Take This Drug and Shove It
So I woke up this morning. Ish. And I dragged myself into the shower. And I looked back at this nightmarish week (and I mean this in a sort-of literal sense - it's not that anything especially bad happened to me, it's just that everything felt uncanny and skewed and subtly but unmistakably wrong, like it does in a nightmare). And I pictured doing it all over again for another week, and then another.
And then I thought, well fuck that.
It gets so hard to get any clarity once you start putting something like this in your system. I know it feels bad, but I cling to this idea that maybe it has to be bad in order to then get better. He's a psychiatrist, he knows about the drugs, is what I've been thinking all week. But, I thought today, he doesn't know about me, or how my brain works, or what this feels like for me, or what my life is like - not like I do. I'm the expert in me.
Before I started this (in case I've been unintentionally cryptic about 'this': my sleep doctor, who is also a psychiatrist, added a new antidepressant which he said was different from most other antidepressants, worked on the two areas of the brain that produce physical and mental symptoms of anxiety, and was also a sleep aid. This is in addition to the antidepressant I'm still taking, at a reduced dose) I was feeling better. Not all better, but better. It was a little easier to get up in the morning. My anxiety was bad, but I was managing it. Now I feel like I've gone backwards. Waking up in the morning is ten times harder, which makes me feel lazy and more depressed. I have to save up all my energy to do one thing in a day before I have to rest because I feel like the world is constantly pitching and rolling and coming at me like sleet, or arrows. When I stayed home to answer the door at Halloween, every doorbell - which I was expecting - sent me into a full-body seizure adrenaline-dump (which I'm thinking is not a strong endorsement for a drug that promises to alleviate symptoms of anxiety). I had to leave a really great dinner party early last night because someone cranked up the music, and suddenly the loud-noise sensitivity morphed into this thing where I felt like the music was crushing me and squeezing all the air out of my lungs (is aural claustrophobia an actual thing, or have I actually invented a new, really-messed-up side effect?)
I could stay the course. I could put myself, and my husband, and my kids, and my friends, through another week or another month of this, in the possibly-vain hope that I will emerge with something better than what I had before. At this point, I don't think the cost is worth the possible future benefit.
Thanks for all the helpful words. I will try really hard to blog about something other than how high I am for the rest of November.
And then I thought, well fuck that.
It gets so hard to get any clarity once you start putting something like this in your system. I know it feels bad, but I cling to this idea that maybe it has to be bad in order to then get better. He's a psychiatrist, he knows about the drugs, is what I've been thinking all week. But, I thought today, he doesn't know about me, or how my brain works, or what this feels like for me, or what my life is like - not like I do. I'm the expert in me.
Before I started this (in case I've been unintentionally cryptic about 'this': my sleep doctor, who is also a psychiatrist, added a new antidepressant which he said was different from most other antidepressants, worked on the two areas of the brain that produce physical and mental symptoms of anxiety, and was also a sleep aid. This is in addition to the antidepressant I'm still taking, at a reduced dose) I was feeling better. Not all better, but better. It was a little easier to get up in the morning. My anxiety was bad, but I was managing it. Now I feel like I've gone backwards. Waking up in the morning is ten times harder, which makes me feel lazy and more depressed. I have to save up all my energy to do one thing in a day before I have to rest because I feel like the world is constantly pitching and rolling and coming at me like sleet, or arrows. When I stayed home to answer the door at Halloween, every doorbell - which I was expecting - sent me into a full-body seizure adrenaline-dump (which I'm thinking is not a strong endorsement for a drug that promises to alleviate symptoms of anxiety). I had to leave a really great dinner party early last night because someone cranked up the music, and suddenly the loud-noise sensitivity morphed into this thing where I felt like the music was crushing me and squeezing all the air out of my lungs (is aural claustrophobia an actual thing, or have I actually invented a new, really-messed-up side effect?)
I could stay the course. I could put myself, and my husband, and my kids, and my friends, through another week or another month of this, in the possibly-vain hope that I will emerge with something better than what I had before. At this point, I don't think the cost is worth the possible future benefit.
Thanks for all the helpful words. I will try really hard to blog about something other than how high I am for the rest of November.
Comments
I don't know anything about drugs -- prescription or otherwise -- but I am big believer in trusting your instincts. Listen to them. Plus I know you've got a great support system w/ your husband, mom, sister & Pam -- so whatever you decide, WHENEVER you decide, your not-at-all vain hopes will come to be. Bet on it.
Good luck. Stay safe.
Magawd the drug sounds awful. Just awful. I want you to feel better.
I wonder if maybe the sleep machine thing, if allowed to continue working, would just keep improving things, since you were feeling better. I'm absolutely no expert, but I do know if someone hasn't been sleeping well for 30 years, maybe it takes time to catch up and feel better, and adding a new drug that was giving you such horrible side effects is not helping matters. I mean, if a drug is making you feel terrible and badly drunk and you can't function, maybe that WORSENS the depressed feelings? I don't know. I think you're right to trust your instincts.
I've only had a year or so of baby-induced interrupted sleep, and it has just about broken me. One night of proper sleep - ONE NIGHT - and I felt like a completely different person. I agree that you should give the machine a chance to work. I've taken different anti-depressants over the years and while the side effects are never much fun, I've never experienced anything as bad as you've described the past week. I think you're making the right decision here.
First--I swear that aural claustrophobia must be a thing. I know it's happened to me. It's actually happened at Chapters a few times when the music was too loud and I felt like I couldn't even read the book titles.
Second--YES, my god, you are only just now getting decent sleep. This pill on top of it making you feel like you're trapped in a funhouse? I'd be having second, third, and fourth thoughts too.
I hope dumping the drug helps.