I’ve been waking up sad and angry lately. Feeling hopeless. Alone. It used to be a lot worse. I’m prescribed half of a ??dose amitriptyline pill every night to help me sleep, but I had stopped for a few months because it gives me hella restless legs which made it impossible to sleep in the same bed with my wife ¹. I’ve been getting massive super regular migraines again too, which I thought was unrelated. After GDQ, which I slept really poorly at (I was super looking forward to sleeping well like last year, but it just didn’t happen this time :( ), I decided to try the med again and after a couple weeks I’ve started sleeping better, my migraines are either gone or far more manageable, and my mood is slightly improved. I already knew amitriptyline was an anti-depressant, and that I am taking it off label, but also I learned it’s used for migraine prevention too? I definitely made the right move by restarting this med.

But I’ve started waking up even sadder and now angry too. Before, though, I was waking up numb and empty, so in a way this is an improvement? Lately I’m constantly burying my nose in video games to prevent myself from spiraling (Splatoon Raiders, Final Fantasy 4, various Picross, Parasite Eve). I’m definitely feeling more and different feelings than I was before which I think means I’m processing things better now? It’s just still all a lot. Though I really appreciate some of the well-rounded discussions we’ve been having at home about this. For a long while I wasn’t feeling seen or heard, but that’s starting to change and I’m getting some better reactions now. I can’t let myself hope, but I’m letting myself feel a little relief at least.

I’m struggling with the anti-depressant part of this. When I told my wife that I realized it was helping, she immediately suggested I tell my doctor to up my dose. ??? What? No, no thank you, I don’t even want to be on it to begin with! But shouldn’t I be happy, or at least okay, with this working? I guess the cobbler’s children have no shoes and all. In my extensive mental health volunteer time I helped people come to accept and even celebrate finding medications that worked for them, and I celebrated with them too. sigh I also think I’m thrown off by the immediate suggestion to increase the dose instead of just being happy for me for a moment? :\ I’m trying to give some leeway as she’s hyper burnt out. Thankfully she should be quitting her job in the next couple months so she can take the next half a year or longer purely to recover from burn out. It’s fortunate that she’s privileged enough to be able to do that right now. Her burn out is severe and is absolutely affecting her interactions with people. But also, that reaction still hurt me..

I feel like this post is written very.. badly. Sometimes I’m really proud of my writing, I feel like I’m able to write in a way that just flows very naturally. This and other recent posts feel very disjointed and stilted. I know that it’s gonna be an energy and sleep thing. I’ve been doing so poorly with any kind of executive functioning lately because of my sleep. I’m sleeping better yes, but I’m also playing Picross until 3am just so I don’t have to THINK about things. But going to bed so late, even if I get a good 8 or 9 hours of sleep, still has a nasty effect on my cognition and ability to function. I really need to get this sleep schedule shit down.