You're putting me on what!!

...Zoloft. The concerta made me batty. i went to the doctor on Monday and my telling him how loopy i was feeling -- angry, sad, depressed, irritable, moody, schmucky, etc. -- he decided that a) I shouldn't be on stimulants, and 2) I should move up tp a an SSRI. Now SSRI's are scary. The list of side-effects is longer than my arm and the descriptions get scarier as you move down the list. I'm not going to take it. I haven't filled the prescription and I'm waiting for the Dr. to return my call about my decison. It occurred to me, when I went to a meeting immediately after seeing the Dr. that i'm not out of control, i can function, and suprise -- when I'm in a meeting, I'm fine. i'm better than fine. i'm the myself that i like to be when I'm not depressed. This happened to me all shabbos. I interacted wonderfully with guests, with people i met later that day. No doubt, that morning in shul i was losing it and picked up and left the moemnt I could. But then I swallowed a bunch of concertas on Friday. I'm positive the concerta is what sets me off. There is no question that i have issues with depression. But I believe the Wellbutrin has at least been keeping me even. Going to Zoloft will not end well. And it isn't necessary. I suspect the doctor is being "Mr. Fix-it" and chagning strategy depending on the way I feel when I'm in his office. I don't understand why he doesn't see the clear connection between the concerta and my heightened state of depression. I'm not feeling depressed today, but i started the day on a high note and it just went downhill as the hours passed with the same projects sitting on my desk going uncompleted. now it's 5:25 and the two things I promised two different clients are still no complete. The phone call i promised to make yesterday still hasn't been made and the bills that need to be paid by tomorrow are still sitting here. what did i do today? Who knows. But ask me how many times I checked my email....how long I was websurfing....how long I was talking to irritating clients on the phone...how many papers I shuffled around my desk. The answer is: enough to waste the entire day. i'm not as depressed the last two days. The meeting broke my fund and it's been smooth sailing since then. The quesiton of course is when will be back. More on that next post. But trust me, I do not plan to be on Zoloft by then.

BTW, I'd love toknow what people's experiences with Zoloft have been. Either leave a comment or email me at addingyears@gmail.com Thanks!!

This isn't going well...

I’m concerned that I've unleashed some type of monster. I've always had difficulty with work, I’ve always cycled through depression and I’ve always felt that I wasn't doing everything I could be doing. But I'm on the Wellbutrin, which form what I've read is supposed to be the happy it's all good pill, and I'm definitely not feeling happy or it's all good. I have a scowl on my face and i feel like I'm in some type of involuntary emotional pain. I sat in shul yesterday in this pissed of mood and just left as soon as it was socially acceptable to slip out. I'm upset because work is really getting to me. My job is shitty. I am a writer, I own my own company. My work allows me to operate on the hours i set at the pace I choose. My clients come from all over and they just come. i don't make a lot of money, but I don't have to lift a finger to get projects. Thank god. But the approach I take to my work is completely haphazard. I have no rhyme or reason and I'm only marginally organized. I work from a dingy basement in my house but spend hours upon hours sitting in the same chair. I am a chronic procrastinator so it will take hours, sometimes days before I will attack a project. Then it could take forever to finish. The amount of tie I spend ruminating over my work is starting to truly affect my life. I haven't gone to shul in over week, not counting shacharis on shabbos. I have no desire to ever daven again, as far as I'm concerned at this moment The way I feel this moment, is that religion is a trap and I feel trapped by it. i want to be free and not have to do all the things that are expected of me just because that's where I live and that's what my kids need to see. The feelings I’m having are just dread, sadness, anger, and complete dejection. It took me 5 hours to write a 400-word article this morning and then another three to write a small feature of 300 words. The work is nice when I get into it. But when I step back and digest how pointless my professional life has become, I want to gag. Piles of work, brochures, letters, advertisements, the list goes on and on. My sense is that I could spend literally forever in my office and not finish my work. But here's the kicker.....i don’t have so much work, i just takes goddamn forever to get anything done. In the context of this blog, it should seem pretty clear why I'm having trouble. Because I have ADD, right. But I don’t think so, and this is where the monster has been released. i went on welbutirn to take care of the depression. It worked for a while, I guess, because I wasn't particularly depressed. But then i went back on the concerta and it didn't really work. so i stopped taking it. The other day I thought let me try it, but on a larger dose. I took a larger dose. Barely an effect. Then I took another dose in the middle of the day. By the evening I was just so depressed. I was so focused on how little work I had accomplished that week. I did spend most of the week just jerking around on the internet and wasting time, bullshitting clients, and pretending to get work done. i just couldn't get myself to work. It all began earlier this week. On Monday I went to see my psychologist (I can't fucking believe that I'm seeing two mental health professionals and taking anti depressant and stimulants, what the fuck happened to my life!!!!!!!). It was a pretty heavy session, not content wise, but for the conclusions she arrived at. She seems to feel that i have some type of mood disorder. I think that all this crap with me going for therapy for ADD and taking all these drugs and telling myself that I have this diagnosis is making me crazy. I literally spent an entire year with almost zero depression. i find out I have add, take some meds, and now I'm a fucking basket case. There has to be some connection, either from my personal feelings about all this, or its the drugs. All I know is that I'm exactly where I was last year and quite a bit set back from where I was this current year. I’m going to see the psychiatrist tomorrow. I wonder if he's giving up. I spoke to him today and he said, I don’t want to put you on any other stimulant because I don’t really understand why you're feeling this way. This is fine. The thing I'm worried about is the way I've been feeling. I can't go on with these insane cycles of feeling ok and feeling like shit. It's an insane existence that I blame on my inability to be organized, lack of structure, and oh I don't know. I'm just not in a very good place today. By the way, it took about 9 minutes to write this 900 word screed. Why the fuck does it take me 5 hours to write an article?