I bumped into an unexpected reader on a random Saturday afternoon in San Francisco telling me, “If it makes you feel any better, I knew a couple people that had a crush on you!”
If you’re reading this, I thought it was funny to hear! It made me realize that I write in the name of melancholic love and it gave me juice to reflect who I’m writing for and why. I write for myself in-order to deeply reflect and express and for a niche bunch that love to read random or specific blogs on the web as much as I do for whatever reason.
I’ve had some motivation recently to get back into reading random blogs scattered around the net; this time about other peoples’ experiences with SSRIs and how it has affected them and their anxiety and depression. I’d like to take this inspiration to do an update for myself and like-minded readers, a paradigm shift; I quit my job, volunteered for Guildlock, and started SSRIs (Lexapro/Escitalopram). Life’s been different to say the least.
Depression and anxiety have been apart of my daily life for years, it’s still crazy to me how a single pill could make rumination and constant fear subside. Almost every decision in my life I’ve made was backed or fought by some anxiety and it blurs the reality when that system I’ve been surviving on is now gone. I feel like I have to make an new living and scheduling structure that’s built off genuine intention rather than anxiety induced intention that’s offset by inherent depression. In other words, it feels weird to take action for the present. I no longer vigilantly predict branches of actions and their consequences, social interactions and their dialogue, I just move and experience things for what they are. Silence is suddenly natural and my speech is smothered in butter.
Whenever I take showers, I no longer do a deep dive of the past and drown myself in regret, sorrow, and doom. While reading some fiction or computer nerd stuff, unrelated self-deprecating thoughts aren’t read between the lines anymore. That imaginary guy that’s always stalking me and watching every move I make while calling me a loser whenever I go outside suddenly got a life and fucked off.
I actually can’t believe that life could be this peaceful.
I’ve successfully went through therapy with CBT and DBT before medication, but meds are on a whole different level.
Although, I can’t lie, the early side effects suck ass; this brain fog is preventing me from using my brain properly, the fatigue has been making it harder to do things in general, my rooms a mess, and it’s all making my procrastination at an all time high, higher than when I was at my depressions’ peak. My favorite melancholic music (megumi acorda) doesn’t hit hard anymore instantaneously for obvious reasons.
I wont write more about it here but Guildlock was an experience. I still haven’t entirely decompressed even though it’s been about a week since the LAN. It meant a lot to me that I got to work with and for people that are just as passionate as I am about Deadlock. In compy fashion, I limited tested my first week of SSRIs during the LAN; they helped out a lot in letting me experience the event in its entirety, especially the rush.
Through that, I learned that SSRIs aren’t necessarily a happy pill, but a tool that makes happiness more accessible. It raises my baseline of enjoyment by nerfing my debuffs such as anxiety and depression creating more of an incentive to experience the present. At this point, I finally have full control of my own life experiences; I can no longer blame the devs (god?) or my teammates (anxiety/depression) for how things go. My main literally got buffed because of SSRIs, so it’s time to get compy.
