I have a lot of catching up to do, but I don't feel like doing it, so just suffice it to say I was doing great until midyear 2020, then things started going downhill, and it's been a rocky road ever since. I've went through a couple of med changes since then. The winning cocktail since around 2014 had been Risperdal, Lamictal, Vistaril, and Celexa. When I became pregnant with my youngest daughter in 2018 I discontinued the Vistaril due to it not being safe during pregnancy or breastfeeding. I was still doing pretty well but I think the stress of the world changing due to Covid started to send cracks down the sides of my mental health, as it did with many people. In 2020 I got better insurance through my husband's employer so I switched to Doctors on Demand so I wouldn't have to leave my house to see a psychiatrist. I saw one psychiatrist for about a year. She switched me from Celexa to Prozac because she said it would help my depression and anxiety, especially with OCD. For the next several months I would show an improvement in depression but the anxiety got worse, so she'd increase the dose of Prozac. Each time she did that I would feel pretty good for a little while and then crashed hard. Her answer every time was to increase the Prozac. I was up to 120 mg a day which is higher than the FDA recommended amount, but she kept assuring me that it was common to use a high dosage like that for OCD and that it was perfectly safe. I had my doubts but I trusted her. Then I had a check up with my general practitioner and he was "very concerned" about the high dosage. I had an appointment with my psychiatrist a couple of days after that and I was going to discuss it with her, but she was a no show for my appointment. I made a new appointment for two days after that, and she missed it as well. At this point I decided to switch to a new psychiatrist, and my husband recommended his. So far I have met with the new one twice and I really like him. The past couple of weeks I've been coming off Prozac and taking Cymbalta in its place. I've been really depressed, extremely overwhelmed with daily responsibilities, and overall just not doing well. I know it will take a while to see a change and decide whether the med change was a good choice, and I'm trying to be patient, but I'm freaking out that it's almost Thanksgiving. Here I am on the verge of a mental breakdown and I'm supposed to host Thanksgiving (like I do every year). My husband and MIL are doing some of the cooking but I still have a few sides I'm in charge of. What really stresses me is the condition of our home. It's beyond messy and is going to involve a lot of hard cleaning. I've really let the place go in the past year or so, and I'm ridiculously behind on chores. As it is now, I'm having trouble with simple things like cooking supper and being a good mother/teacher for my kids, and taking care of my mother. That literally takes everything out of me to just do the bare minimum. And yet I've got a week to do a year's worth of housework, get the cooking done, and all while taking care of a two year old. I'm about to lose it. I want to cancel Thanksgiving so bad, but I know I can't let my family down. They would be really upset with me. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, I can only do the best I can, and my "best" these days leaves much to be desired.
Today I typed out the menu for Thanksgiving and started on a grocery list. We already have the turkey in the freezer, but there are several items I still need to get. Yesterday I made a sad pathetic cleaning list that I have yet to start on because I'm lazy/depressed and up to my eyeballs in daily stress. I just hope I can pull this off and keep out of the mental hospital.
There's more but I'm tired of writing. I don't know if anyone will read this besides me, but at least I got it off my chest.
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