Because I am out of sorts. (See what I did there? All this and brains too. )

I feel sort of irritated and restless and sick of everything right now. I get the feeling that there is something that I want, but that I don’t know how to get or even how to recognize what it is.

So I am just left feeling pissed off and sort of under the weather and gross without being able to put my finger on just what the fuck is wrong.

I think if I could drive and had a car, I would deal with this sort of thing by just jumping behind the wheel and going for a good long drive to someplace I have never been before.

Jut for something to do with my energies and to feel like I am escaping my life for a bit.

I am telling you, afternoons have become the hardest part of my day. Mornings I sleep, and the evenings I feel fairly centered and okay.

But afternoons are way fucked up. I wonder if it is because I take my Paxil with supper, therefore the hours before supper are the ones further away from my Paxil dose.

Then I take my Paxil with supper and it smooths me out for the evening.

If so, I suppose I could divide my Paxil dose in half and take a half-dose every 12 hours instead of a full dose every 24. That might even things out in terms of effect.

I will talk with my therapist about it when I seem him next, on March 7.

Of course, my recent lowering of Paxil dosage would only exacerbate such an issue. But it will pave the way to my adding Wellbutrin or the like to my meds, and that makes it totally worth it.

And, of course, I knew the reduced dosage would have some unpleasant effects. Getting more access to my emotions comes at a price. At a minimum, there will be an adjustment period.

I mean, I have not even been on the lower dose for a full week yet.

And I have some 30 mg tablets left, so if I really feel bad, I can bump back up to 35 mg for a day. Having that option available is a comfort to me, although the odds are that my innate stubbornness will keep me from exercising it.

I will just endure. And it is not like I am depressed or utterly miserable or anything.

I just feel vaguely irritable and overwrought. Perhaps once my psyche adjusts to the new dose, this sort of mood will become something more positive, like the urge to go do something active instead of sitting down in front of this old computer of mine like I always do.

Certainly, if money was not a hurdle, I would not be sitting here right now. I am not entirely sure what I would be doing, but it would be more interesting that vegging out in front of the computer like fucking invalid all the damned time.

Maybe I should invest in a bus pass. Then if I feel the need to just leave and go DO something, I could at least catch a bus somewhere.

Granted, I would still have very little money, especially after paying for the bus pass every month. But the GVRD is full of things one could do for free, I would imagine.

It just takes unsticking myself from this computer chair, getting into street clothes, packing some supplies into my trusty bag, and heading out into that big beautiful world out there.

Sounds so simple, and maybe it is. But simple and easy are not the same thing. Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to do.

Still, I feel good about my progress versus social anxiety. I went to that Overeaters Anonymous meeting last night, and that was a whole whack of social novelty and exposure, and I was not unduly bothered by social anxiety pains.

The potluck dinner was nice. It was soup and salad based, which I don’t mind at all. I would not want to eat it for every meal, but the occasional soup and salad meal suits me just fine.

There were desserts too, but I am being a good boy lately, and so I did not partake of them. It helped that none of them were the sorts of dessert I like, though. They were all heavy on canned fruit or otherwise fruit based, and I don’t like cooked fruit desserts very much.

They all looked like the sort of thing I saw in my mother’s cookbooks but that you never see on the shelf of a bakery or a grocery store. And there’s a reason for that.

The actual meeting was okay. The ladies there seem very nice. So did the other people at the potluck. It took place at one of those little Christian churches of no particular affiliation of which I am growing increasingly fond because they seem to be the last refuge of the sort of friendly, compassionate, moderate Christianity that I think represents the best of the faith.

I am not sure Overeaters Anonymous is for me. I am not sure it isn’t, either, though. But I have doubts.

It seems geared to treat overeating like a compulsion and an addiction, and I am not sure that maps to my issues. I am more of a habitual overeater than a compulsive one. I have never been the sort of person who binges when he is feeling down. In fact, to be honest, I almost never eat between meals at all.

Plus, the meeting took place in this tiny room of the church, and by the end of the meeting, I was feeling the highly unwelcome rising panic of my claustrophobia.

I will think it over, though. It reminds me a lot of group therapy, and I have had plenty of that in the past, and while I am sure it did me some good, I am not keen for more.

Oh well, I have a week or so to decide whether I want to go back.