Running on empty
 

I'm sorry, I'm starting so many threads, more than I can keep up with replying to. I got some really interesting and useful feedback though so thanks a lot!! :)

I don't understand what's happening to me. At the same time I can't imagine how I could ever feel differently. This emptiness makes sense to me. I understand it. What I don't understand is how other people don't feel it or why it doesn't affect them the way it affects me. Or why it affects me so strongly? I've always felt as if there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I used to think it's a philosophical problem but now I wonder if it's just a chemical imbalance.

I'm seeing the ADHD specialist tonight. I should be excited about the opportunity to finally (hopefully) get some answers but I'm not. I don't care. It seems like I don't care about most things these days. There just d0esn't seem to be anything that I want or need. I'm restless and confused. Which way do you go when all directions seem equally meaningless?

It's strange because I'm not feeling depressed. Well, not that depressed. I just feel drained and empty. Not wishless happy but just wishless.

The only reason I get up for these days is to have a smoke but once I start smoking it doesn't help me like it used to. It just gives me another chance to brood about how insignificant everything is.

I'm so tired today. Physically tired. I didn't go to work so I'm supposed to be working from home but so far I haven't done anything. I'm ready to go back to bed.

I wonder if stimulants would help me. I think they might though I don't understand why they should. After all everything is trivial and meaningless. Does more dopamine just not allow you to see it? Or to not care? Or to enjoy all these trivial things to such a large extent that it doesn't matter how trivial they are? I'm curious to see what effect effexor will have on me. Well, I loose the term me loosely. I've started thinking that all I really am, my idea of self, is really just a cocktail of neurotransmitters. I'm just a machine, built according to the blue print of my genes, going through a training phase (in the artficial intelligence sense) and running on chemicals. I was born with manufacturing defects, my training mechanism isn't the most efficient and the chemicals I'm running on are out of sync. But even if they weren't, if everything was fine, I would still just be a machine and nothing else. I just wouldn't know it.

Ok, I'm just blabbering now. Just one last thing:

I was wondering that (in the absence of medication) the only thing that might help me is to stop thinking (or whatever it is that I do, brooding might be a better word). I need to keep my brain busy, constantly. With anything, it can be trivia, it just has to be something specific. I should concentrate on work. Just work. Any work. But the problem of course is starting.

Re: Running on empty
 

Just hold on Fuzzy girl ......just hold on .....you're stronger than you know .....tonight is the appointment ....


whatever you do ....don't miss that appointment....go early , and the most important thing you can do for that appointment, today's assignment .....is to make a list ....make a list of all the things that are bothering you now, and that have gotten in your way through the years....


...the easiest way I can think of for you to do that is just go back over your posts....an start pulling out the different problems you've been having ....I just got up, and I am cheerful but not real bright in the morning, so I know there's something I am not quite saying right, or something I am missing ....


.....but start making that list ! ....srsly....

Re: Running on empty
 

I'm with Salleh. The appt. is your assignment for today. Do that. Set timers, have friends call/remind you (or even drive you), whatever it takes.

In the meantime, grab a young adult novel from your favorite genre from your library or Target or even grocery store/drugstore. Or get a book of crosswords. Those are your other jobs. Keep yourself distracted until it's time for you to leave for your appointment.

Re: Running on empty
 

Another really important factor here is the state of your health in general. It makes more of a difference that we give it credit for. In the absence of treatment (whether it's coz you can't get access to or are unable to take meds) it's really important to look after yourself and get enough sleep, exercise and eat well. These are the 3 basics. Even once you are dx and medicated these 3 basics often determine how well you can cope and how effective the medication is.

Re: Running on empty
 

First off, I'd like to say that I realize that some of what I'm going to say is stating the obvious, which makes it intelligence\knowledge insulting, so I'm apologizing for the insult right now.

Olympic traffic - Could it screw up you getting to the appointment on time?

Do you know that Bupropion is marketed as an anti-smoking drug in the US under the name "Zyban"? Didn't you just start up smoking again a few months ago, after like a decade or something of not smoking? Also, here's a copy\paste from Wikipedia:

Availability and dose forms

Brand-name and generic bupropion tablets are available in three forms, each as the hydrochloride salt: immediate release (Wellbutrin), sustained release (Wellbutrin SR), and extended release (Wellbutrin XL or XR). "Sustained release" and "extended release" are generally interchangeable terms, but in this case Wellbutrin SR is intended for twice-daily dosing and Wellbutrin XL is intended for once-daily dosing. Not all generics have retained this naming scheme, and the United States Pharmacopeia requires all prolonged-release drug formulations (including generics for Wellbutrin SR) to be labeled "extended release", which has caused confusion and medication errors.[167][168] According to GlaxoSmithKline, the SR tablets should not be split.[169] Merck indicates that splitting a 150 mg Wellbutrin SR tablet decreases the time to peak levels, but that it will retain its sustained-release characteristics.[170]

Re: Running on empty
 

I find the idea of a human being as a machine run on neurotransmitters to be terribly depressing, personally. I like to think that we are made up of many other things that pure neurocognitive psychology can't account for, the "ghost in the machine" if you will.

Right now, everything you are thinking and feeling is through a lens. We always experience and interpret our reality through a lens, whatever lens we happen to be utilizing at the time, and it determines what we get out of the experience. When you are depressed it warps the way you think, experience, and interpret reality. Depression makes everything look more bleak, less interesting, less colorful, less hopeful.

Depression effectively desaturates our view of the world. Saturation is how "rich" or "bold" the colors in an image are. If you are editing a photo and you increase the saturation, the colors become much brighter and more in-your-face. If you decrease the saturation, the colors begin to dim and become dulled and less bright, until eventually, if you desaturate as far as you can go, you end up with greyscale photographs.

What you are seeing right now is the world through a heavily desaturated lens. Everything is dulled down to shades of grey (and I don't mean the awful book). All of the colors and brightness in life are gone, you can't see them through this lens. Once the depression lifts, you will see the world saturate again, and the color will return. Then you will look back, and with that perspective, realize just how poorly you were seeing the world because of the way depression was influencing your thoughts.

Good luck at your appointment today. I second everything everyone has already said--come hell or high water, get to that appointment!

Re: Running on empty
 

Is it much harder to get on ADHD meds in the UK or something? I've read a few of your threads and It seems you're going through a rough time right now. I don't see why it's any skin off your doctors back to let you try a medication out to see if it helps you. I'm not sure what's available in the UK, maybe Concerta? Are they trying to push antidepressants on you?

Re: Running on empty
 

Well, I am depressed and the anti depressants are helping. But just with the depression, not any ADHD-like symptoms.

I am ready to run away again. I'm burnt out, stressed and so tired. I can hardly keep my eyes open (though maybe that's a side effect of the anti depressant?) I hardly had any anxiety since my parents left a few months ago (I know how horrible that sounds. :( ) but today it's back. I feel as if everything is crashing down on me (and I know that everything is relative..I can still consider myself lucky for the facilities and support I have).

I've got a million things to do and I'm not even able to get started. My husband isn't helping, he always makes my anxiety worse (well, usually he is the one to trigger it) by listing all the things I need to do, how imperative it is that they get done and the consequences of not doing them. I don't blame him. I know he is right. Just, the thing is I know this stuff and telling me again and again doesn't help me. It just stresses me more. He thinks I'm too carefree and need to be reminded. I don't know. Maybe I do.

It's different this time. I don't want to be here but neither do I want to be anywhere else. What is the point of running away? I can't outrun myself. I'll still have to drag this stupid brain of mine around. It's tempting to make a fresh start and it's even more tempting to leave everyone behind. But what then? It won't make the emptiness go away. The novelty will wear off as it always does only then I will also have to deal with the guilt of having hurt so many people that care for me.

I just don't know what to do anymore. Can't live, can't die. I know I need to stick it out but I'm just so tired. And there doesn't seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel. I've always struggled with feelings of emptiness and slowly I'm losing hope that there is anything worthwhile living for. I'm sticking around just in case there might be, but I don't believe it anymore. I'm hanging on to smoking with all I can since pathetic as that might be, it's the only thing that motivates me to get out of bed though it's losing its charm as well.