Day 4 - Cipralex Diaries

Another somewhat restless sleep. I've been drinking a ton of water to avoid the onslaught of the much web-chatted Cipralex dry-mouth. As a result I tend to have to pee 2 or 3 times a night. I woke up to children at 6:45 am.

No headache. A bit of a dry mouth but nothing unremarkable. 

Before my visit to the doctor I would usually lay awake for an hour just staring mindlessly in a depressed state with my mind going everywhere dark, toxic and negative. None of these thoughts are happening. My wife and I have a positive discussion about my court hearing and the thoughts are logical and strategised rather than full of pain and anger. I try to get myself to think of dark things like life without me if I were to take a drastic step and I can't get the train of thought going. I am relieved. Again, a placebo effect? Don't care really at this point because whatever it is I feel so lifted already.

Day 3 - Cipralex Diaries

It takes a few hours to fall asleep each night. This could be a mix of my continued scrambled mind, the Cipralex effect or just worrying about the Cipralex effect. It feels like the latter mostly. I continue to imagine these drugs and chemicals bubbling away in my brain and worry about the fact that I've gone this route. Did I really need to? Do I really need to mess with my body's chemicals - especially in my brain of all places? It doesn't seem possible that we're at the point where you can play with the chemicals inside a brain.

I'm driving to the coast and seem to be yawning every 5-8 minutes in the course of the 2 hour drive. I'm not tired but the yawning tells me maybe I am. I feel alert. A bit buzzy. I'm conversing and happy with the carful of kids and wife. It's a beautiful sunny day, which lifts my spirits naturally - or is it chemically?

There is a slight remnant of the freezer burn brain pain, that radiation feeling, together with a ever so soft ringing in my head. I can tolerate it.

After a long walk to the beach in the sunshine the headache reaches near-blinding migraine status by 4:30 pm. I take a paracetamol and within the hour the pain is forgotten - all pain if forgotten, including the freezer burn.

I feel more engaged with the crowd around me but there are moments where I feel myself looking straight through conversations and my vision is a bit jittery and unfocused. I just kind of drift off without getting into a specific thought situation. Nothing dark and depressing is going on in my head. I have a good dinner with ample conversation and lively banter. It feels quite good. 

 I can't help but think it may simply be a placebo effect working its psych magic on my mind. I've been cool with the kids, loving with the wife and generally up rather than zombie-automaton.

Day 2 - Cipralex Diaries

I swallow pill number 2 just after breakfast. A bit of sweats before an interview this afternoon but maybe it's from reading all about Cipralex sweats. Had to wipe my face and upper lip a few times with a handkerchief. The Tube was hotter than it should have been. The city summer feels hot for the first time but it's not really - it's just me sweating. I'm sweaty anyhow. Feel a bit of a brain freeze like a mild weed buzz or a slight hangover. Yawning at 7pm. Feel like I'm babbling and confused a bit when I speak. Forgot what day it was twice today for a nano-second. It's kind of like I'm a bit stoned, but just a bit. Interview went well. Nothing freaky about my conversations or actions.

I feel I'm yawning a bit more than normal by 7pm. I went out for dinner with the wife, we always like a fine meal and a bottle of vino, especially on a Friday night. I was conscious of the general warnings re alcohol and Cipralex. I had a Mojito, a Coke and a bunch of water. Nothing earth shattering happened although had I pursued more alcohol I likely would have started to feel a bit of a paranoid buzz - not because it existed but just because of the stuff I've been reading online about the effect of alcohol on Cipralex. My Mojito gave me a bit of a buzz, but more like a really light weed buzz.

Again, more yawning and a bit of a freezing headache by the end of dinner.

Am considering taking my next dose tomorrow evening before bedtime to experiment a bit. Last night I was tossing and turning but this could have been because I was aware that insomnia may or may not be a side effect. Whatever, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night for thinking of my job situation, the way I was treated, the crap they said about me and then more thoughts about why I'm at this point, how I arrived here and then wondering if I'm awake because of Cipralex?

At the end of the day the headache is still there - a bit stronger than it was prior to dinner. As I write I feel a slight burn in my head - the freezer burn feeling, and there's a faint ring in my ears - but really faint. Actually the feeling in my head is more akin to the feeling you get when you've been talking on your cell to someone for more than 5 minutes - that cellphone radiation burn feeling. Whether it's Cipralex or cellphone it doesn't feel too too normal.

Day 1 - Cipralex Diaries

My doctor was very cool about talking about depression and what I was going through. I was half-expecting a 'pull up your socks man' type response but he totally normalized my situation. He asked the fundamental questions re my moods, the background, thoughts of suicide etc. He professionally advised the 2 courses of treatment for my depressed state; medication and/or therapy. I told him that I'm all for talking to somebody but if what I'm going through is really a chemical issue then I want to know that I've tried the medication route as well. I can talk and talk about the whys and hows and the coping mechanisms but what I'm feeling right now in my head is so beyond emotional soul searching and talking. It's a real pain in my brain that's nagging at me. Sure there are issues I can look at in my dysfunctional upbringing that have coded me to react to different life situations in a certain way but recognizing this and coping with it seem so easy compared to dealing with the numbing pain in my brain.

Doc set me up with a therapist and I asked to be prescribed something to see if I could feel happy again in my head. He was pretty quick to offer up Cipralex as my option, 10 mg per day. I enquired as to its addiction potential and he said none. He put me on them for a month to see how it goes. He advised that it could take 2-4 weeks to start seeing the benefits. I'm not due to see the therapist for another 3 weeks so I'm glad I opted for the medication route as well - I couldn't have taken another 3 weeks of walking around like a zombie. 

I got my pack of pills, read the intense missive of possible side effects and took my first one. No second thoughts at the time. I called the wife to let her know that I was now 'on Prozac' - it had been an old joke for years... She was surprised that I was starting on medication so soon - she's more of a talker than a drug type and was relieved to hear that I was also going to start seeing someone as well. Only after I took my first dose did I start to research Cipralex online for side effects and pros/cons of the drug. Google came up with a lot of crap. I kind of wish I hadn't delved into it too much because reading all the forums can make you paranoid - a simple cough and you think that's Cipralex dry throat; wow now I've got Cipralex gas, man I feel dizzy from the Cipralex.

I felt relieved I had taken something - to be honest a pack of placebos might have done the trick for me. Just knowing that I was making a move to clearing my head put me in a calmer place with my wife and kids. So is the earth moving? No, but it feels like a better place already. I went to the gym for an hour and didn't pass out or throw up.

By the end of the day I have a bit of a headache, kind of a really slight freezing headache.

The Pain in My Brain - What Depression Was Feeling Like

I guess I must have been plodding along for about 2 months feeling lower and lower. I'm generally an outgoing, extroverted, sociable, intelligent, confident and moderately successful guy. I have a couple of degrees and have held some pretty great jobs. I have a good circle of friends who would feel terrible if anything happened to me. They'd wonder what they could have done to help. My low mood continued to spiral into wondering what it would be like without me around. The dreaded 'S' word was creeping into my knotted mind. Not so much a plan of how to end it but just quick flashes of me doing something and the high I would get of seeing the reaction of others around me. My wife, my kids, my boss. The visions became more and more frequent and I finally asked a friend whether they ever had those kinds of flashes. Their negative response confirmed that I had moved from a bad mood into a scary chasm of dark depression.

My eldest kid commented that I always look so sad. That was it for me.

That night I finally fell into bed beside my loving wife and worked up to a good cry and the release of the words "I don't want to feel like this anymore." The next day I booked in to see my GP. I felt better already. Admitting there was an issue and acting on it was the start of finding the light. On the way to the doctors I had a nearly smiling grin on my face and a spring in my step. Nervous of course to open up to my doctor but feeling relieved every step of the way.

The Background

One day my boss called me into his office and fired me. No notice, nothing. So began my journey to the dark side of depression. At first I celebrated - I hated the job anyhow. I was looking forward to a summer of doing not very much at all. The first few months were a bit of a laugh spent going to the gym, doing the school runs,  homework with the kids and coffees with long-forgotten friends and colleagues. The garden at our cottage in the countryside got a ton of much-deserved attention. I had sporadic meetings with recruiters and other loosely-held contacts met via LinkedIn. By mid July I was tired of being at home and tired of escaping home as my kids were there every day now in school holidays. I woke up every day and flopped myself in front of the computer and began my daily trawl of online job opportunities. A nagging leg injury prevented my daily park runs which had become so vital to my well-being. Duty drew me to spend time with my kids with endless games of Scrabble, Go Fish, Dress Up, Crazy Eights and tons of other activities. I'm not like the other dads out there who can isolate themselves from being with their kids. I'm still a kid and I want to do whatever I can to ensure my kids have the best longlasting memories of our time together.

If you're bored already then skip to Day 1 of The Cipralex Diaries blog - bottom line is I became deeply depressingly numb to the world. 

I was an automaton inside and out. In the mirror I saw Rotwang's robotic Hel image from Fritz Lang's Metropolis. My wife had no idea just how bad it was. She was waiting for me to snap out of it. We went on family vacation and I started reading an even more depressing self-help book about depression. Subtitled ...Freeing Yourself From Chronic Unhappiness, it was the first time I hit upon exactly what I was going through... 'Chronic Unhappiness". The book proposed mindful meditation as the answer but for me it didn't get much more of a read beyond the first 50 pages and a couple of trial attempts at mindful meditation aided by the freakish counsel on the accompanying CD. A bit of meditation is probably good for anyone but for me the pain in my brain felt like an iceberg that would take a lot more than breathing to melt away.