Stronger

You know, when Scott and I originally split up and I went onto an extra antidepressant, I worried about it. Big surprise, huh? Worry, worry, worry. I worried that it would artificially elevate my mood, enough that I wouldn't actually feel what needed to be felt. I was afraid it would just postpone the pain. But I knew I needed to be functional in order to get my life in order.

That first month was rough, but nowhere near as rough as I anticipated. If you had asked me a year ago how I would feel if my relationship with Scott ended I would have said "Devastated". To a certain degree, I was. But I didn't feel it all day, every day, like I would have thought I would. I wondered how much of that was me being strong and how much was the antidepressant.

Well, about a month in things got a bit worse. I wasn't sleeping well and I was occasionally crying at work. That was unacceptable. I mean, I know things were awful but there's no reason it should interfere with my ability to do my job. It's not like any of this was my fault, and unfortunately I don't have the luxury of taking "sad days". So at that point I upped my dosage. And as soon as I did, I felt better. Not great, of course, but well enough to function and occasionally enjoy time with my friends.

Well, I was cruising a long for about a month and a half after increasing my dosage when I noticed that my hands were shaking more than they used to. I had asked my doctor about it and he said it was a common side effect of the Trazodone. They've always shaken; it's just a side effect of both the Lamictal and the Geodon. It's usually not bad enough for me to worry, but this was more than just that little bit of shaking. People were noticing. I was dropping things at work. My whole body started shaking. And when I couldn't crochet I decided I needed to get off the Trazodone.

So I nixed it. Cold turkey. It was pretty uncomfortable for a few days; I think I now know what menopause feels like. Hot flashes like you wouldn't believe. Add in headaches, nausea, shaking (different kind of shaking), and you've got a classic case of withdrawal. Physically, it wasn't that bad. It was the emotions that I was worried about.

And for good reason. Those first few days off of it...wow. I was barely functional. I was barely even myself. I'm so glad I went off of it over a long weekend because DAMN I was out of it. And I was crying all the time. I was so worried that this was going to be my life for the next who knows how long, because now it was apparently time for me to feel what I had been putting off for months while I was on the extra antidepressant.

And then, as suddenly as I stopped it, it went away. The depression went away. I woke up one morning and felt fine. Great, even. And I still feel great.

So how much of my strength came from the meds and how much came from sheer force of will? Who knows. But since coming off the extra antidepressant didn't seem to have that much of an effect on my emotions (excepting, of course, those few days where it was leaving my system), I'm inclined to believe that I'm stronger than I ever thought possible.

And that feels so damn good.