Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Two Steps Forward.....

Today did not hurt as much as many of the days of the past few weeks.  That's for damn sure.

Waking up this morning was pure misery.  Since going back on the Effexor, my body has eschewed sleep.  Even napping yesterday took some actual effort.  I just feel more awake when I lay down to go to sleep - more aware of what's going on in the room around me.  I sleep much more lightly, too.  The very slightest disturbance wakes me up.  I must not be sleeping very deeply anymore.  I will miss that part about being off the Effexor, I guess.

So the first thing I had to do after literally DRAGGING my own ass out of bed, was go in for my first training session with the trainer Tiffany had referred me to.  To my surprise, he had not written our appointment down and had seemed to have forgotten talking to me at all.  Luckily he agreed to go ahead and work with me for an hour, and he did work me hard.  Without even doing any actual cardio, he got my heart rate up around 190 a couple different times (I wore my heart rate monitor because I'm starting to get concerned with how high the rate gets when I work out, and I like to have an idea of how many calories I'm burning during a workout to be able to adjust my food intake accordingly).  My legs felt like limp noodles for awhile afterwards.  He seems like a good enough guy, and he sounds - and LOOKS - like he knows what he's talking about, so I'm going to warily trust him and hope for the best.  The idea of working out that much is a little overwhelming, but if I take it one day at a time, I will be able to do it.  I think.  I hope.  The plan right now is to see him once a week, hit the gym for cardio 5 times a week on my own, and do one day of heavy lifting on my own.  He's got a diet plan for me to follow too, but I won't be able to start that until I a.) get it from him and 2.) get back from camping because I'm not going to attempt to follow a meal plan while I'm out there trying to relax.  But I'm excited and motivated, we'll just see if I'm driven enough to accomplish what I'm setting out to do.  I don't make a habit of weighing myself, but I did this morning and I was down under 180 finally.  I didn't look too closely at the actual number because I was relieved to just see that much.  Maybe the Metformin is working.

After that, I headed down to campus to get to my intake appointment with the counseling center.  I was miraculously right on time - twenty minutes early.  I didn't have to wait to get called back, and it was a pretty painless interaction.  Just answering a lot of questions about my symptoms and history.  The whole point was to orient me with the protocol there and try to match me with a clinician that would be a good fit for my therapy goals and mental health needs.  It only took about 30 minutes or so, so I was way early for my 3:00pm appointment with the psychiatrist.  I strolled around the Student Union for a few minutes, instantly reminded of how much I loved undergrad, as awful as it was, and as long as it took.  I might have been in the Student Union at CU Boulder, it looked so similar.  Kids in every corner, laptops and tablets out on every surface, the smell of food being prepared, flyers covering every wall...It brought be back in time.  Then I went outside and sat in the sunshine for almost an hour, just people-watching.  I just sat there, letting my mind wander, not thinking about school or work, trying to stay in the moment as much as I could.  The autumn sun was warm but not hot on my skin, and there was a cool breeze from the east that kept me just slightly chilled because I was only wearing a t-shirt and gym shorts.  It was just gorgeous outside and I enjoyed every second of lying in the grass, soaking it in.

Then it was time for my appointment with the psychiatrist, and so after filling out a ton of paperwork asking the same questions as the paperwork in the counseling center, I got called back.  The psychiatrist was actually a nurse practitioner with a PhD in psychology, and she reminded me of my mom.  She asked me tons of questions about my symptoms and my history, which I was getting pretty great at talking about at this point.  She asked me to go into some depth about my breakup with The Ex back in August, which I thought wasn't terribly useful but she must have gotten something out of it.  I talked about how the anxiety I've been feeling has been much worse this time around, and how it is paralyzing and overwhelming.  I talked about my withdrawal symptoms from the Effexor, and how different I felt when I started it back up a few days ago.  I talked about my fear of gaining weight and what I'm attempting to do to control the situation.  I talked about how much trouble I'm having with school, and how I'm considering dropping a class.  She gave me a letter and faxed a copy of it to the Disability Center.  As much as it sucks to think about, it will be helpful for me to do it this way and try to finish out the semester as best I can.

By the time I was finished, the sun had begun to go down and it felt like the beginning of the evening already.  By the time I got home it was about 5pm and I was starting to get hungry - which I hadn't been all day - and so I made myself a pizza and watched the news.  I had my allotted 5oz of red wine and had to purposely stop myself from pouring more, though I don't know why I wanted more.  After as bad as I felt last Friday, you'd think I'd hate the idea of feeling that way again.

Now here I am, writing.  I'm also watching the premiere of the new season of American Horror Story, and MAN this show is twisted.  I didn't see the entire second season but each season is a different story so I didn't really miss anything.  Kind of makes me feel a little better about myself....

I've got to get to bed, because I have a date with the treadmill in the morning.  Nothing too strenuous, just exercise to get my body used to it, so I'm not dreading it too terribly much.  I'll let you know how it works out.



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