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today i have been wearing a cap of dull ache on my head, and a little shaking, a little dizziness, a little...bleah. hungrily gulping down soup, advil, juice, coffee. trying to feel a little more normal, a little more productive.

i called my shrink to set up an appointment time for next week and to "talk about the side effects." so far i'm only taking one pill a day, when i'm supposed to be taking two. one is knocking me off my ass enough as it is - i don't think taking two would be very helpful at this point. it would most likely bowl me over with pain and confusion, and i would resort to never taking the pills again rather than let my body go through the torture of tolerance-building.

this is my third anti-depressant; as i mentioned before i like to "test" them. i started on zoloft when i was 15, and they certainly helped. i had headaches daily, but they faded and my mood picked up and i was feeling better than i had in a long time. then again, i was about to leave the dull suburbia of kanata for warsaw, and i usually have a period of pre-move elation. i can change. start over. be who i want, and leave all this shit behind.

the summer of the move i "ran out" of the zoloft, as my psychiatrist said i'd have to come in and see her if i wanted a refill. i mistakenly thought it was too much bother, and refused. i slumped into an angry, near-suicidal state, and my kindly g.p. loaded me up with free samples to "keep in my purse" for travelling, and a prescription days before i left the country. i again slipped off the zoloft during that first year in warsaw. i had become numb, devoid, and i wanted to feel again, even if it was deep misery.

i went on zoloft again my second year of university. i can still remember the shame of taking the prescription slip from the shrink's hands, resignation to fate. i knew they would work, i knew it was the right thing to do, but i blamed my self for being so pathetic.

and then i stopped the zoloft. again. it was mainly because i recognized that i *did* have a libido without the pills, and i needed it. the life-force, eros, it wasn't bullshit. i had struggled through the cycle of no libido thanks to depression, and no libido thanks to the pills. the cure=the symptom, so where's the relief? i wasn't going to lose that part of me again.

my g.p. recommended serzone, and i started up. took it for a good long time, and noticed the difference when i wasn't on them. when i'd "forget" to fill my prescription. when i wouldn't have money and was not sure if my school insurance would cover it and. and .and. i had strange excuses.

so now i am trying out effexor. not only an SSRI but dilly-dallying with norepinephrine. used for generalized anxiety disorder as well as depression, so that should clear me right up, eh?

i wonder about the safety of these drugs. 10, 20, 30 years down the line, will my liver conk out thanks to the toxicity its been filtering all this time? is it worth the uncertainty? should i take the anti-psychiatric approach and EMBRACE my symptomology rather than reject it, be afraid of it, subdue it? hmmm.

hmmmmm.