Lexapro, day 15. About halfway through the first month, thought I should do a check-in. So, I have pretty mixed feelings about this particular med.
• On the plus side, I used to go around with incredibly tense shoulders and upper back, and would have to ask Kevin to massage it pretty much every day, take long hot baths to try to relax, etc. That just — went away with the Lexapro. It was sort of weird, but very effective.
• My face has also been breaking out a lot this last year, much more so than normal, and that also mostly stopped with the Lexapro. (I got a pimple starting yesterday, but classes start tomorrow and I’m not done with my syllabi yet, so let’s put that down to a spike of situational anxiety that will likely go away per usual once the semester actually starts.)
So those two together tell me that I was definitely over-stressed, probably anxious, and that the Lexapro helped.
• I switched to taking it before bed, which is definitely better for me; I sleep well, and I’m not slammed with tiredness during the day.
However:
• I feel a little tired all day. I’m going to try taking it at dinnertime, instead of just before bed. I’m also wondering if I should ask my doctor about cutting my dosage in half — I’m taking 10 mg now, so could go down to 5 by cutting the pill in half. We have a follow-up scheduled in two weeks, so I’m not sure if I should just wait for the follow-up, let the med have a full month to settle into my body, or contact her now and suggest going down in dosage.
• The tiredness is probably contributing to the fact that I haven’t been able to motivate to exercise for the entire two weeks I’ve been on it. This is weird for me — usually I manage to do a minimum of 20-30 minutes on the treadmill daily, and often another exercise session in the day. It’s worrisome. I think about exercising every day, but I just can’t seem to motivate to actually start doing it.
• Relatedly, it’s harder to care in general. For the first week, that was sort of a relief — things that Kevin or the kids did that would have irritated me, that I would have had to consciously ‘let go,’ I just didn’t mind. Not caring about the bad stuff is kind of nice.
• But on the flip side, it’s also hard to care about things I’m normally dutiful about, like exercise, or e-mail. I already was having trouble getting myself to deal with e-mail, but now, it’s noticeably worse. There are so many things I’d rather be working on — and I *am* working, Lexapro hasn’t kept me from writing or sewing or organizing the basement or gardening. I don’t expect it to interfere with teaching either — I love teaching. But things that don’t have some sort of intrinsic reward for me, that are just duties? Almost impossible to motivate to do.
Anyway, that’s where I am. It’s made my life better in some ways, worse in others. I don’t really want to be living a life where my anxiety is driving me to accomplish things all the times — that doesn’t seem so healthy. But I also don’t want to stop exercising or dealing with my e-mail. Hopefully we can find a happy medium.