26 May 2017 - Scotland Day 07 - Dry in Dundee, Huffy in Perth, and New Understandings
Afternoon. Evening? I don't know.
Day 91 on Lexapro. There's apparently no way to gradually taper myself off without consulting my psychiatrist, which is more or less what I expected. I don't know if there's any way to combat the symptoms of withdrawal that come on hard and fast after a few days without taking any, and I'd rather not deal with them while abroad.
Mood: 4.75.
The weather's really nice today - sunny, with a high of around 85. I certainly didn't bring clothes for this weather, burning up in my lovely, comfortable pocket-less dress pants. We went back to Dundee this morning, walking around some. In a moment that is more me than anything else I've done on this trip, I purchased five tins of super fancy organic and grain-free cat food from a little charity sale, the proceeds of which are going to a cat sanctuary. Hopefully, my two babes back home will enjoy it. We also stopped at a pound shop
I woke up feeling somewhat better today than I did last night. Not good, but not nearly as bad. I've decided that the new model of my depression is rapid onset, rapid resolution; I don't know if I like that more or less than the extended lows that I've experienced in the past. There was a long period of almost disorientation, where I had to reintegrate myself into the world outside of my mind. I wanted to ask someone for assistance with that process, but I don't know what kind of assistance I'd need, or if an external entity would even be of much help. To wax poetic, it was like remembering how to navigate a world of light after falling through caverns...
Perth was an interesting time. I saw a free, condensed version of the opera La Boheme, which was nice, though my ability to properly enjoy it was dampened by the acoustics of the space. I also walked through the Perth Museum and Art Gallery, which was also nice (and also free) but nothing particularly special. However....
With the exception of a few extremely specific circumstances, I hate traveling in groups of three. It always ends up with me feeling as though I'm fading and/or being pushed into the background by the other two people, who always (at least to my twisted, depressed mind) seem far more interested in each other than either do in me. Another member of the study abroad party accompanied Favorite Person and I on the walk around Perth, and I...didn't like that. Even though I don't like parties of three (except under specific circumstances), I'm too polite to say "no, I don't want you to come" to an outside entity. My time in the town was spent feeling like I was being slowly pushed away, the far vertex of a social isosceles that was turning into a point and a segment.
That feeling culminated in my separating myself from them, walking back to the van alone. I don't entirely know what I was feeling - it wasn't quite anger, annoyance, sadness. It was a feeling that I don't have a name for, and not having names for things frustrates me greatly. How nice it would be if the complex emotions that whir in my head - sometimes softly, often not - had some objective external nature, some way for me to examine and study and dissect them without the experience of them.
My walking off offended Favorite Person some, and at the time, I didn't care, and was strongly tempted to tell her that I felt so. Some basal, unrestrained part of me wanted to lash out at her, to lay the blame for how I felt squarely on her shoulders.
I seem to want to inflict harm on those closest to me, because what other way should I deal with hurt than by spreading it around?
We stopped at a co-op on the way back from Perth (a party one smaller than we started with - the one guy that came had a Tinder date, and was going to come back to the house via public transport. On the topic of Tinder dates, and this is an aside from the main narrative, but I'm somewhat envious of the people that can just casually date. I can't really do that - if I don't see myself being invested in another human being long-ish term, I don't see a reason to date. I can't see multiple people, unless I've bound myself to more than one person. That's just not how I operate, never how I've operated.), and I purchased cider for myself. There's a phenomenon among the mentally ill called self-medication, where substances such as alcohol and other drugs are used as a means to reduce suffering. It's something that I didn't understand when I first learned of it, but I understand it viscerally now. Looking at the nine bottles of cider that I now own, it doesn't surprise me that many people who struggle with depression also struggle with alcohol dependency. It wouldn't surprise me if I eventually join that number; drinking smoothens the normally-sharp boundaries of my existence just enough to make living more tolerable. My goal is never to drink to forget, at least not yet - I just want to have enough ethyl alcohol circulating in my system that I feel....less. Less intensely, less acutely, less deeply and profoundly.
There are two bottles of cider cooling in the fridge. I'm having cider. Old Mout Cider brand, passionfruit and apple. It's good, and refreshing; having it out of a wine glass rather than straight from the bottle means that I'm consuming it much more slowly than I would otherwise. I'm tempted to have a second after this one, but I don't need to consume 4.25 standard drinks in less than two hours.
Tomorrow, we're going to Glasgow. I don't know what's on the agenda for when we're there, but I'll explore and take photos, like I always do. Hopefully, my brain will be more cooperative tomorrow than it was today.
In slightly less serious news, I've found that I like Rush. Thanks, Ninja Sex Party.
Until then.
26 May 2017
Day 91 on Lexapro. There's apparently no way to gradually taper myself off without consulting my psychiatrist, which is more or less what I expected. I don't know if there's any way to combat the symptoms of withdrawal that come on hard and fast after a few days without taking any, and I'd rather not deal with them while abroad.
Mood: 4.75.
The weather's really nice today - sunny, with a high of around 85. I certainly didn't bring clothes for this weather, burning up in my lovely, comfortable pocket-less dress pants. We went back to Dundee this morning, walking around some. In a moment that is more me than anything else I've done on this trip, I purchased five tins of super fancy organic and grain-free cat food from a little charity sale, the proceeds of which are going to a cat sanctuary. Hopefully, my two babes back home will enjoy it. We also stopped at a pound shop
I woke up feeling somewhat better today than I did last night. Not good, but not nearly as bad. I've decided that the new model of my depression is rapid onset, rapid resolution; I don't know if I like that more or less than the extended lows that I've experienced in the past. There was a long period of almost disorientation, where I had to reintegrate myself into the world outside of my mind. I wanted to ask someone for assistance with that process, but I don't know what kind of assistance I'd need, or if an external entity would even be of much help. To wax poetic, it was like remembering how to navigate a world of light after falling through caverns...
Perth was an interesting time. I saw a free, condensed version of the opera La Boheme, which was nice, though my ability to properly enjoy it was dampened by the acoustics of the space. I also walked through the Perth Museum and Art Gallery, which was also nice (and also free) but nothing particularly special. However....
With the exception of a few extremely specific circumstances, I hate traveling in groups of three. It always ends up with me feeling as though I'm fading and/or being pushed into the background by the other two people, who always (at least to my twisted, depressed mind) seem far more interested in each other than either do in me. Another member of the study abroad party accompanied Favorite Person and I on the walk around Perth, and I...didn't like that. Even though I don't like parties of three (except under specific circumstances), I'm too polite to say "no, I don't want you to come" to an outside entity. My time in the town was spent feeling like I was being slowly pushed away, the far vertex of a social isosceles that was turning into a point and a segment.
That feeling culminated in my separating myself from them, walking back to the van alone. I don't entirely know what I was feeling - it wasn't quite anger, annoyance, sadness. It was a feeling that I don't have a name for, and not having names for things frustrates me greatly. How nice it would be if the complex emotions that whir in my head - sometimes softly, often not - had some objective external nature, some way for me to examine and study and dissect them without the experience of them.
My walking off offended Favorite Person some, and at the time, I didn't care, and was strongly tempted to tell her that I felt so. Some basal, unrestrained part of me wanted to lash out at her, to lay the blame for how I felt squarely on her shoulders.
I seem to want to inflict harm on those closest to me, because what other way should I deal with hurt than by spreading it around?
We stopped at a co-op on the way back from Perth (a party one smaller than we started with - the one guy that came had a Tinder date, and was going to come back to the house via public transport. On the topic of Tinder dates, and this is an aside from the main narrative, but I'm somewhat envious of the people that can just casually date. I can't really do that - if I don't see myself being invested in another human being long-ish term, I don't see a reason to date. I can't see multiple people, unless I've bound myself to more than one person. That's just not how I operate, never how I've operated.), and I purchased cider for myself. There's a phenomenon among the mentally ill called self-medication, where substances such as alcohol and other drugs are used as a means to reduce suffering. It's something that I didn't understand when I first learned of it, but I understand it viscerally now. Looking at the nine bottles of cider that I now own, it doesn't surprise me that many people who struggle with depression also struggle with alcohol dependency. It wouldn't surprise me if I eventually join that number; drinking smoothens the normally-sharp boundaries of my existence just enough to make living more tolerable. My goal is never to drink to forget, at least not yet - I just want to have enough ethyl alcohol circulating in my system that I feel....less. Less intensely, less acutely, less deeply and profoundly.
Tomorrow, we're going to Glasgow. I don't know what's on the agenda for when we're there, but I'll explore and take photos, like I always do. Hopefully, my brain will be more cooperative tomorrow than it was today.
In slightly less serious news, I've found that I like Rush. Thanks, Ninja Sex Party.
Until then.
26 May 2017
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