05 Apr 2017 - Tiredness
Evening, nonexistent reader.
Today was day 41 on Lexapro. The higher dose is definitely making me extremely tired; it's physically difficult to get out of bed in the morning, and even if I go to bed early, I still don't feel like I'm getting anywhere near enough sleep. I was so tired this morning that I couldn't make it to my 9am biostatistics course, which I find intensely distressing. However, Curly's also in that class, and she ever so graciously agreed to give me her notes for today. Knowing that my inability to make it to that class won't set me horrendously back is somewhat comforting, and slightly lessens the distress that being so tired that I can't get out of bed generates.
Mood: 5, at least I think it was. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say 5 +/- 1? Today has been a strange, strange internal day. I think that it'd be better if I started reporting my emotional state as a range - the number being the set point, the +/- value being how much I fluctuated.
I don't quite know how to describe my today. Externally, it was alright, aside from the not being able to go to class bit. I made it to the rest of my courses okay, my biological chemistry lab was uneventful but went smoothly, and my lab mates seemed pleasantly surprised that I'd unpacked the shipment of field equipment and assembled the nets. By every measure, today was, well, okay. Internally, though, I felt a mess. Though my "set point", if you will, was my usual baseline, things shifted around a lot more than is typical. I don't like feeling, for lack of a better term, mood swing-y, at least when there's no legitimate reason - like being a few days out from a period, or taking birth control. And I've been feeling mood swing-y for a while now. It's too soon for me to be chalking it up to the higher dose of escitalopram. However, with that being the only major recent change, and with that change coinciding with the start of the unstable mood, Ockham's razor would indicate it as the cause.
It'll be something to discuss with Dr. Gilbert in the morning.
One of the big benefits I'd noticed with taking Lexapro in the beginning was a boost in productivity, and a decrease in my tendency to procrastinate. However, that boost has evaporated completely, and I'm back to my old habits. Work still gets done, of course, but much more slowly than I'd like. I still have a lot of reading to do, for multiple courses, but I can't seem to dredge up the motivation to actually read, and when I do, I can't focus for long. This is a trend that kind of perpetuates a judgey cycle that I've given up trying to break - setting my expectation for what I should do extremely high, not having the motivation to do enough, hating myself for not meeting my own expectations, promising myself that I'll do things better next time. Rinse and repeat.
Eventually, I'm going to make a list of the various positive feedback loops that I find myself in.
To talk about something else, for the past year now, I've been keeping records of how many meals I eat each day, and how many of those meals were alone or with another person/persons. I'd noticed a long time ago that I eat by myself a lot, but I wanted to be able to put a numerical value on "a lot". Or at least that's what I told myself. A truer reason (and this is not to say that I wasn't interested in amassing data on my meals) is that I wanted hard, concrete evidence that I could use as ammunition to make myself feel worse, about everything. Month after month after month of the numbers proving that I eat alone more or less all the time - and my meal habits are a good proxy for how much time I spend along in general - did a pretty good job of that, and it still does. I still keep daily records, as it's become a habit, but I've been thinking a lot about why. The numbers are still saddening, with many months having fewer than 5 meals with other human beings. I dunno, this is something that I've been pondering for a while now.
I'm still not looking forward to formally meeting with Favorite Person (Jesus, I almost screwed up and used her actual name; we can't have that, now, can we?) on Friday. I'd much rather just snuggle with her for a while and forget that things were ever awkward; however, snuggling and then just forgetting about the issue is honestly what my approach to everything would be in a more perfect world.
This is a distinctly less perfect world, though, so I'm still going to have to talk to her. It's got to happen sooner or later.
Tomorrow will be a day to catch up on things, and possibly get more lab work done.
Until then.
05 Apr 2017
Today was day 41 on Lexapro. The higher dose is definitely making me extremely tired; it's physically difficult to get out of bed in the morning, and even if I go to bed early, I still don't feel like I'm getting anywhere near enough sleep. I was so tired this morning that I couldn't make it to my 9am biostatistics course, which I find intensely distressing. However, Curly's also in that class, and she ever so graciously agreed to give me her notes for today. Knowing that my inability to make it to that class won't set me horrendously back is somewhat comforting, and slightly lessens the distress that being so tired that I can't get out of bed generates.
Mood: 5, at least I think it was. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say 5 +/- 1? Today has been a strange, strange internal day. I think that it'd be better if I started reporting my emotional state as a range - the number being the set point, the +/- value being how much I fluctuated.
I don't quite know how to describe my today. Externally, it was alright, aside from the not being able to go to class bit. I made it to the rest of my courses okay, my biological chemistry lab was uneventful but went smoothly, and my lab mates seemed pleasantly surprised that I'd unpacked the shipment of field equipment and assembled the nets. By every measure, today was, well, okay. Internally, though, I felt a mess. Though my "set point", if you will, was my usual baseline, things shifted around a lot more than is typical. I don't like feeling, for lack of a better term, mood swing-y, at least when there's no legitimate reason - like being a few days out from a period, or taking birth control. And I've been feeling mood swing-y for a while now. It's too soon for me to be chalking it up to the higher dose of escitalopram. However, with that being the only major recent change, and with that change coinciding with the start of the unstable mood, Ockham's razor would indicate it as the cause.
It'll be something to discuss with Dr. Gilbert in the morning.
One of the big benefits I'd noticed with taking Lexapro in the beginning was a boost in productivity, and a decrease in my tendency to procrastinate. However, that boost has evaporated completely, and I'm back to my old habits. Work still gets done, of course, but much more slowly than I'd like. I still have a lot of reading to do, for multiple courses, but I can't seem to dredge up the motivation to actually read, and when I do, I can't focus for long. This is a trend that kind of perpetuates a judgey cycle that I've given up trying to break - setting my expectation for what I should do extremely high, not having the motivation to do enough, hating myself for not meeting my own expectations, promising myself that I'll do things better next time. Rinse and repeat.
Eventually, I'm going to make a list of the various positive feedback loops that I find myself in.
To talk about something else, for the past year now, I've been keeping records of how many meals I eat each day, and how many of those meals were alone or with another person/persons. I'd noticed a long time ago that I eat by myself a lot, but I wanted to be able to put a numerical value on "a lot". Or at least that's what I told myself. A truer reason (and this is not to say that I wasn't interested in amassing data on my meals) is that I wanted hard, concrete evidence that I could use as ammunition to make myself feel worse, about everything. Month after month after month of the numbers proving that I eat alone more or less all the time - and my meal habits are a good proxy for how much time I spend along in general - did a pretty good job of that, and it still does. I still keep daily records, as it's become a habit, but I've been thinking a lot about why. The numbers are still saddening, with many months having fewer than 5 meals with other human beings. I dunno, this is something that I've been pondering for a while now.
I'm still not looking forward to formally meeting with Favorite Person (Jesus, I almost screwed up and used her actual name; we can't have that, now, can we?) on Friday. I'd much rather just snuggle with her for a while and forget that things were ever awkward; however, snuggling and then just forgetting about the issue is honestly what my approach to everything would be in a more perfect world.
This is a distinctly less perfect world, though, so I'm still going to have to talk to her. It's got to happen sooner or later.
Tomorrow will be a day to catch up on things, and possibly get more lab work done.
Until then.
05 Apr 2017
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