed performances) it was just a little pang of nervous excitement.

Perhaps I am simply less aware of the drug because I’ve been taking the pill after work (when I am usually less anxious anyway), I am more ready to relax around the house and don’t notice a great difference between “normal” me and “under the influence” me.

Still, the lack of unnecessary anxiety has left a void in me that I haven’t quite figured out how to fill. Without the irrational worry and fear I feel less motivated at work (though I enjoy my time spent there much more than I did). On the flip side, when I am home, I find myself pacing around the apartment– not in a state of panic, but in a state of profound boredom. None of my usual couch potato activities, once a refuge from my anxiety, seem worthwhile anymore. I’m sure there are a million things I could be doing, but I just haven’t gotten to the point of training my brain to crave these activities. It’s gonna take some time.

This Sunday I am going to hit an open mic where some of my friends play every week. They’re always there, but now suddenly this seems like something fun to do. Sometimes its just exciting to be excited. It’s been so long that I really looked forward to “playing-just-for-fun.”

REALLY wanting to learn guitar. I’m thinking if I can get some gigs lined up this Summer, I can probably afford to buy myself a Mexican HSS Strat and a decent little combo amp, but I also really dig those Faded series Gibsons (real American-made Gibson guitars under 1,000 bucks). I could probably trade Scott G. guitar lessons for bass lessons.

I was quitting coffee with Kim for Lent prior to getting on this anti-anxiety med, but now I am so sleepy in the morning that I need to imbibe some kind of caffeine to get by. I’m not drinking in front of her (this whole Lent thing is really more for her than me, I was just trying to be supportive), but I get some opportunity for coffee at work. I am finding that the combination of the caffeine and the SSRI are amazing. Not am I just in a better mood, but I am goddamn happy.

Weight is still down near low 220’s. Going to the gym tonight. Been playing bass a little more often than normal, the desire wasn’t quite there for the first week because I felt so dopey. Have noticed a stronger desire to be listening to music at home, which has been almost non-existent for some time.

In case anyone was wondering, I have been intentionally avoiding the use of the brand name of my medication just to keep the comment spam down. Ironically enough if you go to the old, hyphenated version this domain (that I no longer own) someone is selling the specific drug on that site.

I still hate my job. There’s no medication for that, I think. I still feel totally trapped but not quite as overwhelmed. The panic is gone but there’s a lot more apathy in it’s place. Were it not for the fear of Kim and I living on the streets (or worse, with our parents) I think I could easily walk out of there without a second thought.

Weighed myself this morning, 221lbs., which is unbelievable. My original diet goal was 220lbs but I didn’t think I’d ever get close. Don’t know if it will stick, though. I haven’t been eating like I normally would. I have an appetite but I am also a stress eater and– even since I’ve been dieting, this hasn’t changed. But since a lot of the stress is gone I’m not snacking as much. Also my blood pressure went down like 10 points in a week. Pretty crazy.

I sit down at my computer almost out of habit. I would normally do this as a kind of “veg out” activity to get my mind off of whatever I was freaking out about. But I sit down now, click few a few things and get incredibly restless because it just isn’t entertaining me. I find that I have an amazing amount of focus now, but I am just not focusing on anything in particular. The anxiety is gone but the ways that I typically deal with it remain.

It’s so early in the game to beat myself up about any of this, but I definitely see myself having to make some changes. My daily activities just don’t make sense anymore. On one hand, my anxieties were overwhelming me, but, on the other hand they were a stimuli. It’s probably safe to say that, at one time in my life, anxiety / depression was a motivator for me to do more positive things. My interests as a musician certainly stem from that. This is true for a lot of people, I’m sure. When I listen to Elliott Smith’s music I always wonder how he could possibly be able to write ONE song and exist in the mental state he was obviously in, let alone hundreds of songs. I know that he did it because you really feel like you don’t have a choice. You do whatever makes the pain go away– for better or worse. Elliott reached the end of that rope and so did I. Obviously, my anxiety / depression wasn’t driving me to suicide, but it became bigger than I could handle on my own.

I feel like I’m probably making a huge mistake by publicizing all of this. While I wouldn’t tell a co-worker I was taking psychiatric drugs, I don’t seem to have a problem publishing it on the internet. I want to keep a record, at least, of everything that’s going on and I’m not particularly ashamed of this process.

As far as physical side-effects, only a mild headache. Not sure how long that will keep happening, maybe it will eventually go away. Also, I get a dry mouth a few hours after taking the pill but that goes away. Not aware of any sexual side-effects so far (I know you’re all dying to know that).

I am so hesitant to be the guy who preaches the gospel of Psychiatry– especially so early in this process– but I do feel as though this is something that needed to be done 10 years ago. Maybe not specifically medication, but this process that I have begun in the last few months is something that was so long overdue. I normally do an awful lot of living in the past, and my time spent there is almost always negative. I’m noticing that my reflections since I’ve been using this medication have been more constructive, at least in the light knowing what it feels like to be somewhat more peaceful than I am aware I’ve ever been. I’m not trying to dwell, but its hard to not say, “Wow if I had felt this way during my 2nd semester proficiency exam my entire life might be different.”

It’s only day 2, but in a lot of ways I feel kind of fearless. That scares me, funny as it sounds, because I’ve been ruled by irrational fears for most of my life. I’ve been scared and worried so much of my life that it felt normal. It was accepted because I didn’t know any different. Now that I think I can alleviate that sensation I am kind of excited to see what I could be capable of.

That’s another thing, being on meds has turned my daily life into a big experiment. I am fascinated by my new reactions and / or lack of reactions to outside stimuli. Whether it be traffic or my wife or something I overhear a stranger say or even my job, I now notice that my reactions to any given situation are a complete a surprise to me. I know how I would typically feel and I know that I don’t feel that way. It’s like my whole boring mundane life has boiled down to that scene in Half-Baked with John Stewart smoking weed and staring through a telescope.

So today I joined the millions of Americans who solve their everyday problems by imbibing psychotropic drugs. I’m not 100% excited about this, but after a series of talk-therapy sessions, I realize that this avenue has gone long untraveled and it’s time that I explored it.

Apparently I have what is called Generalized Anxiety Disorder which just means I worry about a lot of shit that I shouldn’t be worrying about to the point that my thoughts are intrusive on my daily life. Technically what is happening is a constant misfire of my synapses that gets my natural “Fight or Flight” function confused so that it’s basically “always on.”

Actually, that little tidbit of biological information explains a lot about my last 5 years. I’ve been constantly running away from, or irrationally avoiding, situations that– although not totally enjoyable– were only moderately uncomfortable. This anxiety has not only permeated my well-documented distaste for the IT field but also created barriers in endeavors I should have been more excited about. In the past five years I’ve turned down last-minute calls for gigs because of my anxiety. I’ve had terrible on-stage experiences that I would attribute entirely to over-thinking the situation and irrational panic. This only takes into consideration about the last five years, but looking through the archives of this blog, I can find plenty of examples in reflections on my college years and my anxiety was no doubt an intrusion on my learning experiences at Berklee and ended with a crescendo of full-grown panic attacks during my last weeks living in Boston.

It’s like that Mike Ness lyric: “you can run all your life but not get anywhere.”

When I expressed my reluctance to taking meds to the Doc she even said “If you had high blood pressure you wouldn’t think anything of taking medicine. Sure, you hate your job, but you do have anxiety. If you had another job you’d still have anxiety.”

Cold hard medical logic. She’s right.

So here we are.

Bottoms up.

That is not to say that taking medication every day is going to make me suddenly love working in the IT field. In fact, I am hoping for the opposite. I hope that getting my head straight is what I need to either propel myself out of this field and onto something I truly enjoy, or give me the calm required to plan and execute a geographical move elsewhere or maybe even a new plan altogether that I haven’t even considered under the influence of my own negative thoughts.