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Thread: My citalopram diary - July 2020

  1. #11
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    Re: My citalopram diary - July 2020

    Thanks - whenever I'm in pain I do prefer to take paracetamol rather than aspirin or ibuprofen.

    Day 9 - I would say that today has been the toughest day since I restarted citalopram. I woke up at 5.30am feeling panicky and I couldn't get back to sleep even though I didn't need to be awake until 7am. I felt so on-edge that I asked my step dad to comfort me - he has never had anxiety disorder before so he can't fully relate, but he tries his best to be supportive. Even while I was working today, I felt constantly on the edge of panic. The work I was doing wasn't particularly stressful or out of the ordinary in anyway, so I think it is the heightened anxiety that I usually get in the first few weeks of starting citalopram. I was getting both physical symptoms and intrusive thoughts. My loss of appetite got worse today - it took me longer than normal to eat my breakfast, and I left about a third of my evening meal. Even when I have hunger pangs I don't feel like eating much at the moment. To make matters worse, it was also the hottest day of the year so far today - the temperature peaked at 34 degrees! After dinner, I felt a bit more relaxed knowing that my working week is finally over, and I laid on the sofa with a fan blowing on me. It was mainly blowing hot air, but it was better than nothing.

    In the evening I sat outside in the back garden on the patio, by the fish pond. This helped me relax a little bit. I also read some more of my Claire Weekes book - I can relate to a lot of it so far.
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  2. #12
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    Re: My citalopram diary - July 2020

    Day 10 - After the awful day I had yesterday, I would say that today is the best day I've had since I restarted the tablets. I slept well last night - I must have had at least 9 hours of sleep and I felt far fewer physical anxiety symptoms than I have done during the week. Also, my intrusive thoughts were more in the background.

    Tonight I went to a barbecue round my sister's house with my immediate family. We also played some fun games like Connect 4 and charades. This also helped to take my mind off things. I originally turned down the invitation, thinking I wouldn't enjoy myself, but now I'm really glad I did go.

  3. #13
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    Re: My citalopram diary - July 2020

    Day 11 - today wasn't quite as good as yesterday - I had some intrusive thoughts and a racing heartbeat in the afternoon, but I did everything I wanted to do. I slept well again last night, like yesterday, and in the late morning we decided to try out a new village walk. Unfortunately the guidebook was a bit out of date and we couldn't find the full route, and the walk wasn't quite as interesting as we thought it would be, but I'm glad we at least tried it. We then stopped off at one of my favourite cafés for a takeaway milkshake and cake on the way home.

    Overall I don't think today was as good as yesterday, but I still think it's better than many of the previous days I've had this week.

  4. #14
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    Re: My citalopram diary - July 2020

    Today was an OK day - maybe not as good as Saturday but better than yesterday, although I was working today. I only had one period in the early evening when I was getting a few intrusive thoughts - sometimes I find that I go through events in the past, before my relapse (even happy or neutral events) and ask myself if I really was happy and relaxed back then. I know this is over-analysing, and I'm looking at those previous events through grey-tinted glasses. This habit only increases my anxiety.
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  5. #15
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    Re: My citalopram diary - July 2020

    Day 13 - unfortunately today wasn't so good, but I still think it was better than Friday. I woke up at 4.30am (it was actually still dark outside) and I didn't manage to get back to sleep for about an hour. During the working day I felt tired and also hot and bothered as we're currently facing very high temperatures and humidity (at least by UK standards!) Working from home in these temperatures is difficult - at least there is air conditioning at the office. I could feel myself sweating and there was one point in the afternoon when I felt my head suddenly jolt forward a bit, and I was afraid I was going to faint or pass out, but thankfully I didn't. I was also having more physical anxiety and intrusive thoughts today, and also felt rather low. I kept thinking "will I recover this time around, or are my best days already behind me?" I have to remind myself that I had those thoughts during my previous anxiety episodes in past years, but I always recovered.

    After dinner in the evening I had a cool shower, so at least this helped me cool down, if only for a few minutes. I also had a choc ice which helped cool me down. Later in the evening I watched a TV programme I recorded a few weeks ago, and read some more of my book. I sat in the garden for a few minutes to cool down later in the evening - it is still really hot indoors.
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  6. #16
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    Re: My citalopram diary - July 2020

    Day 14 - I'm having a really tough time at the moment, and since last night I've actually been feeling the worst I have since restarting citalopram, worse than Friday last week.

    Last night I felt so panicky and had so many intrusive anxious thoughts that I couldn't sleep - whenever I felt like I was about to fall asleep, I would jolt awake again. It was very frustrating and this made my anxiety even worse, as I started worrying about what would happen if I didn't sleep! I could feel my heart pounding so fast and also felt nauseous. This morning I still felt so panicky and it took me a long time to eat my breakfast as my appetite had gone down again.

    I've since continued to feel so awful today, worrying about whether I'll ever get better and whether my best days of life are already behind me! The unbearably hot weather and humidity in the east of England has been making me feel worse as well.

    I called the doctor again this morning, explaining how I feel, and I've been signed off sick from work for the next 2 weeks. During the day today I've been trying to get to sleep but I haven't managed to sleep for more than a few minutes.

    I feel frustrated because I had a fairly good day on Saturday and thought that my anxiety was starting to get better, so this feels like a big setback, but I'm always very up and down for the first few weeks on citalopram. I slept well at the weekend, so it seems strange that I'm starting to have more trouble sleeping now.

    It was my Mum's birthday today, so we've had several family members around this evening. My sister said several things to reassure me, and she also said that I can call or go round when I want, and we will try to arrange some outings together.
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  7. #17
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    Re: My citalopram diary - July 2020

    Day 15 - today has been much better than yesterday. I slept OK last night - I had some chamomile and lavender herbal tea before bed, and also added some water to my air cooler. Thankfully today hasn't been quite so hot.

    In the morning, I had an Epsom salt bath and I felt more at ease afterwards. I looked through some old photos on my phone, and I didn't get those intrusive thoughts questioning whether I was really happy/calm in those days. Then I watched a programme on Amazon Prime, and in the afternoon I played Trivial Pursuit on the Nintendo Wii with my step-dad. I also arranged to go round my sister's for a curry on Saturday night, so that's something for me to look forward to.

    I haven't had many physical anxiety symptoms today, and the intrusive thoughts have been more in the background.
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  8. #18
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    Re: My citalopram diary - July 2020

    Day 16 - I don’t think today was quite as good as yesterday as I had quite a lot of intrusive thoughts and I also felt a bit tearful. My period just started so I think that could have made things worse. It was still better than Wednesday, though.

    I kept myself occupied by watching funny YouTube videos and my nieces came round in the evening - they have also recently been going through anxiety-related illnesses, so we shared our experiences.

    I also spoke to a couple of my online friends about my anxiety - they were both very understanding and I felt relieved to have told them.
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  9. #19
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    Re: My citalopram diary - July 2020

    Thank you for keeping this up Sparkle! As someone who's about to be on the same journey it's nice to see how it's affected you and it seems to be getting better slowly, but surely.
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  10. #20
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    Re: My citalopram diary - July 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by Aleman200 View Post
    Thank you for keeping this up Sparkle! As someone who's about to be on the same journey it's nice to see how it's affected you and it seems to be getting better slowly, but surely.
    Thanks. I do feel that overall, things are slightly better than they were before starting the meds, but I think I still have a long way to go. In particular, I'm still getting a lot more intrusive thoughts than I would like.

    Day 17 - I think today was about the same as yesterday: a fairly mediocre day. The day started off fairly badly but things improved as the day progressed. I slept fairly well again, but I had a couple of bad dreams just before I woke up, which gave me an unsettled start to the day. The first bad dream was about my favourite teddy bear (which has sentimental value) falling apart, and the second dream was that I was walking around a supermarket on holiday when an old song I used to like popped into my head - I then realised that the song was 16 years old and this made me feel panicky as I got a "where has all the time gone, am I going to run out of time?!" type of feeling.

    Later in the morning, I thought I would watch some films on Amazon Prime. I decided to watch In Time as it came up on my watch list and I enjoyed it when I saw it at the cinema when it first came out in 2011. This was a big mistake - the last thing I need right now is dystopian sci-fi films, and it fed into my current intrusive thoughts about the passing of time and death. I think I will stick to comedies for the time being. Spoiler alert - in the first half hour of the In Time film, there is a really upsetting scene where the lead character's mother dies, and what makes it even sadder is that he was just a few seconds away from being able to save her life. I don't often cry at films, and even when I do, it's silent weeping, but I remember when I saw that scene in the cinema back in 2011, I was so distressed I had to gulp down some water as I was afraid I was going to start sobbing loudly in front of everyone! And that was over half a year before I was first diagnosed with anxiety and depression in 2012.

    Later in the afternoon, I started an online programming tutorial. This gave me more of a sense of achievement.

    In the evening, I went round my sister's for a curry, cooked by her husband. It was very nice and I had a good time - we played Connect 4 and Monopoly after dinner. My niece also gave me a copy of a book she had about overcoming unwanted intrusive thoughts. From what I've read so far, I think it will be helpful.

    I think I need to be kinder to myself and not push myself to do things that might trigger my anxiety during these early stages of recovery - if I want to watch a film, I will stick to comedies or something light-hearted for now, rather than disaster movies, dystopian end-of-the-world sci-fis etc.

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