Medicationing Update

I had my meeting with my substitute psychiatrist today. It was passable. She had planned to switch me onto Zoloft. My mom was in the meeting with me, and we had discussed the different classes of drugs used to treat depression (ie MAOIs, tricyclics, SSRIs, SNRIs, and atypical antipsychotics like Seroquel for people who're bipolar). My mom thought we should ask if I could go on a SNRI because I also have problems with social anxiety, and they've been shown to be helpful with anxiety. We had a long discussion with my psychiatrist, and she's decided to start me on Effexor (at 37.5mg/day). I have to taper down the Celexa and taper up the Effexor now. Hopefully the Effexor will be at least marginally useful. If it does help, it should keep me out of the Oubliette, which I really want. I hate having to play Russian Roulette with all the medications. At least she promised not to put me on Paxil. I still have my appointment with the psychologist tomorrow to "check in", and I've managed to wrangle it such that both my parents will be there. They both want to keep me out of hospital too, and I want to get my dad more involved because so far it's only been my mom going to my appointments with me.

It was awkward in the appointment I had today because my mom insists on saying all these silly things. She gave everyone a big speech about how you need CBT and medication to treat depressoin, which everyone already knew. She kept complimenting me on my supposed medical knowledge. I actually know very little about medicine. I have a collection of a few facts, especially about anatomy and weird diseases, but I don't have any formal training or education. She keep asking me for medical advice and I keep telling her to see a real doctor because no one should take advice from me.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to go out to a park with my dog, little brother, and Dad. I haven't been outside in a while and my brother never gets out. Like me, he's always on the computer. Hopefully my dog will enjoy herself too. She's very friendly and full of energy and she loves to go out and smell new things.