I feel ... strange. I don't expect any of this to make sense but I'm a little freaked out by it all. Emotionally, I'm actually very much at peace. I've mentioned in other posts that I feel pretty good in terms of my mood. Today I took a long walk, just to enjoy the fact that it's autumn and that the weather was nice and to get some fresh air, and the whole time I was walking I was just amazed at how good I felt. So let me just stress before I try to explain this that emotionally, I'm doing very well.

I'm pretty sure that whatever is going on with me has little or nothing to do with my mood. I'm posting it here, though, because mentally I think I might be in the same headspace I was in when I was very depressed. The depression made it impossible for me to do much of anything, so I would spend hours upon hours staring at the ceiling, unable to get myself moving because I was just too tired. I had absolutely no focus or concentration, and no interest in the things that I had previously enjoyed. I was pretty much a classic case, I think.

Now, since my mood has improved, I'm starting to notice there's something kind of weird going on inside my head. I feel really empty. Not in a bad way, not the way I would have felt when I was depressed -- as in, unfulfilled, lonely, uninterested and unengaged. I feel empty as in sometimes, my mind just goes blank. Just typing this is really difficult, as I have to stop every few seconds and try to force myself to remember what I'm talking about, force my mind to pick out the words I need to describe it. My attention just keeps slipping away. I don't always notice it when it's happening, either, which is scary too. It's sort of like when you're reading a book, and even though physically you're still reading -- your eyes are still taking in the words -- your mind is elsewhere, until suddenly you've finished the chapter but have no idea what just happened. It's like that. My mind goes elsewhere, but I'm not actually thinking about anything else. I'm not thinking about anything at all, not even the things I'm doing. I will start to wash the dishes, or I'll get in the shower, or I'll be walking somewhere, and all of a sudden, I'm halfway or even all the way through what I was doing but I can't say that I actually remember doing it. It's like my mind was just gone for a few minutes.

I'm losing track of time, too. I was sitting at my desk, trying to write, and I looked up for a moment and was just staring at the wall, trying to come up with the next phrase, when all of a sudden fifteen minutes had passed and I'd been staring into space without even realizing it. That happened to me quite a bit when the depression was bad, in that I would sit and stare, stare, stare, for minutes or even hours, but I always knew it was what I was doing, there was always a voice at the back of my head telling me I was wasting my time and look at how useless I was being (in the way depression does...) Now there's nothing. There's absolute blankness in my head. I'm a little scared; I'd almost rather have those berating voices back, at least so I could be aware of what was going on.

Does anyone know what's happening to me? Is it an effect of depression, or is it something else altogether? I'm going to mention it to my counsellor when I see her but I can't get an appointment for at least a week. I'm on meds (225mg venlafaxine), and have been for almost a year. It's done wonders for me. I've never had any problems with it before, so I doubt it's a side effect, but if anyone has experienced something like this because of their meds, maybe I should get it checked out? I have no idea what's going on and i'm starting to get freaked out!