Total Sensory Deprivation and Back-up Drugs

well, not exactly, but still... if you know me, you know i hate (hate, hate, hate, HATE) being chemically dependent. i despise taking any medicine at all, but i acknowledge that sometimes it has to be done in order to re-boot my system, or to kick-start it into healing. the fact that the stupidity being termed by my doctors as "fibromayalgia" makes it impossible to live without some sort of medication is highly irritating. but the truth is i was completely non-functioning at the onset (those of you that had to put up with me/helped me through this time understand how bad it was) and i couldn't do my job or, well, anything, so something had to be done. same with the panic disorder - occasionally that gets out of hand, and i have no choice. eventually i managed to wean myself off everything but the zoloft (doing double duty, since it also helps with the panic disorder) and tylenol pm or benedryl to go to sleep at night. this is not really the best decision due to the crazy stupid amounts of chronic pain, but i deal the best that i can. i know what (most of) my limits are and i try to keep myself working.

but once again i'm a mess, for mostly totally different reasons. it got to the point that i was (am) sleeping 12-14 hours a day - and not because my body's exhausted and shutting down, like with the fibro, but simply because i can't bear to be conscious any more than necessary. it's just so much easier to deal with the world if i'm asleep. yes, i know this is avoidance and ridiculous, but that doesn't change the fact that i got to the lowest point i've ever been. i truly hit my emotional bottom, and again something had to be done. so when i went to the doctor's on friday (p.s. my cholesterol has gone down 20 points, so no meds for that, thank goodness), we discussed. she put me on something for the restless leg syndrome, which has gotten way worse lately (i'm sleeping all the time, but it's not good sleep, so i'm getting more pain when i'm awake), emergency ambien for the bad nights, and she upped my zoloft from 100 mg to 150. i'm having minor side effects, but nothing horrible. i feel a little weird, slight dull headaches, nausea after i take the requip (rls med), but overall, i can deal. my body seems to be adjusting pretty well and fairly quickly. the hardest to deal with is the increased mental alertness - i know that sounds silly, but suddenly i need to be doing a lot of things, only i really don't have anything to do. i'm up, i'm alert, i'm awake, but i don't really want to be. it's going to take some adjustment to get my "what i feel like doing" to line up with "what my body's ready for." because my body's ready to go, but i really just want to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head. only i can't, because i've got too much energy. ah, well. some day i'll be able to pull my emotional state up. hopefully being "up" physically will eventually force my spirits there as well. we'll see. but that's the update for now....