eAsylum

The Lexapro has worked great for my anxiety, but the weight gain and the lack of sex drive just isn’t worth it. I’ve learned alot about my fears and my anxiety in the last few years and I’m feeling pretty confident about tapering off of my Lexapro and quitting completley. I’m just worried about all the nasty side effects when going off these meds.

Has anyone else managed to escape the grips of the meds, or am I just nuts
Well I was never on Lexapro but I eased myself off Zoloft and have been great ever since. I too worked on what was causing me anxiety and that helped greatly.
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As most of you probably know, my g/f of 7 years and I broke up. It’s been a year and I’m still not doing so well. I mean, I go out every now and then, I haven’t really dated anyone and I am very lonely. The weird part is that I’m not really looking to date anyone. I’m not over my ex yet and I miss her a lot. Is there something wrong with me that I still think about her all the time (even after a year of breaking up). We are still friends and I’m distancing my self from her. She can tell and it’s bothering her a lot but I just keep any conversations very short and to the point.
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My fiancee has lately been having severe stomach/pelvic pains. First time was a month and a half ago. After a day in the waiting rooms, the doctors eventually said she probably had a cyst that burst, and sent her home with some tylenol 3s.

A few days later, she still felt sick, but wasn’t in much pain. Fastforward until Tuesday, she was in extreme pain all morning. When I woke up and found out, I took her to the hospital again. We spent about 14 hours total waiting, eventually to have the doctors say the same thing (cyst).
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How do you tell that you are in love with your significant other? should it be instant love or can love build into true love over years?
you dont have to ask yourself.. you will know i know it’s not the answer you’re looking for, but keep trucking
There is no such thing as instant love. Only instant attraction or instant infatuation. Love has to build over time.

I made a thread in the Vag a long time ago about love "growing" and how it tends to be a far deeper love than the bullshit "love" people claim after 3 weeks with someone; when they swear they know "everything" about a person, when in reality they’ve only scratched the surface.
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Do you ever leave or receive notes from your SO? Before you leave the house or whatever?

What do they say? Ever receive any creative notes?
No.

I once left him a note on his car and he called to say it made his day….but that was the only time
I do notes a lot. I have mailed letters in the past too (mainly because this summer its a LDR since we are basically running a school relationship during the rest of the year).

I like to talk about stuff in the past, what I’m up to currently, and what I can’t wait for in the future. Cute little cards often make someone feel appreciated, and its not hard to do. Even handmade cards work great, although Hallmark does the job.
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I’ve had anxiety issues my whole life, but in the past 6 months or so, they seem to have snowballed and have gotten worse and worse to the point where I feel like I’m becoming agoraphobic…I have a doc’s appointment friday to sit down and talk with him.

My two questions are

A.) the only ways I’ve found to cope so far are benzos and smoking pot, is this something I should share with the doc? (more specifically the benzos, I dont want to seem like i’m just seeking drugs)
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ok, im going to try to keep this as short as i can. I have had my girlfriend for 6 months. Together we are extremely happy, never fight or anything. For the first time ever, i can completely let myself go around her and she can do the same around me. We have an extremely open relationship and tell each other everything, both of us are very honest with each other. We are both very much in love with each other. enough of the sappy bs. here is my situation.

before we met, all she ever hung out with were guys. She has a certain group of guy friends that were a large part of her life. She swears that she has never once hooked up with any of them but one guy she did have a thing for at one point. They have never really been an issue because when we first started getting real serious, i told her that i cant be in a relationship where she goes out with only guys all the time, especially since all the guys really liek her (more than just friends). She always said that she hates other girls and never gets along with them, thats why she only hangs out with these guys. We are pretty much together 5-6 times a week, every week, since the beggining. Recently she started talking about them again and how she misses her friends, but then takes it back right away and says that she is fine with out them and as long as she has me she is fine. Last week, she went to the beach and ran in to them there and hung out with them pretty much alllll day, then the next night she told me she was going to go over there house to hang for a bit after work. We got into a big fight and i was very clear that i hate when she hangs out with this or any group of guys. Mind you, at this point, i have NEVER met any of them. She never went to the guys house that night, but less than a week later, she tells me she is going to this guys house to go in the spa with all them and a few of their GF’s (again, im not invited, still never met)…i yell at her over this and she doesnt go again. Finally last weekend, they invited her to a club and she asked to go, but she wanted me to come this time to meet them, i agreee, we go, i met them, they are what ever, end of story. So today, i get a text saying she is going out tonight after work, i asked where, and she responded, "to a club with the guys", again, i told her that is very disrespectful that she even wants to go to a club with a group of guys, im not invited, just her and them. I dont see her ever stopping this, even though she promised they would not be an issue. Am i over looking the whole situation and should i not worry and just let her go be with this group of guys i have met with once? Or am i in the right and that is BS that she wants to hang out with only guys, go to their house, clubs, etc? she tries to make me feel bad and say that i dont want her to have friends, which is bs, i just dont want her to have guy friend, because we all know that somebody will always want the other. please help me before i go insane
Read the rest of question about serious relationships…all opinions welcomed »

I just broke things off with my girlfriend today. She was smart, funny, extremely cool and she loved me.

I had to end things because I don’t love her back. I love spending time with her, and the thought of hurting her makes me sick, but I just don’t see her in a sexual light and I don’t think its fair to either of us to keep the relationship going when I know its not going anywhere.

I feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world. It would have been easier just to stay with her and make her happy. Did I do the right thing?
Read the rest of Ended my relationship with a great girl »

I’ll start off by saying my father had Schizophrenia. I never really knew my father, he took his own life when I was 5. Now that side of the family does have some mental issues, and I admit I’ve had bouts of depression, but it’s never been for long. I’ve never gone to a doctor about it, or a therapist and I know OT isn’t the greatest place to post shit like this, but I decided to do some reading up on it today.

I know Wikipedia isn’t the most credible source of information and I know I shouldn’t google diagnose myself, but I found this as a symptom.
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Liberty, Technology, Duty: Where Peace Overlaps War is well worth a read.

…Disagreements about the nature of government, culture and freedom тАФ once matters of abstract theory тАФ have recently become all too urgent. What sort of government is ideal? What are the connections between a culture and its ideas of freedom? And how is freedom to be balanced with the rule of law? The fates of nations at war rest on such questions.

To gain some perspective it may help to turn away from the international arena and look instead at matters ordinarily left for specialists: issues involving copyright law, intellectual property and open-source computer software, issues that seem far removed from Falluja. Yet now in courtrooms, in scholarly books and in popular tracts it can seem as if similar things are being debated.

For what is at stake in this more placid arena other than questions of ownership and concepts of liberty and obligation? And aren’t the stakes high here as well, particularly as technological innovations make possible a universe in which everything can be copied and anything goes as well as a universe in which everything is controlled and nothing is permitted?

To many critics of copyright, the parallels are clear. Discussions of students being prosecuted for downloading MP3 files or of communally revised software being made freely available can lead to comparisons with antiglobalization protests or to advocacy of multilateralism in a new world order. Copyright law, technology and political culture seem to raise related issues…

If we speak of Freedom and Liberty in the context of Iraq, what is so different when we speak of our own countries? To do otherwise seems less than sane.