To quit or not to quit: the anti-depressant dilemma

 

About 9 months ago I admitted I was depressed. 6 months ago I started seeing a therapist. 4 months ago I started the first anti depressant I’ve ever taken. I’ve taken anti anxiety meds before, but only for a month because I hated how I felt. I was against anti depressants at first, but my therapist thought they would help so I said why not.

Can I just say, I have always been a very sexual person. My boyfriend and I have been together for a long time and we have the best sexual chemistry I could ever imagine. But about 2 weeks after I started taking the meds, sex was the last thing I ever thought about. My boyfriend (we’ll call him Phox) tried to be patient with me, but the contrast between my constant attempts to have sex daily to barely wanting him to even touch me once a week.. he felt like I had turned into a different person.

He was right.

Every day I go through the motions on autopilot. I don’t even remember my work days, or driving, or even having sex with Phox. It makes me sad. I’ve always been a happy person, or so I thought. Ignorance is bliss, right?

Here’s my dilemma: On the meds, I’m a zombie. I think about killing myself pretty regularly, and that thought has never crossed my mind before.. And it scares the shit out of me. Off the meds, I’m manic. My anxiety is through the roof, I cry at the drop of a hat, I will go shopping on my lunch break the day I get paid and spend my ENTIRE CHECK in one store and think nothing about it. Either way, it’s not good for me.

I’ve been debating just stopping the meds, just flush them and move on. But the very small logical portion of my brain shouts at me “DON’T YOU DARE. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT COULD HAPPEN. WAIT AND TALK TO YOUR THERAPIST.” The impulsive part of my brain says “eh, you’ll get over it.”

So basically its this:

Stay on the anti depressants for at least 5 more weeks until I see my psychiatrist and he sets me on a plan to taper off, and risk more suicidal thoughts, self hatred, and no sex drive. (Petty, I know)

Stop taking the anti depressants cold turkey, risk the horrible side effects that I’ve been reading about, make my anxiety ten times worse, and be my crazy manic self that can’t take care of herself.

All aboard the struggle bus.

 

Alice

 

via Daily Prompt: Dilemma

Life looks better through a filter.

Children aren’t the only ones who pretend and have overactive imaginations. As adults we may not even realizing we are pretending to be something we aren’t. In today’s society, it’s all about your followers approval. We consider our instagram followers our friends because they like our photos. Hell, majority of the people that follow me on instagram, I haven’t spoken a word to them in at least the last 6 months.

What I’m trying to say, is we pretend to lead picture perfect lives. We are so consumed in what our social media followers will say about what we wore today, or what we had for lunch (but we put so many filters on it that now the chicken looks yellow and naaasty), or even our achievements that we share.

What about everything we don’t post.

Over the past 6 months my depression has changed who I am. It’s also changed how I feel about myself. I’ve never really liked myself, but this is different.. It’s self hatred. But do any of my  followers know about that? No. My own parents had no idea how bad it had gotten until recently. Because I was pretending everything was fine. I was keeping up appearances, on social networks and physically, but on the inside.. I was drowning.

We can pretend that our followers and “friends” do truly care about our well being. But until they are sitting there with me while I’m crying to myself “How the hell did I get here? Why can’t I feel ANYTHING?” They do not have my best interest in mind.

We all know this is true. Yet, we will all (myself included) keep pretending that these people are our “friends” and still thrive off of their likes, comments and shares. The real physical people in your life that hold you, love you and even kick you in the ass.. We can’t forget about them. Because they are what holds us up.

Alice

 

via Daily Prompt: Pretend