FlowerDust.net | Anne Jackson

a letter to my agent

my book deadline is february 28 march 14.

i sent this letter to my agent a few moments ago.

Oh, my dear Beth.

Sincerely yours,
Anne-Going-To-Hide-Under-My-Bed-Jackson

your role in this, bloggyfriends? pray…hard…for me! being sick/asleep twenty-one hours a day lately isn’t really helping my schedule.

we’ve taken…medication

(bonus points for whoever can tell me who sings the song with the title of this post as one of the lyrics - no googling!)

a couple of months ago, i wrote about my gradual weaning off my sleep/anxiety medication (it’s one pill - a really strong sedative). i was a little nervous. one, i didn’t know what kind of withdrawal symptoms i’d have and two, i didn’t know who the person on the other side of this journey would be.

i’m still not completely finished with the withdrawal, but by this time next week i will be. i am so very happy to report i’ve only had some minor symptoms (mainly headaches).

i think that probably the biggest surprise is the fact the non-medicated version of me is SO MUCH DORKIER than the medicated version. i say that with as much emphasis as possible.

even though i had only been on the meds for almost a year, they were very emotionally numbing, and i didn’t even realize it. frequently over the last seven weeks, i kept getting these weird looks from my husband, like, “who is this woman?!” in a good way though (i hope)…at least he was laughing. hmmmm….

anyway, just wanted to update you all. if you want to read a little bit more of the journey over the last year, you can here.

thanks for your prayers & support!!

if you are on medication for anything, don’t make up your own plan for getting off of them. talk to your doctor. work out a plan. don’t just stop. my doctor has been great at helping me through this, as well as talking to friends and a counselor. disclaimer over.

let the healing begin

if you’ve been around a while, forgive my redundancy. i’ve been on a sleep/anxiety combo medicine since january and a “stress” medicine (did you know they made those?) as well. you can read about some my attempts at medication through some stressful transitions here.

a lot of people - christians in particular - have questions on whether or not medication for depression and/or anxiety is biblical. shouldn’t you just snap out of it? my personal experience with taking my doctor’s advice, and working with a therapist as well as discussing all of this with my husband led me to decide that going on medication temporarily as i worked hard core through some issues in counseling would probably be best. and i think it was. if i felt healthy enough, i would be off the medication in a year.

so because of the kind of medicine i am on, i have to gradually wean off. over the next eight weeks (beginning last night) i will be cutting back by eighths on one medicine, and thirds on the other.

how do i feel about it? i am so looking forward to what’s on the other side. my emotions have never felt more stable, my sleep is back to normal, and i’m not stressing out a ton. it may not seem like the best month to start this withdrawal, with all of the stress of current events, but i really think i am in a good place. with the support of my friends, family, husband, therapist, YOU GUYS and undoubtedly resting - really resting - in God’s promises of truth, justice, confession, and provision; i am not too worried about it.

my final week of medication is november 26. i’ll occasionally post updates of how i’m doing if i think about it, but i am really looking forward to taking this next step!

on a side note, this weekend in alabama went great. it was all a little bit of a blur to me but after speaking with several people after the message or getting emails from them over the last few days, i know God did a great work through everyone - the volunteers, the band, the teams that set up, dave, and even myself. i love seeing god move!

that’s about all from flowerdust land. i hope you all are having a great week!

a few updates

there are a couple “categories” i haven’t addressed here in a while, and some of you have emailed or myspace-messaged me asking questions, so i thought i’d put it out for all to see….

1) fat ragamuffin. my goal weight was between 140-145 (i’m 5′6″…almost) and i have stayed in that range for the last two months. i’ve been putting on some size 8’s again, which i haven’t done in four years. it feels good. i just need to tone up, and stay away from my mom’s brownies tomorrow.

2) depression. last i wrote, i dropped the wellbutrin which turned me into crazy lady, and was on paxil one single day until i quit. i’m not on any anti-depressants, but i still have some bouts with anxiety which are usually helped by upping my sleeping medicine (it’s really an anti-seizure medicine (20mg), but used in really low doses for insomnia (1mg) and anxiety (4mg)). when i get a little edgier, i just take 1.5mg and it seems to help balance me out. i’ve been feeling pretty good lately.

i don’t plan on being on medicine forever, but until i can heal from some things in my past (which i see a therapist for), it is aiding me in becoming a little more centered. i’ve had a few breakthroughs in my marriage and other areas and that has been INCREDIBLE. exercise (although i haven’t officially worked out in three weeks) has been another big help in this area, i’m sure of it.

so there are some updates on the not so pretty things. it’s easy to write about the good things or the questions, but hey, we’ve all got our warts.

death and taxes

everyone knows today is tax day. this is the first year in eleven that i have waited until the last minute to file. why? because i know i owe and i was afraid to see how much, as well as i knew it would be a complicated return. both chris and i worked in kansas (which has a state tax), we moved, we both were self-employed, we both worked in texas (which has no state tax), we bought office equipment for our self-employment, we traveled for it and i knew it was just going to be a mess.

this year, i got turbo tax deduction maximizer for our tax woes. i have always done them manually (and kind of enjoyed it) but not this time. i purchased a copy on eBay for $15 (which is a tax-preparation write off, however, you might actually owe tax for things you purchased online…) i found this little piece of software to be a magical charm. with all of the self-employment items, the deduction maximizer walked me through every possible thing we could deduct. it was amazing. it filled in every blank on the 67 page return we are filing. yes. 67 pages. although we still owe on our federal return, it is a very small amount. on the kansas state return, we are getting a pretty hefty refund. they almost balance each other out perfectly.

i did log on to e-file.com to get some information from my taxes last year and saw the ticking clock. now that stressed me out! we decided to mail our return in this year. i’d rather pay $4 for priority mail than the fees they charge you online (which is also a tax-preparation write off).

did you get your taxes done?

Update on Meds (Continued)…

So, first thanks for your prayers an encouragement from last Saturday’s post.  Instead of dropping back to 150mg of Wellbutrin, I stopped taking it all together. (*Note-don’t ever do that unless you’re under supervision from a doctor!)  I got switched over to Paxil, which affects a different chemical in the brain.  Some friends of mine have had success with it, but more importantly my own brother has been on it for a while and the difference it has made in him his tremendous, without very many side effects.

I haven’t started taking it yet.  Wellbutrin has the world’s longest half-life so it is still in my system for a few more days. I’ll probably start next weekend.  I know this stuff takes time to work and the side-effects diminish over time, but what Wellbutrin did to me was a little more than a side effect…I’d even say I was literally hysterical.  It was so crazy.

On to the next step…

green

when i feel any emotion intensely, my eyes turn an unbelievable shade of bright green - almost a green-blue color. which is weird. because for the most part, on any given day, they are a boring brown-green hazel color. the day i started high school they actually were blue. i was that nervous.

they’ve been really green the last couple of days. i just looked in the mirror and noticed how green they were. the last couple of days have been hard on me emotionally. maybe the increase in the wellbutrin was too much, but i crashed hard yesterday, and even harder today. i feel like i am having an out of body experience. the real me is floating around somewhere, probably sipping a peppermint mocha and instead, some crazy lady who cries any time a word leaves her mouth, who gets angry at the first sign of tension and who is scared to even be alone has embodied this shell with bright green eyes.

i know the crazy me isn’t really me. and tomorrow, i’m dropping my dosage back to 150. it seemed to be working fine, whereas the 300 is creating a monster. what i hate most about this is the feeling i am letting people down. chris didn’t marry a crazy lady. lake pointe didn’t hire a crazy lady. a crazy lady doesn’t work with my co-workers. but here is crazy lady and her inability to control even the slightest emotion.

i know i really need to get a grip. i wish i could figure out how much of this is me that i am not letting god control and how much is actually the medicine jacking with my chemicals. regardless, i could really use your prayers right now.