Thank you so much!

[get the red out]

I don't know anyone here personally, but yesterday I had a terrible crisis with my depression and I reached out here, and your kindness, advice, and experience helped save my ass. That was my second massive meltdown in two weeks, the first was when I was still on a full dose of Effexor, prompting me to go to my new Psychiatrist and tell her I needed a medication change. Today I will see here again and, though she advised against it, I have stepped down and now off Effexor completely. I did that because I needed that poison out of my system since it just kept me functioning on auto pilot with constant thoughts of self-loathing 24/7. I was nauseous last night, but I can handle that temporary physical symptom. Now that I am totally off that stuff, they will have no excuse to try to keep me on it in any dosage. I am not without medication, I have been taking Lamictal in addition to Effexor for about three years and that medication has been a Godsend for me, I believe it has mitigated the potentially horrific side effects of going off Effexor. I have no proof of that, but it seems reasonable to assume.

I feel like I have gained a great deal more insight into my depression, general anxiety, and OCD through this lousy experience, and I know a little more about how to tell if a medication is working for me or not. I think the Effexor was some help for about 5 of the 7 years I took it, then I believe it actually started gradually making my Pure-OCD (OCD without visible rituals) worse, I need to find better verbiage to express problems I may be having with a medication (apparently, merely having a Master Degree hasn't prepared me to speak clearly enough to be believable to Psychiatrists). I WILL find the courage to express myself clearly today, I simply can't afford not to, because I woke up wanting to live! I still hate myself, but do have a desire to live.

I will run my kick-ass agility dog in a competition (called trials) in two weeks, and if my slow butt doesn't cause a mistake, the other dogs in her class will be competing for second place. She is literally the wind and she deserves to be shown off, and I owe her that. I am sobbing now, but not for the same reasons I did yesterday. What a difference a day, and the help of the good people here, and in my non-online life, can make.