One of the symptoms that I've had every time I've tapered down my dosage or tried to stop taking Lexapro is a dizziness/tinnitus spike when I move my eyes quickly in any direction. It's hard to describe exactly what it feels like--it's a combination of buzzing/ringing/disorientation that lasts only momentarily but is very disconcerting.

It's hard to find any information online about this symptom. None of the standard medical or pharmaceutical sites talk about it. If you dig for a while, though, you'll find a number of blogs out there talking about "brain zaps" during withdrawal, which appears to be very much like what I'm experiencing. I particularly liked this description from Christine at "Watch me! No, watch me!", who experienced them when stopping Zoloft:

They are tough to describe. Essentially, for me, a Brain Zap feels like an electrical current briefly runs through my head, starting at the back of my skull. Not unlike a friction shock, but totally NOT like a friction shock in that it doesn't hurt at all. Just the fun part of the jolt. And yes, if you've had a Brain Zap you'd know there IS a fun part.

Brain Zaps were always my cue that I was behind on my Zoloft. If I missed a day, and went too long the next day, sure enough...zzzzzzzzzzztttttt. Oh, right, gotta take my Zoly.

The strangest thing about this (and yes, the strangest part is yet to come), is the physical action that would proceed the BZ. It seems BZ's require, again, at least for me, a quick eye movement. Not a simple annoyed eye roll (if that were the case, I'd pretty much have them constantly when running low on Zoly).

No, it requires a faster motion than that.

A quick over the shoulder glance.

Eyes darting to the other side of the room because I think one of my kids is trying to sneak some cookies.

A sudden look upwards after opening our hall closet because something is about to fall on my head from our overstuffed hall closet that I keep nagging my husband to sort through because I am not tall enough to reach the upper shelf otherwise I'd do it myself.

Thank goodness for the anecdotal descriptions out there--they let me know that it's not just me, which is hugely helpful when you're experiencing weird symptoms!

Since it's been a pretty good summer, I've been working on slowly weaning myself from my current medication. Why? Because while the benefits the meds provide by lifting my depression are incredibly valuable, they doesn't come without a cost--primarily in the form of side effects. Manageable side effects, and worth the tradeoff, but not something I want to deal with if I don't need to.

The problem with going off anti-depressants, however, is that one side effect of withdrawal is--you guessed it--depression! And it's hard to know if the resulting dark moods are short-term withdrawal symptoms or an indication that I shouldn't be going off the meds at all.

Now, my depression doesn't manifest in immediately recognizable ways. I don't sleep a lot, or even eat a lot. I do, however, snap at other people a lot--especially my family. And, oddly, I become compelled to clean house! As a result, I've spent the past few days tackling the clutter and dirt in the house, with significant results. The resulting improvements in my surroundings actually help to lift my mood, creating the opposite of a vicious circle. It's all good.

Add to that the fact that we're eating much healthier food these days, and that I'm exercising regularly, and I'm optimistic that I'll be able to push through the next week or two of moodiness and come out the other side happy and healthy.

In the meantime, however, if I don't respond to your emails, or if I seem unusually snappish--it's not you. Really.

If you were one of the people who donated, please know that he's more than willing to do some work for you in return; for those of you who are local, he's available for physical labor as well as technical support, and for those of you who are remote, he can do web, coding, or even boring data entry work.

This also will serve for him as a great example of how generous people can be, and I hope that he'll be able to pay it forward himself in the future.

Again, my thanks to all of you.

----

Lane left Wednesday for a two-week trip to San Francisco and Palo Alto. It's his first trip on his own, and while we paid for tickets and arranged for places for him to stay, spending money was up to him. He put away some money over the summer, but wasn't able to find a job (despite applying at multiple places)...the economy and the influx of college/hs students home for the summer made it tough for a 16-year-old to get his application noticed.

Despite the fact that we gave him some spending money for the trip, it's only taken him three days to realize that (a) San Francisco is a lot more expensive than Rochester, and (b) if you don't pay attention, your money can disappear awfully fast into food, drink, admission fees, public transportation, and more. Unfortunately, he's come to this realization at a time when our monthly budget is already stretched a little tight because of the trip Alex and I just took, along with some other unexpected expenses.

To make matters worse, he managed to spill liquid on his laptop, so he's computer-less right now...and thus unable to post his own plea for digital piecework or advances on wages for local chores.

So, I'm helping him out with this post. If you've got some work that you'd like him to do here in Rochester, or something that he could do for you remotely, he's available for hire at whatever you consider to be fair wages. Or, if you just feel some sympathy for a 16-yo who's learning some hard life lessons this week, you could chip in a couple of bucks to make his vacation less stressful.

Thanks! (from both of us...)

In the meantime, you can see all the photos I've taken thus far in my Flickr account (arranged by day of the trip), and if we're connected in Facebook you'll see my regular check-ins to locations along the way.

After that, we made our way down to Chimney Rock National Historic Site, where we read a bit about the Oregon Trail and were careful to avoid the snakes.

From there, it was a short drive to Scotts Bluff National Monument, which was really beautiful. (I broke down and bought an annual park pass here, and they even credited me for the $15 we spent at Badlands yesterday.)

Then we headed to Colorado, where we're spending the night with a lovely family that we found on couchsurfing.org. When we arrived, they brought us to a cookout at a local beach, and then set us up comfortably at their house with a bed for me, a futon for Alex, and tons of gracious hospitality. There's a lot to be said for trust-but-verify systems like couchsurfing!

Now that we're settled in, Alex is watching a movie via NetFlix on the iPad, and I'm about ready to hit the sack. We don't have too much driving tomorrow, happily--we'll be stopping in Colorado Springs to see the Air Force Academy (where Gerald spent nearly three years), and the Garden of the Gods. From there, we're headed to Cañon City and the world's highest suspension bridge.

(To see more photos from today's trip, check out Flickr. I haven't uploaded the photos from the Canon 30D yet--only the Hipstamatic shots from my phone. The rest should go up tomorrow night.)

I'm exhausted, so I'm not going to write the lengthy blog entry that's already forming in my head. That will have to wait 'til our pace slows down. But I have uploaded my photos from today to Flickr , so you can get an idea of all we've seen and done today.

Tomorrow, Carhenge!!! Then we'll visit Scotts Bluff National Monument in Nebraska. After that we'll head down through Wyoming into Colorado, where we're having our first ""couchsurfing":http://www.couchsurfing.org/" night in Longmont. Alex is pretty sure they'll be axe murderers, and if he's right there will be no more updates. I'm a bit more optimistic. :)