The drugs have taken away some of my depression and anxiety... the chasm remains, void of happiness... nothing is left... darkness... and silence...

I think the drugs are working... but it could be a number of other factors at this point.  Life is picking up.  I think the drugs are teaching me to separate my physical self from my emotional self, which can be scary if I have a panic attack without the panicking part, and when my body goes into a depressed state and cannot breathe well and has a heavy weight on its chest, yet psychologically I am fine and can think clearly and get through my day well.  It's an odd dichotomy, but one that will teach me how to continue to do this in absence of any medication. I'm glad I'm learning this lesson.

Today, my problems made the jump from conscious to sub-conscious.  I had what the doctors in the emergency room told me was a panic attack.  I haven't been able to breathe correctly since yesterday morning after going an entire night without sleep.  Breathing is labored and voluntary, and I cannot get to my full lung capacity.  It's like there's an invisible brick on my chest.  The scary part is that nothing of this was emotional.  I was not panicked today, I was not scared, or overwhelmed, or anything like that.  I was glad to be alive, glad that classes are working out better than I thought they would, that I have more clear goals at work now, that I had an awesome weekend with Kuk Sool and D&D.  Then, boom.  Can't breathe, fingers start tingling, moves to hands, wrists, forearms.  Before I know it, I'm walking as fast as I can (not fast under these conditions) to the emergency room, not knowing what the heck is going on.  The next scary part... they took my O2 stats, blood pressure, checked my heart and lungs, and NOTHING was wrong.  They said I was hyperventilating when I came in, but I didn't feel like I was at all.  I was talking to the nurse, so I didn't have as much time as normal to take the breaths that I have been, namely slow and short.  It got to the point where my whole face started convulsing, and my forearms and hands and fingers locked up.  I had to get the nurse to dial my phone for me so I could tell my psychologist I would be late for my appointment because my fingers wouldn't move.  (Will finish Later... maybe... probly not)

I figured it out.  No... I should stop saying that.  I'm not sure I will ever really figure out every lesson there was to be learned or every problem that went wrong with me and Kelly, but I did solve another huge one today.  The reason that I have lost so much of a sense of meaning in my life, or fulfillment, or joy, etc. is because I do not give of myself to anyone anymore, or at least not nearly as much, as deeply.  It's why I have been feeling so alone, even when I have all these friends who are willing to pour into me and help me.  Because I have no one that I can pour into.  I used to make her laugh, to comfort her (I hope at least sometimes), to talk her through her problems with her parents, or do what I could to help her with her life direction.  We shared our frustrations, we motivated each other to go forward, to be the best each of us could be.  Now I don't have that.  Now I am a leech of a friend, in mostly commensalist relationships at best, at least that's what my perception tells me, which often has a fairly high standard deviation from what is correct.  Sure, there are some times when I make my friends laugh, and maybe even help them with their problems if I can wrench it out of them, and show them that I am there for them, but is this worth the frustration I put them through?  One out of one girlfriends answer "no."  I feel like I've stopped helping anyone else, that I've stopped giving of myself to anyone, that I am only here for my own survival, and that before I was even aware of it, my own body is telling me that this type of life is not worth the work of keeping my heart beating and by lungs breathing to sustain.  This is why my life feels so incomplete without you, Kelly, because I don't have anyone that I want to live for other than myself anymore.  This is why I have no drive, no motivation, and why my energy level is shot and I can only sleep all the time, because I know that this life is worthless without someone that I can pour into and give of myself... there's no point to it.  I hope that you come back so I can make you smile again.  That's what I need.  Someone I can give joy to.  Someone I can make happy.  Until then, I cannot be happy.  Simple.  As.  That.

I can't bear to look at this blankness of a page just staring back at me.  It's like that one Nietzsche quote.  That's better.  At least there's something there now.  The blankness terrifies me.  It's like it's sucking me in... oh no, wait!  *Wooooosh*




...





help!  Where am I? Get me outta here! Ugh... this was bound to happen sooner or later... 

I can't function with other people.  That makes me...
1) asocial
2) antisocial
3) autistic
Being around them makes me feel awkward, pressured, stressed out, afraid, and anxious.  There are very few exceptions to this.  At the same time, I am very lonely right now.  I hate mutually exclusive positive feedback loops, one malady leads to the other, yet the solution to each is the trigger of the other.  These drugs better start working soon.

Day 1 of medication.  The psychiatrist decided to give me Zoloft because it acts against both anxiety and depression.  I'd have to say, I was a little disappointed because there was no formal diagnosis, he didn't explore the possibility of bipolar disorder but just looked at the most readily apparent symptoms, which I guess are the most important to treat anyway.  We talked over the other findings that I got from the counselor's session and also decided that it would be a good idea to supplement with counseling because some of the origin of both of these conditions comes from something that drugs cannot treat: obsession, inability to let go, guilt, self-hatred, fear.  I took the first 25 mg dose directly after the appointment because I figure I don't have any time of my life to waste, especially if these things aren't supposed to kick in for about a week or so.  I'm still too afraid to go back to the class that I skipped in order to make this appointment.  I don't know what will happen if I do.  No one told me what will happen.  No one prepared me for this.  I'll try to start writing on here more to track my progress.

So far, not even a placebo effect.  Still just as frustrated, afraid, angered, and debilitated as before.  No change.  Only thing that helped me get through most of earlier today and yesterday was talking to my PI about her life story which must remain confidential so I cannot write about it on here.  All I can say is that it scared me out of the torture chamber of a microcosm that I had put myself in.