Yeah, same here (same med and dose, too, lol), but it got better with therapy. I was used to being at the mercy of my mood my whole life, so when I became chipper and productive almost all of the time, I felt an an unnatural sense of urgency to ‘make hay while the sun shines’, so to speak.

I couldn’t feel comfortable sitting down and relaxing when I could still see so much to do and I had the ability to do it.

What I learned in therapy was that, whilst having been given ability to action my goals, none of my old self guidance techniques really applied.

If life is a raging river, all I could do in the past was try to yank my raft towards rocks to block or divert myself, with my bare hands. Hard, painful, rarely successful and never without consequences.

Now that I have medication, I’ve been given a oar, but I kept using it to refine my existing techniques under the false assumption that the rocks need to be hit in order to get anywhere- but hey, at least I don’t have to use my hands anymore, right?

When I get to a calm bit of river I should use that time to rest, “-but why? I have a paddle, now! I should go hard whilst I still can, I’m so much further behind everyone else, and soon I’ll be too exhausted to use the oar so I should use my energy while I can.”

I’m beginning to learn that I can use the oar to guide myself before rocks and turns, to not exhaust myself early, and to know that the river winds as it will but I don’t have to meet it with a headbutt (lol).

Lol that was a big ol’ metaphor for cognitive behavioural therapy, but honestly I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.

I take medication but I also suffer from chronic illness- many times my health issues render my medication barely effective, so when I first came to my psychologist 2 years ago to work with him, I told him that I wanted to learn behavioural patterns and frames of mind when I was well that would still help me when I was sick.

It’s working very well, I’m proud to say 🙂