Yeah, not smart enough for a title on this one ATM...

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I'm better now but I've been having a sh***y week or so. I mean better now as in no longer crying like I was in therapy today. I was scared my therapist would want to hospitalize me. When he asked "How many panic attacks have you had this week?" it scared the s**t out of me and I just kept repeating that I'd not gotten a lot of sleep last night and the last week I've been having exhausting dreams, and I probably have PMS.

It sucked, the drive back. I had to leave therapy for a minute because I thought I was nauseated. I wish I'd thrown up. Something.

I used to cut. Still crave it. Still addicted to it. Yes, it IS a chemical addition. It releases endorphins, or "internal morphine." When you cut yourself you're making your body produce morphine. If you can get addicted to external morphine, it follows that you can get addicted to making yourself produce it, even if you don't know how it feels.

And it feels? Like, for me, today, cold. Just cold and unable to think even a few hours into the future. You just want to either feel nothing or feel something and not be in this limbo. Where there's only this cold and this vague nausea and choking feeling, something between terror and unrest and SO much guilt, always guilt. And all I want to do is sleep or FEEL something. And I know I'd feel something if I cut myself. I'd hate myself, I'd be breaking over a year and a half streak off one of the f*****g stupidest things you can do to yourself. But it would stop the sh***y feeling. The pain is nothing. The pain would be welcome. It feels like being dead or being bound up, like there's emotions I have but can't access but they're there; some part of me is being tortured and I'm outside that part, and even being with that part is better than being shut in myself with this tunnel vision and this horrible sick dull nothing feeling anhedonia.

Anyway I'm better now and, by the way, cutting yourself isn't the same as a suicide attempt so don't get thinking I'm suicidal either. I'm just exhausted and in withdrawl, and this is the only place I can talk about s**t like this.

Oh and don't ever start cutting. You'll f*****g regret it. Every time you have a meltdown you'll have withdrawl to contend with on top of the meltdown.

You're not alone. I have significant anxiety and depression too - enough that my doctor has me off of work since last November to try to get me stabilized with medication, if possible.

I have self-medicated for the stress and the anhedonia and guilt also. I believe that people that are self-medicating or cutting are in a lot of pain and need psychological help. My most recent attempts to self-medicate were with alcohol. This year when my anxiety was reaching the point where I was waking up with panic attacks, I discovered that drinking made it go away. It got to the point where I'd be sitting at work, wondering when I could leave so I could buy some vodka. It was horrible and I knew I was suffering and that this self-medicating wasn't healthy. It's now been two months, and I had to basically stop drinking (I've had like 3 glasses of wine since the New Year's throw-up blow-out) and I'm still going through withdrawal.

I have a job interview tomorrow and I'm nervous about that (meeting new people! what if they offer me the job and the people dont like me!) so I had a few moments of thinking about drinking today; about going to the liquor store and what it would make me feel like, but then I had to talk myself out of it because I know now that it's unhealthy. But I still crave it sometimes, and I still have to tell myself no.

I have had really bad anxiety for years, which masks my depression. Various medications have helped me through the toughest anxiety. I could not function without these meds. PM me if you want med details.

Oh, I've got me some magical pills. OK, don't freak out, they're Rx lorazapam, and I very rarely use them. In fact, I HATE using them. I fear that if I used them every time I had a panic attack I'd be addicted very quickly, but my therapist and psychiatrist both want me to take them more often than I do. ((So do my parents. :\)) So I HAVE that tool (couldn't have stopped cutting without it, I think). It wasn't an option when I had to drive today, though- for the first half hour after taking them it's best that I stay off the road. After that I go from stoned to calm. ((Yes, I'm on a very low dose to take as needed but it hits me like a sledgehammer nonetheless))

My benzo of choice is Clonopin. Tried the Ativan (Lorazepam) but it did the same thing to me - hit me like a ton of bricks and made me feel like a zombie for a good 12 hours. Clonopin is gentler in its onset and action and doesn't last as long - for me anyway it's vastly preferable.

I've tried ALL the SSRI's over the last 9 years so my doc put me on lithium a month ago for the depression. Hasn't done s**t for the depression but it's wiped out my anxiety almost completely. I don't need clonopin except to sleep now, for the first time in 5 months. I saw my psych. today for my first visit post lithium, and when I described how it's helped my anxiety he was stunned. He says it's not supposed to help anxiety. I said "well I have an aspie brain, perhaps I respond differently to medications than NT's". That gave him pause.

Another class of meds that has helped my anxiety is the tricyclic antidepressants like elavil and trazodone. But the lithium doesn't zombie me out like those do. At the moment I'm doing the best since I can remember, thanks to lithium. Weird, but whatever.

Psychotropics are a crap shoot, and I think with aspie brains it's like a crap shoot in the dark. Someone needs to do research! Oh yeah, that's why I'm going to grad school.

Somewhat off topic but related: when I got my official aspie dx yesterday (yeah) the psychiatrist gave me one article, entitled 'Asperger's Syndrome and Terror'. The author basically explains why we have so much anxiety, constantly. I'm going to try to get the article linked or published on WP.

That sounds like a very interetsing article.

I was on Klonopin but it hit me just as hard (and faster) AND hung me over. I don't get hangovers from the lorazapam, which is why I switched to it. I'm just really sensitive to some meds, I think.

The regular (daily) med I'm on, by the way, is Zyprexa, which has gotten a lot of s**t in the news the last couple of years; but I'm taking good care of my healh and last I read (last summer) my blood sugar's fine. I have a crappy metabolism because of the stupid weight gain thing but I'd rather be on Weight Watchers and not like I am when I'm off the Zyprexa. It's horrible/I'm horrible off it. It's the only thing that's ever worked and I've been on a LOT of meds. I know some people hate the idea of "headmeds" but I think of it as I'm probably missing the correct levels of whatever Zyprexa corrects in me; you wouldn't deny a diabetic insulin if he or she needed it, so why deprive me of something that helps ME function? </rant> ((And by the way there's considerably more wrong with me than AS, so yes, I am aware that antipsychotics don't treat AS. I have no idea what disorder that stuff fixes within ME, personally, but whatever it does it helps.))

I rant about the same thing - in fact my favorite job and career-to-be is clinical drug research. Anyway, I too am taking lithium even though it's for bipolar and I dont' have bipolar. As I was saying, who knows how different medications affect aspie brains differently than NT brains? I want someone to figure it out NOW.

Anyway, sorry to hear you still have days like today.