Well it's been a while. A really long while, and I decided I should probably listen to my therapist and journal. Honestly I don't mind making a journal in this manner, as it will at least leave a memory of my passing, although once I eventually die, I doubt there will be anything really memorable at all remaining here. Whatever. I'm here now. Might as well make the best of it.

Right now I'm frustrated with a thing I have no control over. To really put things in perspective I have to skip around a moment. It's important to my thought process. More than a few years back, and to be honest I don't know how exactly it came to be, but I was stressing a lot about a lot and I think maybe I read something, or it was a suggestion from someone, I don't remember, but I figured out a long time ago how to reduce my stress levels. (And to be clear, I'm not taking credit for it, because I can't remember when I started using it, or even if it was my own idea or not).

What I do is I make a list of everything I'm concerned about, everything. From chores to interpersonal relations, bills, repairs, anything I need to do. I then break this list up into two lists. First is a list of things I can control, and the second is a list of things I can't control. Things that go on the second are like, waiting for a doctor to call back, or waiting for someone else to do something before I can move forward on the task. Like right now, I'm waiting to see what my finances are going to be this month before I buy another part my house needs. that's a second list item at this step.

Once I separate what I can do, and can't do, I toss aside the second list. No point in stressing over what I can't control. Then I take the list of things I can control, and I break it down into two more lists. The first list is things that I absolutely have to take care of right meow today, and the second is things I can put off for later, or things I should put off for later. When that's done, I set the second list aside and then try to prioritize the first list. I put them in order of importance, and try to take care of them in order, one at a time, and if I'm feeling ambitious, which to be honest isn't often these days, I'll pick up that second list and break it down further, into things I can put off, and things I probably shouldn't put off, and try to tackle the list of things I shouldn't put off, not in any particular order.

So back to the thing I have no control over that is frustrating me.

I've struggled with depression most of my life. I'm struggling with it now. There's a few parts in my life that are problematic. Like my ability to maintain employment. Specifically I should word that as my inability to maintain employment. Alright, I'll delve into a much deeper post, and for those of you that don't want to wait around... I'm frustrated with a prescribing doctors inability to listen and comprehend. I hate how someone with a phd knows more about my body than I do.

The issue is a medication called Aplenzin. For those that don't know, it's basically another formulation of Wellbutrin. Consider that wellbutrin and it's generics are buproprion coupled with hydrochloride, whereas Aplenzin is buproprion coupled with hydrobromide. While the main component is buproprion, when I take wellbutrin or any of its generics I don't want to eat, and eating anything at all makes me nauseated. So it's something I have to take with food, but then the moment it's in my stomach it's an uncomfortable fight to keep everything, including the meds in my stomach.

While the aplenzin doesn't affect my appetite, and I can eat or not eat when I take it, and other than intermittent aphasia it doesn't have any severe side effects for me worth mentioning. Guess which one they prescribed me. Well Walgreens, you've just wasted your time counting out those pills, printing a label, and putting it in a bottle. I won't be taking any buproprion sr. Personally even if I lose my ability to speak, for the rest of my life, being able to function I think would be a worthwhile trade.

And this is all coming in at the end of a trial of Latuda. Honestly, if I wanted to feel like shit and feel sick all the time, I'd go become a teacher in a gradeschool. Children are walking petri dishes of questionable origin. Take the pill at night because it causes drowsiness, for about 3 hours... and then, I'm wide awake and I have to move, or I swear my skin is going to leave without me. and after another 4 hours of skin crawling have to move or else feeling, I finally get to sleep, but it's a tooth and nail fight the whole way. I've tried taking it in the morning, but that just makes me feel worse, since I have to eat to take the pill.

And then there's that fun side effect of pretty much every anti-depressant. Sex drive becomes non-existent. Eventually my age is going to do that in anyways, and it's not like I have a partner right now, but there's very few pleasures in life for someone that is depressed as it is, and the dr's think that taking away one of them is a good idea when someone is depressed? Honestly, just how far up your own asses are your heads? Does it smell funny to you? Do you enjoy the taste? I just can't seem to wrap my head around doctors that prescribe medication, and big pharma that send these compounds of questionable origin out into the world. And here's a terrible true thing to say about big pharma. If it was really their goal to help people, medication would be cheaper. Each pill of aplenzin at the dose I used to take is now worth north of $500.00.  That's $15 THOUSAND Dollars for a 30 day supply.  No wonder my insurance doesn't want to cover it.

I read an article recently about willing yourself to die. There's 5 stages of willing yourself to die, and I cover the first 3 all day every day. Stage 4 is waking up and your body saying, hey, it's time to shit, and you say, go for it, I don't care, I'm not moving. So at stage 4 you're willingly lying in your own excrement. I'm not quite there yet. The only reason I get out of bed in the morning, isn't because I don't want to crap all over myself, it's because I don't want to clean it up. And there are some days when that's the only reason I get out of bed, just long enough to use the facilities, and then back to bed.

It's a shitty place to exist, and that's why I'm entertaining the idea to take anti-depressants again. But I just don't know. I just don't know about what to do about my life, or really anything at all right now. There's things on my list that I really need to do today. And I'm not doing them. Every day it's the same task sitting there waiting for me to do it, but I just don't want to. I just don't care to. It's beyond my ability, and I can't force myself to it. Even this trial of Latuda didn't help me get it done.

I want to be social, I want to have lots of friends, but seems I can't even manage that. The few people I try to befriend are more fucked up than I am, and I get burned by them constantly. And I keep reaching my hand out. I don't know what my purpose is, I don't really know why I'm here, but it just feels like I don't have a purpose. There's really no reason for me to be here. I consume resources and make nothing but excrement. Yep, that's my mindset after 7 days on latuda. Great med there. Not only do you get to remain feeling like total shit because of your depression, but it'll help you feel like shit physically as well as causing anal leakage so you're just one step closer to stage 4.

I'm so frustrated. I don't want to live like this, and I don't currently have any say in the matter.