- A Question of Trust
- Intro: The Birth of a Blog
- You and Me Could Write a Bad Romance: Part I
- Bad Romance, Part II: The Couch
- Bastard Package #1
- Hallelujah
- Born This Way
- Baby Girl X
- Another Victim of Love
- True Life
- The Girls Who Went Away
- Love and Other Drugs
- 11 Things Adoptees Love to Hear
- Uh, Never Mind
- Adoptee Kid Lit
- Bastard Princess and the Search for the Holy Grail
- MYOFB
- Awkwardness
- Baby Steps
- Faith, Hope, and Catholic Charities
- Special Delivery
- Green-eyed Monster
- !@#$
- Pandora
- Fantasyland
- Adoptees You May Have Heard Of
- Big MAC Attack
- Material Girl
- VISA and Mastercard Accepted
- Don't Hold Your Breath
- Our Love is Like a Constipated Cat
- A Question of Trust
- Adoption, Hollywood Style
- All in the Family
Love and Other Drugs
The Dr. Oz Show appears on the screen of the TV on the wall of the Car-X waiting room in which I am temporarily imprisoned, and spiritual guru Deepak Chopra is today’s special guest. He quotes—no lie--“No magic pill can fix people’s problems. Healing must come from within.” Funny that you should say that, Dr. Chopra…
I’ve been intimately acquainted with antidepressants for about 15 years now, ever since I graduated from college. That’s a long time, I know. Let’s see: I met Amitryptyline after college when I was having trouble with insomnia and fogginess. Prozac came after my wedding, but didn’t hang around long because it turned me into a zombie. Then there was Zoloft, who made me puke, then Wellbutrin, who didn’t get me happy and horny as promised, and then Lexapro, whom I totally click with, have known for 5 years, and love best of all. But it seems that, after all this time, my bestie has betrayed me. I’ll explain.
Jeremy and I recently started marital counseling to help us identify and repair some serious issues that were endangering our relationship. Mark, our therapist, asked several probing questions meant to ignite my anger toward Jeremy. To his chagrin, however, I remained calm and matter-of-fact. As a result, Mark believes that my long-term antidepressant use, including my current cocktail of Lexapro and Wellbutrin, has blunted and stunted my emotions, when our objective is to, as he puts it, “lance the boils” and let the pain out so that feeling and healing can occur.
The scary part: Mark wants me OFF my antidepressants so I can feel my pain, deal with my adoption issues, eliminate the pain, and thus eliminate my need for happy pills altogether. However, my internist wants me ON antidepressants because of the stress caused by our marital challenges. Mark has warned me that it’s going to get “messy.” I feel like the child of divorcing parents who is being forced to choose who to stay with; I’m caught between two well-meaning professionals who both want to help me. Learning the specifics of what happens when one quits antidepressants didn’t exactly light a fire under me, either--possible vomiting, seizures, and death, among other things, might also be messy, if not a welcome diversion from my funk. To be honest, I worry more that I’ll come to resemble Susie Green on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Mark’s been talking about the weaning process for over a month now, and I’ve yet to notify my internist, who will frown on these shot-in-the-dark antichemical proceedings. Jeremy reminds me that she can’t MAKE me take the drugs. But I’ll need her guidance and tacit approval to withdraw gradually and hopefully avoid more ickiness than absolutely necessary.
On top of all that, I wonder how I’ll retain the mental clarity I so savor if I’m off my meds. I mean, what if I go through the search and reunion and get kicked to the curb by my birth family? At least then I guess I’ll have some answer and eventually find closure. But will that ordeal truly help me forgive, heal, find my authentic self, and stop experiencing every facet of my life within a context of rejection, shame, and inferiority? Can anyone ever fully recover from childhood abandonment? Being a half-empty-glass-ish kind of girl, I have my doubts. And how will I know I’ve healed—what if I convince myself that I have but really haven’t?
***
One week of weaning down, with no negative side effects. I’m taking Lexapro every other day, and one Wellbutrin per day. Fingers crossed…
***
I’m about 2 weeks into cutting back my meds. Still taking one Lexapro every other day and 20 mg of Wellbutrin per day. However, I’m noticing more staring off into space, more fleeting sensations of twirlyness. And definitely more noticeable bitchy outbursts at the kids--more than normal, anyway. So why am I just starting to feel it now? My theory is that the drugs have a long half-life and are just starting to fade from my system.
***
There’s no question that I’m at the nadir of the withdrawal roller coaster ride, and it worries me because I still have a long way to go. Lately I’ve been living Dr. Seuss’s kids’ book My Many Colored Days—arcing back and forth between brown/gray/green days and pink/orange/yellow days. I remind myself of the early Simpsons episode in which wife/mom Marge, in a traffic-fueled rage, snarls like a wildcat and ends up buying a huge SUV to bully other drivers. My emotions are out of control; one day I’m like a rock; the next, I’m pouting, sobbing an Amazon river of tears over a petty misunderstanding with Jeremy. He must think I’m going insane; I truly have no idea why he’d want to remain with a woman like me on the brink of insanity whose face gets red and blotchy when she cries. I think my responses to his unintentional slights were valid at the time, yet now they seem a bit overreactive, possibly even borderline hysterical (later attributed by Mark as a knee-jerk response to a lesser form of abandonment). Maybe I’m just not used to voicing my opinion, or maybe my opinions are just plain wrong. But I can’t help it now. I’ve apologized profusely to him for my basket-case approach to life; Jeremy thinks it’s because, after all these years of soul-numbing medication, I’m finally starting to feel again. It makes me feel, all right—feel completely crazy. Crazy and sometimes evil but ALIVE and real.
In fact, I actually remind myself of a guest star on The Dog Whisperer, a National Geographic channel show starring Cesar Millan, who is, essentially, a dog therapist. Occasionally, when working with a “red-zone,” or borderline vicious, case, Cesar, acting as a canine “pack leader” would with a subordinate pack member, pushes the thrashing, snarling dog to the ground and pins it there with his hand until its tantrums subside. He soothes the dog’s fretting owners: “That’s okay. This is all part of the submission process.” I know exactly how that dog feels right now.
I’ve been intimately acquainted with antidepressants for about 15 years now, ever since I graduated from college. That’s a long time, I know. Let’s see: I met Amitryptyline after college when I was having trouble with insomnia and fogginess. Prozac came after my wedding, but didn’t hang around long because it turned me into a zombie. Then there was Zoloft, who made me puke, then Wellbutrin, who didn’t get me happy and horny as promised, and then Lexapro, whom I totally click with, have known for 5 years, and love best of all. But it seems that, after all this time, my bestie has betrayed me. I’ll explain.
Jeremy and I recently started marital counseling to help us identify and repair some serious issues that were endangering our relationship. Mark, our therapist, asked several probing questions meant to ignite my anger toward Jeremy. To his chagrin, however, I remained calm and matter-of-fact. As a result, Mark believes that my long-term antidepressant use, including my current cocktail of Lexapro and Wellbutrin, has blunted and stunted my emotions, when our objective is to, as he puts it, “lance the boils” and let the pain out so that feeling and healing can occur.
The scary part: Mark wants me OFF my antidepressants so I can feel my pain, deal with my adoption issues, eliminate the pain, and thus eliminate my need for happy pills altogether. However, my internist wants me ON antidepressants because of the stress caused by our marital challenges. Mark has warned me that it’s going to get “messy.” I feel like the child of divorcing parents who is being forced to choose who to stay with; I’m caught between two well-meaning professionals who both want to help me. Learning the specifics of what happens when one quits antidepressants didn’t exactly light a fire under me, either--possible vomiting, seizures, and death, among other things, might also be messy, if not a welcome diversion from my funk. To be honest, I worry more that I’ll come to resemble Susie Green on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Mark’s been talking about the weaning process for over a month now, and I’ve yet to notify my internist, who will frown on these shot-in-the-dark antichemical proceedings. Jeremy reminds me that she can’t MAKE me take the drugs. But I’ll need her guidance and tacit approval to withdraw gradually and hopefully avoid more ickiness than absolutely necessary.
On top of all that, I wonder how I’ll retain the mental clarity I so savor if I’m off my meds. I mean, what if I go through the search and reunion and get kicked to the curb by my birth family? At least then I guess I’ll have some answer and eventually find closure. But will that ordeal truly help me forgive, heal, find my authentic self, and stop experiencing every facet of my life within a context of rejection, shame, and inferiority? Can anyone ever fully recover from childhood abandonment? Being a half-empty-glass-ish kind of girl, I have my doubts. And how will I know I’ve healed—what if I convince myself that I have but really haven’t?
***
One week of weaning down, with no negative side effects. I’m taking Lexapro every other day, and one Wellbutrin per day. Fingers crossed…
***
I’m about 2 weeks into cutting back my meds. Still taking one Lexapro every other day and 20 mg of Wellbutrin per day. However, I’m noticing more staring off into space, more fleeting sensations of twirlyness. And definitely more noticeable bitchy outbursts at the kids--more than normal, anyway. So why am I just starting to feel it now? My theory is that the drugs have a long half-life and are just starting to fade from my system.
***
There’s no question that I’m at the nadir of the withdrawal roller coaster ride, and it worries me because I still have a long way to go. Lately I’ve been living Dr. Seuss’s kids’ book My Many Colored Days—arcing back and forth between brown/gray/green days and pink/orange/yellow days. I remind myself of the early Simpsons episode in which wife/mom Marge, in a traffic-fueled rage, snarls like a wildcat and ends up buying a huge SUV to bully other drivers. My emotions are out of control; one day I’m like a rock; the next, I’m pouting, sobbing an Amazon river of tears over a petty misunderstanding with Jeremy. He must think I’m going insane; I truly have no idea why he’d want to remain with a woman like me on the brink of insanity whose face gets red and blotchy when she cries. I think my responses to his unintentional slights were valid at the time, yet now they seem a bit overreactive, possibly even borderline hysterical (later attributed by Mark as a knee-jerk response to a lesser form of abandonment). Maybe I’m just not used to voicing my opinion, or maybe my opinions are just plain wrong. But I can’t help it now. I’ve apologized profusely to him for my basket-case approach to life; Jeremy thinks it’s because, after all these years of soul-numbing medication, I’m finally starting to feel again. It makes me feel, all right—feel completely crazy. Crazy and sometimes evil but ALIVE and real.
In fact, I actually remind myself of a guest star on The Dog Whisperer, a National Geographic channel show starring Cesar Millan, who is, essentially, a dog therapist. Occasionally, when working with a “red-zone,” or borderline vicious, case, Cesar, acting as a canine “pack leader” would with a subordinate pack member, pushes the thrashing, snarling dog to the ground and pins it there with his hand until its tantrums subside. He soothes the dog’s fretting owners: “That’s okay. This is all part of the submission process.” I know exactly how that dog feels right now.