Early days

It is almost the second week of the new medication and so far, I am preferring it to others I have tried. It is still a little early to have a full judgement, however. I think it will be quite some time until I have a full picture, but early indications are that they are better. Not perfect but better.

Having said that here are the negatives from my journey with them so far in no particular order:

The extreme tiredness

Up until today, almost every day once I finished work my battery was completely dead. I would spend the evening in what I would describe as a battery saving mode. Operating on the bare minimum, lazing in bed, shuffling to the kitchen to make food and carry out the essentials all the while with an eye on the clock. Waiting for the time to go to sleep. Any thoughts of getting up and writing here even were out of the window. Just grabbing the laptop from across the room seemed impossible. You may be thinking that sounds like a huge exaggeration, but it was how I felt. I managed one or two evenings of having energy for a few hours. One was even an enjoyable evening playing online games with a good friend from Canada.

The mood swings

Now this side effect was not to be unexpected. What was unexpected to me at least was how fast my mood could change from elated to desolated and back again. Sometimes this happened in the same hour. It was all I could do to hang on and hope that I didn’t inflict anything on others. For the most part if I felt a swing going to the negative, I would isolate myself. Which, thinking about it was probably not what any professional would recommend. The mood swings haven’t gone away but they have become less frequent at least in the last few days. I expect them to remain until a few months in at least. I hope they go away after that or become so infrequent as to not be so noticeable. I mean, everyone has mood swings from nowhere at times, right? I feel so alien and far from normal that I do not even know what a “normal” amount of mood swinging is.

Weird dreams and sleep disturbance

I’ve always been a random dreamer but since on this medication the dreams have been wild to say the least. Not always negative but sometimes I found myself waking up in almost pure terror. I’d have no memory of what I dreamt only that it was so bad I had to wake up. As the days went on though I discovered a weird thing. I could preload my dreams so to speak! I could think of a scenario, and it would play out when I went to sleep. Not in the detail I envisaged but the vague idea was there. Sometimes it took a weird turn and other times not so much.

However, the quality of my sleep has gotten worse. I didn’t think it was possible, but I seem to wake up even more each night than before this medication. That is very disappointing to me as these are widely known to have drowsy and almost knock out qualities in that regard. It is why they say to take them before bed after all. Sadly though, apart from making me tired at all the wrong times, I have yet to have a full night of unbroken sleep with them.

From what I have read I am on the lowest dose but apparently if you go higher the sleep effect gets less so technically these should be at their most potent as a sleep aid!

Now onto the positives (I just realised I started with the negatives. I guess that can tell you something about my mental state…). In no particular order:

The random crying is less

Yep, although it still happens it is no longer uncontrollable. Not much else I can say about that except that I am a little more centred. I just hope as time goes on that the meds don’t make me “flat”, and I am able to have a range “normal” emotion. You know, like a normal person! Now, I’ve never really tried to conform to normality for most situations but in this regard, I would like to be a little bit more normal.

Side note: I think the fact that I tend to let my mind go on tangents has served me well in a creative sense throughout the years, so I really hope that doesn’t fade. If it does, then does that make me less me? I think so and to be honest I really don’t want to lose that part of myself.

Dark thoughts are less

If you read my last post, you will now that the whole reason for me being on these meds is because of well, the failed attempt, let me just leave it that. So, the good news is that now I do not have as many of those thoughts. Even when they come, they are fleeting and so far, easy for me to discard. So, the main objective of the medication is complete. Hopefully for good.

If I read up, I notice there are still more negatives than positive but again that is likely my mindset at the moment. However, they are truly all I can think of right now.

Only way is up from now surely? I’ll leave with a random song that came up on suggested play list from YouTube Music whilst I was writing this which I found amusing (Stick Figure are awesome by the way):