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Oct 13th, 2017 (Friday!!)

So, Wednesday I had an appointment at my family doctor's clinic (not with her, I'm not a fan but there's a nurse practitioner with a practice on sight so I get to see her if I want) because I needed my birth control refilled. While I was there we had a talk about my mental health issues.

Now, my depression has been, I won't say well in hand, but it's been better for the past few weeks. I can get up in the morning with only slight difficulty, I don't have pain in my chest, I don't feel like I'm going to just start crying at the slightest provocation most days, and I actually have some energy and motivation to get up and do things. My biggest problem right now is my anxiety.

I don't quite know how to explain how I've been feeling to make it apparent that I'm struggling because on the surface I'm fine. But I know that I've not felt at peace for months. I just feel like there's this constant battle raging inside me between what is rational and what is irrational, what I know and what I don't know, and what could happen and what might not, and I feel myself spiraling mostly because I don't have concrete knowledge and answers to the scenarios of danger, destruction, and death that my brain is concocting, Beyond anxiety I suffer from Thanatophobia - also known as the fear of death - and the levels of my anxiety over the last few months have triggered more panic attacks related to my phobia than I have suffered my whole life.

So while I was speaking with my doctor we discussed what I, for so long, never wanted to resort to: being put on medication. It's not that I'm one of those people who doesn't think medication is a valid way of dealing with mental illness, that's not it at all but for me, having been on so many different drugs over my life and being on birth control whose effectiveness can be altered based on other drugs, I didn't want to put anymore in my body unless I had to. I know have accepted the fact that I need to. I've been taking medication for the past three days and it's messing me up kind of like my birth control did. I feel nauseous, I can't stop heaving, my stomach hurts, and whatever appetite I have goes away after a few bites (although, that could just be a side effect of the nausea, not necessarily the drugs), but truth be told, it's not worse than the first three months of taking birth control. It's just like having morning sickness with a little bit more pain.

I'm hoping to start feeling life myself again here very soon. I've felt so sick I haven't been able to run in three days but with any luck that will change soon. I'm more hoping that by moving forward and deciding to start on medication I'll be able to get back to living and not merely existing.