Coming Off Prozac

It's been quite a while since I blogged, or journaled, or wrote anything anywhere for that matter. I don't feel comfortable sharing graphic details of my mental adventures on Facebook, because God forbid I upset someone or make someone think I'm an unfit mother, or anything like that. I need an outlet for all I'm feeling though, and I believe the people who may land on this blog may understand. 

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. 

Happy Mother's Day!

I have had a good day. My oldest daughter texted me this morning to tell me Happy Mother's Day. That meant a lot to me. Then, shock of all shocks, my other daughter texted me this afternoon. She hasn't even read my texts in months so for her to send me one saying Happy Mother's Day is huge. It made me cry happy tears. I didn't get to see my daughters today but hearing from them made it okay.

Jaina will be five weeks old tomorrow. She's asleep on me right now, which the only place she will sleep is on someone. It makes it hard to get anything done but I'll cherish this time because I know how quickly they grow up.

I hope you all had a good Mother's Day.

She's Here!

We just got home from the hospital today. Jaina Elayne was born April 8th. Despite my doctor's predictions of a large baby she only weighed 6 lb 5 oz. I just had so much amniotic fluid! I had some issues with passing out and heavy blood loss in the beginning but I am fine now. And Jaina is healthy too, so I am happy. Our family is complete :)

The End is Near

I know I haven't written in forever but I thought some of you might like to know how the pregnancy is going. I'm being induced Sunday because I'm on the verge of toxemia and also the baby is rather large and could pose a problem delivering if she is left in there too much longer. I didn't want to be induced but it seems to be the healthiest choice at this point. So wish me luck!

A little bump in the road is the fact that I have developed a cold and feel quite miserable. I did some reading about it and apparently it's still safe to induce and the baby will not likely catch the cold since I am breastfeeding. I'm going to call my doctor tomorrow and make sure he recommends going through with it.

My family and I are so excited to welcome Baby Jaina. I'm still in awe that I'm having a baby at the age of 39. This pregnancy has went by very quickly and with very little problems so I am praying the delivery goes just as smoothly.

Update

It's been a while since I wrote anything here so I thought I'd pop in for a moment. Nothing much to report. Baby is doing fine. I go Wednesday for my 34 week check up. I recently had a bad bout of sciatica but I am doing better. I still have some pain but nothing like it was.

I've been having a lot of crying spells here and there and a little depression. Just hormonal stuff I guess. I have felt fine today though. 

Well, time to force my son to take a bath. 

Book Confusion

The other day I checked out a book from the library called Rise The Dark by Michael Koryta. I just finished it and it ended with a huge cliffhanger that was quite annoying because I didn't realize this was a series and not a stand alone book. Nothing on the book jacket mentions anything about being a series. I did some Googling and apparently this is Book #2 but I can't find anything about a Book #3. Rise The Dark was published in 2016 so surely there's a #3 out there somewhere by now. I am so confused. This wasn't exactly a terrific book but it was good enough that I'd like to know the rest of the story. So I'm pretty annoyed at the moment.

As for some good news, I finally passed my kidney stone today, so no more excruciating pain, yay!

Sunday

I know I haven't written in a while and I haven't even been that busy, just tired. I was sick for a little over a week with a bad cold. I am pretty much over that but I think I have another stone in my bladder. I've been in pain and I nearly passed out at the grocery store this morning. I feel fine right now though.

Even though I haven't been feeling well lately Baby Jaina is fine, so that is the important thing. I will be having another ultrasound done in a couple of weeks. I'm excited! I was worried about gestational diabetes because I failed my first glucose test, but my numbers were good on the 3-hour test so there was nothing to worry about. I still decided to cut out most sugar from my diet though, just because I know I need to. There for a while I was craving a lot of sweet stuff and I got a little carried away. So I'm trying to eat better now and just have an occasional indulgence.

Sunday

My son found the above video. I thought it was really cool so I thought I would share. Enjoy!

Almost 25 weeks along now and WOW this kid kicks like crazy! But I only feel the kicks really low, like on my bladder. I'm wondering if I have an anterior placenta. That would explain why I can't feel the kicks higher. This is the first pregnancy I've had like this. It's weird.

I probably don't have plans for tomorrow night. There was a little talk of taking Jacen with two of his cousins to see fireworks but I think it's supposed to rain so I doubt we'll go anywhere. But I'm making some party food at home and will probably play boardgames with Jacen to ring in the new year. That works :)

I hope you all have a wonderful new year!

Christmas Eve

Just popping in to tell you all Merry Christmas! I am looking forward to watching my son open his presents in the morning, and I'm looking forward to Wednesday because my oldest daughter is coming to see me. I have been struggling to deal with the fact that my middle child refuses to speak to me and will not come see me for Christmas. That hurts a lot. I don't even know why she is acting this way because she won't tell me. I have cried a lot of tears over it and I've been depressed about not seeing her for the holidays, but I know I need to snap out of it for my other children's sakes. Unfortunately, snapping out of it is not a strength of mine, but I am working on it.

Social Progress

It seems that Saturday is my magic day to write on here. Today Douglas and I met a friend for lunch at a French restaurant. The food was divine and the prices were reasonable. I had a good time catching up with my friend. Toward the end of a two hour visit I started getting sensitive to the noise and crowd around us and began getting a headache, but what progress I have made in the last couple of years! In the past leaving my house was nearly impossible to bear and the thought of being in a noisy restaurant would send me into a panic. There are a lot of things I can do now that I used to could not. Like handling family get togethers and going to Wal-Mart and actually enjoying getting out of the house. Now, I'm still as introverted as a person can be, but it's my personality rather than extreme anxiety that makes me that way. I still prefer to be home most days but I don't feel like the world is tumbling down on me when I go out anymore.

I hope I can continue to get stronger with social interaction. I still have a hard time making phone calls and going places by myself. But I'm worlds away from where I was, and for that I am so, so grateful.