Job hunting serious mode

[ritaxis]

Edit: I have applied for five jobs, including the one I actually want but dropped the ball on a few months ago: it's open again.


I have applied to four jobs in 32 hours. A preschool job, an afterschool job, an online student success representative job, and a writing job. Email applications are easy to crank out when you get over the weird presentations that crazy hiring managers indulge in.

Emma's wedding is the day after tomorrow!

And now to clean the refrigerator. . . for a side dish in a well-stocked potluck for over a hundred people, how many pounds of cucumber salad do I make?

And here's my observations on my anti-depression experiments.

So I ave a personality that flirts with depression -- or rather, a physicality that flirst with depression, because excessive sadness is rarely the issue for me. Even now, my sadness has not been excessive for the circumstances. I can feel joy: I was even able to feel joy in the worst part (which was May and June, I think). Sometime in the spring I went into some pretty heavy stuff though. I struggle with spaciness and flakiness at the best of times. It's worse when I forget that I'm struggling with it, and best when I'm busy and engaged in something. Anyway, it got bad ewnough that I was worried about the possibility of incipient dementia -- I was sweeping the kitchen floor for three days and it still wasn't swept, for example. And we won't go into details about my car registration.

The doctor said that I wasn't spacy like a demented person, I was spacy like a depressed person. Okay. He suggested Lexapro. That was an experience. I wasn't as surprised as I might be because I have extreme and anomalous reactions to just about reverything that has any kind of stimulative property -- coffee, tea, whatever. You start with half a dose, and then a week later you go into a full dose (10 mg). My nervous system went whacko. My muscles were so tense that it hurt to walk. If I was sitting my legs were jumping. I could stop them, but them my fingers would be tapping. I could stop that, but then my teeth would be chattering. I could stop that, and then my thumbs would be twirling. And so on. So I quit. But I noticed that I was, actually, now depressed in the strictest definition -- low and dull and slow. So I tried half a dose for a week and a half. It was the same, only less. I thought I might be able to bear it, but it was too awful.

The doctor suggested Zoloft but warned it might make me sleepy. I thought no, I don't need to be sleepy. That's something else I struggle with. By this time my friend Mary was here and we were trucking around town together a lot and I figured whatever I did could wait.

Also I had started foilk dancing on Friday nights. This is a challenge for me because I have severe problems with right and left and it's a big challenge to physically focus -- I get exhausted, mentally, long before I'm too tired physically to dane. But I thought it was doing me some good. However, I noticed after a bit that while I was dancing much better at the beginning of the night, I was running out of focus earlier and earlier. But the first night I had been able to go all night . . . the first night was while I was still on the Lexapro. So I thought -- stimulant. That's what I need, a stimulant. And I figured there was a stimulant I could control better than others: coffee. I had already noticed that I tolerate caffeine much better when I "need" it: when I have to drive at night or something, I am less likely to have the two-day's worth of ick after I drink the coffee.

So last Friday I made a half a cup of half-strength coffee around noon, and I did beautifully. It was live music night -- the place was full of Bulgarians and Turks and Armenians, all energetic and fast and bright -- it was the first time I was able to dance enough to actually get sore legs.

And the next day everybody remarked on how good I looked, how well I seemed to be doing . . .

I think I have a prescription. I have other friends who I can ask to demand things from me when Mary goes home. And the combination of a bit of stimulant and an activity which is both physically and mentally demanding to ramp up my nervous system seems to work quite well.

Comments

[redbird]

3. Okay, that's a pulled-out-of-the-air number, and I don't know how many people are bringing side dishes to the potluck. (If all 100 are contributing, cut that in half; if this is more "a dozen of us cooking for a hundred," 3 pounds might not be enough.)

Excellent that caffeine is working for you that way.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I hope caffeine continues to be effective for you.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Congrats on finding something that works. Sounds like the Lexapro worked in so far as it gave you a taste of what state you need to be in to function well. Hope the coffee continues to work. Sometimes, self-medication is pretty darn good.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I have noted your findings with interest. I have been having problem with depression recently (with far less excuse than you have!) and I have found that strenuous exercise is definitely a mood enhancer.

I do already drink a fair bit of tea, but I might try the effects of a shot of coffee before exercise and see what that does.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Good for the coffee! I've drummed since I was a kid and nobody seems to think it's from being depressed.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Some people naturally tap and drum. This was not only not natural for me, it was wild and compulsive and made me feel like I was spinning out of control -- like I was a puppet on a string that was being yanked around by a crazy person. I don't think that it was from the depression but from the medicine. I have anomalous reactions to almost everything that has any kind of stimulant property.