Wednesday, January 14, 2015

If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

Sleep is very important to me. I don't necessarily need a full 8 hours, but if I don't sleep well I can't concentrate, feel ill, and am just generally in a bad mood. An ex and I used to fight all the time because his snoring kept me awake at night, and he couldn't understand why I didn't want to spend the night with him. I need good sleep.

That's why it's so frustrating when something I need to stay mentally healthy - such as my anti-depressant - negatively affects my sleep. I saw my doctor a few weeks ago about my foot injury, and mentioned to her that I've been experiencing an excessive amount of depressive episodes lately with no identifiable trigger. She suggested that, for the depressing winter months, I increase my medication slightly. So I did. 

After about a week or two of my increased dosage, I started to notice changes. Unfortunately, they were not good ones. My anxiety levels had increased significantly. I began to worry. About anything. I fixated on small issues and turned them into big ones. I felt like none of my friends wanted to be around me. I suspected that the men I was dating were no longer interested. When I started to develop real feelings for one of them - something that deserves an entire post on its own - I went into a panic. Quite literally. The moment I sent the message suggesting we talk about our relationship, my chest tightened. My heart raced. My breathing grew faster. I'd already worried that I was pestering him with too many texts and invitations to spend time together. And now I was certain that I was about to scare him off completely. What was I doing? This was way too fast. I clearly wasn't ready for this. 

At first, I didn't attribute these feelings to my medication. Given my troubled relationship history, it wasn't surprising that the possibility of creating a real connection with someone  new would cause some apprehension. But an actual panic attack? Maybe I was even more fucked up than I realized. It wasn't until my anxiety started to affect my sleep that I realized what was happening. My dreams were riddled with anxiety. I dreamed of fights with people close to me. I dreamed of missed connections, constantly trying to find someone, knowing they were just around the corner the whole time.  I even dreamed that my house was built on a cloud, and every time I went outside I risked falling to my death. Ridiculous, I know, but the anxiety that lingered after I awoke was very real. I didn't feel rested and ready to take on a new day, I felt stressed and haggard. The one thing that should have given me complete relief from the stress I was experiencing in my waking hours was actually making me feel worse.

After five straight nights of anxiety dreams, I had an epiphany. This was all very familiar: the anxiety dreams, the relationship panic, the fixation on small problems. These were all things I experienced when I first started taking my medication. Anxiety is a common response to Wellbutrin, so it makes sense that an increased dosage might have a period of adjustment where I would experience some unwanted side effects. After some thought, I decided that the slight relief in depressive episodes wasn't worth the stress I was experiencing. Today I went back to my lower dosage. Just knowing that there's relief on the way - that I'm not completely broken and unable to handle my life - has already provided me some comfort. 

I'm not sure how long it will take for my mood to level out, but I sure hope it does before I have that relationship talk...

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