Meds are a funny thing. Sometimes funny-ha-ha. Sometimes funny-ugh.
The first time I went on meds it was a nutty little pill named Effexor. My father had died months earlier and a doctor finally thought that maybe I could benefit from some pharmaceutical assistance. Three days later, I was already feeling some benefits. I was lucky, because that is when my boyfriend decided to tell me that I had changed and he didn't love me anymore. Without the pills, I doubt I would have survived the blow.
For a time, I did well without meds at all. I worked. I went to school and stayed at the top of my class. Then, just before my final placement in college, anxiety and panic attacks came out of nowhere. I remember how confusing it was, since I had been feeling on top of the world. I will never know what triggered it, but it effected me on the daily.
So! Back on Effexor I went. At first it worked, with minimal side effects. Did you know that excessive yawning is a side effect? Neither did I, but I do now. Harmless, but as annoying as hiccups that won't go away.
Then...I just wasn't myself. I started doing things that I hid from everyone, except a very small group of people who encouraged my behaviour. There were many days I came into my placement still drunk or hungover. A few days I was wearing the same clothes as the day before. Nobody noticed. I would have a miscarriage during this time and the people I had surrounded myself with were not there for me. I dealt with it alone.
Then, one day, I started crying. I don't remember why, but I cried out all of the tears that had filled the emptiness inside. I could see my bottle of anti-anxiety pills across the room, but I knew if I picked up that bottle that I would take the whole thing. After many, MANY, many hours, a crisis worker on the phone talked me through the steps needed to walk across the room and take only one of the pills. I saw my doctor the next day and told him that if he said I had to live like this a day more, I would say I couldn't. I stopped Effexor that day.
It has been a long road since then, of trial and error. The medication I take now, Seroquel, has been a life saver and damaging all at the same time. My moods have been stable for well over a year, but it has physical side effects that I struggle to accept, such as hypothyroidism and type 2 diabetes. It is difficult having to choose between physical health and mental health, but if I didn't have my mental health, I wouldn't survive anyways.
It is a health crossroads at another kind of crossroads in my life. What am I doing? Where am I going? Health or sanity?
