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Message to my new doctor about returning to prozac.
Three days of happy weekend. Tears several times today. Work apparently makes me depressed, although, more subtly, my expectations of myself and my inability to meet those expectations is what makes me depressed. Work just doesn't have any tool to help me manage those expectations.
The division's management meeting with the VP is tomorrow: New Director, his other two managers, and random tech leads. New Director and i have spoken, what, once? since our last meeting with the VP. Monthly report meltdown was last Thursday.
The thought that i am now working a job that requires medication to be tolerable makes me feel like a failure (which ALSO is framing that plays into the downward spiral). I left physics partly because i didn't see how i could participate in the physics community without this same sense of debilitation: i wanted to find a way of living where i could thrive in my natural way of being.
And you know, i have. Amazingly, even those years when i was on-call 24-7 and the Minnow had no money to hire reasonable support and we couldn't get the database quite tuned for load and so on: i was exhausted, but i wasn't crying every time i turned. I was fierce. (Exhausted and sleep deprived.)
What's happened to undermine me so?
I also have therapy tomorrow: yay!
Three days of happy weekend. Tears several times today. Work apparently makes me depressed, although, more subtly, my expectations of myself and my inability to meet those expectations is what makes me depressed. Work just doesn't have any tool to help me manage those expectations.
The division's management meeting with the VP is tomorrow: New Director, his other two managers, and random tech leads. New Director and i have spoken, what, once? since our last meeting with the VP. Monthly report meltdown was last Thursday.
The thought that i am now working a job that requires medication to be tolerable makes me feel like a failure (which ALSO is framing that plays into the downward spiral). I left physics partly because i didn't see how i could participate in the physics community without this same sense of debilitation: i wanted to find a way of living where i could thrive in my natural way of being.
And you know, i have. Amazingly, even those years when i was on-call 24-7 and the Minnow had no money to hire reasonable support and we couldn't get the database quite tuned for load and so on: i was exhausted, but i wasn't crying every time i turned. I was fierce. (Exhausted and sleep deprived.)
What's happened to undermine me so?
I also have therapy tomorrow: yay!
I was in treatment for depression on a prescription of Welbutrin and Prozac from 1994-2000. Since then i have managed my depression through therapy and behavioral changes.
I'm finding myself experiencing the easy tears and sense of overwhelm that led Dr Hsu and i to choose a course of prozac a little less than a year ago. Last year i had had an incredibly difficult summer with both health problems (months of incredibly painful ulcers around the base of my tongue that turned out to be sings of an iron deficiency) and significant work problems.
Between May and July this year my work situation changed the structure of how the team and my boss was laid off. I probably overworked in meeting the milestone we set for July and became burnt out. I also have residual anger about my boss' lay off. I thought once i had some vacation i'd be back on keel, but i find myself returning to the same sense of being distressed and burnt out.
I recognize that there are cognitive changes i need to make. In particular i miss my previous boss' confirmation that i was working on the right stuff and neglecting unimportant tasks. Between his absence and the new structure i am acutely aware that i am unable to determine realistic expectations. I am also aware i am working in an intense way without breaks that help me restore myself.
I know a lot of the tears and distress is work situational, but it seems the issue is my underlying depression. I'd like to ask to go back on prozac.
Dr Hsu proscribed a half dose to start: if that prescription could be sent to Safeway, that would be great. And then if i could have a year's prescription sent to my mail order pharmacy such that they can send a three month supply at a time, that would make my heath insurer happy.
Happy to answer any questions,
[Me]