Always wondering, not often saying it

If this is not the first blog post of mine you have read, chances are you know already that I am fairly open about my depression, about anti-depressants, and issues surrounding both. And I stopped taking anti-depressants again, after almost a year, a few weeks ago.

Like the last time I did this, there was the feeling that life was way more bearable and stable, that enough things had changed in those 10-11 months, that it was time to try without the medication. And as last time, there was a tiny fear of taking off the training wheels I'd been happily tooling around with for almost a year. How would I feel? Would I start getting angry with A again? Would I start crying again? Would it have been a mistake, and maybe show me that I'll likely be on the medication from now on, at least until my daughter it a lot older?

I probably told 3-4 people that I went of the medication. I told M, my cousin, and a few friends here in Zurich, one of whom has gone through a lot of similar ups and downs as me. They are people I trust to know this, mostly because they have been the ones I didn't get the pity looks and the "ohhhh, you're still on the medication, huh? That's too bad..." vibes from whenever I spoke of how I was feeling. Just a suggestion, if you have a loved one who is on anti-depressants, and is speaking about it openly, not with shame (even more so for those who are ashamed of it), talking to them like this does not help. It isn't nice, it isn't kind, you're not really interested in their well-being if you haven't taken the time to realize how monumentally their struggle was before the drugs and how much better they feel now. So stop it. It is not that different from "ohhh, you're still single?" or "ohhh, you are still in that relationship you hate?" No matter how nice a tone a person tries to put on those statements, they are all, still, essentially, judgmental. They show your disappointment about something in the person's life.

Aaaaanyway, the withdrawl from the Cymbalta sucked. Lots of nausea, even now once every few days, out of the blue. A nasty 4 hours of stomach cramps, maybe. Other than that, I'd love to say I didn't notice any change, but there were small ones.

As I was boarding the plane to Copenhagen a few weeks ago, I could feel a little wave of sadness about something I had been thinking or reading, when I said "goodbye" before my trip to A, I cried, at the thought of something happening to me on the flights and not coming back, and every few days, I can feel the not-so-happy hormones surround my thoughts. It reminds me of the swings in the park. When A sits on them, her feet wave freely about, high above the gravel. When I sit on them, if I don't lift my legs, my feet drag in the gravel. Being on anti-depressants was like having shorter legs for a while - I didn't have to put in effort to lift myself out of the sad gravel, and pretty much every day my feet were clear of it.

So, for a few weeks, I've felt my long swingset legs come back, and that has been ok. Sure, I wish I was a more unflappable person, but my brain doesn't work that way. And it is the reason M and I always kiss goodbye when we part in the morning, because many years ago I was keenly aware of how fragile life is and I wanted to make sure we had a proper farewell. Every day. Now it is just habit, and a nice one, even if one or both of us it upset with the other.

Then a few days ago, Monday afternoon, I had to get A from daycare early because of a holiday, I had stupidly brought her big tricycle for the park but not thought about having to corral that and the stroller on the buses and trams, she was on day 5 of a nap-strike (which is now over, thank everything!), I hadn't napped, and I almost lost it, 5 minutes after pickup, on the way to the bus. I couldn't find M on the phone or text, and his building was locked (because of the holiday) so I couldn't leave one of the vehicles there, or even go cry in his office for 5 minutes.

Shit. Shitshitshitshit. I don't want to cry. Why do I feel like crying? Do I have to go back on the meds again so soon? Can I not even handle one messy 30 minutes? Shit. Don't cry! That's dumb, not actually crying doesn't mean I'm not depressed if I then spend all my energy trying not to cry. How will I know if I have to get on the meds again? What limit of shitty behavior or mood will I set this time? I don't want to wait too long? Oh, I'm so disappointed in all of this. Crap!

It passed. I went about the rest of the afternoon, lugging that tricycle around, and then catching A as she sped across the park and down the block, and it was tiring, but fine. 

Last night I got my period. 

Big, huge, loud sigh. A once a month, weepy afternoon, I can handle. I can learn to take more easily and gently. I can cancel all plans but those that help me out. It is probably not the depression again, after all. But from now on, now that I've realized that I might have this tendency long-term, now that I've been on medication twice, I'll always wonder.

(The image is a painting by Chris Bellamy. It is already sold, but if I weren't I would want to buy it. That is what it looks like to me when I walk in the forest without my glasses on.)

Urp.

Turbulence soon overshadows the luxury of being able to sit in an exit row and not worry about buckling anyone's seat belt but my own. Guy next to me, perfectly capable of both buckling his seat belt and able to keep it buckled upon take off.

Hmmm. So is this nausea a combination effect? I haven't gotten air sick in many flights now, and on some I haven't taken any Dramamine. I wonder if stopping my antidepressants (as of a few days ago) has brought nausea back into my life. Granted, this is a bumpy flight but along with feeling more sensitive to the world of emotions, I seem to be more sensitive again to the world of inner ear imbalance.



(4 days later)

Yes, this is in fact a withdrawl symptom of the medication. Oi, oi, oi, being in a country where hospitality is underscored and threaded through and through with having guests eat, a lot, may not have been the best place to be to go through that. I was nauseous about 5-6 times a day, sometimes after eating something, sometimes when I was hungry, or in a car going down bumpy roads, or, in bed, lying still, and it just came over me. In retrospect, though, being on my own made it easier. I think a few relatives must have thought I was on a diet or something, but I ate when I could, and we all survived.

And my withdrawl side effects seem pretty mild compared to people who speak of "brain zaps" and other horrific-sounding things. Already today is starting to feel more stable.

I am home, back from Vilnius. When I download photos and have more than a minute to process the last 4 days, I'll write more. Let's just say it was a really nice trip and just set me up to be quite calm about going again, and looking forward to the opportunity.

Almost tomorrow's post

My laptop clock says 11:56pm. So it must be. By the time I finish writing, it will be tomorrow, so this post will count towards Friday.

Can a bar of dark chocolate really keep me up like this? I should stop experimenting with it. I don't really like the milk chocolate, and tonight, around 8:30pm, I ate a bar of dark. Like, the whole thing.

The city is finally under a dark sky, and the lights of the industrial area peek through the outlines of sunflowers and zucchini plant leaves in the garden. I'm not usually up this late. At least, not after sunset this month.

....

Hmm. Well, dang. That bar was about 3-5 oz of chocolate. Which apparently has 60-100mg of caffeine. Really? As much as brewed coffee or espresso. I guess that settles it, we need both dark and milk chocolate in the house for desserts. And I need to start eating chocolate in place of a coffee drink. Ok, maybe not that last part. So eating the bar of dark chocolate was pretty dumb.

So many things to think about when you can't sleep. Played too much of the Doodle God game, that isn't as logical as I'd like, but keeps sucking me in. You just keep trying to cross different pairs of items to create new ones, and the goal is 248 items, from zombies and superheroes, to seeds and lightbulbs and fish and sky scrapers. And money. And law. And concrete and wood. And you get a new hint to help you out every 2 minutes. Maddening in a slow enough drip that you keep going back.

Ooh, there's A, coughing and crying a bit.

And quiet again. Sweetie pie.

There is also a talk to think about, on my dissertation and on impostor syndrome, to a women physicists group next week. And the book on quantum physics and consciousness that has finally arrived at the consciousness chapter. So if there really isn't much of a self or an "I", where do all these hangups we have (low self-esteem, fear, embarrassment) come from? If the Buddhists have it right about there being no singular, constant self, why all these issues and therapists? If there is no "me" why should I care what someone else thinks of that "me" that doesn't even exist?

Which reminded me of something a counselor once told me regarding worry or sadness. That sometimes, for a chronic worrier like me, the sensation of worry comes before the assignment of that sensation to something. In other words, the body and brain worry first and then a reason is found for that worry. But since they happen so closely together, it feels like the reason comes first, followed by the physical response. I've noticed, now that I'm on a lower dose of antidepressants, that I'm a bit more emotional again. I get more teary more quickly during conflict. And I just feel sad sometimes. And for some reason, this time around, it makes sense what that counselor said - maybe because I'm really watching my moods and tracking when I should be PMS-ing, to try to see if the depression is coming back. I just feel sadness, or hopelessness sometimes. Okay, today a headline about child abuse started that feeling, but somehow I can step back more than before and sense that it isn't always caused by something. Sometimes I just feel sad. Like a hormone thermometer, that fluctuates with some chemical level. Maybe my body is just more sensitive to that kind of thing, and I need to practice not looking for reasons I feel sad.

12:15am, the webpage announces that my draft of this post is autosaved, and I'm going to try to go to sleep again.

I LOOOVE you, just, the way yoooou, aaaare.....

I've been craving new coffee cups. We have these basic white ones, from IKEA, and although they set a very classic table, they are a bit too tall and narrow for my taste. I like to see a big surface area in my hot morning drinks. And all identical white, not as practical for those friends-with-toddlers brunches where you can forget all sitting down at once, not to mention keeping track of your coffee. Little monkeys running and getting into precarious situations, crying, eating, and generally being toddlers don't help anyone's short term recall of which cup was theirs.




I let myself do some test cup shopping, seeing as how my shopping lent is over. One plain white mug from Bodum which is probably the best size and shape (low cylinder), and then two for fun mugs from the campus art and paper supply shop. Ever since my cousin, L, encouraged me to wear that astronomy image tank top "with irony", I've realized how many other things I can do with irony. I give you....

my "born in the USA" mugs. It would be way more fun to have coffee at my place now that with Mr. Bland White Mug, right?




Anyway, I'm slowly getting back to eating my way across the omnivore's diet, and back to consuming things with milk in them, after this past weekend's flu. And at the same time, I've cut my anti-depressant dose in half. Which is the main point of my post.

I don't have my epiphanies all at once, and writing about complex issues helps me get to new places with them. So back to this idea of who "I am", on or off, or 1/2 off (or on) anti-depressants. I'm already a bit worried about how I'll feel, scared that maybe I'm just an irritable person naturally, the real me, and that my options in life are:

(1) nauseous after meals, fatigued after 10 hours of sleep, but fairly unflappable with A, and putting any other kid we might try to have through a gestation with me on medication or

(2) irritable, faster to get flustered by her tantrums (the kid wasn't even started on tantrums when I started the meds last year), more emotionally up and down, and more of a worrier. And who knows what kind of a mess if we ever decide for me to get pregnant again.

Which do I choose? Who am I?

Now I'm pretty sure these won't be my only choices, given how much more complex the world usually is, but for now, that's what I see as my choices. And that first one, apart from the uncomfortable physical feelings, has this air of "unnatural."

So now I'm thinking through that concept. Why unnatural? Or at least, why is that more unnatural that the other things I have used in life that I wasn't born with? Like my super strong glasses. Unnatural. My inhaler. Nope, not something that grows on trees or vines. My vaccines. Natural source but totally unnatural delivery. And let's not forget my whole reproduction story. Un. Natural. I shouldn't have gotten pregnant, or delivered a baby, or breast fed, if we were talking natural. But I don't get hints of disappointment from the same people about that as about my meds. I got it from myself, but long ago decided that nature can be a real bitch, and is really not into empathy (can we just dial back the clock to 1 a.m. last Thursday, when I was holed up in the bathroom, swearing and exploding?).

This "natural" person, then, who exactly is that? Under what conditions is someone more natural (which seems to be the ideal)? And what is the ideal based on? Surprisingly, for me, there seems to be almost a "the way God made you" sense about anti-depressants, and coming from non-believers (including me). But again, what is the benchmark for this person? I think each of us has to choose the balance for ourselves, because the choices are so dependent on culture, on the way our bodies turned out, our current situation in life.

So for now I'm trying to not worry too much about whether the lower dose is already making me more irritable (because I think I might feel less exhausted, but then again, I'm recovering from a flu), or whether A is just extra cranky these days. With the babysitter last night, who is like a baby whisperer, she was cranky, too. So I'm going to stick with more cranky for her, instead of me, but keep a little, peripheral vision watch. When do I go from "I know, sweetie, something just doesn't feel good right now" to "Really? C'mon! Just, please calm down"?

And for those who might encourage me to "just not think worry it!", I encourage you to actively not think about cabbage for the next 30 seconds. As you read this. I mean it. How is that not thinking about it going?

You're only going to take that insulin for a few months, though, right?

Goodbye, 2010. Don't let that door hit you on the way out. Really, no need to come over ever again.

I started anti-depressants a few weeks before baby A's first birthday, and the celebration with helium-balloons, good friends, family Skyping in, and cake (which she held firmly in her death-grip) was fun. Life is settling down. I'm settling down.

How strange it is to hear your baby "crying at you" at 7am in the morning, and try your hardest to stay calm, not take it personally, and not break down in tears, and then, an hour after starting the medication (my body does at least this well...no side-effects), hearing her "just cry." It isn't "at" my, it isn't personal, I'm not struggling, I'm calm. Not getting any more sleep than before the medication, I realized just how much of my energy I had been funneling into JUST...KEEPING...IT...TOGETHER. Not falling apart, not crying when she did, not getting angry. If this isn't a chemical reaction (as opposed to the misconception of depression as emotional weakness), I don't know what is.

Honestly, I wish I'd gotten on the meds earlier. I feel like myself again, whatever that means. Granted, the question in my head now is, which "me" am "I"? Am I the depressed me or the not depressed me? Which me will I be as a result of anti-depressants, and which me will I be when I find some combination of sleep, taking care of myself, work and family that helps me be the mom and wife and adult I want to be? Maybe I'll be a bit less creative, but also have less of a brain that can't stop spinning. Maybe I'll be calmer and not cry as much, even at sad things. Maybe I'll be less emotionally embroiled with my kid and my husband and that will actually be a good thing.

I guess the meds/no-meds question, about who is the "real" me, is not much different than which is the real diabetic, the one on insulin who feels better or the one who isn't taking it and feel worse. They are both "me." Yet, when it comes to drugs that affect the brain we tend to think they are more fundamentally and detrimentally altering of some innate self. Already, I've gotten at least 4 different comments from 4 different people, about how soon I'll get of the meds. That is almost the first thing they've asked when I mention the anti-depressants. Not about how I feel now, but cautionary, "well, but you won't stay on them too long, right?"

Or else, what? Where does this instinct come from? You wouldn't say that to the diabetic. I guess there is still a strong sense of mental illness as different, temporary, and of medications as anti-true-self somehow.

In any case, I'm on meds, and I feel better. I feel calmer, and not like a tiny boat in a huge ocean storm, scared of capsizing every day. I'm not really angry much anymore. I don't cry much until something is really moving or sentimental. A plate of slightly overcooked pancakes, for instance, won't bring out the tears. And in the aftermath of how hard the last year has been, and how much I was afraid of being a monster who yelled at her baby and sometimes picked her up roughly or put her down and pouted (FINE! don't go to sleep! See if I care! Go play by yourself), I think I have a new outlook on domestic abuse.

I never thought I'd empathize with this category, but honestly, if it were for lack of trying, I don't think there would be even half the child and spousal abuse going on that there is. Forget my number, my main point is, I've felt angry, I've acted out against a baby who wasn't at fault, and I've then gone on to feel like a monster, guilty, ashamed, horrified, promising myself I wouldn't do it again. I tried more sleep, more me-time, eating better, getting more rest, putting notes all over the bathroom about trust and anger and reconnection, no caffeine, herbal teas for relaxing, herbal medications for relaxing, therapy (lots and lots of it, all useful in the long run, but none fixing the problem), and a bunch of other stuff. Just like the first time I was majorly depressed, it didn't help. Not enough. Which is why I'm medication. Because it wasn't a lack of trying. By the time I took the first pill, I'd tried and tried and tried, with my body, my mind, peer pressure, therapy, and everything else I could find. When I try, I REALLY try.

It is a bit like a turkey temperature button I once had that required the turkey come out of the oven 10 min. BEFORE the thing popped. Once I've come to a doctor for anti-depressants, I'm overdue for them. I've already been trying too hard to fix it. I don't come in soon enough.

And I think other people with anger issues that manifest against their loved ones are also trying hard. Don't get me wrong, I still think each one of us has the responsibility to do whatever possible to resolve the issues, be it chemical or other intervention. If I had hurt baby A, I would have been responsible. But the depression and things leading up to it were not my fault. And since nothing else worked in my case, I think it was my responsibility to start anti-depressants. But I no longer think of domestic abuse situations as confined to those who just don't try hard enough, or don't care. I think of them as people who sometimes have huge barriers in their way to their acting like they would like to. And unfortunately the ways over and around those barriers are sometimes the things that friends and family find unacceptable or disappointing (going to counseling, taking anti-depressants, choosing a calmer life and job, etc).

Even one of the therapists I've talked to in the last year displayed a surprising misunderstanding of this situation when she asked me "Can you promise me you won't hurt baby A?" Um, no. That is my point, why I'm sitting in your office, and intent on getting some medication. IT ISN'T FOR LACK OF TRYING!!! If I could promise you, I'd have promised myself long ago, and I'm a much harsher judge of myself than anyone else could be.

So, things have calmed down. M and I lit a candle the night after baby A's party and burned little note paper pieces in it. They were filled with the hardest things we went through last year that were most definitely not going to happen this year...being in painful labor, problems with breastfeeding, not knowing when the colic would end, not knowing when she'd stop waking 10 times a night, and so on. We started over. And so far, with Christmas and New Year's and travel and all, things have been good.