About a year ago I started taking the medication Paxil in 40mg dose. It was for severe chronic depression, and initially it really did help me. However, around August I started to feel nothing. Literally nothing at all. Its the weirdest thing in the world to have absolutely no emotions about anything. I felt like a robot. So I tried going cold turkey. This was a colossal mistake that almost landed me in the emergency room. I went from "ok" to vomitting on myself, shaking, passing out, and having convulsions in the bathroom in a timeline of about 45 minutes. Luckily, my ever level-headed husband was there with me the whole time. From that day forth began the tedious and unpleasant process of weening myself off of the nasty drug. Do you know what helped immensely? Raw milk. I think raw milk actually saved me. Thankfully our dairy goat, Buttermilk, was in full milk and producing about 3/4 gallon a day being milked just once. I've read a few studies about the effects of raw milk on the body and the general conclusion is that even thought here is a miniscule risk (and if handled properly I believe there is none), raw milk can have antidepressant and other positive effects on the body. The only negative side effect was that the Paxil made it impossible to lose weight and the raw milk made it very easy to put it on. Needless to say I gained about 18lbs in 6 months. Getting off of Paxil took me a full two months. I was pretty ill, and miserable during the whole process too. The thing no one had warned me about before taking Paxil is that it can take up to a year to fully leave your system and you can still experience withdrawal symptoms at 6-8 months. I started having a relapse about two months ago and it got pretty bad. It's been an uphill battle since.
Moving on... I also had a minor tragedy and blow to my self esteem and enthusiasm when all of my seedlings I'd started inside damped off and died. I lost every single one. It was a huge thing to me since my seedlings are like babies to me. I'd never even heard of "damping off" before. But if you'd like to find out more or just take preventive measures of your own read up on it here:https://extension.umass.edu/floriculture/fact-sheets/damping-bedding-plants-and-vegetables
But as they say live and learn! I've since started all my seeds outside and everything has been going swimmingly. We got all the beds tilled, fenced, and seeded within a few weeks. As you can see to the right we've also had some new additions on the farm in the shape of surprise chicks! I'll try to post again soon since in truth I don't have any updated pictures of the seeds I started (again). It's been so muddy out that my opportunities have been few a far between. -Colleen P. & The Little Red Homestead
