On Medication

I’m feeling a lot better than I was last week. Not 100% but a lot better.

I went to see my midwife and I was a total wreck. She prescribed me Zoloft, which is thought to be safer in pregnancy than a depressed mother-to-be. Though it takes a few weeks to build up to its full effect, I actually started feeling better after about three days. It was hard to tell exactly. I couldn’t see what was different, yet my tone of voice was lighter in a way that my husband and my mother both noticed.

I would say it is like this: Before pregnancy when I’d get down my husband gave me a St. John’s Wort pill. The effect of that was like a single ray of sunlight was able to break through the cover of dark clouds over me. I could usually reach for that one ray and expand it and pull myself out of the funk. The effect I’m feeling from Zoloft is different. Right now I feel like the cover of dark clouds over me has risen up a few feet. I have a little more space to breathe. I can’t see the sun yet, but the clouds keep rising a little bit more each day.

I’ve always been really afraid to take medication, particularly medication with effects on the mind. It’s so important to me to have a clear mind and be in control of my brain. To my surprise I’m finding that the medicine is making it easier for me to have a clear mind. I was so buried in dark, circling thoughts that I couldn’t get out from under, but the medication has broken me out of my own mind. I’m not trapped there. I’m connecting with the world much better.

So I wanted to let you all know that I’m doing much better and I think I’m heading in a good direction.