When You Start a New Anti Depressant

The hubz & I are going through a 12 week marriage seminar. I did not want to go. It was going to be hard work.  It was going to require all the communications-of-horror.  It was going to give me headaches.  It was going to rip my hair out and hang me upside down by my pony tails.  But then it ended up giving us mutual language by which to discuss our issues.

Also, depression.  I can appreciate any study that helps you go down to deep to that subterranean level where dirty vows and unwise promises are made and should be broken.  Down there, it hurts to look.  When I peer down there, down where folks like me keep our trauma buried neatly under rugs, well, all hell breaks loose.  I’ve been down that road so many times, in those long hours of therapy and even longer hours of staring at walls.  Like I said, it hurts my eyes.

After 5 weeks of our subterranean trek, the depression rolled over me, sat on my face. It came on so quick, so strong, I knew I had to get my hide back on Vitamin Z (Queen Zoloft) before I lost control.  Stay on top of it, just like the cramps from Aunt Flo.  Stay on top or your toast.  Down for the count.

If you’ve ever plunged into the murky waters of antidepressants you know the beginning can be the worst.  And by “the worst,” I mean that’s when the most people who go on antidepressants commit suicide.  All the times I’ve ever started a brand new anti-depressant I’ve plunged into the deepest, darkest caves of suicidal depression for a solid 3 days.

This time was different.  It wasn’t the deepest nor the darkest, but it lasted for six long days, this past Saturday being the absolute worst. It looked like this: get out of bed, stare at a wall, try to clean something but everything feels too heavy, even a washcloth. Get back in bed, it’s too light.  Cover your head.  Sleep.  Get up and try to eat, try to clean, try to shower, try to email, try to post to Facebook, try to watch T.V. but everything is too much, everything is too burdensome, nothing is okay, except the darkness under the covers or immediate death.

When you’re not suicidal you don’t want to do it yourself but you don’t mind anyone else coming along to lop your head off.  If you are suicidal you spend waking moments trying to figure out the quickest, easiest way to get the job done.  Or, of course, all the reasons you shouldn’t but you are preoccupied with the idea.  That, my friends, is the absolute worst.  And that is what riddled my last few weeks, off and on, off and on.

Then you wake up the next morning and like a light switch it’s turned itself off.  You knew you’d get here eventually so you pushed through.  You had one goal: just survive.  And you did.  So you check it off your to-do list.  [Didn’t kill self today: CHECK]  You are you again, you feel normal, even hopeful.  You try a new hairstyle, Bantu Knots…

You don’t want to die, you want no head lopping, nothing but a big bowl of Fruity Pebbles. You go to work, normal.  You come home, normal.  You go see, Don Jon with a friend & you LAUGH & LAUGH because you can, and because Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a genius and because he is ALL THE HOTNESS.  You trip UP the movie theater stairs and you LAUGH.  You wear blue eye shadow the next day, just because.  You don’t feel much like Facebooking, but you know you will eventually.  Your blog can wait, you know you’ve got lots to get done:  everything else that sat patiently amidst new-antidepressant-hulabaloo.  You know can handle it, will handle it because everything in your world feels better, lighter, more manageable.

The medicine has, finally, adjusted to your brain and eventually you will feel something remotely along the lines of: happiness.  Eventually, you will be able to face the demons under the rug without them threatening to bowl you over.  You may not be happy all the time but you will have enough strength to rest well.

This is how antidepressants work for me.  They come on like a bat of out hell, but snuggle up like your favorite warm, winter blanket.  And I’ll need that warmth once we get into the nitty-gritty of the next 7 weeks.

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Linking up today with Heather of the The EO for Just Write where you just free write & it feels good.