So here I am again. Dangling with my feet, my mind and my being, into the frayed edges of depression. If I am honest, I'm no longer just dangling in the nearness of depression, but tangled in the thick strands of it; the same old upholstery of my mind that has been mine since my birth. If you've ever seen the two sides of upholstery up close you know that one side is the pretty side, the outcome of the sewn mess of threads that make up the ugly side. Being tangled is not so bad. It is being undone that I fear most. What is most important for me to keep in mind while I am sometimes feeling like I am losing it, is that so much of what is going on is because of pharmaceuticals. In this particular instance, for me, it is the changing of medications that is wrecking my life right now. This is the bullshit of it all and I can't help but clinch my teeth as a wave of angry tears reluctantly jump from my eyes.
I've brought this round on myself. Starting in December of 2019, which was 5 years since my last hospitalization, I began a holistic approach to dealing with my entire self. I sought the nutritional and whole food supplementation advice of Dr. Michael Whitman and Dr. Adrienne Hagedorn and have been seeing them on a maintenance basis for over a year now. With the improvement of my gut lining, the ability to assimilate and actually absorb the nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and most importantly the proteins that are the building blocks of my neurotransmitters, I was able to wean off 2 anti-depressants (out of the 4 I had been prescribed since 2014). Anti-depressants have saved my life, more than a few times. They have also stolen it, in months and years at a time. It's not really as dramatic as it sounds, well wait, maybe it actually is. My desire to decrease the number of medications I take for my depression stemmed from my desire to fall in love again, to become emotionally available to others, and to be joyful AND down right pissed off when it is called for. All things that were proving to be impossible on the dosages that I was on. Apathy and the cardboard box life that high dosages of medications can cause were a total pain in my nothingness. And if there is anything I want out of my life, it is for the absence of nothingness. So, I worked with my doctors to wean off the medications.
And Guess What?- I fell in love. Boy, he sure didn't know what he was getting himself into, but we sure are smitten with each other. He sure is healing to be around and I find peace in his strength.
At 44, almost 45, I found myself still dealing with cystic acne. The kind of acne caused by hormonal imbalance. I know, can't a girl catch a break already! I know my hormones are doing something to me but it has been hard to tell whether it's my depression or my hormones that is causing my low mood. They have always worked for and against me most my life. My mental health practitioner suggested a new medication. One that she has seen a lot of great results with and I just wanted to hope that one new pill would do away with the last two meds I was still on and so I agreed to try it. Weaning off anti-depressants, especially one that requires 24 days for half of it to get out of your system, is as fun as having - well I can't even imagine what is equivalent to it- it fucking sucks. The new medication and the withdrawal of the other leaves me feeling so off center. I am writing this for over 2 hours because I can't stay focused. I get up and think I should mow the yard and then instead I make something to eat when I am not hungry. I am irritated at sitting still and irritated at not having a place to sit. All at the same time. I am tearful at church and crying during every worship song and yet I feel more connected to God through those tears. I am so emotional, and it is great and beautiful, and very, very hard. I can't decide whether I want to go and do something or sit and stay. I am raw in every mental and emotional way and I pray that this new pill will do what it is good at doing and that the withdrawal of the other medication just gets on with it already.
