Medication and Circadian Rhythm

[prixmium]

It's 2:30 AM and I'm gonna try to go to bed after this post. Thankfully, I've actually been sleepy for about an hour. I took my medicine a few minutes go, but since I came back to my family's main home from the parsonage I can't figure out what I did with my packet of antidepressants. I need to call stuff in and get American refills anyway, but I've honestly been good for a while on everything but birth control from stuff I got while in Japan. It was just incidental, but I think we I go back I'll try to be good for a month or so but then do at least a couple of refills while I'm there because it's so, so much cheaper.

Anyway, I have been thinking about trying to get off my antidepressant anyway. I don't think I'm no longer depressed or that I have exponentially better coping skills. I also know that in the future I probably do need to invest time and (sigh) money into a good therapist. However, I just kind of don't want to keep being dependent on an antidepressant like that forever. My mom reads stuff online and gets it on her mind, and she mentioned it to me again recently that maybe we both should try to do with as little as possible due to the possibility that it may interfere with the body's ability to ever perform those functions on its own. I dunno.

I am glad I'm getting sleepy in the dark, though. For a while I was only really sleepy from like 5 AM onward and it was a problem. I guess part of it was jetlag, but the thing is that I slept through the night just fine the first few days I was home and woke up with the Literal Chickens that live on my CITY STREET. But then my mom was sort of bothered that by the time she got up mid-morning I was ready for a cat-nap. I just really like sleeping... I know that might be a depression thing. I also think it's a touch starvation thing. This isn't like a sexual thing but I think that I take some kind of tactile pleasure in lying down and snuggling into blankets that is some kind of emotional substitute for the fact that I don't have anyone to hug or touch in any friendly way except my parents, and when I was in Japan I didn't even have that.

In other news, I made a new reddit account, and it seems like it might be promising to get some lowkey interactions within certain fandoms the way classic LJ comms used to be. I don't think every subreddit is as successful or happy as the others, but I'm hopeful.

Comments

[mxcatmoon]

Not to be a downer but, I've been on and off antidepressants for almost 15 years. I'm on them for awhile, decide I can do without them... and end up back on again within a year. I've been there, I know not wanting to be on them. Especially when the ones I'm on aren't really working well enough, but the doctor is resistant to trying something else... At one point I did have some luck with supplements though, Fish Oil seemed to improve my mood. I find they *all* lose effectiveness after a few years though, then I need to find something else that works. Good luck!

[prixmium]

I guess most of my friends these days swear by therapy and medication only as a temporary measure. However, thus far I cannot afford therapy. Most of my friends who've had success with that live in other countries where, hey, free healthcare and at least subsidized extras/affordable insurance.

My mom has been on and off them for years. She also gets weirdly fixated about things she reads online, but how can I judge that?

What made me decide I NEEDED to be on antidepressants the last time was during a time when I was going through some major grief about my social circumstances I would get HYSTERICAL about, like, stubbing my toe. Like it was so close to the surface that all my Doubts Against God and Life and the Universe and Everything would come spilling out over acute bursts of pain that were no one's fault. And it was like being in possession of a rampaging animal, aware that what I was doing was crazy but not really having much power over it. But, like, if I can do without the hysterical meltdowns I'm not really sure what else they're doing for me.

[mxcatmoon]

I hear you. I can't afford anything at all medical these days, so I just deal. Until it gets so bad it risks my job or something, then I have to have help.

[dorchadas]

reddit is highly variable on the particular subreddit. Some of them are great. Some of them less so. Generally, the smaller they are, the better.

I can't speak to medication, but the comment about touch starvation and sleeping makes me wonder if you've tried a weighted blanket? I know several people who sleep with a weighted blanket and really love them.

[prixmium]

I've heard their praises but they're hilariously expensive.