Happy Sunday, everyone – I hope you all are safe, well, and having a joyful day.
My coffee mug next to me, ABBA songs on the background, my sourdough loaf in the oven, and my foster cat Mona on the floor, I am all good 🙂
Life has been good, though I know I can attribute it to both Mona and the antidepressant. In any case, I will take this feeling and cherish it.
I cannot believe I have been feeling like shit for almost half a decade…. Such a long misery to endure, especially when we have medication or pets to help overcome it. I am glad that finally life was too much, or I was too tired to try ways to feel good, think positive, and so on. Sometimes, the remedy is what you refrained from. Irony.. Nevertheless, I am proud of myself for trying relentlessly to feel good for a long time, and then eventually quitting this endeavor and try medication (of note, I also tried therapy – it was great but not affordable..).
I feel like I must say more about my experience with the anti-depressants for folks who may be looking for perspectives of patients.
I was depressed and experience anxiety quite frequently. Thoughts would run around my mind, and lately my sleep was affected and I was sleeping maybe 4 hours a day. I was extremely functional, however, working, doing things, and doing well. Of course, with depression and anxiety comes self-questioning and loss of sell-esteem, in addition to the attempts to feel better. These attempts included a variety of coping mechanisms, from junk food consumption to reading self-help books.
It was simply a continuous struggle. But I have never lost the interest to feel good, My only mistake was that I thought I could handle it. Over time, finally, it became apparent that whatever coping mechanisms I was applying – while they worked in the short term – were not permanent solutions.
There is only that much one can endure. Eventually, this fall, I decided to talk to my family doctor. Surprisingly, they were VERY supportive and prescribed me cipralex. The first dose did not make much difference, but I was thinking all the time that there was hope that this feeling of being and feeling like shit would eventually come to end. It was therapeutic in a way. I was feeling great about finally asking for help.
Here, I must also mention that this was not the first time I asked for help. A decade ago, I asked my then different family doctor for antidepressants, and they were like – try a vacation. Oh, goodness. I did that and back to square 1, of course.
Then, when it became so much, especially the anxiety, I tried counselling. Found a great therapist. The only think is that my current health insurance plan covers like maybe 3 sessions a year. So, where do we go from here??
So, in a way I am grateful for my current family doctor. They said “life is too short to suffer”… Imagine how I felt when I heard these words from them… What a great physician, for whom I will be always grateful. I am now on an increased dosage, which works phenomenally. I experienced no side effects, and sleep and feel much better. I can handle stress better and I find myself enjoying life better.
My doctor is about to reduce the dose and then stop it. I was scared of this at first, but when I accidentally forgot taking the pill for a couple of days and feeling no side effects, I have some sort of naive hope that I will manage the withdrawal symptoms, if ever. But this part of the story will have to come later, when I reduce and stop the medication.
Please go ahead and volunteer at or donate to an animal shelter. Adopt or foster. Animals are simply fantastic and we owe them a lot. More than we can think of…
