medicate me

Lately my depression and anxiety have been going downwards and life hasn’t been as bright and happy as it once was. I was off my 120mgs of Zoloft for 11 months and I thought I was okay. I was oh so very wrong. It started with extreme anger problems. When I say anger problems I mean everyone and everything made my blood boil. I’d watch a T.V show and something would happen and I’d get so upset that I’d rant about it and then quit watching. Also my family will ask a simple question like “How was your day?” and that would be enough to send me into a rage even I didn’t understand. The anger lasted a few weeks and that molded itself into depression. I didn’t want to get out of my bed or even see any of my friends. I skipped out on plans and even thought about suicide again (I never harmed myself or acted on these feelings). As of now the depression has moved to crazy anxiety. My anxiety is so bad I had 3 major panic attacks in 4 days. My anxiety even went into what my therapist calls “Nonsense Anxiety” where the littlest thing will set me into a panic. For example, a lady at work had bought me a coffee and when my shift was over I forgot to grab my full hot coffee from the staff room before I got in my car and drove home. This was at around 4:30pm and the store closed at 6:00pm and I didn’t even remember the coffee until 6:30pm. Once I had remembered I immediately had a horrible feeling. I started to pace and shake. I asked my sister for one of her Ativan (yes she suffers from anxiety also, and don’t take other peoples medication, I only did because it was what I was previously prescribed they year before) but she said she didn’t have any she could spare. That made me panic even more because I knew I was already starting to have an attack and the only way to stop it was with a sedative of some sort. Once I started crying uncontrollably my sister gave me one of her pills, I think she could see I was really suffering. I went to a quite place and started hyper ventilating and crying while I waited for the medication to take affect. I kept each sob quite and silent mostly so nobody really knew the true torture I was in because for me there is nothing worse then someone watching me panic and touching me. This was all over a $2.00 fucking coffee. At that point I knew medication was going to be my only option because all my coping skills and therapist appointments weren’t cutting it. After that last panic attack it never actually went away it stuck with me for a couple more days. I went to my therapist told her and she told me that medication was my next step. She faxed a letter to my family doctor who I met with a couple hours later explaining everything. So now I have a new medication called Lexapro and I’ve been on it a couple days. I haven’t noticed a change yet but hopefully in the next few weeks I will. The  one thing that gets me is I never wanted to be on medication again. I hate having to take a pill everyday for probably the rest of my life or at least a good portion of it. I wanted to be well enough I didn’t have to take it anymore but that’s not my life and that’s not how my brain works. It sucks. To some this may seem dramatic but for me it’s like being reminded you have a life long disease with absolutely no cure but can only “manage” it. It fucking sucks. I’ve said before I don’t believe in a magic cure just hard work and finding the right balance of whatever works for an individual person. I try and be positive but it sucks. Like my doctor said though: “It’s not your fault you’re like this. You were born this way unfortunately”.

-Mac