Some thoughts on prozac.

I've realized that I no longer want to take my current dose of Prozac and move back down to 40 mg. I thought that taking 60 would make me feel happier but I'm realizing it has a way of making me feel slow. It's making it hard to have everyday conversations with people because I feel extremely uninterested. Granted my moods have been pretty stabilized. It's taken that "longing" feeling away for the most part which has been nice and I've felt less of a need to communicate-- which can be a good and a bad thing.

I guess my main problem with prozac is that I've noticed an increased difficulty in connecting ideas. Like I'll be talking to people and forget where I'm going and just trail off and get really quiet... Like I forget where I'm going with an idea completely.

So yeah, hopefully cutting back to 40 mg is going to be something that will help me further advance toward where I want to be. I'd like to be more confident with my schoolwork so I can allow myself more freedom to have fun and experience my time here. Being more confident requires planning ahead of time and being proactive on a timely manner. Procrastination is still a problem I have, mainly attributed to facebook.

This daily goal checklist that Jacob recommended I do has helped quite a bit over the last few days though. Today I just found myself sort of lazy... I think Prozac at this dosage has a way of making my mind sluggish in general, like as I write this I'm just thinking "Wrap this up so I can be done..." and haven't had the motivation to write much at all lately.

F*ck, not cool... Just now am I realizing that these past two weeks I really haven't felt like myself, and starting tomorrow I'm going back to 40 mg to see if I feel more clearheaded.

Tomorrow's a new day.

peace. 

Good luck and goodbye

R.I.P. DENNIS LEE, APRIL 11, 1967-SEPTEMBER 19 2013 

There's some sad news I read on facebook today on his daughter Amber's profile. Dennis had four daughters, Amber, Ashley, Kendra and Danielle as well as a son that grew up here in Benton city so the whole community was shocked today when they heard the news. Dennis recently became a grandfather when Amber and Ashley had babies this year and also got to see Danielle graduate. 

I hope the family is holding together through this hard time. They're in my thoughts. 

Today I spent my day off relaxing, eating good food (my sister made steaks and cous-cous for lunch which was actually really delicious), playing guitar... Also trying to figure out my upcoming expenses and how I'm going to get through the next five days or so without blowing the lame remainder of my funds. Today I had to get my prescription without having insurance. Get this shit-- REGULAR price for Prozac that Benton city pharmacist COULD HAVE sold me if he was just in it for profit: $248

But because the pharmacist at Logar is a friend and heard my situation he gave me an EXTREME discount price of $30. I literally almost cried.

I felt so incredibly lucky and blessed. There is still good in the world. 

Because you know Wal Mart wouldn't have cut me any slack on the ridiculous costs of medicine. They would have just been like "That'll be $248.32." with zero expression on their face and I would be horrified at the outrageous cost of drugs in this country without insurance. Of course had my mom not lost her job because of this LIE we would still have insurance and this wouldn't be a problem. 

Alright I'm going to bed. Still can't find my DS which is frustrating and I'm hoping it turns up when I start packing more. Last shift tomorrow at jcpenney from 11-4-- little five hour mini shift and I'm DONNNE. I'm going to meet up with my friend Chad and we're planning on grabbing coffee and a bite to eat before I have guitar at 5:30. Music Machine still has my instrument and tomorrow I'm gonna owe them $30. This is something I've been putting off all summer but damn, now I am wishing I would have done it sooner because all my money is getting draaaained here at the last minute.

peace.

Drinking wastes time and makes people sick

I was thinking a little earlier about how long I wanted to play guitar before I was able to fully dedicate myself and how happy I am that I've gotten to this point. I had my lesson today and had a really stressful week and so I was really happy to see Jake. He is so intelligent, direct and usually knows the correct logical perspective on all of my problems that I've ever told him about.

Like don't get me wrong, 99% of our lesson is just spent working. Any time that is not spent working is because I'm the one that's wasting time blabbing on about something because I want to get his advice on something. Lol he's not getting paid to listen to my problems or give me advice on anything.

But I really am going to take his advice on alcohol. He used to drink when he was in his earlier 20's and had a bunch of crazy shit happen like most people. Anyway he doesn't drink now because he says that it's just something that hinders progress and I think he's totally right. Like I could only play guitar for 40 minutes today, and the past few days I've been feeling better so there's no reason that I shouldn't be making 2 hours at least.

I need to know Master of Puppets like the back of my hand in 6 weeks and I've been making progress but seeing the speed that I need to have it at intimidates me. God, why did I decide to do such a difficult song? I'm going to put myself through boot camp practice the next week not only to escape some negative thinking that has dwelled on me this last week but also kind of recenter.

I took my probably one and only excusable day off work today. Last night I went out and felt so sick all night I couldn't move this morning. I've decided to never drink on a day before a work shift ever again. I know it's something that people just have to learn but with the medication that I'm on (Prozac) I feel that the alcohol has more sedative effects than the average person... like I get realllly tired when I drink. I have a good time and I'm usually quite attentive to what people are telling me but alcohol doesn't make me more talkative or confident in that sense.

Tomorrow I work at like 2. Jcpenny is becoming less stressful for me the more that I work there but it still blows working in kids. At least on the weekends they're more busy so it'll be more interaction with people versus mindless folding and sorting. Blegh, that's no fun for me. I've found that the task of dealing with clothes itself is much more obnoxious to me than other aspects like the fact that I'm not around any of the people I'd made friends with at work earlier. That's fine, though, it's a job and I shouldn't be able to make demands like what department I should be working in. But the second I get a new job I'm getting the hell out.

I feel really awkward asking people if they need help finding things because honestly my guess is as good as theres-- most people are just browsing around and don't have a set thing in mind. I have had a really hard time memorizing where stuff is because again, attention to detail.... It's probably just for the best that I look like I know what I'm doing, smile at people a lot, etc and everything will be fine. At least I hope so.

Today I was able to get a much needed errand done and reaped the reward of my paycheck. I'm caught up with guitar lesson payments until the end of the month. I get paid on the 19th. Alrighty then, good! I just need to focus on guitar... I feel like drinking once a week this past few weeks has made me very disoriented and lose focus on what's really important.


peace. 

This week has been my real vacation

I hate being broke.

This morning I called Rite aid and apparently my drug tests haven't come in yet. Fabulous. I wasn't able to get ahold of Amy at Jcpennies either but I did leave a voicemail message that sounded pretty good. I want to start working so bad because I've been kind of stuck at home. My days have consisted of a lot of sims and practicing guitar lately.

A couple evenings ago I got invited to go to a party at Raquel D.'s and Travis's house where I've never been before. Brian Q. invited me and I was like sure, why the hell not, ha ha-- don't really know any of these people but hey, felt like getting kind of drunk. It wasn't a bad time. I think I was friendly, but being off my medication for a few days and drinking was a weird combination.

I did see the doctor yesterday and I'm happy to be back on my medication again. I feel like my mind has been going through the shock of it being back in my system so I've been sleeping a lot the past couple days. I don't feel stressed out or bad about anything which is a good feeling.

I honestly feel like I could give a f**k about a lot of things right now. I feel like I'm finally over Jack... This last girl just really broke the camel's back for me. The fact that we were close for a couple days and then BAM, he's got this new girl and he's posting pictures with her continually.... It's just immature and I'm done with it. I feel like all of this emotion has just been complete waste over the years because he doesn't actually care about me at all. It's all just about what he wants in that current moment.

So the only reason Jack came into my life after all was really just to motivate me to play guitar. I feel like I can now accept this and move on. I've said this time and time again but this time I'm serious. I don't want him back around in my life because my trust is entirely gone and I don't think I could ever take anything he says seriously again so there's no point.


okay moving on....

After this I'm going to watch Bob's burgers and practice guitar.

Some of the things they say in this show are like "Oh my God I can't believe they just said that..." like it does kind of push your comfort level even for a cartoon-- Not as grotesque as Drawn Together, but some of the dialogue is like woah, awkward. Still, I've totally enjoyed this show the past few days and it's kept me entertained while I've been not working. This week has been my vacation of doing nothing really, it's been nice. I feel like when I do start working I'll be really refreshed and ready to go. 

Me right now. Not a very glamorous day as you can see. This is after a three hour nap. Ha ha my bedroom is so gloomy.

peace.

Teaching, and more on Prozac

Evening everyone. 

Today's been a pretty good day for a number of reasons. It's always a good day when my work pays off. Last week I managed to break up my studying into multiple days and it really paid off when I took my midterm today. I think I did pretty well, out of the 50 questions there was only a few that I was pretty unsure about. I even corrected a couple dumb mistakes so that was good.

I usually don't review my answers after I take a test. The reason being is that I know that if I do so I'll end up second guessing myself and more likely than not changes a good answer into a bad one. Therefore it's wiser for me to not look over the test. I didn't expect the econ test to be this morning because I'd wrote Wednesday on my calendar. I luckily did study this weekend so I think it paid off.

Also, I got a 9.5/10 on my finite test. I'm really stoked about that because that means I'm actually getting this material. The probability stuff can be so difficult to wrap your head around for some reason. I'm still managing to keep up considerably well in a class I thought would be a nightmare for me. I'm not looking forward to Statistics at all. I want to take a guitar class but there doesn't appear to be much offered. It's a shame they cut the guitar program a couple years ago.

I didn't make many changes to my synthesis that I printed out tonight. I thought the paper was really good to begin with. I'm not looking forward to getting my critique back tomorrow, yet I'm not worried about it. English 102 is a prerequisite to Technical writing, which I'm going to try to get into tomorrow. I'm going to go apply for my major tomorrow. 

I had my second lesson with Hassan this evening! It was so exciting to see his improvement over the last week. He practiced every single day this last week for at least 40 minutes. I feel like practice schedules really are the key to success.

I got my finite math homework done and even made a video that I had been thinking about making for awhile. 

This is a video I made about prozac. I was meaning to do an updated video about anti-depressants because I had previously made one about Wellbutrin... which turned out to be pretty awful. 

peace.

Taking a day to figure stuff out... insomnia

I'm skipping class today.

Well it's not really skipping if you feel like you really shouldn't go because it wouldn't have any benefit to you today. I got zero sleep last night. I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. I'm going to make a plan to fix this here and now.

I went to bed at 10 after drinking a glass of wine and taking half a motion sickness relief pill and I thought that'd be enough. Apparently not because I was up tossing and turning for the next three hours or so.

Yesterday wasn't a good day because of the stress of not talking to anyone for eight hours and it had a number on my appetite. For dinner I had half a grilled cheese, some quaker chips and some yogurt which I knew probably wasn't enough but because I wasn't feeling hungry necessarily and because the wine was making me sleepy I went ahead and went to bed. It was a mistake. There was so much crap on my mind that I didn't feel hungry enough to get up and eat something. So first of all, no more wine before bed. Though it relaxes me initially (which of course I like) it's not working for me to get adequate sleep and I feel it's one of the main reasons I've been tossing and turning all night. 

At 12 am I got up and had half a piece of wheat bread. Usually this does the trick for me if I can't sleep and know I'm hungry. This actually made it somewhat worse because as my appetite began to wake up so did my mind. However I chose to ignore it and continued to try to sleep. I had a prayer, please, just two hours of sleep or so is all I'd really need.... Everything happens for a reason.

My sleeping schedule has been messed up since I started taking Prozac because it makes me quite tired during the day when I combine it with lorazapam to combat anxiety. I have not lost faith in prozac yet, I've been weening myself off the lorazapam which is harder than I thought it would be. Last night at around 2 AM I took a half to hopefully relax me enough to sleep. Nope. Continue to cut back from lorazapam which is also one of the main reasons for sleepiness during the day. It's hard but I have to do it to get my sleeping schedule back in check. Or maybe instead of taking them during the day it'd be a better idea to take one at night before bed as my doctor advised when he first prescribed them.

Not only that but I went to bed with so much on my mind last night. I came out on my facebook about my problems with Central. This wasn't an easy task for me because in all honesty I'm slightly humiliated about it-- even if my mom says being in a new environment like this and my current circumstances would make many people stressed out. I have such high expectations for myself with the guitar and my studies that I've always got something to get done. Unfortunately this has left me very isolated and here it is almost February and I'm still trying to make adjustments to make my life better here.

Medication has been helpful in a number of ways, like classes haven't had me as hung up as they did last quarter to the point that I felt like I was having panic attacks in class. No, class has really become my happy time of the day, it's all of the time that I'm not in class that get to me. I applied for a position as an English tutor yesterday so I'm hoping to get the position.

Working here on campus was originally out of the question for me because I kept thinking, "Oh I'd never have time to get my guitar practicing in and my schoolwork if I have  a job..." but my Dad had a sit down talk with me this last weekend and convinced me otherwise. It was Sunday evening and I had a bit of a breakdown when I started feeling anxiety about coming back here again (an extreme case of this, though I didn't realize it at the time, was around Thanksgiving before finals when I was having panic attacks my last couple days at home nearly all the time).

Both of my parents feel awful about the situation here and are doing everything they can to help me. I feel like my friends from back home are the same way, they're so extremely supportive. I openly admitted on my facebook last night that these have been some of the hardest months of my life, and it's true. When you have depression and/or anxiety tendencies like I do, isolation can exasperate the symptoms and because I'm living in such a stressful environment in general with all the stuff I have to get done it's led me to feeling far different than I've ever felt.

Not really talking to anyone for hours on end is the absolute pits. I've had to work especially hard to keep my head busy...

Wow I'm getting extremely tired now. I got up and threw up this morning because I was so stressed out about making my decision to not go to class today even if I know it's always an important lecture day-- especially in Finite because we're going through the most difficult part of the chapter. I'm probably going to go to one of the tutors tonight to get me caught up today.

I do have some plans, Allie and I are going to eat lunch together at 1-ish and I've got my first group counciling meeting at 3. Until then I plan to sleep a bit, eat, probably study and practice a little... I don't know, trying to just mellow out today because it's been a hard week so far.

peace.

So close no matter how far....

Hello, damn it's quiet here.. I'm going to make sure to get out and do something this weekend.

Tonight I really should have gotten more studying done. I feel pretty confident in my economics because I've been really studying that a lot over the last week. Finite I'm feeling "meh," because it's only 7:30 and I've been dicking around on facebook and sleeping for a good portion of the day I feel I should get about 45 minutes of each subject in before bed.

I just hate studying sometimes because my room is really quiet. Maybe I'll put on some classical music or something just to break up the silence. I thought maybe I'd have lunch with Allie today and she said she'd text me but I haven't heard from her all day. I've been back since 11', and slept from around 1-3 after I made myself lunch. It's not a good idea to take a nap right after lunch, that's how you gain weight... but lately my body just wants me to sleep after classes. It could be partially because of the Prozac and also because it's winter and it's freaking freezing out.

Ha ha I found this recently and I'm probably gonna post it on facebook one of these days. This has to be a Canadian magazine or something. I miss my baby back home so much right now. I know she misses me too. I wish I could move into an apartment next year just to have her here with me... Oh well, I'll have her all summer. 

I had a good lesson with Jacob tonight. He approved my choice on Nothing Else Matters for the recital but he said "it's a hard song." which makes me a little concerned but I've got two months and I'm going to work on it every day. I think it's an absolutely beautiful piece and it will be very rewarding to learn and perform with all my hard work in fingerpicking over the past couple weeks. I'm happy I made this step to try fingerpicking, now that I've gotten the hang of it. 

It's a weird feeling to have not really talked to anyone since 11:00 this morning. I think I'll call my mom before I start studying. I tried calling her last night but she was going to Olive Garden with Avery and Jim for her birthday. I can't believe Avery's 18 now. 

Prozac has been giving me extremely vivid dreams; what's even weirder is that they make sense, they feel so realistic. I had a dream about Jack last night. 

I remember being in a huge Sanrio store, looking in the mirror and he walked in and I stormed out. He followed me outside (somehow we were at the Uptown) and told me he was "sorry." I was like, "What is this?! Answer me!" and he's like, "Nothing just kiss me." Then we kissed, it was all so vivid and I remember thinking "Wow I feel so stupid, what if people see how easily I forgive him.." I then remember my Mom pulling up in front to pick me up. Zoe was sitting in the front seat of the van but she looked a lot younger and Traci's son Wyatt was in the backseat, except he was talking and toddler age. I think this is somehow reflective of how long my feelings for him have lasted over the years. 

I've barely even thought about Jack since he told me he's seeing someone, but apparently he's still buried in my subconscious somewhere. 

peace. 

PROZAC and getting out more.

Estoy muy contento.

Haven't had a panic attack all weekend. Thursday I drove home for a doctor's appointment and saw the same doctor that prescribed me the Lorazapam so he knew exactly what was up. For the past couple weeks I found myself crying every day for one reason or another, felt myself continually spiraling into panic attacks... It was absolute Hell and slipping into deeper and deeper depression. I didn't have to explain much to my doctor, he believed me without question. In our last appointment he told me I should stop smoking to curb my anxiety. I was happy to tell him I had stopped completely. Maybe he had a harder time believing that, ha ha.

Prozac is an anti-anxiety medication that also is meant to help with a number of other things such as insomnia, depression and... Bulimia for some reason. I didn't really get that one, I hope that means it helps with nausea because with my anxiety I sometimes get nausea really bad and it makes me feel like I'm going to throw up. I haven't gone through any of that in the past few days though.

Granted I am still taking Lorazapam every so often. I'm cutting back on that though and I'm happy I am when I did. Lorazapam is definitely habit forming because it's a rapid release drug so you feel like you need one every 3-4 hours. I didn't like that because even if I felt normal when I was taking it, I was always nervous that it'd wear off at a time when I need it most. That's why I'd always take it before my classes but then I'd get home and feel like I wanted to go to bed because I didn't want to deal with anxiety. It was a hard cycle.

Because Prozac is in the same family as Paxil and Zoloft it's meant to be a long term use drug. My doctor told me he's known patients that have used Prozac their entire life. That makes me happy because I don't want to experiment with new drugs on the market. It also means however that it can take a couple weeks to fully kick into your system. He told me to have faith in the drug if I don't feel it for a little while and to have a follow up appointment in a month if there's any problems. I'm hoping to God there's not.

I took Paxil for a number of years and it did help a great deal when I was going through some of the worst depression in middle school. It turned my life around. I'm hoping that Prozac can help me enjoy my experience here more, not be so freaking stressed out all the time.

This weekend's been pretty eventful. On Friday Allie had invited me to come to her friends birthday party. It was more of a kickback setting, I bought a large apple cider with my new friend Alec that got me feeling good from the get-go. I love hard cidar, it doesn't taste disgusting like beer does. It's my drink of choice. I had a shot of vodka too. We stuck around here for a couple hours before Allie's friend and some others decided to go to the bars. I was invited to come but wanted to stick with Allie so we (Allie, this other group of girls and I) all left to another house.

The people there were primarily Hispanic so I felt a little out of place there. I was pretty good on drinking but the host of the party offered me a beer that I held onto taking little sips from for the time I was there. Most of the girls were wearing skin tight dresses and heals, very dolled up. As you can see in this picture I was wearing a tank top and a cardigan. I didn't really care at this point though, I was pretty drunk and didn't mind just sitting on the edge of a couch people watching for awhile. 

Allie kept on disappearing with some guy. I spotted someone I thought was really cute so I struck up a conversation. Err... or at least I tried too.. His name is Gerardo and he moved up from Mexico about a year ago. He's gorgeous, but his English isn't very good. You guys would be surprised how much Spanish I can speak. Having a hard ass teacher in highschool, plus working out on the farm, plus having Hispanic customers at Rite Aid has actually helped me retain quite a bit. I can understand quite a bit of what he says too, at least when he's talking to me. We've been texting and with my knowledge of Spanish grammar and the use of Bing Translate we've been able to communicate pretty well. 

Lol he's got a lot of cute pictures on facebook but this is one of the few that it's just him. He likes fashion and he's modeled before. He's got a huge family back home, including 14 nieces and nephews. He thinks I'm really beautiful so I hope we spend more time together. It's really good spanish practice for me to text him if nothing else. 

peace.