RealMental

Oh hi, i have been absent from writing here for a long time, I have remained present on the inside reading comments, moderating occassionally. Keeping everyone in my thoughts.

I went off Lexapro last september for a variety of reasons. Most importantly i felt the medication was making my mania, depression and self-harming behaviours worse. My marriage had ended after my husband found out i had had an affair. The medication didn’t make me have the affair neither did being bi-polar, but those things definately had some influence on the choices i made. After being on medication for three years and being hospitalized for an overdose of prescription drugs,  a subsequent suicide attempt and two years of depression i decided to try life without medical intervention. I had a feeling that being medicated was making me worse.

I tapered off Lexapro over an eight week period. It was very difficult. I did it without doctor supervision for fear that my doctor would not agree with my self-diagnosis.

After three months i felt completely normal. Like the jess i used to know. I still had chronic anxiety and fears of depression coming back out of hiding. But, i could think clearer than i had in years. I could look, with perspective, at the mess my life had become. I saw, regretfully, the pain i had inflicted on those around me and the stupid choices i had made.

I could also see that i still had children who loved me and that i had managed to cobble together a life on my own. A home, a job self-sufficient. Something i had never been. Independent. Last spring and summer were monumental for me in regards to personal growth. It was an amazing time capped off by a trip to BlogHer in july. I was proud, strong and confidant.

In august my ex-husband and i began the painful process of trying to reconcile. I moved back into his home and we tried to come back together as a family. It hasn’t gone very well. The pain he has combined with my guilt has been incredibly difficult. It is a very tough path we are on and we have both thrown in the towel on several occassions only to crawl back in the ring and give it another round. The fight is nearly over.

Last week i went to my doctor because i have been having this irritating and frightening problem with orgasm-induced migraines. The pain is so intense and instant that i feared i was actually dying of an aneurism. I have started taking amitriptyline, an anti-depressant, to control the migraines. I don’t know yet if they are working as i have been too nervous to “test”.

I have noticed that my brain is slowly slipping back into it’s medicated state. My anxiety has lessened, but feelings of despair and depression have crept back in. Obviously, i am in a not great situation at home that is adding to the hopeless feelings, but i keep thinking is it really the medication? Am i a hypochondriac? Does anybody else feel this way on drugs? And really? Is it worth it, is a life without orgasm better than a life depressed. I think probably.

I have been on medication for two years. I have tried drugs at other points in my life, but never stuck to them, or became addicted to them. Ativan, lorazepam – they are my friends. Too much so. My addictive personality. I can’t use moderation with those “downer” type  meds. So the doctors just don’t give them to me anymore.

I have been on Cipralex/Lexapro 15mg for almost a year. I switched to this medication from Effexor which made me have uncontrollable brain shivers and twitching. I wanted to believe it was helping. I wanted it to help. I don’t think it ever really did. It certainly didn’t stop me from trying to commit suicide. It didn’t stop me from being sad most of the time.

It did, however, keep me from having ten or more panic attacks every day, in every social situation. It did give me the strength to make some incredibly difficult changes in my life. It gave me the backbone to leave a toxic marriage. It helped me to get through the first few months of being single and a single mother.

I could never shake the feeling of fogginess the enveloped my brain. The twitching in bed. The insomnia. The headaches. The aching in my joints. The loss of libido. The loss of desire to read. To write. Trying to grasp at straws by drinking wine. Trying to bring back some semblance of the vibrant artistic, passionate person i used to be.

Over the past few months as i have looked at myself. Really looked at myself. I realized that, for me, the cost to my self-esteem of taking medication and it’s side-effects are too much. That i was ready to try life free from the chains of the big drug companies. To look in to a more holistic way of treating myself. Exercise, herbal remedies, vitamins, sleep, less alcohol. I am more than willing to go back on medication if this doesn’t work. I have to make that deal with myself. For me. For my children.

But, as of this week i am med free. I am in pain from withdrawal. It is tougher than i thought it would be. But i am hopeful. I have hope. That is something wonderful.

If you knew me you would know that from the outside i used to seem like i had it all together.

If you know me now you know that in the past year i look like a disheveled mess. That my life has fallen apart over and over again. That i nearly died. That i lost my marriage. That i nearly lost everything.

And now.

And now i am slowly crawling my way back to a real life.

This week i started going off my medication. I have been unhappy and medicated for a long time. Now? Now i have all my ducks in a row to try and be normal. Happy and sad. I just want to know who i am in an un-pressured situation.

I have that now. A home to myself. No husband breathing down my back. Wanting everything to be fine. When fine was not possible.

I am scared. I am woobly in my head. My body is rejecting me. Stomach pain. Intestinal distress. But i am eager to know me again. Happy. Sedated. Unmedicated.

The fourth time i tried to kill myself hasn’t happened yet.

I am making some of the hardest decisions i have ever had to make to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Today my husband asked me to come home, he pleaded. He asked me to come back and make an effort to work things out. To be a family again.

So many parts of me would love to do that. The support. The friend to talk to. But i know in my heart that the environment i lived in for the past seven years is directly related to the debilitating depression that i suffered for the past two years. I can’t put faith, or take the chance, in the idea that things will change.

I need the change i have now. I need to stay alive. For myself, for my children, for my husband. I want to stay alive. I feel better in the past three months than i have in the past nine years. It’s been hard. Incredibly hard to walk away from my marriage. But, for me, that’s the key. It’s been hard. It’s made me sad. But, i am not depressed.

I can truly say that. For the first time in so long. I am not depressed.

Being on my own has made that happen.

I’m sorry for that.

When in one single year you are hospitalized twice and attempt suicide once it is difficult for most people to maintain a friendship with you. It is difficult for your husband to maintain a relationship with you. You become a social pariah. It’s not that people don’t care, or don’t want to help. They just don’t know how.

They just don’t get it.

Not that there is much to get. I have been ill. I have not been well.  I know that by not being well in such an uncomfortable way i have made it difficult to be friends with me. I find it hard to be friends with myself sometimes. It’s hard to not be angry.

Why did i have to do that? Why do i have to be this way? Why can’t i be a better person. Why do i let everything bother me?

And now. And now it’s been almost five months. I am separated from my husband. I have my own home for the first time ever. I am getting a little better all the time. I’ve even considered lowering the dosage on my medication. I won’t. It’s too soon. I know that. But, the fact that i can even think about that is surely a sign that things are getting a little better.

The third time i tried to kill myself was just three months ago.

It was my most serious attempt. The one that almost took. The one where i had the most to lose.

I had been depressed for two years. Medicated for one. The year leading up to my suicide attempt was the hardest of my life. My marriage was falling apart. My children were growing in amazing, independent ways. Needing me less. Yet, needing me enough that they still occupied all my time. But, i could see the future. The hopelessness of it. Just being a mother. I had given up everything to have children.

I was young when i started having them. I had a promising career that i walked away from to be a stay at home mom. And suddenly. Suddenly i wasn’t young anymore. I was an unemployable mother with an out of date education and no work experience.

The year was a downward spiral of wrong medications, abuse of sedatives and over-consumption of alcohol. Self-medicating. Seperating from my pain and my family.

In january i was hospitalized from an accidental overdose on clonazepam. I spent five days on the psychiatric ward. Locked in. Humbled. Humiliated.

I came home and began seeing a psychiatrist and his team. Changed my medication. Put on a brave face. Lying my way through therapy and family. Assuring everyone that i was okay. Just fine. Great even.

But, i wasn’t. I was more lost than ever. I wanted out. Out of my marriage. Out of my life. Out of the heart crushing pain.

I began having an affair.

Seeking refuge in the arms of someone totally distant from my life. No part of it. It made life a little easier. For awhile. I fooled myself in to thinking that this was okay. This was an answer. This was a lie.

Hating myself. Hating everybody.

In july i found myself alone at the house for the night. I felt desperately sad. An intense loneliness that bore down on me with a pain that was so fierce my heart raced and my head pounded and my heart felt like it was breaking.

Without any pre-meditation. Without a thought for my children. I googled the perfect, deathly mix of the drugs i had on hand. I took all i had to, plus a few for good measure. I made some phone calls, twittered what i was doing. Said my goodbyes to the sky. Turned up the music and passed out on my balcony. Half in, half out of the house.

I am going to say it. I am so scared of these words.

I am manic. I am in a manic episode. I am acting irrationally. I have been high of energy, high of life, happy.

Too happy.

It hurts my heart so much to say these words. I thought i was better. I thought i was recovering from my suicide attempt. I thought things would be better.

But.

But, the mania? The mania is almost as bad. I know i am doing dumb things. I know i am being selfish. I know i am being a bad mother. Drinking too much. Staying up too late. Losing weight too fast. Having too much fun.

I watch myself. From the outside. I know what is happening. But i can’t control it. I am about to walk out on my marriage. And i don’t care. I don’t care. How can i say those words?

Fifteen years. Four children.

I have been unhappy for so long. I am unhappy. This didn’t come from nothing.

I want to know who i am. I want to be free from all the pressure of having a spouse who knows me so well. I want to leave.

Is everybody who is crazy this self-aware?