This is your brain...

Off meds update:

Things are mostly better, and then they suddenly turn very, very much worse. It's RAGE. It was worst the first week, occurs less frequently now, but still comes up and it is terrifying, for me and for the kids. Mostly it's road rage. I've never used my horn like I have in the past two weeks. And I scream at people, as if they could hear me over the continuous horn blaring.... Sunday afternoon I tried to get out of my vehicle at a stop light so the driver (who was just as out of control as I was) could benefit from my screaming at him up close and personal. And when he drove off, I followed him to yell some more. My kids were in the car. When it was over I considered driving to the hospital and admitting myself.

I had asked my friend early on, when this uncontrollable anger first surfaced, "So, tell me the truth... How mentally ill am I? Have I always been like this?" This was not the me I remember from before the meds. I was depressed, anxious, tired. I was not violent, not like this. I told my husband about the incident with the driver of the Lexus and how I behaved, with our kids on board, and asked him, too, "How mentally ill am I?" He didn't get to answer because we have those kids and kids, they do not like for folks to have private or productive time. EVER.

So, I went to my computer and googled, "off Zoloft." What I found let me know just how much of my intelligence I checked at the door of my adult life. How could I not have figured this out? I finally have a name for these changes from the last few weeks and it is WITHDRAWAL. [slaps forehead] Why did I do no research on this drug? Turns out that Zoloft is one of the top four toughest antidepressants to stop taking and that many, many people try repeatedly and fail to get off it. Most of the gross crap I've been going through is not from removing the antidepressant effects and revealing a worse depression, but from moderate withdrawal effects. I say moderate because while I do have fatigue, irritability (rage, I know), crying jags, dizziness and an odd sensation in my head sometimes, I do not have migraines, electric shock sensations, flu symptoms or panic attacks and the symptoms are lessening significantly with each day, after only two weeks. Taking the supplements I do helps enormously, as I found out over the weekend when I forgot. Exercise though, is the BEST. It makes all the difference.

Even if I have to get treated for depression again in the future, which is possible, I will never take Zoloft again. And when I thought about it, it wasn't really working for the last several months anyway. I was still depressed, still having anxiety attacks, and that blessed (and much needed at the beginning) emotional distance or buffer the drug provides just gets thicker and thicker as time goes by until... well, a friend said she never saw an emotional deficit in me, and I didn't really either, but now I feel so much more connected to my life and my kids and all, I can see that I was quite close to comatose before I stopped taking it. It made me bored. Bored with my kids. Can you imagine that? Suddenly they are precious, priceless and interesting again, not just irritating, contrary and committed to my unhappiness. How much of their childhoods have I missed while in that cocoon?