Depression this week

Not much to say beyond the title. Didn’t do too much, to include the preparation of any kind of scheduled post, which is why this one is a day late.

That’s the shitty thing about depression. Not much happens, despite the effort. My body feels about twice the weight than it normally does. No ‘snapping out of it’ or ‘powering through it’, the way that well-meaning people talk about solutions to a problem they do not understand from the inside.

One thing worth mentioning about this round of depression is that it did have a very concrete cause, which isn’t always the case in my experience.

Since my manic episode 4/4.5 I have been on the antipsychotic, olanzapine. I have been tapering off steadily, but very slowly. I was on 7.5mg for over a month. At first, that dose was okay, I was still functional in most ways. Still tired, but functional despite. Eventually though, I felt heavier and heavier as I stayed on that dosage, so about 10 days ago I began tapering down to 5mg, and now down to 2.5mg. I did this after talking through it with my psychologist, my wife, and my psychiatrist. We all agreed that it was the right thing to do, as the side-effect of the antipsychotic was getting to be unbearably sedating.

So here I am now, at a lower dosage, feeling much better than I was just days ago. Now that I am more functional, I can reasonably expect that I will be more active on this blog project this week.

See you next time.