Everlane Update and Klonopin Chronicles

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Well, after my rant about my Everlane T-shirt hem coming undone, I decided to calm down and actually try contacting them to see if they offer any kind of guarantee on their products. I didn’t feel like getting all worked up again, so I sent them an email with the segment of my blog where I went off about it.

Much to my chagrin, they were very apologetic, polite, and simply asked for a photo of the hem to see what the problem might have been. I sent them the two photos from the blog and they kindly offered a refund or replacement. The rep reassured me that this was not a widespread issue and he truly believed I had received a defective product. All this kindness despite the fact that my order was placed several months ago and I had used a referral credit to pay for the shirt in the first place. They promptly Fed-Exed the new T-shirt to me and I’m wearing it now.

I am still a little bit skeptical of the quality for two reasons: One, there were some loose threads at the neckline on this new shirt, though there seems to be no danger of anything unraveling. Two, the fabric still feels kind of cheap and almost scratchy; I had to wash it before I could wear it. At this point I considered the idea that perhaps I had not properly cared for the original T-shirt and checked the care instructions. The tag said to wash it in cold water and- get this- lay it flat to dry. A T-shirt. It was safe to say that I had not followed said instructions. Who lays a T-shirt flat to dry?

So I washed this new one on cold and threw it into the tumble dryer on low, which I think is all that could possibly be expected in terms of caring for a T-shirt. This is how I care for most of my clothes, save some gym wear that I line dry or wool sweaters that I flat dry. And so far, so good. The fabric has softened up a bit and as of yet, there’s no unraveling from the T-shirt or from me.

But all this did get me thinking about the care instructions on my other clothes. First I checked an ASOS T-shirt tag: machine wash at 40 degrees, turn inside out, no tumble dry, iron on reverse side. Okay, this sounded almost as unreasonable as the Everlane tag. I tried a Gap Factory T-shirt: machine wash cold/gentle, tumble dry low, cool iron. This was better, but still, cool iron? Then I checked a J. Crew T-shirt: machine wash cold, tumble dry low, warm iron. Finally, one that sort of made sense. But even that I’d say is erring on the side of caution.

When I was selling clothes on Ebay, I often found that the care instructions on clothing were overly conservative. I hand-washed and line-dried many a “dry-clean only” item with excellent results. Lined wool blazers and dresses did get dry-cleaned or simply sterilized with a straight vodka spray, but most things that didn’t get chucked in the washer and dryer got the cold bath/line-dry (or flat-dry) treatment. And despite laundering literally several hundred garments, there were only two items that were total failures: an Armani viscose dress that shrank to the size of a tube top, and a Pendleton wool sweater that upon coming into contact with water, released a cloud of horrible chemical smells that could only have been caused by multiple dry cleanings.

Which brings up something else I wonder about: is dry-cleaning really the safest option, care-wise? I often hear of beloved designer sweaters shrinking up at the dry-cleaners, and I myself had a devastating incident with a lined vintage velvet gown that came back as crushed velvet.

So how is one ever to know which way to go? In my experience, anything lined is best left to the experts- except for velvet, for which I have no solution. As for wool, I’d contend that a hand wash in cold water and a flat dry is the most delicate way to go. But cotton? Cotton I’m tossing in the dryer. If I really don’t want any shrinkage, I might opt to line dry instead. But the only items I lay flat are sweaters. Sorry, Everlane. I understand erring on the side of caution for the care instructions, but I have to draw a line somewhere in the realm of practicality.

Onto another subject: my latest medication adjustment. For years now, I’ve relied on Klonopin for anxiety attacks and sobbing fits. It takes up to an hour to kick in, but it’s been the only anti-anxiety medication to do the trick for me. I’ve worked my way up from 1/2 mg dose at first to 3-4 mg a day at some really bad points. I’ve been taking 1 mg at bedtime for quite a while, despite knowing it is not a good long-term solution for sleep problems. I recently switched it out for some Benadryl, as I still need something both for sleep and to fight off any akathisia from my nighttime Latuda. But last year I was consistently taking 1 mg Klonopin at bedtime and 1-2 mg for anxiety in the day/evening. Most recently I started taking 2 mg at once for anxiety, having built up such a tolerance over the years- a situation I have often worried about.

My current psychiatrist has often suggested taking 1 mg before anxiety symptoms set in (as they do every evening), but I always failed to do so, wanting instead to “save up” my daily allotment for when I really needed it later on. But after my last appointment where I made the same complaints I’ve been making for months, I finally took his explicit instructions to take a half mg at 2pm and another half mg in the evening. I blithely thought, what good can a half a Klonopin do?

Well, apparently a lot, when taken at the right time. This 1 mg, split into 2 doses earlier in the day, has been all I need lately- and that’s down from a solid 3 mg a day. I’ve started keeping a “meltdown chart” as part of my habit tracker, rating my level of meltdown each day on a scale of 0-10. And the results have been quite impressive- I’m honestly shocked at how frequently I’ve gone meltdown-free these past couple weeks, sometimes for several days in a row. My worst two days have hit a 4 on the scale, and I did take an extra 1 mg during those episodes, but overall there’s been a huge improvement.

My theory is that the small dose at 2pm is enough to take the edge off my anxiety and help me engage in something productive, which then helps with the nighttime depression and anxiety. When I’m able to get something done, I have a lot less negative self-talk, and that helps my mood enormously. A larger dose during the day is enough to put me right back to sleep, so in this case it seems that less is more.

The best thing is, the results have been immediate, since Klonopin is an anti-anxiety medication and only does its work for 1-4 hours. This means I don’t have to wait weeks for it to build up in my system like with my other psychiatric meds. I’m just so grateful for my psychiatrist’s seemingly infinite patience with me and my moods. I’m hopeful that this simple, subtle change in dosing and timing will continue giving great results. I still have days where I struggle to get anything done, and there are times when I surrender to the struggle and go back to bed. But I think I’m finally getting somewhere, if even just a little bit.