When it comes to mental illness and treatment by way of medication(s) I wish asking what someone is taking wasn’t considered as bad as asking someone what they make or asking an obviously pregnant woman if she is pregnant. Not only is there too much of a negative stigma surrounding anti-depressants, and anti-psychotics there are many untrue and unfair assumptions and an almost instant labeling of a person on such medications as well.
Because I have always been so open about my struggles with depression long before I started a blog I searched for years for help that worked for me, once I started to blog the emails with “may I ask you what you are taking, what you are on in regards to anti-depressants” started to pour in and I guess up until now because I am asked so much and because it changes rather regularly I have always answered them privately.
Up until early 2003 I will admit that my rage issues where not under any sort of control. I hit a rage bottom; I could have severely injured someone if just even one piece of glass had flown in a different direction. This person has never given up on me though, just talked to them the other day. Up until the rage bottom I think I condoned the violence against others as ‘well people used to kick the shit out of me for nothing so what the fuck’, I got in some choice bar fights and have kicked and punched more than one ex-boyfriend. I have never ever even considered causing damage to anyone’s property and although it is extremely embarrassing to admit this and I know that some people feel I am still capable of physical harm to another person, I am not, those were some of my lowest days.
It was not easy finding a combination of medications to help me learn to control and cope with my temper whilst also combating constant suicidal thoughts. Will there ever come a day that I do not want to cause physical harm to myself, I do really hope so, but inflicting that pain onto my person still sometimes feels like the only way to release the anger, it is like a trance it isn’t a feeling of pain it is freedom, sure I have to wear a long sleeve shirt for a week or two right now but running that dirty resin covered knife up and down my wrist felt really good at the time.
Even as recently as last year I’ve still been learning the hard way, that many people still find me threatening and that I have to watch how I phrase everything because it wasn’t until very recently that I have learned NOT to lash out first. I am still working on the not lashing out period bit but I am pretty happy with my not lashing out first progress.
Although I did not hit my rage bottom until 2003, I did become absolutely sick of myself in 1999. My inability to handle situations without my whole life feeling like it was coming to an end, overreacting to everything, my temper and inability to control it, I could keep friends but not boyfriends although I have never ever suffered delusions the paranoia of having to work with and get along with an office full of people started to become way overwhelming.
To make a long story short, in 1999 I walked into my Doctor’s office and said that she was to get me help now or I was walking out the door and in front of a bus. I was seen at the out patient clinic at Vancouver General Hospital within three days and was put on my first anti-depressant. I also tried out group therapy and saw yet another psychologist. I had no medical coverage at the time and paid for everything myself even the sessions where I pretended I was Matt Damon circa Good Will Hunting I never started to sing but I don’t see much difference between counselors and psychologists except the latter takes your money and says “right”, “ok” and “how does that make you feel” at all the right times or wrong times if you ask me I never found even one I liked enough to be like HERE take my money I believe you CAN make me better! Group therapy; I had to be considered nutso enough to be in the group but all I am going to say about group therapy is ONLY CHILD. Meaning AS IF I gave a fuck about a bunch of strangers and their problems and there were all these rules and I was in my early twenties and still hadn’t seen ANYONE who had even mentioned the word BOUNDARIES yet so group therapy did not work for me and left a bad taste in my mouth.
From 1999 through May 2002 I stayed on Paxil, I was able to hold down a corporate job, live alone, I was doing okay and so I came off Paxil. Man, the withdrawal off that shit feels about as good as having someone titty twist you but you have nipples being twisted all over your body. But I did it, I was so proud of myself. Not even two weeks after I was off completely I was assaulted, and that was the end of that. Now I wasn’t just depressed and really fucking angry because I had to go back on anti-depressants, I suddenly had brutal anxiety. I was prescribed Clonazepam and we’ve been BFF’s since that very day, it calmed me right on down I was one happy little worker that day. I was put on Remeron because it was one of the only ADs at the time that had little or no sexual side affects and I was a total slut at this time in my life BUT no still means no and this AD made all of my depression symptoms worse. This was well before pharmaceutical companies got in on the game advising you through your television set that you YES YOU need more than JUST a basic AD.
I finally got off the Remeron shit because, I’ve mentioned briefly in a past post, there was a period where I was almost unrecognizable to my friends I was taking mean negative shit from a guy that even at my lowest no one had known me to take I was put on Effexor where I have stayed except for a very brief time where I tried Zoloft and hated it, but at this time I was also put on a list for a psychiatrist. Now, it is early 2003 May, right at the time when the guy who I was becoming this retarded ass fuck for dumped me on Georgia Street and said loud enough the people on the other side of the four lanes of city traffic probably heard “and I don’t even want to have sex with you anymore”. He was supposed to have been my rebound from a three year long distance relationship that ended in September 2002 but it went on a little longer than planned because when one of your mutual friends knocks himself off in the middle of your whatever you have it was kinda hard to end it, or it was for me anyway.
Remember that corporate job I said I was able to hold down? They had a really good medical plan. I’d been seeing an internal in the mean time counselor while I was waiting for the psychiatrist and being dumped on my ass on the street in the corporate core of Vancouver and finally getting in to see the man who is still today my psychiatrist could not have come at a better time.
So after all of that I have stayed on a very low dose of Effexor, Clonazepam came and went over the years until I did end up on it permanently originally helping me with anxious sleep, no basic AD has ever been enough to battle the anxiety I was left with on May 19, 2002. After getting weekly appointments in the middle of the work day, Thursdays at 1:00pm was my original time, I was almost instantly diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. I did get over that, it has returned more than once but my main diagnosis is severe depression. My temper still tends to get away from me so for that I also take Seroquel which brings my total up to three different meds at once. They have me by the balls now you try coming off ALL of that. When I have gone against doctor’s orders and went off of Seroquel and turned into a devil horned snapper bitch I realized it worked for me even though I seriously hate it, like I bitch about it in session how much I hate it yet it works for me so I’m basically arguing with myself. He did at one point take me off the Seroquel because I wouldn’t shut up about how much I hated it, basically it makes me sleepy but like Sleepy Smurf so I sound like there are a few screws missing while I’m passing in and out. I tried out a drug called Risperidone but this drug made me start to lactate so I had to choose, go all Tori Amos and be a wet nurse to farm animals with no mommies or go back on Seroquel, needless to say I went back on the Seroquel.
I’m one of those depressive assholes who likes to be in control of their meds though and I take it too far sometimes and I end up almost dead and that hasn’t been fun for anyone so it is best if I take the prescribed dosages of the three and accept it. Big Brother would prefer that anyway.
