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kaberettI increased my fluoxetine dose to 40mg (from 20mg) on the 12th of September, since which time my baseline mood has improved from "grouchy and irritable" to "tolerably cheerful", I've scored 10 on a PHQ-9 despite doing it while a cyst was bursting immediately before my period (this is very good), and I've in general demonstrated rather more cope and resilience.
Like -- still not enough cope to manage more than one and a half of "working one-third time" and "maintenance healthwork, including physio" and "housework" and "talking to people" (I'm sorry about my absence from your comment sections; I am reading and thinking about you), but -- I inexplicably made an error at work, right, that might invalidate most of the data I've got since returning? But. But instead of having an enormous I-am-worthless-and-incompetent meltdown, I went "... waiiiiiiiiiiit a second does this explai-- is my fundamental method flawe-- is this actually better than the protocol I've been following, SHIT it might be, DOES THAT EXPLAIN MY CONCENTRATION WOES", and proceeded to do a bunch of back-of-enveloping to demonstrate to my satisfaction that I might have, accidentally, improved the protocol my head-of-group put together in the late 90s, thereby solving a problem I was having.
Sort of. It's a bit more complicated that that and will require me to repeat a LOT of work, but -- I looked at an emerging pattern, spotted via Detailed Labbook Notes that I had made a mistake, and did the maths about whether the one could be related to the other, and... yeah. Yeah. Go me.
Plusme_and says I'm sleeping better: apparently the proportion of the time that he wakes up briefly in the middle of the night and I'm already clearly awake and clearly haven't been sleeping is way, way lower, compared to the proportion of the time he wakes up and I'm either very asleep or clearly waking up slightly simultaneously with him; I'm getting to sleep faster (I have... probably fallen asleep before him more times in the past month than in the entire rest of our relationship), and I think that's helping?
... and I've also resumed counselling with my previous counsellor, Iggi, and consequently have started plugging away at a DBT skills workbook. About which I am having a lot of Thoughts and Feelings, which is why I wanted to be under supervision while working on it; if you'd be interested in me sticking my responses to exercises (and thoughts and feelings pertaining thereto) up here that's probably words I can reasonably straightforwardly manage? But -- yes, interesting.
I just -- I am mostly very, very happy, and very, very tired. But I am here. <3
Like -- still not enough cope to manage more than one and a half of "working one-third time" and "maintenance healthwork, including physio" and "housework" and "talking to people" (I'm sorry about my absence from your comment sections; I am reading and thinking about you), but -- I inexplicably made an error at work, right, that might invalidate most of the data I've got since returning? But. But instead of having an enormous I-am-worthless-and-incompetent meltdown, I went "... waiiiiiiiiiiit a second does this explai-- is my fundamental method flawe-- is this actually better than the protocol I've been following, SHIT it might be, DOES THAT EXPLAIN MY CONCENTRATION WOES", and proceeded to do a bunch of back-of-enveloping to demonstrate to my satisfaction that I might have, accidentally, improved the protocol my head-of-group put together in the late 90s, thereby solving a problem I was having.
Sort of. It's a bit more complicated that that and will require me to repeat a LOT of work, but -- I looked at an emerging pattern, spotted via Detailed Labbook Notes that I had made a mistake, and did the maths about whether the one could be related to the other, and... yeah. Yeah. Go me.
Plus
me_and says I'm sleeping better: apparently the proportion of the time that he wakes up briefly in the middle of the night and I'm already clearly awake and clearly haven't been sleeping is way, way lower, compared to the proportion of the time he wakes up and I'm either very asleep or clearly waking up slightly simultaneously with him; I'm getting to sleep faster (I have... probably fallen asleep before him more times in the past month than in the entire rest of our relationship), and I think that's helping?... and I've also resumed counselling with my previous counsellor, Iggi, and consequently have started plugging away at a DBT skills workbook. About which I am having a lot of Thoughts and Feelings, which is why I wanted to be under supervision while working on it; if you'd be interested in me sticking my responses to exercises (and thoughts and feelings pertaining thereto) up here that's probably words I can reasonably straightforwardly manage? But -- yes, interesting.
I just -- I am mostly very, very happy, and very, very tired. But I am here. <3
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Date: 2016-10-01 10:18 am (UTC)... but I suppose on the other hand I DID sink several hours into convincing myself that the results were convincingly showing the pattern I thought they were, rather than burying my head in the sand or otherwise panicking or giving up, and worked out the design for the experiments that would dis/prove the hypothesis, so -- yes, okay, thank you!
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Date: 2016-09-30 02:30 pm (UTC)Also curious about your experiences with DBT, if you're inclined to write them.
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Date: 2016-10-01 10:23 am (UTC)Counselling log-blogging is something I've found historically helpful, so entirely content to talk about it :-) Probably I will write up notes once per ~chapter or thereabouts.
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Date: 2016-09-30 03:42 pm (UTC)*googles "dbt skills"* yes v interested
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Date: 2016-10-15 10:33 am (UTC)there's this series of posts that
this is one of the PDFs I've worked through slightly grumpily
here are a bunch of onward references that I am vaguely intending to actually check out
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Date: 2016-10-15 01:35 pm (UTC)will look at when || more awake :)
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Date: 2016-09-30 07:56 pm (UTC)I'm on 20mg of fluoxetine and it has improved my life enormously. I am glad to hear things have improved for you!
What is a PHQ-10?
Would be very interested in hearing your thoughts about DBT.
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Date: 2016-09-30 09:34 pm (UTC)My personal worst is in the region of ~21 out of 27; my personal best is in the region of ~3; anything over 10 as solely-due-to-depression I reckon is "meds not working adequately, do a shuffle"; scoring 10 when I'm completely wiped out by physical illness is good.
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Date: 2016-09-30 08:45 pm (UTC)And interesting science. Mistakes you learn from are the best kind.
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Date: 2016-10-01 10:37 am (UTC)My sleeping is all over the place at the moment.
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Date: 2016-10-01 12:10 am (UTC)I've just recently been working my way through a meditation & stuff book a CBT person rec'd to me a few years ago, and what you're describing here re: more cope and resilience has my brain going 'me too!'
(Well, maybe not so much this week. I have been so damn sick most of this week, and I'm still not sure if I was right to not miss any work. But more generally, I think there is a good going I will try to keep nurturing and making time.)
+1
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Date: 2016-10-01 02:11 am (UTC)Hooray! *^^*
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Date: 2016-10-01 12:27 pm (UTC)Ozy Brennan wrote some fairly extensive notes about their experiences with dbt which you may find interesting: https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/category/dbt/page/3/
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Date: 2016-10-01 01:29 pm (UTC)That does indeed look like an interesting sequence of posts -- thanks for the link!
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