Brain Spew in Lieu of Wit

I'm not entirely sure when I last did a general update, so I figured I would give you an idea of what's happening on my journey. As I've said in a few of my previous posts, I am back on Venlafaxine ER (the generic for Effexor XR). The dosage is significantly lower than I had been taking - I spent most of my adult life taking 150mg, but I'm currently on the 37.5mg dose. I have been entertaining the idea of going up to the 75mg to see if it helps my depressive episodes and nerve pain, but it's not at a critical point. As it stands, my depressive episodes are significantly shorter and less severe than they have been in my whole life. I'm able to recognize the spiraling thought patterns for what they are and have started using the tools that have been gifted to me over the years to treat myself gently. My pain levels have diminished greatly. In all honestly, my day-to-day is still between 3-5 on a 10 point pain scale, but that's a vast improvement of 5-8. My...

I have spent a lot of my life trying to define what kind of life I want to live, as if pasting words to my actions gives them meaning. I do that with so many things - my identity, my relationships, my purpose. I knew what I wanted to do from the time I could talk. I spent 20 years of my life working toward teaching high school. Crashed. Spent 10 years working toward and in teaching university. Crashed. I've spent the last three years spinning without direction, without a classroom or a whiteboard at the end of the tunnel. I'm gaining some footing as an office manger, tutor, organizer. Significantly less as a writer. It's hard to have a voice when I've centered my identity around Teacher. I'm learning and integrating that it hasn't changed - just shifted from my core and became a limb or a subtitle. I am constantly defining myself by my work. A friend told me that's "internalized capitalism" and I sometimes worry that's my entire personality. ...