Tewtally Exhausted

And yes, I know I spelled totally wrong. I just sounds cuter as "tewtally". Anyway, for the past two weeks, especially the last week, I've been getting probably no more than 5 hours of sleep at one time, which has completely messed up my system. I'm already feeling ill because I've decided to stop taking happy pills, and have been in the process of weaning myself off them. On a regular day, I have tons of headaches, can't move without getting a major dizzy spell, feel utterly exhausted, can't concentrate AT ALL (seriously, I can't - it's horrible), get antsy, feel like throttling someone.... yeah, it's pretty bad. And this is weaning myself off it just like the doctor recommended. This is NOT going cold turkey - which thank God, I haven't done, since I don't even want to imagine how bad I'd feel. If you're wondering why I'm on the pills and/or why I'm getting off them, well, I'll tell you - I had a bad time about two years ago that interfered with my schoolwork. My grandpa had just died, I was having major problems with the folks, I got into a car crash, someone broke into my car and robbed me, I was beyond stressed out with school... all this and more made me have a mini breakdown, and the Dean practically told me either I'd have to get on meds or she'd make sure I'd never pass the bar. And since I've already poured thousands and thousands of dollars of debt into this endeavour, I wasn't quitting now. So I obeyed - I went to a therapist and got myself drugged. It wasn't too high of a dose, I believe, but I guess it helped somewhat. I had these anxiety spells where I couldn't sleep because all I could do was think of every bad thing that I'd done, might do, had happened to me, might happen to me... it took hours to fall asleep, even with prescribed sleep medication. I was a bit of a wreck for a while. But then I decided that I needed to take control of things, and not try to just cope by drugging myself to forget things. So I took some necessary steps, and now I feel a lot better. Sure, I'm not where I want to be yet - but I'm really trying to get used to the fact that some people are never going to change, so either I suck it up and deal with it, and don't let it hurt me, or I'll just stay depressed for the rest of my life. So that's one reason why I decided to go off happy pills - I'm in a better emotional position now, and I am the type of person that would rather not be on medication if it isn't ABSOLUTELY necessary. Another reason why I decided to go off the pills was because I've been gaining a ridiculous amount of weight. Back when I started about a year and a half ago, I weighed maybe 125/130 pounds, and I looked fine. I had just gotten back from a 4 month trip to Europe where I walked everywhere, everyday, and had shed a few pounds in the process. I liked how I looked. When I first started the medication, things were fine - I exercised regularly, ate well, and as a result, I was losing a few pounds. But then maybe 7/8 months into the medication, I ballooned up to 150 pounds in probably 2/3 months or so. I remember going on Christmas vacation and wearing these lovely gray jeans - one month later, when I tried them on, I couldn't even zip them up. It was insane. I've never in my entire life put on so much weight so quickly than I have this past year. And okay, I can deal with weight gain, as long as I know I can lose it by eating healthy and exercising. So I did both. All summer I went to the gym 2 hours a day, and ate 1200 calories of HEALTHY food every day. EVERY DAY. And do you think I lost weight? No. Not at all. Not ONE pound. And now I'm a size 14, up from a size 6 (well, pants, anyway. I have CURVES, people). That is just ridiculous. Seriously. So I gave up - you girls understand how depressing and hurtful to one's self esteem it is to gain weight. And then to try SO hard to lose it and not be able to? That just killed it. I felt like it was my fault - like I was a big fat pig that couldn't stop eating, when honestly I've always eaten the same amount and never had problems staying at the same weight. I was diagnosed with mild hypothyroidism early this year, so I thought that was the problem - I got on the meds, but I didn't see any difference, and my doctor eventually told me to stop taking them because my levels were back to normal and I certainly didn't want to become hyperthyroidic by continuing my medication. So it wasn't that. Then I started doing research on the happy pills I'm taking and I was flooded by stories of people who've been on it and have gained ridiculous amounts of weight - I'm taking about people who run marathons, who weighed 100 pounds and went to 190 in a few months. So that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was fighting to get back a normal emotional state, and continually thinking I'm a fat ass isn't helping. So I'm off for good now. I just need to make sure to try extra hard at school so there's no need for the Dean to interfere again.
But anyway, that really wasn't what this post was going to be about. I was just going to complain about finals. Yeah, finals weren't very fun. Since I barely slept, I was exhausted AND couldn't concentrate, so taking a test with a time limit? Soooo not a good idea. But I did, and I was officially done by Tuesday at 4. Awesomeness. I don't feel relieved, but I think that's because it hasn't really kicked in yet that I can chill for the next 3 weeks. I've been really busy cleaning up my apartment for my parents' visit next week, and today I finally finished. I still need to get groceries and whatnot, but that's cool. I can do that. That's the easy part.
So now I'm going to head off and finish uploading some songs to my iPod and then go to sleep, since I'm really tired and I don't think I've caught up with all my missed sleep yet.
So Merry Christmas, ya'll, and I'll try to post something closer to Christmas. Toodles!