I just had a phone appointment with my psychiatrist in Tucson.

Last week I sorta’ realized that the up-and-down mental health roller coaster I’ve been riding is not only a crappy thing for me, but for my husband, kids, and friends as well. And my blog readers. Can’t forget you all. *sending cyber hugs your way*

So anyway, I told her about what’s been happening ever since I last saw her- the breakdowns, the constant battle with trying to stay on that lower Prozac dosage but always losing the fight, and my general sense of “shit, I’m being crushed by a fucking tidal wave and I don’t know if I’m ever gonna resurface“. All of that in addition to the constant fatigue and fight with my anti-depressant-induced lack of sex drive. This has been going on since the beginning of December, and I just can’t deal with the instability anymore.

I kind of wanted to cry when I told her I know I need to go back on my old dose, which was the highest one I’ve taken. It’s only 10mg more than what I’ve been trying to take, but it makes a huge difference. The bad thing is that it really affects my sex drive and fatigue problems. Like, mentally I do much, much better, but I suffer some physically.

So then she gave me the option that I had a couple months ago: Go back to the higher Prozac dosage, but try adding a small dose of a second antidepressant to enhance my overall energy level, motivation, and sex drive.

I didn’t like that option a few months ago, and I went with the the lower Prozac dosage instead despite the fact that my doctor recommended I try this particular path. While my sex drive has increased, my overall well-being has deteriorated. And honestly, while I love a good fuck on a particular horny day, my mental stability is just one of those things that can’t be sacrificed.

So back on the old dose it is, except this time I’m taking my psychiatrist’s advice and adding a small dose of Wellbutrin to my daily happy pill ingestion. I’d prefer not to feel asexual again, so I figure it’s worth a try. She assured me she feels I’ll be very pleased with the results, and if not, it’ll be easy enough to back off of the Wellbutrin.

I told her I am very sad that I can’t just be normal, to which she replied, “What’s normal?”.

Good question.

Current Mood: Sad

Dude.

A pair of super hot jeans for $11.99 at Express that normally run for $70 equals a SWEET deal.

I’m a clearance rack whore.

Current Mood: Cool

By popular request, we’re gonna talk about hitting the big O today. And I’m gonna share yet again WAY TOO MUCH INFO with you all because brutal honesty on taboo topics (like my penis size blog last week) seems to make for the best discussions on here.

First, the poll:

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And now the other questions: What does it take for you to orgasm? A number of women said last week that they can’t or usually don’t orgasm during the act of sex itself… can you? If so, does it only work in certain positions? Do you need direct clitoral stimulation to orgasm, or can you hit the big O even without it?

Okay… so now for my answers. You ready for ‘em? *blushing*

Orgasming for me has never been difficult until I had to start taking antidepressants. And actually, it wasn’t until I was at the highest dose that I needed to take that I really noticed them affecting me in that way. Since then my dosage has been decreased by a whopping 5 mg, which isn’t a lot but still very much affects me in the bedroom in a good way, thank goodness. I can orgasm during sex, oral, masturbation, whatever, without too much of a hitch. HOWEVER, there’s a major caveat to this: I can rarely orgasm unless I’ve had nipple stimulation as well.

Yes, weird, I know. For some people it’s the clit, but my hot buttons are my nipples. For real. I have orgasmed off of nipple stimulation alone. Add just a little of that to sex, and I melt in a matter of seconds.

Without the nipple stimulation, I can sometimes orgasm, but I either need to be: A) just really freaking horny at the time; or B) I need to have a lot a lot of imagination happening to get me there in addition to direct clitoral stimulation. What kind of imagination, you ask? Seriously, I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about that. I’ve got some fucked up abuse in my history, and I’m rather ashamed about some of the things that I find a turn-on. Don’t worry, I’m sure one of these days I’ll go there… but I need to talk to a sex therapist first.

As for sex positions, although I’m a big fan of doggie-style, I can only orgasm that way if I’ve got the help of a vibrator. The best positions for me to hit the O are either being on top or having my hubby on top. Again, that direct clitoral stimulation is a must.

Okay, I just completely opened up about one of the most taboo topics I can think of… now it’s your turn! Don’t be shy! And if you’re a guy, by all means… you’re welcome to chime in as well.

Current Mood: Playful

Last night I went dancing with James, and by the end of the night I realized I was actually enjoying myself for the first time in, oh, a month or so.

When I crashed and burned a few weeks ago, I was honestly pretty scared. I hadn’t felt that out of control since before I started therapy a year ago. I didn’t feel scared until James looked at me last week, gave me a big hug, and said, “Honey, I’m so glad you’re back. I missed you.” That was only about 24 hours after I started back on the higher dose.

When I heard that, I realized that I’d been under that fog again, just a shadow of who I really am. It never ceases to amaze me how my head clears when I am taking the right amount of medication.

This week has been a bit of a recovery week, and I’ve really been trying to add things to my life that will help this process. I’m making sure I’m getting enough protein- something I’m notorious for leaving out of my diet because I’m not a huge fan of meat. I’ve been getting up early and trying to go to bed at a better time, and I’ve been exercising at the gym every day of the week. It’s all helping a lot.

Today, my body feels like it got hit by a car. You know, that after-hard-workout burn that forces you to fall over and gasp when you attempt to walk up the stairs or lift your arms to wash your hair in the shower. The fatigued muscles feel good, and it’s a reminder to myself why I’m choosing to do it.

Depression and mental illness hurts everyone just as much as it hurts me. Fighting it means I haven’t lost that battle no matter how hard it tries to win.

Current Mood: Cool

I’m officially fat.

Not because I’m overweight, because if you’ve ever seen me… well, you know I don’t look “fat”. But I am.

So the gym offers this free personal training session/evaluation thing upon starting with them, and I decided to just go ahead and do it despite the fact that I *knew* that I’d be roped into signing up to meet with a personal trainer on a regular basis. Stupid sales tactics. I’m a total sucker.

But anyway, so I showed up at that gym all ready to get my ass kicked by the teeny, tiny perfect trainer and her equally perfect-bodied trainer-in-training, and the first thing I had to do after filling out the fitness questionnaire was get my body fat percentage checked. Have you ever had yours checked? You know how they do it? They make you hold this… thing… that somehow zeros into your blood stream, does a quick tour of your body, and counts every fuckin’ fat cell clinging to your organs. And then it calculates how fat you are and spits a number out onto the screen.

And that’s when I realized what a lard-ass I’ve become.

To my utter horror, the number that popped up on the screen was 24%, a number that didn’t fall in the “excellent” category, or even the “good” one. In fact, Miss-I-Dance-Nearly-Every-Day-Of-My-Life and can squeeze comfortably in a pair of (generous fitting) size 4 jeans falls into the “FAIR” category for body fat percentage. That’s only two categories away from being in the “VERY POOR” range.

See, this wouldn’t be embarrassing if I didn’t exercise constantly and eat healthy, but I DO. However, sadly, the number on the screen wasn’t really a surprise. I’ve been feeling less-than-fit for awhile now, and have just luckily been blessed with a set of genes that keeps me fairly thin. Unless I’m pregnant. Then I turn into Humpty-Dumpty’s cousin.

In fact, when she showed me my body stats, I laughed, told her I’m suffering from a case of frumpy, dumpy mama butt, and said I’m totally down with the “Itty bitty waist and that round thing in your face” appearance, but only if that round thing is a toned round thing.

I think I scared one of the trainers, but the other one fell on the floor laughing and choked to death on my humor.

Then I went on to explain that I’m all tits and ass and I like it that way, and could she please make sure that I don’t end up on an exercise program that makes me look like my anorexic aunt because I get really obsessive about things, and if that’s the goal, then I’ll get there, and that would be a BAD THING. (*breathe*)

I think they thought I was truly nuts. Good for them, they guessed right.

So anyway, after my mouth introduced them to myself, they kicked my ass by cheering me through all kinds of horrible torture that included exercise designed to make your legs, ass, and abs rip into shreds and explode all over the gym walls. It was like a scene out of a horror flick. Until... until she told me to do walking lunges that included punching and throwing a knee lift into her little hand-held-I’m-gonna-pretend-I’m-a-miniature-mat-and-handle-a-badass’s-punches trainer thingies.

“Are you ready to make a fool out of yourself?”… She was totally teasing, don’t worry, she wasn’t a bitch.

Oh yeah. Clearly, I’d forgotten to share a tidbit of info about my history, and I tried to ignore the fact that I had the attention of every middle-aged man sitting at the weight machines from there to New York City, which was perched way on the other side of the room.

“Wow, girl, you are REALLY intense. Holy cow!” [insert very surprised look here]

“Oh, um, yeah,” what do I say? I sort of forgot to tell you, “Having a second degree black belt helps in this particular department.” Thank goodness, one piece of hell that DIDN’T hurt like crazy.

She got me back for withholding pertinent information with this obscene core exercise that ended with my lungs breathing fire and my shaking body actually collapsing onto the ground, which caused Seattle to be nearly destroyed in a Tamra’s-fat-ass-induced earthquake before I disintegrated into ashes. It made the leg-squat shit we did next on this really mean-looking machine just pure evil.

Finally, the training session was over, and my jelly legs somehow made it to the babysitting room, where the two mean trainers both pulled out their baby eyes and transformed into the sweetest things ever when they met my monsters, “Oh my gosh, they are SO BEAUTIFUL! Look how cute she is!”.

Thank you, I’m rather fond of them most of the time myself.

So of course, when I got home, I was like, “James, how much do you love me? Enough to spend [insert price here] to help your lovely wife get rid of the blubber all over sore and aching body? I’M 24% BODY FAT, JAMES! OH MY GAWD! I promise you’ll get to do all the rub-downs that include touching my naked skin whenever you want”. Because, you know, I’m a glutton for punishment and now that I know I’m FAT, I actually WANT to face the punishment necessary to get to a healthier fat percentage.

And you know what? Either my husband agrees that my body could use some serious toning, or he just loves me so much that he’s willing to do absolutely anything for me. He said yes-I could start meeting with a personal trainer every week to help me reach my fitness goals.

So, guess what, world? Oh yes, if you thought I didn’t bitch and complain before, you were sadly mistaken. Only this time, it’s gonna come with pictures and regular updates on my progress.

Now, excuse me while I attempt to walk. My kids, unfortunately, can’t take care of themselves.

Owwww… *whimper*

Current Mood: Alarmed & Cool