Hello gang it’s been a while. Interestingly, it has happened. The eagle has landed. I have felt CALLED to write hooray. And about bloody time too, considering I’ve been paying for this damn website and haven’t written more than a word on it in months.

Anyway, here’s the life update. I’ve got a Kenyan itinerary I’ve not finished and that I need to post. I’ve had an 100 year old birthday to attend and organise. I’ve been ill with a virus and spent days in bed. I organised a charity concert and raised over £2000. I’ve tried and failed to lose any excess weight that I’ve put on from these damn antidepressants. I don’t feel good in myself and nor do I like how I look. I’m going travelling and will be working freelance. I’ve been organising how that looks. I’m sitting here eating biscuits. I’ve not exercised in ages because I’ve been ill. There have been issues with the operation I had. My dad was in hospital and shouldn’t have been. I have no clothes for my travels. I feel like I don’t fit into anything. I keep looking at pictures of how I looked travelling before compared to now and feel like I want to spend my days at the beach in a bin bag.

BLUGH.

What have antidepressants made me anxious about?

Despite the fact that in general antidepressants have majorly helped me, they have also caused me issues that I find at odds with what they’ve helped me with in the first place. For example, they’ve helped me massively with anxiety around eating. In doing that, I’ve put on weight. But then separately to that, I think they’ve also contributed to weight gain in general. No matter the amount of exercise, I cannot shift things. I’m older too and metabolism is slower but I am dreading going away and feeling as horrible as I do about myself. It’s also hard not to compare how I look and feel with photos of me six years ago. I literally don’t understand how I could even put on a pair of denim shorts. The thoughts go round and round my head. It’s okay for now because I can hide under a jumper and curl up on the sofa, but not when it’s going to be hot and everyone around me are beautiful humans from all over the globe with washboard stomachs who CAN wear denim shorts. And I know I know, it doesn’t matter, I should love myself, I should tell myself ten times a day I’m beautiful and thus I will feel beautiful – yes I’ve read all the books – but that doesn’t stop my heart from racing about it.

Another thing? Tiredness. This SNRI has made me TIRED. I find it harder to get up in the mornings when I was already pretty useless at doing that in the first place. So now I’m just imagining sleeping through my volcano hikes and waking up at 4pm. Good luck to me getting up at 3am and to those who have to listen to my thousands of alarms 😂

What else? Skin pigmentation. It just so happens that you can tan weird when you’re on antidepressants. Well? Yes. Weird? Very. Some hormonal thing apparantely. It’s annoying and makes me self conscious. No matter how much SPF 50 I use.

Other things I’ve recently found out don’t make me anxious, but they’re a bit frustrating. For example, I don’t think I can eat grapefruit which is my favourite fruit – I need to check that one out again. Also, I’m not allowed any cold and flu medication which is totally new to me! There I am, having slight hot flushes on my Sudofed medication, whilst dying of the flu in bed, now being told actually I can’t have my Sudofed because it affects blood pressure when you’re on certain antidepressants. So paracetamol it is when you can’t breathe or swallow.

However…

Then again, I’m under no illusion how much these have helped me with so many other issues. I also don’t want to go through the whole rigmarole of having to reduce the dose slowly before finding another antidepressant that may or may not help with my weight, skin pigmentation or tiredness but in doing so make other things worse.

To summarise

Anyway, it is what it is. I guess this is also about me trying to love myself too but it’s a little difficult when I feel like a whale. Let’s hope it passes.

Speak soon.