Online dating and the depressed girl

I have had a couple of online dating profiles for about a year now.  I haven't had much luck. When I first signed up I found quite a few attractive guys and even met a few of them.  We would simply meet for coffee as I figured that was a quick and easy way to meet for a date where you didn't have to sit through a big expensive meal if you didn't like them.  None of them really did much for me so I left it at one date.

Then it sort of fizzled out.  The last several months there have been many attractive guys that I messaged with, a few that I texted with but they seemed content to just converse that way and never pushed to meet.  I admit, neither did I. 

Because while I want to have someone in my life to fight off the loneliness, I just didn't think that any of these guys would amount to much in the relationship department. I enjoyed having someone to chat with but was reluctant to make that next step and ask them to meet. 

I would almost rather sit home and watch TV than get all dressed up and get all ready to meet a guy who most likely I would only meet once and never talk to them again.  I don't know if this is a symptom of my depression or if I just don't want to be dating. 

Its kind of hard to tell the difference.

I know that I am not really depressed.  I don't have that awful hopeless feeling that things are never going to get better.  I feel ok.  My energy level seems ok.  But I have a lot of the symptoms of depression:  I don't sleep well, even with the medications the doc gave me. I have a hard time showering every day.  I kind of avoid it until I start to feel dirty, usually every 2nd of 3rd day.  My appetite has been nonexistent and I actually lost 50 lbs in the last year and a half.  I don't really leave the house for anything other than work and my weekly trip to the grocery store.  I started a new medication that has helped with my appetite and I seem to be in a slightly better mood but the other symptoms persist. 

The thing is that I have never in my life thought that I didn't want to date.  Before Ben I always had a boyfriend (or 2?) and as soon as one was looking like it was a lost cause I would have another one lined up.  I tried desperately not to be alone.  I just don't even recognize this feeling of not really feeling up to meeting someone new.

I worry that this is not just a phase.  That I am permanently depressed and will never get to the point where I want a relationship and I will end up alone and old.  I worry that if I decide to just take some time (a few years?) and stay single for a while that I will miss out on someone great and again, I will end up old and alone. 

Actually finding someone to date will require me to knock off some of my depressed habits. I will need to shower every day.  I will need to get my ass dressed and out of the house to see someone.  Of course, I would hope that meeting someone I like would make me WANT to get out of the house to see them so I wouldn't struggle with this so much but this is sort of a catch-22.  I want to meet someone so that I will feel like getting dressed and going out but I need to get dressed and go out to meet someone. 

I have disabled my dating profiles for now.  I still look at the site and figure that if I see someone worth messaging I will reactivate it.  But the longer I have been on this site the fewer attractive candidates there are to choose from.  And the guys that message me?  Most of them are either in their 50's looking for a younger chick or in their 20s looking for that cougar.  I am not interested in it either way.  I am not looking for a sex thing.  And I am not looking for a sugar daddy.  I just want a guy who is my age who likes low key activities like eating out and going to the movies who also happens to be good looking and employed.  I don't think that is asking for much.

About the breakup.

When did I become so boring? 

I recently started doing those surveys of questions on my other blog as something to post so that I don't have to come up with my own material.  But I fill them out and the answers are so bland.  I used to be a smart ass.  I used to be witty.  What the hell happened to me?

I attribute a lot of this to the breakup-the split 2 years ago from my kid's father.  We had lived together for 8 years and much of those 8 years we were mostly just people who lived together and raised a kid together.  We weren't really in love.  Or at least it didn't feel like it at the time.  The split was mutual.  And it was amicable.  But about a month after I moved out, I found out that he had been seeing someone for a few months and I had a breakdown that almost ended me back in the psych ward.  I don't know why I reacted like that.  But it was bad.  I was not okay.  My doctor changed up the medications I was on and that brought me back from the edge.  But I was changed by that. 

I never doubted him.  I never thought for a minute that he would cheat on me.  I considered him honorable and good and honest.  I had total faith in him.  I was completely blindsided by the idea that he might be seeing someone else during the time that we both knew it was over but before it was completely and totally over.  I wished I had known.  I would have liked to have set up a rebound thing too.  It would have been nice to have someone to talk to and to go to in those last few months when he slept on the couch and I avoided him.  But in my mind we were still technically together.  Not so in his.  In his mind as soon as we talked about splitting it was over.  A done deal.

In that month after I moved out, I was still hopeful.  I spoke with him regularly because we were navigating this split with our daughter and it was important that she know we were still her parents.  I sat down with him for lunch.  We got along.  And I was hopeful that this was just some space that we needed until we each (read: ME) could sort some things out and that we would reconcile and get back together.  It never occurred to me that he had already moved on. 

Finding out that he was seeing someone broke something inside of me.  Yes, I had been cheated on in the past.  I had been lied to and betrayed.  I had been treated truly horribly by some of my ex boyfriends.  But this was something different.  I never trusted them.  I never believed that we would work it out.  I always knew that those guys couldn't truly be trusted.  There were always plenty of red flags for me to ignore.  Not so here.  Ben was a good guy.  We spent 8 years together.  I never doubted his love for me.

And then, just like that, I was face to face with the realization that he perhaps didn't love  me anymore.  And he said that to me.  He was moving on without me.  I didn't get another chance to be better.  He was done waiting for me to get over this depression and he was moving forward with his life without me.

This was a turning point for me.  I looked back at our relationship and all I could see was all that I did wrong.  I saw the way I needed to escape from my life almost daily by taking to bed most afternoons.  I saw the way I avoided doing things with him.  I saw the times I was unfaithful and lied.  Everything was magnified.  Part of this I can blame on this awful depression but the rest was squarely on my own shoulders.  I wasn't a good partner.  I wasn't present most of the time.  I did everything to make him feel like he wasn't valued and in the end I was the one who had to convince him that it was never going to get better.  I did this. 

I am not someone who has regrets.  I lived through my teens and most of my twenties doing all sorts of things that some people would regret.  But I always felt regretting things was a waste of time.  YOLO, right?  But with Ben I have some deep and permanent regrets.  I don't know if I will ever get to a point where I accept what I did and move past it. 

It's been nearly 2 years and Ben and I have a good relationship for Lila's sake.  We are friendly and have no drama.  It really baffles me when I hear about situations (which are most situations) where people split up and can't agree on simple things for the sake of the kids.  There have been some stumbling blocks like when he first started bringing his new girlfriend around Lila but all in all we've gotten past that.  I still don't like the girlfriend though.  I don't know if that will ever change. 

I would say that I am over the split.  I think that it was for the best.  I wasn't the person I wanted to be when I was with him and I don't think I could be.  But regardless of whatever lessons I have learned from this, I am in a much more introspective and self-aware place.  My self esteem sucks.  I am something of a homebody. 

I tried internet dating and at first I met a few guys but none of them seemed like a good match.  I questioned if I was ready to be dating.  A part of me wants desperately to meet someone new but the other part of me-the damaged part of me- says that no one in their right mind would want me right now.  I am not whole.  I do not feel like I am in a place that is conducive to being in a relationship.  I am not depressed exactly.  I don't have that hopeless feeling that I am so familiar with.  The medication seems to help that.  I am just not feeling like me.  I guess I don't even know who I am right now.  And that makes me boring.

I have started blogging again here and at my other blog to try to discover some of who I was and see if she is still there under all this seriousness.  But I re-read my blog posts and they just feel so lifeless.  And I worry that it is a reflection of me right now.  Am I lifeless?  Or did this just seriously knock the wind out of me?  I worry that this bump in the road was more than just a bump and that perhaps it has seriously altered the person that I am. 

I feel like only time will tell.

My Act of Confession

For those of you who don't know, my daughter goes to catholic school.  Although I am not a practicing catholic and neither is her father, we decided to send her there based on the crappy public school district that we lived in when she went to kindergarten.  I went to catholic school and once I was out of there in 9th grade because I went to a public high school, I never looked back.  Until I had my daughter.  When she was a baby, we had her baptized "just in case".  Not that I believe in heaven and hell but because my mother lobbied for her to be baptized so that if something happened to her (God forbid) she would be able to go to heaven.  This was a real concern for my mother so I gave in and we baptized her catholic.

This year Lila is in 2nd grade.  This is the year she makes her first communion.  But before she can make her first communion she has to make her first confession.  In the catholic faith you are not supposed to receive communion with sin on your soul so you have to go to confession before you receive communion.  All these firstd mean that Lila has to go to several weeks of preparation classes on Sundays.  The classes are after mass on Sunday and attendance at mass is mandatory as they pull all the kids aside during the service and give lessons then as well.  I have been taking Lila to church on Sundays.

I don't know how I feel about going to church on Sundays.  I am not sure I believe in any of this anymore.  In fact I know I don't.  When I am in church, I listen intently sort of wishing that I found solace in the idea that Jesus loves me.  I envy those who can pray and take comfort in the idea that God is there for them.  I just don't have that. 

This past Saturday, Lila made her first confession.  The celebration involved her having an adult come with her as she waited to confess her sins and the adult would go and confess after her to show their support.  Since Ben is Lutheran and her godparents live in Florida, I was the adult that went with her.  We carried a candle to represent the light of Lila's soul and after we both confessed we were to light the candle as a symbol of the light burning bright now that her soul had been wiped clean through the sacrament of confession.

I stressed about having to go to confession.  I haven't been in 20 years or more.  Not since junior high school.  So I was not looking forward to the required "Bless me father for I have sinned.  It has been 20 + years since my last confession." I wasn't going to be able to sit there and tell him all the ways I had sinned in the last 20 years and most of all I would have to admit that I didn't think I really believed anymore.  I thought I would be there for an hour holding up the line and people would start to wonder why I was taking so long.

By the time Lila finished her very brief confession (she only had one sin to confess: Sometimes she yells at her mother), I was playing the scenario in my head and dreading the whole thing.  I went and sat down in front of the priest.  Before I was even able to say anything, he began.  "I just have 2 simple questions for you.  Do you admit that you have sinned?" he said.  "Yes," I replied.  "Ok. Are you sorry for the sins that you have committed?" I stopped for a minute.  I have done a lot of things wrong in the eyes of the church.  I lived with Ben for 8 years without being married.  I don't know that I am necessarily sorry for that.  But I wanted to make this simple.  "Yes," I replied.  The priest sat for a moment.  "Then unless you have something specific that you want to talk about we can move forward with the absolution." 

This was the easiest thing I had ever done.  I didn't have to go into 20 some odd years of transgressions that I'm not sure I am sorry for.  He had made it as simple as just admitting it and saying sorry.  He blessed me and told me to go on my way.  He didn't even assign me a penance of prayers to say.  He didn't even make me struggle to remember my Act of Contrition.  Lila and I went and lit her candle and added it to the growing number of candles on a table set up on the altar.  I went back to my seat feeling light.  I felt pretty good actually.

This was something I missed about Catholicism. You go and confess your sins and you are forgiven and it is like a weight is taken off your shoulders.  For the most part I didn't feel guilty about the idea that I offended God.  But I had done some things that hurt other people.  Things I carried around with me for years feeling bad about them not knowing how to make amends.  But today I was told I was forgiven.  Now I just had to forgive myself. 

Part of me began to enjoy the idea of going to church on Sundays.  I like the pageantry of it.  I like the community.  I just wish that I could really believe in something.  I just don't.  In the end I have to admit that going to confession doesn't make amends to others that I may have hurt.  But perhaps I could forgive myself for all the ways I have hurt myself over the years.  The only person I really need to make amends to right now is me.  Perhaps I could be forgiven for not respecting myself or treating myself with kindness.  Perhaps I could be forgiven for the ways I have abused by body and not taken care of my soul. Perhaps I can use this as a starting point to begin to treat myself better. To take care of my own needs.

I don't know that I will make it a regular thing-taking Lila to confession.  But maybe once in a while, when I am feeling like I have just been awful to myself I can go and be told that I am forgiven. Perhaps just hearing those words will give me space to breathe. Now we just need to work on getting Lila a few more sins to confess.

 

Failing my kid

I am failing my kid in a lot of ways because I am constantly, chronically depressed.  No matter what meds I am on or what kinds of therapy I do, the depression clings to me like a wet blanket and does not allow me to be fun or have fun.  It has been months since I have so much as been out for coffee with a friend and I have done nothing but work, eat and sleep for so long that it feels like it is normal.

It seems like so much work to just do the bare necessities of taking care of her.  Getting her up for school in the morning, making her lunch, getting her to get dressed.  A lot of days I feel like just letting her stay home so that I don't have to do it.  So much work.  When I was a kid, I missed a lot of school and now I know that it was because my mother was so overwhelmed with the process of getting me up that she often didn't bother.  Now I know it was her depression that failed me.  I don't want to do this to my kid so I get her out of the house most days. 

But she has never had a friend come over to my house to play.  Again, it just seems like so much work.  I would have to clean the house really good, come up with some activities, plan a snack.  It just feels like too much.  And although I have encouraged my daughter to get some of her classmates' phone numbers she has not done it.  I don't see myself going to the school handbook and calling any of those parents out of the blue.  When I was a kid I called my friends to come over all the time.  My parents never set up play dates. I don't even know if my friends asked their parents permission.  But Lila is not me.  She is having a hard time in school and tells me that she really doesn't have any friends.  She usually hangs out with one boy who she tells me was singled out by one of the mean girls. 

This year she isn't taking part in any after-school activities.  Her school offers so many programs: dance, karate, drama club, sports. But she doesn't want to do any of them this year even though previously she has been involved in at least ONE thing.  And because it feels like so much work, I am not going to go out of my way to get her involved in anything outside of school like Girl Scouts (and have to sell the cookies! No way!).  The one thing that she showed some interest in was chorus but that required a commitment 2 nights a week at 6 pm and there was no way I was going to drive her there across town, and sit in the car for an hour and a half twice a week.  If it is right after school then okay.  I will arrange to have her picked up.  But we do not live close to the school so me going home and coming back later was not really practical.

And in this way I am failing her.  I wish that I felt better so that all these little things didn't seem like such a big deal.  But they do feel like a big deal.  Rather than feeling like I would be doing something wonderful for my daughter it feels like I am doing something so burdensome that I just can't bring myself to do it.  And so my kid suffers from my illness.

One thing that is totally unrelated though:  My daughter is kind of a spaz.  She tries really hard to make people laugh and I suspect that her trying so hard is what makes the other kids at school sort of shy away from her.  I think she can be a little overwhelming when she is trying so hard to be funny.  Today I was writing in my journal and had a thought.  Perhaps her constant trying to make people laugh is because I so desperately need someone to cheer me up.  Maybe this illness that I suffer from is the reason she is so goofy all the time.  Usually her efforts fall flat on me.  I often wish I had a more laid back kid.  But what if she is just trying to lighten what is often a somber mood in our house? 

Then again, it is so easy to believe that we are the cause of all our kids' problems and so hard to believe that we are the root of their successes. 

A change of scenery

It's been an eventful week.  I went to Florida last week to celebrate my brother's adoption of a baby.  He had a huge party and there were about 100 people there.  I went with my parents and my daughter.  We had a good time overall. 

My brother owns a bar.  He does really well for himself.  The bar is really popular and he doesn't have to worry about money.  My parents are really proud of him and you can tell because they talk about him all the time.  I have to admit, it makes me feel like kind of a loser.  My brother told me that in 2014 he made over $800,000 for the year.  I am barely scraping by and until last month was on food stamps because I jut now make too much to be on them.  My mother worries about me.  She says that she can't die because I am not happy.  She wants to know that I will be alright without her.  I don't know if I would be. 

I don't think I will ever know what it is like to not have to worry about money.  One of my greatest fears is that my depression gets worse and I have to go on disability.  I have earned so little in my life that I would be living on a few hundred dollars a month.  I worry about this a lot actually.  I am afraid that the level-headedness that I have right now is temporary.  At some point the meds will stop working and I will be sick again, stripped down and in that thick suffocating fog.  Then what will I do?  How will I support myself?  At my last job, when I went out because I was hospitalized they were all tremendously understanding.  My job was safe.  I don't think this job would be as secure.  If I am not here there is nobody to do the work.  They would need to get someone else in here immediately.  I would be fired.

But enough of my catastrophizing. 

We went out to eat a lot and of course Lila and I went to the beach.  But the weather didn't really cooperate with us and it rained 3 out of the 5 days we were there.  The day we went to the beach it only went up to 72 degrees so we were a little cold.  That didn't prevent Lila from going into the ocean though.  We missed a huge snow storm while we were gone.  My city got almost 2 feet of snow.  It was all waiting here for me when I got back.

Lila and I slept on the couch during our trip.  I actually slept pretty well there.  It felt good to not have to be exhausted all day.  But I came back and last night I slept like shit.  I don't know why I slept so well there but can't sleep for shit when I am home.  You would think that sleeping on a couch is not conducive to sleeping well but apparently you would be wrong.  I was really hoping that the sleeplessness was behind me.  I'm not sure what to do.

Maybe it's my job that's keeping me up at night.  I wouldn't say that I hate it.  I actually enjoy the work that I do when there is work.  But my days are long and there isn't much going on right now and I am pretty bored for most of the day.  Today, after being gone a week, I had a lot to catch up on.  I only had enough to keep me busy until about noon.  I am sitting at work now writing this.  I am not someone who likes having a lot of down time.  Add to it that I am alone in the office most days and you have a recipe for depression.  My job does not afford me the opportunity to meet new people or challenge me in any way.  I don't really dread going to work but today I really thought about calling in sick.  The only reason I didn't is because I knew it was just delaying the inevitable.  I would have to come back eventually.

Have any of you had insomnia?  I would like to hear about it if you did and what you did to help it.

It's been a while

Yes, I still have this blog.  But issues with my computer at home have kept me from posting.  Now that it is the down time at work I hope to have a little more time to post while I try to find something to do to fill my days.

A little update.  I have a new job since the last time I was here.  I like it for the most part.  Although like I said, it is really quiet this time of year and I spend a lot of my day surfing the web looking for something to read.  I have new health insurance and although having a job that offers health insurance is certainly a good thing I can't say much about the plan that I have.  The prescription plan kind of sucks.  One of the meds that I was on, Saphris, is only covered 50% and it is over $500 for a month's supply so I can't afford to take it anymore.  Now that I have stopped taking it I am not sleeping at all.  My doc tried me on Ambien CR but I only got 3 hours of sleep out of it.  Not sleeping really messes with your head.

I am irritable.  I am not getting out of the house much except for work and I have little appetite.  I feel bad for my daughter because I am not much fun to be around.  I snap at her too easily and don't want to take her anywhere.  It is just too much effort.  It's weird because I don't have that awful hopeless dark feeling I usually have when I feel depressed but I have all the symptoms. I have a hard time showering every day (I don't do it actually) and have totally let my appearance go. I can't tell you the last time I plucked my eyebrows or had a manicure.  And all this was while I was on the Saphris so I suppose it wasn't really working all that well for me.  I still take Cymbalta and Wellbutrin but they don't seem to have much of an effect on me.  I know if I was to try to come off them I would be a disaster though so adding a new med is the only option really.

My doctor is going to try me on Zyprexa.  My mom is on it and she swears by it.  The problem with Zyprexa is that it causes huge amounts of weight gain and can cause things like high blood sugar and high triglycerides in people.  I will need to be monitored on it. I call it a wash because in the last year or so I haven't had much of an appetite so I lost a ton of weight. Right now I am willing to take anything if it will help me sleep.  This should do that for me at least.  And maybe it will have the fringe benefit of actually making me feel a little better. 

I feel like this is a really boring post but I think I am just out of practice writing.  My writing chops need to be sharpened and I need to do more of it to get my voice back.  I went back the other day and read some of my old posts and really liked them.  I will get there again.

So if anyone is still reading this, nice to see you here.  Say hi in the comments.

No fun

I don't remember the last time I had fun.  There was a day last year, July 4th actually, where I remember thinking that I was really enjoying myself.  I was at a baseball game with my daughter and she wasn't into the game at all.  She wanted to play on my iphone.  So I let her.  And she was making goofy videos of herself.  I kept peeking my head into her videos photobombing her and we were laughing.  That is the last time I remember having fun.

This is no way to live.  My life is so boring.  And not working just amplifies how bored I am.  How can you go almost an entire year without any fun?  How do you make a fun time?  Generally my time with my daughter feels like work.  Even when we are going somewhere that is supposed to be fun I still feel like it is work.  Just getting dressed feels like work.  So going somewhere is even more work.  I think I don't know how to let go.  I don't know how to have fun.  I am so stuck in my own head that I can't get outside of it in order to enjoy myself.  I barely ever smile.  I never laugh.  This is no way to live.

I don't know if adjusting my medications would help.  I am pretty stable.  I just feel blah.  But I am so terrified of being down in that deep, black hole again that I don't want to mess with the meds.  Because like I said, I am stable.  I don't know that adjusting the meds would help with my life.  My life is boring.  I don't have anything to excite me.  I don't know how to go about getting that.  I remember that I used to be exciting.  I used to go out and have boyfriends and have fun.  But that seems like it was so long ago that I don't know if I can ever get back to that.

Something has got to give.  I need some relief from this boredom.  I need to feel alive again.  

Unemployed

I'm unemployed.  I have worked since I was 15 years old and now I find myself unemployed.  The depression has been held at bay for a while now thanks to a nice mixture of anti-depressants and my circumstances have settled down.  I no longer live with B and have been on my own for almost a year now. I took a full time job that I hated and I fucked that up and now I am unemployed and losing my mind. Suddenly my mood has taken a turn for the worst and I have been struggling with that lack of pleasure again.
I don't like job hunting.  It isn't easy for someone like me who isn't particularly outgoing to do well in a job interview.  I feel like everyone wants someone who is cheery and personable and I am not feeling much like that these days.  I try to fake it but I think they can tell.  They must be able to tell because I haven't gotten any of the jobs that I have interviewed for.

The stress of not knowing where my next pay day is coming from is difficult.  I am lucky in that I live upstairs from my parents so they understand that I don't have rent money for them but they really need the money.  It causes me stress because I know that they need the money and they want to help me which makes me feel guilty.  Additionally, I don't have money for anything extra.  No going to lunch or going shopping.  I have been living off my meager savings and that isn't going to last for very much longer.  Something has got to give.  I don't want to have to go and apply for public assistance but if I don't find a job in the very near future I am going to have to do just that.  And then I will be one of those people.

I don't know if adjusting my medications will help me at all.  I don't think that my recent mood has anything to do with anything other than my circumstances.  I wish there was a magic pill that would put me in a good mood because that would surely help with my job hunt.  But I think I am going to have to struggle to will myself out of this rut that I am in.  I have to be better.  For my daughter who doesn't understand what is going on.  I have to try to find pleasure in the little things again.  Because that is the only thing that is going to keep me going.

Daffodils

I went outside and picked some daffodils today.

This may not seem like much but 3 days after stopping the Abilify I am beginning to feel a spark of life inside me. The daffodils are a symbol of that life.  And I brought them into my house and put them in a pretty vase and felt a wave of something like joy mixed with satisfaction that was absent for some time.  I set them on the living room table and just stared at their cheerful yellow faces and told myself that I was going to be okay.

It has been a long winter and the signs of spring are finally showing themselves and I am feeling optimistic today that the gloom and gray of winter is moving out and allowing the delight and sunshine to move into its place.  I am also optimistic that I am going to survive this most recent detour into misery and that I will also begin to see some new buds of hope unfolding within me.  Something has got to give, right?

Did I mention that I haven't moved out yet?  That is happening at the end of this month.  

Excruciating

I am having a hard time lately.  For the past month or so it feels like every little thing is just awful.

It isn't just that the things I used to enjoy are not interesting to me.  It's that NOTHING is interesting to me.  Everything seems excruciating.  Not just the things that every depressed person hates to do.  Not the way that showering seems like a climb up Everest or cleaning the house is like being water-boarded.  I mean simple things.  There isn't a show on tv that isn't boring.  Nothing my kid does makes me smile (I mean, I fake it for her sake but honestly nothing does).  Nothing on the internet could possibly amuse me.  Eating is a chore.  "Relaxing" used to be heavenly.  Now I dread having unstructured time because all that I want to do is sleep.  And when I DO have to do something it is a mental wrestling match where going back to bed almost always wins.

This is not the kind of depression I usually suffer from.  In my usual state I can at least talk myself into not HATING everything.  I can usually go through the motions.  This kind of depression makes calling a friend for coffee feel like agony.  And sitting through another boring conversation feel like sitting through a root canal.

The worst part is how this makes me a really terrible mother.  I am finding no joy in her. I see her doing these things that SHOULD fill me with pride but all I feel is empty.  She makes these videos of herself and when she plays them for me I want to scream because they fill me with sadness.  Playing with her is like hard labor where I am forced to put on a happy face and try to somehow ignore how awkward I am doing anything but sleeping.  Needless to say, lately I barely play with her.  I don't even have the energy to get mad at her when she does something wrong.  I often just ignore it because I cannot face her tantrum or crying.  This makes me a shitty parent.

I recently started Abilify in addition to the other anti-depressants I am taking.  I also was put on Ambien for sleep problems.  Has anyone else had these kinds of effects from these drugs or am I just spiraling down again?