First off, I am not depressed anymore. As of Monday morning, when I woke up not depressed, I have not slid back into a down cycle. I'm not particularly happy, though. I was happy earlier in the week, but I could be happy if I wasn't so drowsy.

I am sleepy or drowsy most of the time. I sleep for hours, get up, eat, go back to bed and sleep for a few hours more. My counselor and GP think it might be the citalopram causing this extreme drowsiness. The GP cut my prescription back to the standard dosage of 40mg.

I went to the counselor on Tuesday and we talked about being happy and the cyclical nature of my brand of depression. We talked about when I was on buproprion and how I cycled between extreme giddiness and perpetual dark clouds. She gave me a little test. Out of eighteen or so questions I got only four right. She's referring me to a psychiatrist to see if I qualify for a mood stabilizer. She tacked "Bipolar Disorder, Nonspecific" on my medical record.

I just want to get out of the cycles, but carrying "Bipolar" around on my permanent medical record might cause all sorts of problems, especially since "Bipolar" is a disqualifying disorder as far as driving the big trucks goes. Not that I want to do that anymore, but I might want to get some other kind of driving position and that might not be possible if the psychiatrist ends up specifying I'm "Bipolar" or something else like hypomania, which sounds like fun, too.

The counselor gave me an assignment for next time. I have to write either a letter to Mom or Dad telling them what a bang up job they did with raising me and how much I appreciate their belittling, derision, ridicule, and all the other fun things they thought would turn me into a successful human being; or, I have to write a short story about a little boy (not me) who is raised by parents like mine. I'm not quite brave enough for the possible cathartic experience of writing a letter to either parent so I'm going with the short story. It should be fun.

The only big problem with being awake is getting the mind to shut down. It seems to be having one heck of a time working on Chartreuse and the new story (tentatively titled "The Cutest Ogre"), plus writing blog entries like this. Chartreuse is still going slow, but it is going. Ogre is barely started, but I have to have it done by the 25th, so it will probably take up a lot of my time.