Brainzaps: A Journal of Effexor Withdrawal

I think it's time for me to lay this blog to rest. I'm ready to start writing and thinking more actively about other things. This doesn't mean I'll be taking all this info down, though--I'll definitely leave it up so that hopefully it will continue to be a resource to others.

I'll also (hopefully) pop in every now and again to respond to comments, tweak and update old info, and maybe add the stray link and story.

Thank you so much for reading this and being here with me, as maudlin and gushy as that may sound--it made something really yucky kind of cool, in a way.

In the meantime, please visit my new blog! Which is also sort of about health stuff, but also about family life, pop culture, neighborhood goings-on, and whatever else I feel like writing about.

It's called fairytale in the supermarket, and it's at

storyqueen.tblog.com

see you soon!

I've neglected this blog for about a week or so--or has it been longer? I've been peeking in now and then to see if there have been any comments, or as though I'm expecting something to change independently of my doing it. Like I think I'll load the page and see a new entry or new graphics or something, even though I personally haven't added any.

I'm officially Effexor-free now--it's been about two weeks since I took my last pill. I'm trying to refrain from being overdramatic or self-righteous about this. It's strange to be on so little medication (just a thyroid med I take once a day for hypothyroidism) after taking a minor constellation of pills and supplements almost every day for so long. At one point, not so long ago, I was taking

• 300mg/day Effexor
  
• .112 Synthroid (I now take 150 Armour)
  
• 60mg/day Strattera (for ADD-like symptoms)
  
• Glucophage (don't remember dosage; was for suspected
• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome)
  
• Evening Primrose Oil
  
• Fish oil capsules
  
• Selenium
  
• Vitamin B complex
  
• Calcium/magnesium
  
• Vitamins A,C,D,E
  

It made me feel old--I'm only 27; I'm not ready to be swallowing a handful of pills every day.

I just told you my age, which brings me to something else I've been thinking about. I've been very private and anonymous in this blog, to some degree. If you read everything I've written so far, you'll know that I'm female, that I'm married, and maybe a small collection of little details relating to my experiences with Effexor. But don't think I've said anything about what I do for work, what my family is like, whether I live in a small town or a big city, or even a whole lot about what I've been thinking and feeling. Sure, I wrote about several mini-breakdowns I had during the withdrawal process, about hurting myself and calling a suicide hotline. But aside from reporting those gory details--details which, in this context, call up mighty flames of indignance over the negligence of pharmaceutical companies to make a drug that might cause pain it was designed to prevent--I haven't really spent much time writing about the other personal factors that produce my self-destructive behavior.

So now that I'm done with thing that I was documenting, I'm not quite sure what to do with this blog. Obviously, my problems haven't evaporated now that the FXR is out of my system. In fact, I'm feeling a lot of my old anxiety and neuroses marching back into my brain again. How do I deal with that again? For example, last night I think I MAY have said something unintentionally offensive to someone (who taught a series of workshops that I took) that I really like and respect--and I've been hung up on it ever since. I had bad dreams; I've had a tense, worried, guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach for hours. That didn't happen on Effexor. I just have to figure out how to deal with this "raw" now.

I think I'll be fine; I think I'll be better. But I'm still up in the air about what to do with this space--the blog. Of course I'll still leave it up--but part of me wants to not keep coming back and adding to it. I want to get over this yucky little section of my life.

What do you think?

I'm feeling decidedly better. No yelling at innocent voter registration volunteers. I had some zappy moments today and a minor breakdown, with screaming, when my dog peed on the couch and a freshly-washed blanket today--but aside from that, much better.

I even did some drinkin' last night; an activity which was seriously curtailed while I was taking Effexor, since more than about two drinks would almost put me straight to sleep. I had four drinks, which of course made me a bit tipsy; but aside from that, I was fine. I'm definitely not saying drinking was a great idea--but my (lack of) physical reaction to it is sort of a weird benchmark for my progress.

I'm also appreciating the semicolon today; a type of punctuation that, if you're prone to run-on-ish sentences like me, can really come in handy.

Why do they just come and go like this? Why can't they be more predictable?

Why do brainzaps make me crave yogurt?