Seriously, I want someone to explain this to me like I’m a five year old…

As I’m sure most of you know, I’ve been watching my diet (what little I was able to eat anyway) to get rid of the Cymbalta weight I gained. So I talk to a nutritionalist and a bariatric physician’s assistant (which is not covered by insurance). I’m following this 1200 calorie a day, high protein, no carb diet for over a month now. I don’t eat anything not on the list… Actually, I eat about 1000 calories a day because I just can’t eat that much. Everything is either low or no cholesterol, low or no fats… I got an exercise bike and everything! You know how much I’ve lost…? Not a fucking thing… Worse, they told me that I gained from eating too little… Imagine that! You eat too much, you get fat. You eat too little, you get fat. There’s no winning here, people!!! Honestly, I think this is a waste of my money. I’m paying these people out of pocket, and they’re not helping at all! The only thing they can tell me is that, with me being on meds, it’ll be a little slower. Okay, I can handle slow, but this is non-existent!

Have you ever watched that show My 600lb Life? Yeah, well… I’m living the diet…

There he is, the 70-something Israeli doctor who works wonders, the guy who claims “scales don’t lie; people do”. And, in many cases on his show, he’s right. I see how these people eat and they don’t follow the diet at all…

But, as he assures them, if they stick with the same kind of diet I’m on, they can lose 100 pounds in a month easily. Really dude?! I just need to lose 40 Cymbalta pounds and I can’t even lose one pound! I do what they tell me, I eat nothing that isn’t on my list. So how can these 600+ pound people lose that much (if they follow the diet to the letter) and I can’t lose one stinking pound doing the same thing?! Granted, I don’t weigh enough that I need bariatric surgery. Not yet… But I just don’t get why I can’t lose or I gain a few more pounds. What the actual fuck?! And the 600+ pound people this diet doesn’t work for are the ones who eat bad food and a lot of it. I don’t get how eating 1200 calories a day and good foods won’t take it off someone who only wants to lose 40 fucking pounds!

Seriously, dear readers, Cymbalta ruined my life…

I tried telling my shrink that I wanted off of it because it had made me fat. His reply: “You look fine to me.” My reply to him: “But I don’t look fine to me. How is an antidepressant going to help me when I feel fat and that makes me more depressed?!” It took months to get him to wrap his head around that one, and that was only because my cholesterol was getting out of hand. He still claimed it wasn’t the pill (dozens of commercials that say otherwise can’t be wrong, doc…). I got him to agree it was the weight gain from the Cymbalta that raised my cholesterol and he switched me to Lexapro. It had never been an issue before, but no w it seems I can’t lose and just gain ever since I took that shit. It messed up my cholesterol, my sugar, I had horrible withdrawal every time I had to cut back to wean off… And, to be honest, I think I’m still suffering side effects of these fucking antidepressants. I still get withdrawal sometimes, even though I’m on a new med, and the doctors won’t take me off them. Why the fuck not?! They don’t work anyway… I learned that in the hospital. 30-35% is the meds. The rest is up to you to make better. So, if I’m doing more than half the job, why are these fucking pills getting the credit?! I don’t think so! I think it’s time that we, the sufferers, get credit where credit is really due…

Okay, I was going to use Edvard Munch’s The Scream for this, but when I saw the Rick and Morty version… I couldn’t resist. I love this show!

In any case, that’s how I feel most days, like the guy in The Scream… I’m terrified, frustrated and feel like my brain is never going to be right again and neither will my body. And, when I get terribly frustrated, I just give the fuck up.

So the fact that I haven’t lost any weight in a month has me so frustrated that I just want to scream and give up. The doctors never hold the pills accountable for their part and blame me for eating garbage (yes, low fat meats, vegetables and salad are bad for you…) No lie, my one doctor did that… And my brain is just not right. Antidepressants keep me from being creative and that makes me more depressed. That’s why I haven’t been doing much art except for self portraits. I just have no inspiration, period…

Most days lately, I feel more like I’m trapped in this M.C. Escher lithograph, Relativity.

Notice how the stairs and the people on them are all going in different directions and there seems to be no discernible pattern…? This is my brain on medication. It’s kind of all over the place and has no idea what direction to go in…

Anyway… I’m sorry for the downer entry, dear readers. I’m just feeling so annoyed, frustrated, depressed, anxious, fed up… I just had to get some of that out of my system. And, now that I have, I’m going to go escape the isolation, the quarantine, by going to talk to my little animal villagers in my video game. At least I can be outside without sneezing and wheezing. Damned allergies…