Hiya supergirl,
Don’t be too hard on yourself now. You’ve only been on Flu for a week or so I think. I remember being all over the place emotionally during my first 2 weeks on Flu. In fact I was worse that I was before I started on Flu during the first week or two. People who haven’t been through this don’t, and will never understand. Flu (as are all prescription antidepressants) is a powerful mind-modifying psychotropic drug – and unless you’ve be on it you will just not get it. People who have not had a clinical form of depression always think that there is a real world reason for depressive feelings – ie it must be because of this thing in the past, things that are happening now. Although this may be a contributing factor, the reasons in fact are clinical – ie chemical.
Just to illustrate – if a perfectly healthy person were to purposely omit all sources of the Vitamin Bs and Vitamin C from their diet, they would eventually likely develop clinical depressive symptoms, followed by anxiety and panic disorders, compulsive obsessive behaviour, then epileptic seizures and muscular fits, psychosis and eventual mortality.
Point is that the world around you can be just great, but if you are deficient in one or more critical chemicals all sorts of things start to go wrong with body and mind. Sorting out the chemical (via Fluoxetine) and the behavioural (talking to a counsellor) attacks the issue from both directions and DOES HAVE AN EXCELLENT SUCCESS RATE.
All the things you feel now I felt just over a year ago – maybe worse as I had generalised anxiety too with minor obsessive compulsive thoughts (bad thoughts about not wanting to carry on). All that is gone now. Completely! But it took a month or so before things started to get better. You just need to hold yourself together for a wee while longer and it will get better. Like me, in a year time I’m sure you will look back and find it hard to remember the emotions you are going through now. I know it is hard to believe, but if you look back at my postings a year ago you will see how bad I was.
I don’t want to get too technical but the feelings of boredom, lethargy, can’t be bothered, what is the point of it all, etc are ALL a result of chemical deficiencies. The great thing about Flu is that is seems to act the ”excitory” regions of the brain to give you a renewed zest for life, as well as the “inhibitory” to calm your brain and central nervous system.
If you feel worse in the winter (like me) then a contributing factor might be S.A.D. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Your brain regulates the chemicals that make you feel happy and motivated use daylight to regulate their levels in the brain. This has been clinically proven. Your eyes are directly linked to a region of the brain that regulates these chemicals. During the winter this mechanism sometimes does not work properly (especially in sensitive individuals) because there are not enough hours of sunlight. Human beings emerged from the equatorial regions of the Earth millions of year ago with 12hrs of daylight and 12hrs of darkness. Our brains have not yet adapted to the fact that we no longer live near to the middle of the Earth with 12hrs of sunlight every day. This disrupts the daily circadian cycle (our internal clock) which means in winter we don’t generate enough of the chemicals our brain’s require. In the Northern Hemisphere there is a peak of patients reporting depressive symptoms in February – the lowest level of reported depressive symptoms in August.
You can buy (or your doctor can prescribe) a special medical-class daylight SAD lamp that you can use once a day to correct for this winter daylight deficiency. In fact, as I sit here in my office, I have my SAD lamp on beside me. The light contains no ultraviolet so it is safe for your eyes and skin.
Take each day as it comes and try and not worry about what other people might think, or what you are going to tell them, etc. This will j
