Friday morning we went to doc. Explained my sudden drop in mood following the 225mg -> 187.5mg dose reduction. That I felt in terms of the sleep the reductions need to continue but obviously that means something else needs to be done for the mood.

So we have added in mirtazapine at 15mg and dropped the venlafaxine right down to 75mg and moved it to the mornings. I don’t seem to be having any serious side effects from those changes, but to be fair I have been doing a lot of sleeping which might be protecting me somewhat from consciously experiencing it.

Friday night I went to bed and didn’t wake up until something like 10:30 on Saturday morning. When I woke up the strangest thing happened.

I had sleep in my eyes.

It was a very surreal experience because I was noticing something which I know to be an actually very normal thing but I realised that I don’t know when the last time that happened was. Not just like.. oh that hasn’t happened for a while, but.. oh, it’s been a really really long time since I had that happen and I hadn’t even noticed because it’s not the kind of thing you keep track of, so you never notice that it was missing. You only notice when it returns.

So in the range of odd experiences.. I had another one. I did a “morning pee.” Like I got up in the morning after a long stretch asleep and my pee was noticeably different than it is at other times of the day. Like it is supposed to be. More rubbish, less water. But I also can’t really remember the last time that happened. For years my pee has just been a pale clear yellow and that didn’t vary no matter what time of the day or night it was. And for the record that, the fact that I was peeing as much as night as I did during the day is also something that I know I have mentioned to doctors multiple times when I have tried to talk about my sleep problems. I wonder if they all just internally attributed this to me having three children and didn’t specifically say that because they think people are sensitive about bladder issues caused post-childbearing? I’m only making this guess because the lady when I was getting the CPAP machine, the lady there was showing how to quick-release part of the tube instead of taking off the whole mask so it is easier if you have to get up for some reason, and I agreed, saying I do get up several times each night to pee, and she nodded knowingly and said something like, “Well, you’re in your mid-40s and you’ve had three children.” Like it’s normal that after you have kids you just never pee properly again? ‘Cause I don’t think it is meant to be. I know it does happen to lots of people but I didn’t think it was so common that it’s the expectation rather than the exception.

I feel very .. weak and slow. It is very much like having a bad cold or flu. Doing something relatively simple just leaves me feeling wrecked.

There are definitely classic symptoms of withdrawal happening, but they are mostly restricted to the early to mid-morning. Which makes sense since I am now taking the (greatly reduced) amount of Efexor in the morning. Sometime in the early hours my dreams start going crazy and I start cold sweating buckets and shivering like mad, I feel so cold but I am low-key nervous to try turning on my electric blanket because of how wet I feel. But also I can feel that my bed is warm, there is heat around me, and I am not actually cold.. it just feels like I am. I’ve woken a couple of times from the feeling of laying in a puddle and can go back to sleep ok unless I actually do have to get up and go to the toilet and then I really am cold because it’s like 16° in our bedroom and I’m wearing a wet tshirt.

Around 0700 to 0800 is I guess when the twitchiness starts. Just random shudders or jerks and movements of my limbs. I can kind of tell it is happening but I also can’t wake up enough to do anything about it. I have been stuck in this kind of half-awake, half-asleep, cold, wet, shivery, shuddery loop having strange, vivid dreams, trying to get myself to wake up and remember that I need to take my pill so I will feel better but not quite able. Eventually I do get there. I have asked Daniel to try to get me to take it when he is getting up instead. And hopefully that is coming before that worst part of it all and stopping it. Or it could just shift the whole process forward by a couple of hours. Who knows. I don’t like several things about this. I don’t like being stuck in that not-awake and not-asleep state. I hope that as time progresses that will happen to me less and less. But the shivering and jerking and stuff, that’s actually kind of exhausting and leaves my muscles aching and fatigued, like I have done something really intense. It’s quite a lot more effort to get myself upright and moving around. And I have this odd thing that happens, not all that much, maybe a few times a day, where it is kind of like I am dizzy and I move in an odd way like I expected the ground or doors or wall to be somewhere else, but I don’t have the spinning and lightheaded part of it. Only the disorientation and clumsy part of it. Which admittedly, does sound somewhat normal for me but just take my word that it is different to my normal clumsiness.

Part of me doesn’t like that I know I’m going to have that again tomorrow and feels tempted to just stop taking the Efexor altogether. I’m not going to. I know that cold turkey is not a smart way to do things. But I understand why people try to do it that way, even if it is so much more intense. In case you were wondering, as I was: The origin of the phrase is debated, but it’s often linked to the physical symptoms of withdrawal, specifically the appearance of skin during withdrawal, which is said to resemble a plucked, refrigerated turkey. The “cold” part likely refers to the cold, clammy skin and chills associated with withdrawal, while “turkey” might be a comparison to the appearance of a chilled, plucked turkey according to Merriam-Webster. I don’t think I look that bad though. But I know a gradual wean is much healthier, and I have already been feeling my heart beating sometimes, so I know that I don’t want to put even more pressure on my body and nervous system. Never claimed to be a perfectly patient person though.

It feels a little strange to be talking about withdrawal like that. Because it’s usually referred to in association to someone that is trying to break an addictive dependence on a substance, and – from what I’ve seen, anyway – much less often in terms of people who are simply trying to end a dependency that does not have any aspects of addiction to it. By which I mean that behavioural part that becomes irrational and unsociable in order to continue to have access to whatever the substance is, rather than just being a person who has taken a medication that was prescribed to me in the manner that I was instructed to by my doctors and pharmacists.