Well, well...it's been quite awhile since I updated. I checked my last actual blog post that wasn't poetry and it was from a month and a half ago!
I saw my therapist and since nothing new was happening, we decided to check back in 3 months. So my next appointment isn't until November. But that is fine with me.
I tried to quit smoking about a month ago, before my husband and I went on our anniversary trip to Hawaii. I stayed off the cigarettes for about 3 weeks and felt pretty down. I didn't understand why I had been doing so well for the last 9 months and then suddenly I felt depressed. I talked to my psychiatrist about it and she said we would wait til my next visit and see how I was doing but that she could prescribe an anti-depressant as well if I was open to that idea (which I'm really not.) She said if we did that, I run the risk of the anti-depressant sending me into a manic state. So I said we would just hold off and see how I was doing. Next week I go back in for a checkup.
Well I wasn't able to stay off the cigarettes and about a week ago started smoking again. Suddenly, my depression lifted. I don't know much about the effects of nicotine on the brain but I am convinced that it can effect mood. I did a little research and found out anxiety and depression (among other things) can be symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. Great. So when I do finally quit, I have a nice, several weeks long depression to look forward to. It's crazy how things we do affect our brains in ways we don't even think about or realize.
That's about all to update now. Winter is coming and the snow will be here any day. I hope I handle the winter ok this year. Last year I was pretty depressed for a couple of months, but I was also still on the med rollercoaster and hadn't found Zyprexa yet. I am hopeful that this winter, things will be different. I just have to settle in for hibernation :) Since I'm a stay at home mom to 3 year old twins, I don't do much or get out a lot in the winter. We'll see how it goes.
