After a few months of trying slowly increasing dosages of an anti-depressant, I might have finally found one that works. “Might,” being the operative word. I’m only a week and a half into this new dosage as I’m writing this, but I actually have had bursts of adequate executive function in the past few days and while the biggest bursts of it could be attributed to the common early side-effect of “manic energy,” I find myself wanting to feel cautiously optimistic about it. Well, cautiously willing to consider that this might be the medication working. I’m not sure I can call myself optimistic if I’m essentially trying to prove to myself that something other than the medication might be responsible for my buoyed mood. I mean, there’s been all kinds of studies in recent years about how eating a reasonable amount of ice cream every day can have positive effects on your health, so maybe my recent little treats of just a little ice cream every couple of days is responsible. Maybe it’s my improved sleep. Maybe it’s the fact that absolutely nothing horrible happened last week and all I have to deal with was the normal stress of a very busy work week. There’s a lot of things it could be. But its still probably the medication taking effect, even if I’m nervous about whether this feeling will last, grow, disappear, or whatever else could happen. As a teen, I had a really bad experience with mental health focused medications and my experiences so far this year have done little to resolve the general trepidation I feel at the thought of altering my mental state with outside chemicals. A trepidation I’m willing to forcefully overcome since that effort is so much less than the effort it takes to not look and feel miserable constantly that I’m spending just about every single day.