Every time I look at my nightstand and notice my pill container, I grimace. Part of having a psychiatric condition is taking pills, for me at least. In my twenties I was a Prozac girl. My little happy pill that I hid in my bathroom drawer from my roommates because I was embarrassed. Growing up with my mom taught me enough about what society thinks of mental illness. I met my husband and broke up with Prozac and was set up with Paxil. That was a disastrous relationship. We broke up hard and fast, but only after I gained 45 lbs.
Once married, I became a Zoloft girl. Have been one ever since. The interesting thing, though, is that I feel exactly the same on it as I do off of it. And I know because I’ve come off of it several times. I’m not exactly sure why doctors kept putting me back on it: “you seem ok, but lets give the Zoloft a little fuel injector and add Wellbutrin.” So, Zoloft became Zoloft + Wellbutrin. Later, Zoloft + Wellbutrin became Zoloft + Wellbutrin + Buspar. Then, Zoloft + Wellbutrin + Buspar became….never mind. It’s too depressing to write out. I would be here for days because this list has evolved over decades. I presently take 6 supplements, 7 prescriptions, and a partridge in a pear tree. Oh, yeah, perimenopause is an asshole so I take meds for that, too.
I am not going to listen to any flap about me polluting my body with medications. I love the people that claim, “go natural.” Who do I love even more? The folks that tell others to just get more exercise or meditate more. Talk to God. I was once asked if I had considered a keto diet for my mental health. Here’s the thing, until you’ve been to the depths of mental turmoil like I have, you have no room to talk. This struggle is real and it is terrifying. It’s spirit killing. I’m doing what I think is best for me so that I can be here for my family. If you have a similar diagnosis or story and going all natural or starting the pickle diet has worked for you, I’m simply thrilled. But your journey isn’t mine.
From a purely biological and scientific standpoint, the human brain remains largely unknown. How do I know this? Because it is on every single drug pamphlet printed: “the exact mechanism of action isn’t fully understood, but [drug name] works to [verb] and help with [noun].” Armed with this understanding, I can sort of see how pharmaceuticals can become their own fire breathing dragon. It is called practicing medicine for a reason.
Now that I know what my diagnosis really is, I can see how it all happened. Psychiatrists mistook sadness, anxiousness, and fear of future fight or flight episodes as treatment resistant depression, generalized anxiety, and panic disorder. But when the meds didn’t work, it never occurred to anyone to head down another rabbit hole. The course of action has always been to throw more drugs at me. The thing is, depression, anxiety, and panic attacks are themselves symptoms of cPTSD.
See the distinction? They are bonafide and medically recognized ailments, standing alone and each having their own place in healthcare, but they are also symptoms of other, entirely different conditions. At the end of the day, I suppose the question is whether or not treatment of depression/anxiety/panic and PTSD are the same. And, as a newbie to all of this, I don’t think they are. Entirely.
Would it have really mattered if I had felt better taking all of those meds with a wrong diagnosis? So long as I was well and wasn’t being actively harmed, I don’t care what you labelled me. I just wanted to feel normal and not scared, and I kept getting worse. I would have given anything to get my life back. But, one diagnosis opens up entirely different resources, treatments, support systems, and more. Since this all began, I have learned about all kinds of methods to help: meditations, grounding techniques, and daily strategies that could have significantly improved my quality of life. I don’t believe there is any cure for what I have; the scars run too deep and the damage was done to a very young brain. The current research says I can get better, but never unscathed. But the last decades of my life would have been significantly different if I had only known.
This brings me back to the original point of my daily head check. I have gigantic pill containers and I hate them. Functional plastic gadgets that store meds by day, time of day, and size. With or without food. They take up real estate where my books should be, they are a glut on the environment, and seeing them feels like a gut punch. They are ugly as hell. They represent wasted years with doctors when I could have been working towards wellness, some semblance of a life. Had any one of my prior doctors spent time with me…real time…perhaps they would have caught it sooner.
I’m so angry with the medical establishment, which is to say some doctors…not all. There are a ton of really good ones out there. Just don’t ask me how to find them, because it seems it takes me too long.
I want my nightstand back.
