My story and road to recovery - Mojo

[Mojo]

Checking in 4 months on the protocol.

Unfortunately my road is a rocky one. I had to withdraw on mirtazapine during recovery which is now 3 months ago, and on top of that I kicked xanax off the list as well as of 1 month ago now. I used a light dose of xanax for half a year to alleviate anxiety.
However at some point in the last month of use I noticed my dose not doing anything for me anymore and became convinced that at least some of my anxiety was attributed to inter dose withdrawals. I can only imagine what stopping a higher, more long term dose would feel like. It would definitely be up there with the most hardcore PFS caused anxiety/depression.

Anyway, my sleep is returning at a glacial pace. Falling asleep is no longer a real problem apart from some freak days where anxiety will just keep me up forever, where I spend more time on the way to the bathroom than in my bed. Staying asleep is still a problem but I have broken a milestone of getting an average of 4 hours before wakeup, for which I'm already grateful.
There are days where my anxiety and depression seem to almost fully lift, but will usually be omnipresent in a soft constant uncomfortable state. Overall it does feel as if the whole package is improving slowly. Cold showers, exercise and meditation remain key here. I notice being mindful is getting easier and more spontaneous. I often have moments throughout the day where I just pause at the thought of just being, feeling the wind or the weight of my body. This helps me break the cycle of racing thoughts and reinforces a positive feeling of improvements. The thing that kills me most about the mental side effects is that moment where you do down again after a good spell and your brain convinces me any upswing didn’t really happen and that I will be stuck in this hole forever. A complete mindfuck.

I had my run with Kava. Unfortunately I never really got the relaxing effect of it and it just ended up making my mouth numb and my kidneys hurt.
Got a small bag of Kratom now to test out. However, it acts as an opiate so no need to explain the dangers there.
I still smoke cigarettes from time to time. It helps cope with anxiety. I told myself I'd quit one thing at a time, first the anti depressant, then the xanax, and nicotine for last. It's been quite the battle and it keeps making me postpone quitting.
While releasing so many free radicals into my body will most likely hinder reaching proper homeostasis, I keep telling myself it's probably not that bad. Cigarettes suck lmao

My libido department is no longer lacking at all. It's becoming a struggle to not wanting to relieve myself at least once a day. It puts me in an awkward spot as I urge for a new sexual partner, but on the other hand don't feel ready for it mentally quite just yet. Usually libido vanished when entering a strong downswing, but I haven't felt it leave for quite a while now.

I'm on the fence about ordering some andro gel. I keep thinking it will fuck over my sleep and cause anxiety. In 2 months I'll be half a year in and will probably bite the bullet.

Some tips if anyone would be interested:

- Drink loads of water during the day but stop drinking anything a few hours before bed so you don't have to wake up to pee all the time.
- Eat animal organ meats like liver. They are probably the most nutritional thing on this planet and loaded with the entire range of B vitamins.
- If you have an extreme problem with racing thoughts before bed, I found smoking a light dose of high CBD cannabis helped me calm my thoughts down.
- In case you are like me and anxiety/depression is your main symptom, chances are you are getting slight PTSD triggers from your surroundings, especially during covid lockdown. I found that redecorating or rearranging my apartment, and changing up routines mitigates some of the anxiety. I might plan to stay over with my parents for a few weeks in the future to completely overhaul my perspective on things for a bit.
- If you have problems with cold showers try starting hot and then lower the temperature to minimum slowly. Then stand under the cold water long enough to start feeling numb or wobbly. Burst yourself with a wave of hot water right after and more often than not you can feel the surge of dopamine hitting you.

Guess that's it for now. It's funny how I keep thinking of ways to adhere to the protocol better, but in the end it's just not that complicated. When it becomes routine I end up thinking I'm not doing enough because it doesn't really seem like that big of an investment. Oh well, I'm still struggling mentally, quite hard from time to time, but it does feel like every month is a little better than the previous one.

Slowly trucking along. At this pace I'd expect to write a recovery story in like half a year or so. Keep your chin up everybody and keep grinding away.