When you're stressed: Medicate!

I haven't been writing much lately because I've been on the brink of a suicidal nervous breakdown.

Well, not suicidal. Sort of.

But I'm definitely in the throes of a quarter (third?) life crisis, having realized that I became an adult too fast (taking into consideration that coming from a comfortable family, I probably had the option to live abroad and teach English, or join the Peace Corps. or be a "DFH" for a while and hike the Appalachian Trail (even though at the relevant time I was in the throes of Jappiness)).

For the last year I have been paralyzed with regret that I raced through college, law school, and then into the purchase of real estate and automobiles, and chose a profession that basically locks you into a state, unless you want to spend another three months studying for a two-day test, to permit you to practice your soul-sucking occupation in a different state. It's also a profession where when you graduate, you've already racked up so much debt that when all is said and done, you may as well just go out and buy all the trappings of success, because you figure "Well, what the fuck, right? I'm going to be paying this off forever, so I may as well have nice things..."

Woah. That was a lot of blathering right there.

Well, the point is last Sunday, I went to a shrink for the first time. Because I have been a truly miserable and horrible person for the last... year.

He has me on this weird combination of natural supplements (fish oil - Blarrrrgghf! SAM-e, some odd prescription B-Vitamin called Deplin) and he also gave me a Xanax prescription and a Klonopin prescription. Xanax for general anxiety, Klonopin for sleep.

I have been dutifully taking my vitamins and supplements (especially the Klonopin!) and as a result you know what I've been doing, finally?

SLEEPING!

It's AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZING! Sleeping through the night is like the greatest gift ever. I don't care whether it's a drug-induced sleep or not, it's God-sent.

I bounced into the office on Monday with a smile on my face and a spring in my step... probably because I still had residual Klonopin in my system...

And since sleeping last Sunday night, I've been happy as a clam. Maybe it's a placebo effect, maybe it's sleep, maybe all these gross pills I'm taking are beginning to work, but I'm not having random anxiety attacks while making popcorn, or debating driving my (almost-paid-for) car into a jersey wall.

I'm doing my work, and doing it with minimal whimpering.

I'm also leaving the office promptly at 7:00, because my shrink asked how much I was making, I told him, and he asked me, "So, you leave at 5:00 p.m., every night, right?"

Big ups to my Chasid Psychiatrist. I'd like to get some Valium out of him, because Valium + Mimosa + Brunch = heaven, but for now, I'll just take this newfound quasi-drugged happy haze in which I exist...

Laaaaaaaa.

I even won in Court the other day. Not that that's unusual; I usually win, but I didn't get "anxiety leg-worms" before I went in, and I slept the night before. Hell, I basically didn't prepare at all, went in there, and knocked one out of the park.

So.

I guess my point is this: When you're unhappy, you can try exercise, and you can go to acupuncture, and you can tell yourself that your problems are the problems of the first world, and you should be thrilled that you don't live in a tent in Haiti...

Or you can cave and go to the shrink, and walk out with a fistfull of prescriptions, and a new day on the horizon.

Having seen the light, I choose the latter. All for a $45.00 copay.