It has been two weeks since I have stopped taking my anti-depressants and I have discovered two very obvious things. The first would be I am more angry when I’m not on my meds. It’s strange and a little jarring how quick to anger I am.  So that is something I need to work on. 

The other thing I have noticed, and is somewhat tied to the first, is I have no patience for people’s bull shit. At first I justified my behavior that it’s not putting up with their behavior but I realized there is no excuse for me to act like that to anyone for any reason. So that too is something I need to work on. 

In regards to writing I haven’t done so much. I’ve written this and another blog and found my thoughts were more coherent and lineal. That is great. As to my novel… I’ve separated the files into proper folders on my computer. I did a short but of editing but nothing else. 

I have also discovered I am way more chatty not medicated. Really talkative in fact. So it makes sense why I always fought it in the past. I went from one personality to the next. 

I will be keeping a closer eye on my activity and monitoring my progress with training myself to respect people no matter how stupid they sound/are.  In addition, working on my anger. There is no need for the levels I reach. Seriously, I go from a 1 to 8 in a 10 point scale in a matter of seconds. 

In an attempt to kill time I decided the best approach would be to blog. Plus I need to do some introspective examination. 

This morning, after only 2.5 hours of sleep, I got up early to be an extra in an indie film. I got here at 6:30 and have been here since. The thing about film is its a lot of hurry and wait. The last couple hours have all been about make-up and, to be fair, realistic make-up for a horror film can’t be rushed at all. The slower the work the better it looks.

I arrived knowing no one. And in the midst had to get out of my usual silent, shy, personality and had to attempt to make friends. I had done well up until I let my usual trash talking bullshit take over. 

This one dude, Jesse, is a super cool guy and we had hit it off really well, bull shitting, but then I took it too far and asked the Ill-fated question of “where did you find coffee guy.” 

“Coffee guy” is dubbed accurately. The only thing is he didn’t really do so well. Either lack of experience or because of technique he had the usual monotone, dead behind the eyes, delivery that comes with inexperience. This one bitch began directing and telling him how to do it, which with even my limited experience is a big no-no. I rolled my eyes and lived tweeted the entire experience. (Luckily the film is about technology trying to kill the human race so it played very well with my cattiness.) 

In reality I have no room to talk, I’m a fucking extra. I should have known my place. Show up, do what your told, don’t make waves, and say “thank you for the opportunity” when you leave. I know this but I still find it difficult. As a result I potentially alienated myself from having a writing contact friend thing. Little did I know that coffee boy is friends with Jesse. Which I learned following my bitchy question. Since that time he hasn’t spoken to me. Oh well. Another notch in my belt to remind myself to keep my mouth shut. Let’s just say this thing is getting tight. At least I’ll get that hour glass figure. 

I have always had this delusional thought that my anti-depressants somehow inhibit any and all of my creativity. Because of these “hunches” or “fears” I have been on and off of my meds over the past 12 years. In the last year I had just come to conclusion that I need to be on them. There is just no escaping that reality. Without them I’m unpredictable and I tend to do “bad things” in a roundabout way of making myself happy. Since that time I haven’t written anything. I hardly ever blog. The moment I begin to write it peters out and I don’t finish. I hadn’t noticed this fact until the other day when I met up with an old friend. 

My buddy tony and I spend months without speaking. After a long time of radio silence he or I will shoot off a text for a lunch meet up. We get together and bull shit about story ideas or pitch each other our film ambitions. This last get together, when we exchanged our Christmas gifts, he mentioned that since he’s started taking Lexapro (one of my old meds) he hadn’t be able to write. The ideas just don’t come as easily as they used to. At the time I had resigned to my permanent requirement of medication to stable out my moods. I even told him that he just needed to push through the fog to the other side. 

Since then I’ve been thinking and realized how can the two of us have the same thought. I have never voiced my concerns about the anti-depressants. So how is it that he would think and say the same thing? 

At a certain point we have to trust our gut feeling. I know that in this situation it’s playing with fire, but I do miss the free flowing of creativity that had once poured from me. Now it’s just a trickle. If even that much. 

Another part of me (maybe the rational side) thinks this is crazy talk. I sound like a schizophrenic who says that the doctor is trying to poison him. Or the manic bipolar that likes the rapid mood swings. But mine isn’t really that. It’s more of a state of mind. I feel like a drone. There’s nothing unique about me when I take them. 

Regardless I’m going to slowly step off of them. I want to start taking notes and seeing how I feel. Maybe my prior personal diagnosis was true and I just can’t be without them. Perhaps the medication is a permanent staple in my life. 

I want to write more than anything. My heart is yearning to do so and my brain won’t stop telling me to get up and form words into sentences. More than likely it’s because it has been some time, a good chunk in fact, that I haven’t written. It appears that once school was over my brain shut down entirely and has only recently rebooted, which is s good thing considering the new semester starts a week from Monday. 

This will be the semester that I actually take a journalism course. Up until this point it’s been random classes that fit my set schedule. They were great and I did enjoy them, but they weren’t why I am re-attempting college. 

I still can’t get over the fact that my major is journalism. The memories of me saying “absolutely not” to the subject are still very vivid in my mind. In high school I had no interest in telling, what I called reality, “the truth.” I preferred to live in fictitious places and stories with my own characters for company. (Not that that is no longer the case, by the way.) What collegiate goals I had in high school were English or theatre, two of the most worthless degrees in the modern world. It is a terrible and cold to say such a thing but it is true. My husband has beat that into my skull and I can’t forget that unless I plan on teaching those particular subjects they really serve no greater purpose to the world at large. Truthfully, the same could be said about journalism. 

My husband is more than obsessed with money. Another word should be created just to describe his craving and desire for cash. Although it isn’t just small amounts of the green backs. Oh no. It is wealth. Opulence. He wants to be his father. The man, my father-in-law, is hard working for sure, but a giant douchebag. He has no interest in sharing his “wealth.” And I say it in quotes because I think most of it is exaggerated in his telling. As my husbands dad likes to say, “don’t let facts get in the way of a good story.” It is this man and his money that has my husband bewitched, for lack of a better word. At one point my husband was proud of me for going back to school (and he still is) but now he’s repeated, on a few occasions now, that journalists don’t make much money. He got that piece of information from the old miser. 

Maybe I am just truly bohemian where I am more concerned with how I feel with the job that the return. Charlie is the complete opposite. Well, in the beginning. He wants the cash but doesn’t want to do the work of he doesn’t like what he’s doing. For instance, he has researched the shit out of how much teachers salaries are (he’s studying to be a high school teacher) and what level of education brings in the most income. I worry that he hasnt taken into consideration whether he will like working with kids. Given his past history for impatience with children I feel my concern is warranted. But more than anything I am scared that he will be just like his mother and jump from job, to job, to job, to job and then wind up with nothing to show for his efforts come retirement. 

Me on the other hand, my mother gave me stability. She worked for State Farm my entire youth and racked up 40 years of experience with the company. She would probably still be working there if her department hadn’t been moved to Colorado. I think it was this example that gave me my perseverance for staying in one place. Granted I will be jumping ship when I have completed my education, but I am nowhere near that point.