In Sickness and in Health

The Brintellix was miserable. Either the side effects of it or the withdrawal from the Lexapro or a combination of both caused sleeplessness, hightened anxiety and shortness of breath so I immediately abandoned it and went back to the Lexapro. I used to be able to power through the side effects of a new drug but I'm weaker now and can't weather it as easily. My "pdoc" suggested Lithium. I tried it several years ago prescribed from a different doctor. That doctor paired it with another drug called Lamictal. Lamictal can cause a side effect of a skin rash that can become quite dangerous if not caught in time. As luck would have it, I noticed early signs of some kind of skin change on the sides of my torso. When I showed him he didn't want to take any chances so both the Lithium and Lamictal were stopped and we went on to something else. I never learned if Lithium may have been of any help. So now I've told my current doctor that I'm not opposed to trying it again by itself. I'm finding it so hard to care.

Things are progressively getting worse in ways that leave me feeling utterly powerless. This depression is like a slow, creeping fog that permeates every nook, cranny, crevice, gap and aspect of my life. I've written a couple of times in this blog that my situation has affected my marriage. It's becoming serious now as my wife is requesting counseling for us.

We recently went on a family vacation that I tried to enjoy as best I could but my inability to do so ultimately caused several instances of unrest and tension. What should have been a relaxing, memorable getaway degraded into frazzled nerves and resentment several times. Mostly my fault. I have a low irritability threshold that rears its ugly head at all the wrong times and wrong places. Vacations are very important to my wife. For this most recent one to be a bad memory has me feeling guilty and insensitive. Since returning back to our daily routine, we have not been getting along. I blame her, she blames me. Stalemate.

I spoke to my counselor about possibly seeing us both to discuss our marital problems but she wants to speak to my wife alone first. We saw a counselor a few years ago but he bluntly told us that I need to get myself together first before the marriage can be addressed. My wife did not like him. We saw him twice and that was that.

I'm the first to admit that I'm terrible with communication. I've not really had too many friends in my life. I have a younger brother who's the polar opposite of me. We had a falling out a hundred years ago that was completely my fault. We patched things up long ago but many years were lost. It was the biggest mistake of my life.

I struggle with the spoken word. I'm better with writing things down so I can give some thought to prevent foot in mouth syndrome which I experience often. Lack of communication has been the weakest link in the marriage. I'm self absorbed by self pity. My focus is strained. Concentration is lost. It compounds all the problems and bleeds over into the marriage. I don't know how the marriage can be repaired when I can barely keep myself afloat. I have to muster the energy to keep everything together but things couldn't be more daunting right now. One day at a time I suppose.