Coming Down
The joys of being medicated
A few weeks ago, my Psychiatrist and I agreed it was time to try stopping the Lexapro again. The weight gain and lethargy I was experiencing were becoming a problem, and I've made enough progress on that to feel I can go without it. We are still keeping the Welbutrin going, since she doesn't want me to slide into depression again. And I have an emergency med in case I have an anxiety attack.
Lexapro does a number of strange things to me when I'm on it. Sure, it keeps the crippling anxiety attacks at bay, but the costs of it are pretty huge. It takes away my anxiety, but it also almost completely takes away my motivation. I have a terrible time getting up in the morning and my historically very tight circadian rhythms get completely fucked. My ability to know what I need to do and then actually do it becomes nearly insurmountable. My productivity plummets, and if something isn't right in front of me, I forget about it. Whereas now that I've been off it completely for a few weeks, I tend to think about something and just go do it to get it done.
My retention is better, too. If I have a task on Monday that needs to carry over to Tuesday I don't forget it without a system of reminders to keep me going. This is huge because it definitely hurts my ability to get work done.
Impulse control is also an interesting thing on Lexapro. When I was on it the first time, it was during the core of the pandemic and I thought all of my 'retail therapy' was thus related. When I got off of it, the retail therapy really tapered off....then I got back on it and guess what? The studio and amazon shopping got out of control again. The real financial consequences of this are something I will have to deal with.
And this brings me to my next rambling point: What to do with all the gear I amassed. Much of it, I do want to keep...but there are a lot of things I'm looking at and just thinking "why?". For example, I bought the Synthstrom Deluge so I could sit on the couch and make beats. Why the hell do I really need to do that when I've got an actual studio just down the stairs? Its portable...but I don't travel that much, and if I did, my iPad or laptop should suffice. I have a whole post about this topic I'm working on to help me sort through it all.
To conclude, I am really glad I'm off the Lexapro and knowing now what it does to me I am going to work double hard and trying not to fall back on it. Medication is great, but I need a better coping mechanism that doesn't put me into a permanent productivity coma. I've got too much shit I want to do.