A is for.

After a couple of days shooting other things, I am now going back to Fat Mum Slim's Photo a Day Challenge for April, mostly. I say mostly because the first 4 challenges over the first 4 days of April are supposed to be 1, 2, 3, 4 respectively. I am skipping the number challenges as I know there will be at least 4 days in April where I will want to take more personal photos about things happening in my life and will therefore be skipping some challenge days. However the rest of the months challenges are based on the alphabet, with the first day being A is for..., the second B is for... and so on, until the last day of April is suppose to be Z is for...

To be honest, I'm not sure if I will get the whole alphabet covered in April. Also not sure what I am going to photograph for Z? I think the closest zebra is almost 3000km away from where we live. Still, I will hopefully think of something by the end of the month. I am going to steer away from 'easy' shots for this one, not going to do A is for Apple, B is for Banana, C is for Cat, D is for Dog, E is for Egg, etc, just photographing random things that I can easily find which are fairly meaningless. Since the April challenges were loaded online I have been trying to think of things for each letter that are actually meaningful in my life, that are important or say something deeper about me, who I am, the life we live here. Obviously some letters will be a lot harder than others, but I will try to do what I can, and for a few letters, there are so many different choices of things for me to photograph that I will have to try and figure out which one is more important.

A was difficult for me, one of the most important influences in my life starts with the letter A, and yet, that subject isn't what I chose to photograph. I have chosen instead something which seems really vital to this project, this blog, and this particular journey I am taking. For me at the moment, A is for Antidepressants. I have been on them for 4 weeks now, although I have been suffering from depression for more than half of my life, I'd never been able to actually see someone about it until 4 weeks ago. Even then it came about from them asking me about my mental state, and not about me being able to open up about it to start with. I will be writing more about that and what got me to this point in the About Me section of this website, once I get into the mind frame where I can sit down and actually put it all into words.

I was lucky I guess, with the antidepressants. I was 18 weeks pregnant when I was prescribed them, and there are no Category A antidepressants to take during pregnancy. Category A medicines have no known adverse reactions. Category B medicines are listed as "No risks have been found in humans." but research isn't quite far enough to classify them as completely safe during pregnancy. Still, the doctors believe that the risk I posed to myself and the baby outweighed the possible risks from the medicines.

There are however, a hell of a lot of adverse side effects from these things, and being pregnant means that I can't change over to a different medication to see if the side effects would improve without posing a risk for the baby. Still, while the first 3 days were awful, nausea, dizziness, sleeping for 22 hours a day, things have improved. At least there is no nausea or dizziness any more, i've started to get some appetite back, and managing to get through some days with only as much sleep as before, although I could easily still spend all day in bed if I had the choice, and probably go without eating for a day and still not feel hungry.

I find it slightly worrying though that the medical professionals warned me of the nausea and dizziness, but there was no warning about the sleepiness, lack of energy, lack of appetite, and complete sexual inhibition. Things I am still struggling with but I am hoping will improve with more time.

To be honest, I can't tell if they are doing anything or not. I think they might be, but that may just be in my head. While I am still having my bad days, I think maybe I am not having as many bad days as I would without the, but the nature of depression, I may have been fairly stable either way. They aren't the instant happy drug that I always thought they would be. If anything, I feel kind of flat since I've been on them, not feeling up, but at the same time, not feeling so down as I probably would have been otherwise. I did notice that I didn't cry when listening to a certain song that has always brought me to tears, so maybe that is something, and I'm not feeling so anxious about everything happening as I had been before starting them.

I know though, that it is not just the medicine that is going to change things. I have my first psychologist appointment tomorrow, which is really scary for me, I am not good at opening up about these things. But the doctors highly recommended that I go speak to someone. I know that the support from my husband, the only person who knows what I am going through and is supporting me through this, is making a big difference, as is this blog project. Even with nobody reading it (as I am to scared to share it with anyone), just being able to open up and get things written down and made public, helps. I guess, with depression, one of the most important things we can do is speak up, not be afraid to talk about it, even if no one is listening. I mean, it has to be far better when people listen and support you, but just opening up and speaking about it at all I think helps get some of it out and make sense of it all.