Let's try this again, shall we?

I've missed having an online personal journal.  For many reasons, but mostly because I seem to lose touch with myself if I don't. I've tried some phone journal apps a few times, but I just can't type fast enough on my phone to keep up with my thoughts.  Not that I didn't ever post by phone to my old journal, but it wasn't the main source of entries.

Plus, I feel the need to have it online and potentially accessible to passers by.  Not that I am under any delusions that what I feel the need to post will be beneficial or useful or even entertaining to anyone but myself.  But if you are going to scream into the void, at least you should give the void the option to yell back.

So, some basics. 
You can call me PokieDragon.  I am female, white, early forties, short, fat, near-sighted.  Used to be blonde, I think my hair color is called dirty blonde now?  Not quite light brown, not quite blonde anymore.  I have a small streak of white on my temple that I actually think looks kinda nifty. 

That pretty much covers it, I think.  I'm not really that interesting.

It's been a very rough time in my brain for the last 6 months or so. If I'm being honest, which I always try to be, especially with myself, these last few months have been the closest I've ever come to actively planning suicide. But I swore to myself a long time ago that I would never let my mother win.  One reason I felt the need to resume journaling is so I can keep better track of my mental states. I find it very helpful to know what I was thinking and feeling at times.

So today is day two of my fourth antidepressant.  In order, I have been on Prozac, Cymbalta, Wellbutrin, and now Lexapro.  Prozac saved my life, probably quite literally, and it and Cymbalta worked well until they didn't.  I switched to Wellbutrin almost exactly 2 years ago, and while it seemed to work ok, I never felt as good on it as I did the Cymbalta.  Honestly, I probably should have stayed on cymbalta, but I think I panicked when I had some serious stress over a horrible job and had a fairly mild depressive episode.  Cymbalta had worked so well for so long that I didn't know how to handle an episode like that.  I found a new job shortly after, but was already on the Wellbutrin, so decided to leave well enough alone.

Yesterday I had VERY bad nausea, and didn't sleep that well. Today, I managed to keep most of the nausea at bay with some seriously strong ginger candy that I had gotten in Canada during my vacation this year.  My Amazon order with more candy and some ginger tea, as well as some pepto-bismol tablets, came today, so hopefully I should be set for the nausea.  If insomnia is going to be one of the initial side effects that I will have to deal with, I can try switching the time I take it around.  I've been doing some reading on Lexapro, and it seems like it should work for me.  It's the same class of drug as Prozac, and my new doctor says we can consider adding Cymbalta back in at a lower dose if it's necessary. I'm on a half dose for a week, then up to 10 mg, and we'll see how that does.


I think this is a pretty good start, and I'm tired, so it's time for bed.