i am currently doing a little medical/psychological research on myself. i've begun taking half my dosage of the crazy meds. so far, it is working okay.
i have been wandering around in a sleepy stupor for most of the past five (?) years. i would like to stay awake when i have the day off. i would like to be able to get out of bed after nine hours of sleep and not feel like i am still in the middle of some marathon that has not allowed me to rest. funny, you take the antidepressants because you can't bring yourself to get out of bed in the morning, and then you just can't drag your ass out of bed no matter how much you want to.
my memory - as you can tell from the fact that i don't recall how long i've been on medication - has more holes in it than a chunk of swiss cheese. my attention span is so short that my three-year-old niece can probably beat it. while these aren't serious life-threatening side effects, they are still enough to piss me off. i used to have a fantastic memory and was able to do something - choreography, or lesson plans, or writing, or cleaning my room, or reading a book - for an entire day if i had nothing keeping me from doing so.
having tried just about everything to cure myself of the excessive need for sleep, i decided to try reducing my meds. i figured that the worst that could happen would be that i would start to feel wonky mentally, and i would simply go back to the normal amount. so i started on monday, taking half of my dosage, waiting for some sign that i'm about to flip out and go crazy, but so far i have neither had an outrageous panic attack nor seriously considering harming anyone, myself included (this does not, of course, include bl*ckbuster customers as anyone in their right mind would want to harm a few of them). of course, i don't feel any difference in my inclination to hang out on the couch all day, either. but it's only been five days, so maybe either or both symptoms are on their way. let's hope for the best.