Experimenting with drugs: mental health, the next chapter

I’m in a bit of a spin right now, feeling a right old mix of feelings, ranging from the daring-to-be-hopeful – maybe this will allow me to be the person I know I can be; to the terrified – but the side effects! What if it doesn’t work? What if it makes me worse? What if it changes me irrevocably? What if I have to stop and it’s already altered me so much that it’s hell to kick them? Either way, there’s a strong sense of this is the first day of the rest of your life.

I have a packet of Zoloft sitting in my handbag. I haven’t even taken it out of the pharmacy bag yet. I was kind of amazed at how inexpensive this shit is. I am apprehensive about it, and enthused. It’s a little like sorcery; it works, wonderfully well if you’re lucky, but even the doctors don’t really know exactly how, and there’s a certain risk it can backfire spectacularly. I’m not going to read the leaflet. I’ve seen enough comments on forums discussing the effect that has on existing anxiety issues to know I don’t need to go there. Just going to follow the dosage suggested by my doc and get on with it.

I’m aware of the range of reactions people have with this thing. Some have barely any side effects and just feel a slow and steady lifting of their mood. Others suffer dreadfully for a few weeks, then come out the other side and feel wonderful. Others feel it numbs the pain and the anxiety, but at the cost of stifling their creativity, or other aspect of their personality. There’s apparently no way to know, until you take it, which type you’ll be.

I’m scared. I don’t want to be a jelly, or suicidal, or a happy zombie. But I’m also scared by who I am right now. Often pretty close to the suicidal jelly, and when I have to be happy, it’s usually a pretty false, zombie-like performance. I’m concerned that starting on this road will be stepping through a looking-glass, that things on the other side will be strange and twisted, however much they resemble my “old” life. But the truth is, nothing is irreversible, even if coming off the drug is hard.

I read a story here today about a woman who had her first child and developed post-partum depression. People told her it was “just” baby blues, assuming things would naturally get easier as the baby grew and the mother got more used to the new lifestyle. But this mother was cracking up, and no one noticed until the day she went out and bought a gun, came home, and went out in the garden and shot her baby son and then herself.

That scares the living daylights out of me. I’m pretty sure I’m not there, and not by a long way, but I fucking don’t want to wait around to find out. What if it’s just around the corner? What if it’s a snap thing, one day I wake up and the madness has taken hold? I’ve been down as low as to think about throwing the baby across the room when he wouldn’t stop crying – not that I could ever see myself acting on this – but the thought came to my mind in a flash and that is scary enough.

Right now, meds seems like a logical step. I’m not well. I’ve finally been able to see that, and to look for help. I’m starting to get a picture of how damn big this depression thing is, and I’m reminded time and again that it’s not my fault, it’s not negotiable, it just IS. Getting over the guilt of not being able to just “pull myself together” and think my way out of it; understanding once again that just because you can’t see something with your eyes doesn’t mean it’s any less real. I’ve been working on diet, exercise, mindfulness, doing the things I love, for a couple of months now, and it’s barely touching the sides. So let’s see what these babies can do.