So I've been trying so hard to stay happy and cheerful and not let my depression seep through in my journals but I don't want to just put on some fake persona, hide behind a mask, for all of you, so I'll update on what's actually going on at the moment.

So they're still fiddling with my medications...I'm back at the target dose but it isn't helping at all. My urges have gotten so much worse, partly I think because of the meds, and I think my discharge date from my group is coming up and that doesn't help, either.

I've been feeling so restless and anxious. Yesterday I was exhausted and so I tried to take a nap but I had a panic attack and couldn't fall asleep--I was sweating profusely and it was awful where my thoughts were going. I've been going to bed around 1am, which is late for me. Thing is, I often don't want to sleep because I find it boring, and so I'll keep waiting up, but then my depression gets progressively worse as the night goes on and then I'm stuck with ridiculously high urges and nobody near me is awake because its not "normal" awake times. Pftt...frustrating.

I've been getting this bad feeling for a bit, though it went away for a week or several days, which is a sort of numbness over my body. I think what happens is when my emotions are so overboard, my body blocks everything out. So I don't feel or think anything--neither positive nor negative. And I can't get anything done because its like I'm not real, everything else is surreal, and I'm floating. I think someone used a good term the other day to describe it to me, its like I'm on auto pilot.

I hate the feeling.

Anyway, that's what I'm feeling at the moment. I've been sitting at my computer for four hours now (with some breaks, yes, and allowing myself to eat and take in liquid) and I've gotten little done. Sometimes this way of dealing with things seems okay, but it often causes more problems later on, because the next day I usually can't remember what happened the day before. Which makes it that much harder to try and describe it to my therapist/doctor.

Its almost as if I'm in this bubble and nothing can get a response out of me. Yeah, I'm depressed, but when this numbness comes on, its not even depression. Nor anger, nor happiness. Its nothing. That's why I hate it so much.

Typing helps to get me out of it, which is why I'm trying to write so much, because it helps to ground me.

I think the reason I do this is because I'm usually a very over-analytical person. Sure, I've had my emotional times too (quite often, I may add), but there are certain emotions that I have a hard time expressing to others/admitting to them that I'm having these feelings (anger, sadness, pretty much anything besides happy-cheerfulness...which is why I smile even when I don't mean to). Its like I feel guilty for not displaying a huge grin on my face. And so even if I'm alone, I've gotten into this habit of blocking out emotions. I sit and think about one thing intensely and I can no longer think of it.

The numbness kinda hurts, though, mainly the after effect. because if its at night, the next day I wake up with an "emotional hangover" where I'm filled with this horrible amount of guilt for the day before, forcing me into my famous chorus of "I'm sorry"s.

No therapy today...I never have it on Wednesdays.

I see the doctor later this week, though, and I don't know what she'll say when I discuss with her the numbness, the urges, the depression, the nausea. Sigh. I hate switching meds but I really don't think my current ones are helping at all.

, Eli.