Awful Week

First of all I'd like to thank all my wonderful blogging friends who commented on my finish of Tomboy. I had a record number of comments and it really made my day.

Now on non-stitching things which I just feel I need to explain, please feel free to quit reading now if you wish as it's long and quite heavy. This week has been really really hard and I'm just thankful at the end of each day that I've managed to get through that day.

A few of my close blogging friends know that I've been on anti-depression meds for a long time now after suffering with post natal depression after having Erin 5 years ago. I've had counselling regarding issues from my past and have resolved those, but the depression still has me in it's grasp and a lot of it is to do with my weight etc. I saw my own dr last week and to say he made me rethink things is an understatement. I spent 3/4 hr with him when it should have been a quick 5 min app to get a repeat prescription, and the upshot of it all is that he thinks I need specific help for my issues with food, and my meds need rethinking as they are obviously not working anymore. I cried through most of the app and came home totally drained, but it really opened my eyes. After a lot of research, thought and discussion with DH I decided last Friday to come off the tablets and go cold turkey as they say. I know it is something you're not supposed to do and I've had a telling off from lots of people, but I really haven't done it on a whim. I did try to come off the meds last year by reducing them, but I had bad withdrawal symptoms and knew it would go on a long time that way, reducing the dose slightly over months. I've read A LOT on the internet about the type of tablets I was taking and I can honestly say I wish I read it BEFORE I started them. The tablets I was on are the worst for coming off and are well known to cause horrendous withdrawal symptoms. Anyway, call me crazy or stupid but I decided that this was the way to go and took my last tablet last Thur night and haven't had one since.

Sat which was my first med free day I felt great, motivated, elated, happy, it was great... Then came Sat night and I got about 3 hours sleep in total in between the most horrendous nightmares and sweating. Sun I spent most of the day crying, wanted to scream and shout and felt like I was going to fall over I was so dizzy. Sun night I suddenly started hearing funny noises in my head (now don't laugh, I know I've always heard funny noises, but not these lol). I've since found out that these are what medical professionals have named brain zaps.... It's like hearing zzzt, zzzt, zzzt, in my head at regular intervals but stops when I close my eyes. I tell you, the first hour I thought I'd really lost it lol.

Sun night thank god I slept better, no nightmares or sweats, but woke up dizzy again and yesterday spent the day trying not to fall over and instead stay calm. Last night I had a nightmare again when I first went to sleep and ended up going back to sleep with the light on at first, but this morning when I woke up I did feel a bit better. Today hasn't been too bad. The dizziness is still there constantly and the noises come and go. I've had to get a hold of myself a couple of times and think "stay calm, deep breaths", but other than that it's been ok. As I get through each day I feel proud of myself that I've done it and it gives me more determination not to give up and go back on the meds. I can now say I've nearly done 4 days med free and if Sun was the worst I have to face I think I'll be ok. I am aware that new symptoms can appear at any time, and all of them can go on for weeks if not months, but I'm just taking it one day at a time for now. I have to see my dr again in another 3 weeks or so so we'll see what he has to say if I manage to stick with it. I know I'll probably get another telling off, but by then hopefully I'll be over the worst.

One symptom I didn't expect was not being able to concentrate on my stitching.... This last weekend has been the Monthly Challenge SAL on the HAED BB and I've been working on Romeo & Juliet again, but I've got very little progress to show. I've found that I really can't cope right now with confetti stitching, I came close on Sunday to taking my scissors to all of my wips and cutting them into little pieces lol. Anyway, the outcome was I stopped doing any confetti and just stitched a couple of blocks of the same colour and that seemed ok, no wanting to explode anyway lol.

Next in line is Sally's Quaker RR which I made a start on last week. I'm actually really looking forward to it as this is stitched in one colour of variagated floss over 2 and so means no confetti, colour changes or anything, so I think I'll be safe lol.

If you have read this far, are you mad?! lol No, seriously, thanks for listening and sorry to waffle on, but it's mainly for me to get it down in writing what's going on as I'm trying to keep a sort of diary to look back on and keep a track of any changes as they happen.

Til next time...