MAOI Wowee!

I can’t remember the last time I felt this physically horrible, excepting legendary hangovers of the past. Perpetually awake, the insomnia just drags me through the night. Occasionally sleeping, only to awaken – wide awake for who knows how long. And then I wake up bright and early. Despite my near-legendary ability to sleep in and get back to sleep whenever I want, when I wake up I am awake for good. With tension, headache, and pressurized psyche.

This week I started my first MAOI, Parnate.

Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) were the first type of antidepressant developed. They’re effective, but they’ve generally been replaced by antidepressants that are safer and cause fewer side effects.

WebMD, I think

It’s the nuclear option of depression meds. There are so many side effects, bad interactions with so many meds, and a restrictive diet that reads like my shopping list for a weekend with the wife out of town. Hot Dogs, bacon, many cheeses, bologna, sauerkraut, pickles, caffeine, alcohol, and so on. They’re not completely off the menu, but if I eat the wrong food, or too much of one of the possibly-wrong foods, or just a randomly bad food, my blood pressure could go all the way up. And then I have some seriously horrible pain and problems. In the meantime, if the food doesn’t get me, I enjoy low blood pressure. Like, actually too low. Which brings lightheadedness, dizziness, confusion, dry mouth, and such. Not to mention the possibility of Serotonin Syndrome. But that’s all just a sample of the litany of complication that is an MAOI.

I was already rocking the dizziness and a world of other junk, but this latest med has brought insomnia, a tension in my neck and shoulders that I haven’t felt in years, headaches, nausea, and some complicated “side effects that might just be in my head.”

Regardless, I feel wound up. I need to remember to take the deep breaths. My stomach is a knot. I’m waiting for the next thing. Could be nothing, could be passing out, could be many things. I’m sure I’ll relax a bit as time goes by and I don’t actually keel over. Until then, I feel awful, on a path to hopefully feeling mentally better. Despite the insomnia, I’m wide awake half the day, then drowsy fatigued until mid evening when insomnia jitters kick in. Sleep, energy, and appetite may improve with 2 weeks. Mood, depression, anhedonia may need up to 6-8 weeks to fully improve. That sucks.

In other news.. I’ve had my last session of ECT last week and I don’t think I’ll miss it. I love going under the anesthesia, and getting a great noontime nap. But not the confusion, memories being erased or dizziness, etc. I had my second to last Ketamine session, I think. That I will miss. But I have to admit the last two sessions were.. weird.

And finally, in a week and a half I get a mental pacemaker installed. That could take up to a year to see benefit.

It’s always good to end on a high note, or a funny note. Leave them smiling. Sorry, not this time. My mood is still not great – just more jittery – which doesn’t make things better. When I’m depressed, all of the many many things we do through our days are grueling. But if I hit a roadblock – Hit my head on a cabinet, spill food, pick up my phone and not know why – there’s an internal meltdown. And if I could, I would allow that internal meltdown to use the dangerously loud voice, to kick something hard, to put my fist through a wall. But I can’t do those things, so they just kind of sneak into the depression and make it all seem worse.

And then there’s the suicidal ideation. They ask me how it is and I prefer not to give a solid answer. It’s .. different. I’m safe. No plan, no intent. But you know what? I have hope. Hope that the surgery goes wrong. Hope the meds clash and cause me to drop dead in an instant. Hope that I’ll go away and I won’t hurt any more. But I guess the point there is that I’m hoping for fate to do something to me. I’m not thinking about how I could do it myself. That’s an improvement, right?

I have filters for everyone. Back to the classic “how are you” question – that’s a great example of the filters. A friend asks? I’m ok. Doctor? I give a bit more detail. Therapist? She gets pretty much everything, just one tiny step up from my wife. Whom I love and sometimes will hold back on the really painful stuff because I don’t want to hurt her. And yet I know how bad that sounds.

My therapist, who I “see” on Thursdays, got a really long answer to how I am. She asked some interesting questions this week, though of course I can’t remember them. But after I talked about My Morbid Hope (good band name) she started asking some very subtle, very well covered questions. I talked about how I had just started the MAOI, etc. And finally she asked me point blank about whether I had any plans or intentions. And through all of this, she’s never called me out to see if I had a plan, or if I was considering acting on it. Which I wasn’t. I figure so much is messed up with meds and therapies, I’m taking time off from thinking about how I can die. But I’m keeping an eye out for nature.