Where do I begin?

My husband, JC, is a top-flight mixmaster.

This weekend, as we worked together painting our entry, stairway, hallway and living room, he treated me to the sounds of a lovely mix CD* he originally made for the party we threw ourselves before leaving Florida.

*Or, as I will call such items until the day I die, a "mix tape," even though I know full well the medium isn't a cassette tape. Likewise, I have been looking for a good yoga "video," despite the fact that I don't even own a VHS player, and the yoga product I buy will be a DVD. I am old. I'm going to go put on my dungarees now and watch a commercial for vaginal dryness.

This CD he made is a thing of beauty. My favorite juxtaposition is (withhold judgement and remember this CD was made for a pretty mass audience) Everclear's "I Can't Smile" ("I don't know what's happened to me, I. Can't. Smile.") with James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing" ("Dance, and you'll feel better!").

I love that man. My husband, that is, not James Brown.

And he must love me, too, particularly considering what an utter nut I've been over the past several weeks of quitting one medication, starting another, and being generally disagreeable. Or totally agreeable! Or a raging maniac! Or your best friend!

That's possibly an exaggeration of my actual behavior. But it aptly describes my internal landscape.

I share this, not because I think it's a real riveting scroll, but because I know so many people who live on antidepressants, and so many of them spend a lot of time trying to find just the right medication, just the right dosage, and just the right lifestyle/therapeutic complements to the pharmaceuticals.

With all that confusion - and so unfair to further confuse those of us seeking mental health drugs - maybe it helps to share experiences.

The background: I began taking Paxil two years ago after a radical hysterectomy (it helps with hot flashes, you see) and chemotherapy (it also helps with existential dread.)

After being on it for just a short time, I realized that something was missing. Something big - something that usually took up a fair amount of both my waking and sleeping hours: Fear.

You have to understand that I come from a family that mixed fear in my baby formula with Karo syrup. I had so much fear going on that I had ceased to identify it as fear, and I just called it being human.

Hello, we're the Hummingbirds, HOLYFUCKTRAGEDYSTALKSALLOFUS would you like some tea?

To be without fear was such a novel and beautiful experience that it would have made me cry - except that NOTHING made me cry anymore.

Paxil smoothed my psyche into a slippery, impenetrable little ball of wax.

Maybe it smoothed the edges too well. My little marble of a soul was so slick it couldn't gain enough traction too roll.

The only thing that remotely bothered me was the 20 pounds I put on in the year after starting the drug. And although my weight evened out, I couldn't seem to drop any.

I know that any conversation about female weight is loaded with very strong personal feelings. No, 20 pounds is not a lot. But in my case, it was also a 20 percent weight gain. One-fifth more of me. I went up 2 or 3 sizes in a year. This, from a body that had stayed the same size for the previous 15 years. And did I mention that this fucking traitor of a body had also gotten cancer and lost all its hair? It was already On Notice.

Cancer and alopecia, I can take. But 20 pounds?

And that is why I decided to change to a different medication that doesn't have a reputation for weight gain as a side effect.

But after a few weeks on the new med, all those little needles of anxiety that used to prick me throughout the day and wake me up at night have started to return. Last night, I woke up at 1:30 -afraid. Not of anything specific. But I turned on lights to walk through my house. I was nervous about looking in the direction of uncurtained windows. And I did not get back to sleep until 4:30, because every time I closed my eyes, I started to think about all the things in life that could Go Wrong.

And then there is the several weeks of unexpected crying fits, irritability, and general feeling that, no, I'm not depressed - I'm pissed off.

I've decided to go back to my sweet friend Paxil, who smooths my hair and tells me, "THAT'S not something to worry about. Here, eat this donut."

"M-kay," I reply with my mouth full of krueller. "I love you, Paxil."

This experience does, however, raise for me the question of my identity, and how easily that identity can be altered.

Sure, I may have an eternal soul that comprises the bare essentials of Me - the Me that God knows and loves (and only God knows why God loves).

But on a practical, everyday level, Who I Am seems to be made up of What I Do, What I Think and How I Feel. And all three of those components are completely vulnerable to What I'm Taking.

Where does the medication end and I begin?

Maybe the Me is evident in the decision to switch medications again, knowing that, although I will feel less, I also will fear less.

I've got to get back to Paxil soon so this won't bother me anymore.

Comments

[Michelle]

I hope that it all works out for you soon and that the fear goes away, the fear is no fun at all! I am currently carrying around the bag of anxiety so we are trying out the Xanax...it’s all splendid!

[Kelly M.]

Thank you for sharing that. I have battled depression and anxiety most of my teen and adult life. I have never been to the doctor about it for fear they would put me on some drug that would inevitably alter the person that I am. I often wonder if people out there feel the way I do(although common scense tells me that they do).

I feel so sad inside all of the time. I had to stop watching the news all-together because I start crying and I just cant seem to stop until I change the channel ( no matter what news local, world etc..). I lie awake at night and am tortured by memories of every mistake I have made in my whole life. I stopped thinking of the future a long time ago because getting through a day was hard enough. I have absolutly no interests in anything anymore and I try nothing new for fear of failure.

I feel stupid at every move I make and I feel that there is always a large herd of people standing over my shoulder just waiting to point and laugh at me for doing something stupid, or looking stupid.

The thing is I know that I am smart, I know that I am not an ugly person (inside or outside), I know alot of things but I cant stop the way I feel. I always end up chalking it up to me just looking for something to blame for the way I feel but I wonder how true that is.

Maybe I should make a doctors appointment right now?!

Thanks, again.

[moreena]

Oh, Bettie.

(o)

I wish I could do more than offer up the comment stone above to mark my passing, but I surely don't know what to give.

[Gail]

I've got the same recurrent, long-term depression issues. I've been pretty fortunate -- I've been on Lexapro to close to a year now, and it seems to work well for me. I've had some sexual side effects but running seems to help with those.
I've always felt more like myself, rather than less, when I've been on meds. Before, it seemed as though anything and everything could scare me into paralysis. Therapy has been good too, although it's been the meds which kickstarted my getting better.
Kelly M., you won't know until you try (something -- be it drugs or therapy). No one wants to be depressed and to have to consider these things, but it is the first step to getting better.

[angela marie]

I found you thru Moreena's blog and now, no thanks to you and your very interesting writing, my kids are without supper. I perused a bit (that always feels like snooping thru somebody's medicine chest to me) and enjoyed my visit. Let me say that I enjoyed the writing, but feel badly that you are not 'tip-top' right now. I'm sorry that you are feeling so crappy. You certainly have so much to share and I look forward to coming back and learning, and maybe giving, something.

[peripateticpolarbear]

(o)

[The Mumbler]

I think your blog would be more entertaining if we heard more about this hot shot husband of yours. He sounds dreamy!

[Bettie Bookish]

Mumbler, you're absolutely correct. This blog would be exponentially more entertaining if I devoted more bandwidth to that man of mine.

Dreamy? You don't know the half of it.

[amy c]

i completely agree that bald and fat is no way to go through life, particularly without a little orange pill container from which i can shake out an effexor with visions of myself as some 50's housewife with her prozac! i am three and half months into chemotherapy treatment for stage 3A breast cancer and have two young sons. i am doing pretty well most of the time but the craziest thing was that putting on a couple of pounds from a bout of steroid-infused hunger one week (and already bald), was one of the first things that put me over the edge. i have more chemo, radiation, surgery and responsibilities to face - all okay -- bigger jeans? f--k it, i am having effexor for dinner! xo

[Bettie Bookish]

Amy C ~
Precisely.

And aren't steroids evil? I was voracious! And I felt like I could rule the world. No wonder Jerry Lewis abused them.

[Cara Fletcher]

I am now going to take Paxil after my complete hysterectomy and I am glad to hear from another person that it really helps because I am a little bit sceptic when talking about meds.