Updates on lil' me in a nutshell

Most of the stuff that happened between my last post and now are recorded in my tweets.

I have been experiencing the changes that Valdoxan, the new anti-depressant I am now on, has brought on. Some are good. Some are not so. The reason why I am on new meds is because, believe it or not, I began to relapse within this years-long relapse. How sick can one be anyway?

Valdoxan has been increasing my appetite. This causes gastric problems to resurface in me because now I eat in the day and for all gastritis sufferers, eating outside of normal times causes gastric pain. I can eat meals throughout the day and have painful gastric symptoms even then.

Valdoxan has subtly increased my energy level. To the naked eye and outsider, I don't do much more. But I have resumed my teaching after a sabbatical that both myself and my students wanted to take. To J, I reply emails faster - something so subtle only someone who loves me like J does will realise. I still can't do a lot of things because the energy level is not yet normal for me. Unfortunately, I also still have bouts of extreme sleepiness in the day. I reckon this is because I still need to adjust my sleeping medication - lorazepam or melatonin or both and how much of? Taking too little - I can't sleep, since I am now off Remeron. Taking too much and I get sleepy the whole day after I wake up.

Valdoxan claims to not need adjunct anti-anxiety medication but I take more Xanax now than before. So, that claim is rubbish. Am supposed to be on a new adjunct medication come February. (Adjunct medications are mood-stabilisers, sometimes they aren't even real antidepressants.) Meanwhile, I suffer the random frequent panic attacks, and still get paranoid phobias about doing a lot of things. A bit more so than before I got off the Lexapro+Remeron cocktail. But I have been stepping out of the house just that bit more. Progress to me. Though it ain't enough for my parents.

I had a major falling out with my parents. The Chinese New Year sucks. As J says, "I hate Chinese New Year." I feel too stressed out to go through the entire process of making a new passport since my beloved 10-year-old one expired last year. So I explained that I won't be going to visit them this CNY to my parents. Needless to say, my mom backlashed at me, accusing me of abandoning them, accusing me on 'purposely still being sick' and thus unable to go make a passport.

Yes I know I have been sick and in this relapse for years. You think I wanna be sick? I am trying so, so hard to recover, but every small step that is deemed minute by the world is so big a step for me, I can't take that many steps. To you, being able to get out of the house and run errands in the neighbourhood is nothing. To me it is a big leap.

At least I haven't been so randomly sad for a while now that I have begun taking Valdoxan. Yes I am still inherently sad. But it doesn't tsunami that much now. I take that as normalcy. I don't think I will ever be happy as a norm. I am 32 this year and that's 32 years of being sad every day of my life. If it doesn't impede my ability to do basic functions I am glad enough. Glad enough to not be stuck crying in a corner for no reason or cowering under the blanket. Glad enough to not want to die so badly. Overwhelming sadness kills everything and very nearly me. I am alive and able to do things like go to the bathroom or eat - I am glad enough.

I do have guilt for being still sick and not being able to push this particular episode of depression into remission. I am so so sorry for crying for no reason. I am so so sorry for being sick. I am really sorry.