endemic

Taking sertraline again turned out to be a remarkably bad idea. I even let my doctor talk me into bumping up the dosage a few times, sticking with it for months, but it just kept getting worse. I was so fatigued, I couldn't get to the gym. When I did get there, my performance was awful. I felt like keeling over as soon as I started. I noticed that this began around the time I started taking the antidepressant, but my doctor dismissed the correlation. I thought because it acts on norepinephrine, it should increase energy, not wreck it. I sank deeper into depression, thinking it must be because I'm getting old.

Google it though. I wish I had, a lot sooner. Fatigue is a top side effect, along with nausea, which has also been a problem when I spar. It's been awful. Also, I don't know why I thought it was a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, it's an SSRI. I stopped taking it, and it's been a miraculous improvement. Now I just have to deal with the withdrawal, but even that hasn't been as bad as taking the stuff. I desperately needed some help getting through the winter, and only managed to make things worse. 

Trying meds again wasn't just an act of desperation, but also the idea that it might be time to reach for a springboard. All the help I can get, to pull myself up out of this hole, like I did a few years ago. Didn't work out that way this time. I'm not where I was back then, and maybe it's not realistic to hope for similar results. So, I try to adapt, move on, focus on what's working for me now. 

I'm also thinking maybe it wasn't the sertraline that helped me so much, a few years back. I keep wondering why all these tactics don't seem to work like they did back then, but the reality of it is that the last few years have been brutal. I'm injured and scarred. It's been a huge setback, when that was supposed to be a last ditch effort. I was freaking out at the beginning of the pandemic, because I saw some of this coming. I'm sure I'm not the only one who isn't going to entirely recover from this, ever. My hopes and dreams were torpedoed, so I need some new ones. 

I'm happy to finally be able to spar without throwing up, again. That helps me more than anything, and it's nuts how badly meds can fuck up the very things that help. They work sometimes, for some people, and I take no issue with that, but I think I need to stop trying them, myself.

The pandemic is basically over in the US, but liberals are having trouble seeing it. The Canadian trucker protests are a little strange, because they're happening right as all sorts of restrictions are ending anyhow - because the pandemic is ending. Yet, they're still pushing mandates and passports, and treating protesters like monsters.

To be clear, I'm well aware we still have covid cases, and people are still dying. People who are at elevated risk still need to be careful - but they need to be careful about the flu, RSV, and even the myriad viruses we call the the common cold, too. Covid is still a little more dangerous than all of them, but it's everywhere and now due to omicron being milder and high vaccination rates, it's harmless for most of us. Restrictions no longer make sense, and vaccine mandates never did, aside from in hospitals, nursing homes, and the like.

Covid season is over for now, but we'll still have covid season again, and hospitals will be overrun, the same way they often are due to flu season. That has more to do with how our profit driven hospitals are run, than anything people are doing wrong, getting themselves sick. Covid is finally just another virus to add to a list of similar viruses we already deal with. It's not novel anymore.

The science has changed, but for a variety of reasons, some are not adapting or even aware of it. I imagine it might have even been psychologically damaging to spend all this time hiding, such that we become afraid to ever stop. That's something I know a little too much about, but that's also why I'm less tolerant of staying that way. It's a trap, and I suspect lots of people have become stuck in it.

The media isn't helping. Liberal politicians aren't helping. Corporate influence isn't helping. I'm not sure what they're up to. Or if they're just scared and don't know what's going on. 

I'm going to an event tomorrow, with a group from my gym. Two of them are fighting in it. They were hoping for MMA fights, but could only find kickboxing opponents. I was hoping for MMA, too. In any case, I'll be in a van for a few hours with a bunch of people I barely know. None of us are going to be wearing masks. I'm not sure about the event itself, but if there are no mandates, people won't be masking, for the most part. 

I'm not worried about covid at all, not because I won't get it, but because it's just another virus now. They still auto-censor me on YouTube, for commenting that covid is like the flu, but it is. To some extent, it always was. The flu was one of the most deadly pandemics in human history, back in its day, but these things change.

Nailed an Imanari Roll for the first time today. Grappled for almost an hour straight. I'm wondering if they make a serotonin reuptake disinhibitor. I might be feeling some kind of rebound that won't last. Or it's what happens when I can get to the gym regularly enough. I'm not sure.