Slog Monster

Buproprion was starting to have some side effects that were bothering me, so my shrink's PA told me to phase it out for a month or so and see how I felt. I've been off of it for the past week now and there's definitely some discontinuation syndrome. Not very intense, but definitely there. I am better overall, at least in regard to the hyperactive, angry and irritable side effects the buproprion was causing. But the past two days I really just went way under the water. Two days ago, I went to bed at about 10 in the morning and pretty much stayed there until about 8 at night, at which point I forced myself to go out and treat myself to sushi and gelato. I collapsed as soon as I got home. Yesterday, I only managed to get about two hours of work done over a ten hour period, and I was just out of it. 

It does feel like things are balancing out today, which is great. Little things still feel like Herculean tasks though, sometimes. My committee chair commented that he thought a long paragraph listing a series of studies in the Cactaceae would be better as a table, and, while formatting a table, copying and pasting the text into table rows and columns, etc. should be easy peasy, it took me two hours yesterday and I could barely get it done. 

It's sometimes one day at a time, for real, and I am practicing being kind to myself and letting each day be as much as each day was able to be. Once I get back to a baseline after the wellbutrin discontinuation effects dissipate, I figure I'll sleep better, feel more clear, and get back into a rhythm. I'll try to go without any meds for a while, and maybe get started with a counselor again. The shrink gave me a referral list but it was right before I left for six weeks. Frankly, the thought of trying to counselor shop and start up with the whole story again is very daunting, especially not know when I will be leaving AZ. 

Working out helps, stretching, using the foam roller, meditating again, eating fewer carbs. Mood will have its way with me no matter what, but these gestures toward self care introduce at least a bit of ground under my feet, when possible. I woke in mild panic at 4 a.m. this morning and almost just got up, but instead I tried deep breathing, self soothing and creating space to fall asleep again, and I was able to sleep until 7:30. I had a crazy dream about being on a lake in a canoe, some kind of field work for school, getting sunburned and inadvertently stealing a music player that was actually some kind of technical equipment. 

I woke in the middle of the night a few nights ago absolutely astonished by the plain fact that I turn 58 this week. The years have been immolated behind me, each one the same objective length, but like a piece of onion paper set alight. I thought back on 12 years on Facebook and then thought ahead to 12 more years: at which time I will be 70 years old. I just can't really imagine it. It's a crushing weight sometimes, where it seems like, in one second, my life will be over. At times, it lights a fire under my ass and motivates me to make the most of each day. But most often, around my birthday especially, it feels like a tidal wave of incomprehensible loss, 100 stories high, barreling at me at 100 mph. The birthdays while being alone have this fatal feeling in particular. Sometimes lately I have felt so angry at the universe that the weird idea of suicide as an act of spite, as a way of flipping a bird at the universe by saying, your torment of me is over motherfucker, I've decided I've had enough, crosses my mind. These are just flashes of despair, with anger following. But searing flashes nonetheless. 

I am resolved to do something kind and supportive for myself on my birthday. Not sure what yet. 

It's also been more possible for me lately to relax, enjoy being alone, savor the solitude and take care of myself in it. I've even had moments where I've imagined the time between now and whatever my demise will be, single, unattached, living alone, traveling alone, and felt acceptance about it. In the present, where I try to take refuge, this is what life is. And there is a lot of luxury in it, in its own way. 

I do interact with women and think to myself, hmmm, what would this person be like, as a partner? It's a bad game though, lately. It's never appealing. And I don't think I am being too picky, or too discriminating. I was sort of flirting with someone and she misspelled a couple of words and then didn't get a pun I made and that was that. Game over. Another person I was wondering about revealed weird Boomer prejudices about feminism, with a mild kind of bootlicking deference to men, and of course I was all like oh fuck no. I think as I get more accepting of reality, I am less willing to overlook things that really are important to me. I had a friend of mine say I ought to let go of the small stuff, if I really want company, and it made me wonder. Is it small stuff? Yeah, no. It's not. 

Back to work. Or back to bed. Right on the fence about that on this cloudy Monday.