Anhedonia

I've been off of Lexapro since July 30. It still has a huge effect on me.

I'm less depressed, overall, than I was before I got on it. I have had a couple of depressive spells. I made this during one of them:


There's a huge difference, I'm learning, between being happy and feeling happy. I was happy while playing with wind-up monkeys—who couldn't be?—but it didn't feel happy to me. I went a couple of weeks without feeling happy after I went off the Lexapro. Now, I'm getting flickers of happiness, the feeling, that is, and I think they're becoming grander and more frequent.

At the same time, I have been much more prone to having grandiose and obsessive thoughts since getting off the Lexapro, than I was before I started taking it. I have much higher concentration. Those, combined, led me to pulling an all-nighter two weeks ago to overhaul my code. I'm starting to see fruit from these efforts. I've been very energetic. Some days, I've gone without caffeine altogether; before the experiment with the Lexapro, I had had caffeine every day for months straight.

I'm surprised that, almost a month later, the effects of Lexapro are dominating my emotional state. I feel like dealing with the difficult emotions while on the Lexapro helped me release a lot of unhealthy thoughts, so now I'm very serene. I'm learning to be content with that serenity, even if I can't feel happy about things that make me happy.