re mental illness, meds, & visibility

I'm struggling with my medication right now.

If I take the lower dose of welbutrin, the anxiety isn't so bad ...because I can't feel anything at all.
If I take the higher dose of welbutrin, the anxiety is uncontrollable and I have panic attacks even in the best circumstances.

If I take the prozac to augment the higher welbutrin dose, the anxiety is controllable but I basically can't get up off my ass. It's like there's a layer of not-yummy jello between me and the world.

If I take the prozac with the lower dose of welbutrin, I'm a zombie. And not the runner type, more the dazed-and-confused-moaner type.

If I don't take the prozac with the lower dose of welbutrin, I don't sleep. Ever. That makes me cranky. (Okay, not not ever but it sure feels like it.)

For now, in case you're wondering, I'm doing the lower dose of welbutrin with no prozac, and reducing my caffeine intake while putting several anti-insomnia tactics to work each night. So far, I've slept at least a little for 3 out of 4 nights.

~~~

That said, I've decided not to hide my mental illness from potential employers. I'll probably regret that.

Also, that sounds bad but it's not like anyone would go into an interview and be like, "yeah, I'm basically not functional 50% of the time, but I'm totally capable of pushing through that and getting the job done, it'll just hurt while I'm doing it. A lot. And I'll be irritable and apathetic, but I'll hide that really well because I have a TON of practice. No worries."

And what I really mean is that I'm not going to attempt to minimize my mental health conversations online (on fb, twitter, and my blogs) in order to present a "normal" image.

I hesitated to post about my medications - even though that's exactly the sort of thing I started this personal blog for - because I know that some of my potential future colleagues (i.e., other academics) might see this blog. Some of them are on my fb. Some of them are on my twitter feed.

So yeah, it has occurred to me that I shouldn't post *this thing about major depressive disorder* or *that thing about ptsd* but then I remind myself that if I want this stigma to ever end, someone has to take the risk of being honest about the realities of (my) mental illness. And I'm actually okay with being that person. It's just my socialization-derived instincts that fear being truthful about uncomfortable stuff.

I see you, fear. I'm just not gonna let you make my decisions. Cuz I got TONS of practice with pushing through bullshit emotions. 

ground work

Dash and I are learning to do ground work. "It's all about energy," my trainer says.

Dash works harder than she asks: he canters when she asks for a trot. He does this four, five times. She doesn't try to stop him, but she changes her posture - lets her arms hang at her side, stands relaxed, calm. He gets tired eventually, and trots. She praises him. The next time she asks for a trot, it takes him only one round at a canter before he slows. 

His canter is fast. I know, that should be obvious since he's an old racehorse. This was one of those things I knew before I ever rode him, but I didn't really have a context for that knowledge; I couldn't picture just how fast his "fast" would be. The other day, he and I cantered around in the round pen for the first time and I finally got a feel for his speed. I've ridden a gallop before - speed on a horse is not new to me - but Dash's canter felt like I'd straddled a Ferrari.

Watching M do ground work with Dash, I got to see how very long his strides are at every gait. I commented on it, and M reminded me that -duh, he's a thoroughbred. I've been on a lot of different breeds of horses before, and I've seen huge differences between individual horses, but looking back, they all seem slow in comparison. Dash is the first OTTB (off-track thoroughbred) I have ridden, and the difference is huge. It's like going from a moped to a Maserati... after spending a lifetime thinking that mopeds were maybe a bit too fast sometimes.

I'm not sure I shouldn't be switching out my riding helmet for a motorcycle helmet.

Even his trot is fast and long; he extends his forelegs with a natural and commanding step. M wants to do dressage with him because he has such wonderful extension, but he doesn't like the dressage saddle. Dash prefers his western saddle, heavy beast that it is. I keep feeling like I should replace it with a lighter saddle, but I'm not sure whether he'd appreciate the gesture. 

Starting ground work now is going 'back to the drawing board,' after I skipped the sketch and went straight to execution in the beginning. Not in a bad way, though.

I haven't done ground work in a round pen since I was a teenager, working with my first horse (a Polish Arabian called Goldy). Dash hasn't worked in a round pen at all, except those couple of rounds of cantering the other day. It's an entry level tool for working with horses, but we managed to skip that until now.

There's an metaphor to be pointed out here... Something about the parallels between doing ground work with Dash and the 'ground work' I've been doing with my therapist, who's bringing my thoughts back to who I was before - eveything - and figuring out how to be who I want to be now... But all this ground work has me tired of heavy introspection, so I'll just say: it's fun, learning with Dash. He's a sweety. 

thought control [The Happiness Trap]

When I was growing up, my heroes were the strong, silent cowboys in my dad's favorite movies. The John Waynes and Clint Eastwoods. I wanted to be them. Totally in control of myself. Calm and collected at all times... until righteously angry. That's when they got devastating. Their anger left people dead in the dusty western streets, but somehow they always seemed in control. Even enraged, they were men of few words.

Women in my life and in those movies were always reacting. Their decisions were reactions; their emotions were reactions; their reactions were dramatic and attention-grabbing; their reactions were either overblown or manipulative. They were never in control. People in control don't require manipulation - they can say what they want.

But the cowboys were self-sufficient. They didn't need anything or anyone, and they didn't want anything other than what they already had, other than the occasional vengeance. Their monolithic essence was the epitome of control.


I wanted to be in control of myself.

I spent a lot of my first two decades being told I wasn't in charge of myself.
Girls can't be mechanics. Or race car drivers. Or in control. Or allowed to say no. 

Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be if I'd felt more allegiance to my assigned gender. I don't really know what it feels like to be any gender, but I've always been taught that being a girl sucked. Somewhere in there I learned to associate masculinity with self-control, and self-control with maintaining a flat affect.


Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
There's nothing to be afraid of.
Get over it. 
Snap out of it.
Don't be a crybaby.
Don't be such a girl.
Keep a stiff upper lip.
Don't be sad.
Smile.


No wonder I rejected all things "girly."
No wonder I rejected showing my emotions.

No wonder I felt so much shame when I developed a depressive disorder and couldn't hide the pain.


My therapist loaned me a book, and it's making me rethink my entire approach to emotion and expression.

I've valued manners for more of my life than I can remember. They're important, because they're a means of kindness, and kindness is what makes society best. Manners meant not subjecting other people to your negative emotions. Manners meant being nice, always, because situations never improve with cruelty and I'm too practical to do otherwise. Manners are an ideal to aspire to.

I still believe manners are important, and a means of spreading kindness. I still believe that rudeness or unkindness never improve a situation and that we should always be kind. I still believe that having good manners is something we should constantly work toward. ...But: I no longer equate being 'nice' with completely subjugating my emotional reality, but this is not an either-or situation. The people in my life - including me - have benefitted from my ability to sublimate my emotional turmoil when a calmer mind was needed. Unchecked anger and retaliation never improve a situation, and I have no desire for petty vengeance.

So, what's different now? I am increasingly willing to express discomfort, unhappiness, and even anger. I'm not always able - a lifetime of suppression coupled with some serious social anxiety make that a hard habit to break - but I'm willing. And in safe spaces, I'm able. I still try to temper my unhappiness and anger with compassion for the other person's feelings, even if they're being an ass. I'm usually successful, and that's not something I want to change. It goes along with that whole manners thing.


[That book is The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris. What I get farther, I might do a review. So far it's inspired a lot of thought - in a good way - and I'm only in chapter 1.]