SOMEDAY

you can go, you can start all over again, you can try to find a way to make another day go by… you can hide, hold all your feelings inside, you can try to carry on when all you wanna do is cry… maybe someday we’ll figure all this out, try to put an end to all our doubt, try to find a way to make things better now and maybe someday we’ll live our lives out loud, we’ll be better off somehow, someday…

I’m not going to lie, the last couple of weeks (maybe months?) have been rough. Starting and then tapering off antidepressants isn’t an easy thing to do. And I’m positive that everything I’ve been going through lately is because I have fully tapered off Lexapro and I’m feeling fucking everything. That was not a good medication for me. I was on Zoloft for years because I used to have crippling panic attacks and my anxiety was out of control. And Zoloft really helped curb all of that. I never felt like it was doing anything, which I guess is good, but if I missed a dose or two I would get these ridiculous brain zaps and I would be like “shit! I need to take my meds!” But some where along the post Covid line, I started getting more depressed and I felt like maybe I needed something that would cater more towards depression and also help my anxiety at the same time. When I went for my annual physical after the new year I spoke to my doctor about it and we both agreed that I should try Lexapro.

It started off alright I guess. I definitely felt like I needed more so the doctor upped the daily dose. And about a month into it is when things started to change, and not in the way I expected or wanted. I started feeling even more depressed. I had zero drive, I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t taking care of myself. I sat on the couch and cuddled with the puppy. That was all I could muster up. Of course I didn’t realize this was happening until one day I was like “wow, I’m like really fucking sad.” and I realized how long I had been feeling that way and decided it was time to start tapering off the Lexapro. In all my battles with depression and anxiety, I had never felt or been as bad as I was. Also, the insurance/pharmaceutical industry is a fucking scam and a 90 day supply cost me over $300 with insurance. Why would I renew a prescription that wasn’t even working at that cost?!

Tapering off has been the most challenging thing for me. I don’t know how to do life after medication because I’ve been on some form of it for so long. One minute I’m great, feeling like I can do anything. And the next minute I’m flooded with brain zaps and feeling like I could cry at any moment. But, the only way out is through and man, am I going through it. I keep reminding myself that I will get through this and that I’m okay. It just sucks right now because I am in it. And maybe you’re reading this and thinking I’m fucking crazy and that I should be medicated. But that medicine was a mask and it made me disappear. I don’t even like myself most of the time, but I wasn’t feeling even a little bit like myself and I just wasn’t okay.

It may very well be the case that eventually some medication will help me. But the only way for me to find that out is to sit with whatever I am feeling and figure out if it’s something I can fix or if it’s something that needs medical intervention. Right now, it feels frustrating but manageable. But honestly, what the fuck do I know? All I really know is that when I started paying attention to myself, I opened up a fucking Pandora’s box that’s just wide open and running a muck on my mental health. There are bad habits and patterns that need to be broken. There are more boundaries that need to be set. There are even bigger strides that need to be made towards giving a shit about me. And I really do feel like I’ll get there, I just have to do the work. Medication made me not want to do anything. I didn’t even care if I bathed. I would peel myself off the couch, drag my ass into bed and not sleep for the entire night. I was exhausted. Every single part of my day was exhausting.

I can’t confidently say at this moment of writing this out that I feel better. I feel very messy, confused, frustrated and unhinged. The littlest things get on my nerves. And navigating my way through the mental health system in the United States is not something I’m up for right now. I don’t have the time, money or the patience to pick a therapist. I don’t have any desire to do talk or cognitive therapy. I am tired of testing people out to see who is the right fit for me, and having to spend at least $200 on a session that was fucking pointless. And I don’t want to pay $300+ on medication that doesn’t work the way I need it to. I just can’t do it right now. Down the road, I guess I’ll see, but right now I just don’t want to do it.

Please don’t misunderstand me here – if you have struggled or are struggling with your mental health please continue to do what you need to do. Take your meds. Talk to your doctors. Keep doing what you’re doing if it’s helping you. My issue is that nothing was helping me and starting from scratch isn’t what I feel I need to do right now. But if you have a plan that works, keep it going.

There’s just too much going on outside of my bubble right now. Too many things that I can’t control and those things just add fuel to the anxiety flame. I’m anxious about everything and I need to figure out the right way to self soothe. To shut all of that shit out and control what I can. I am slowly realizing that I have access to too much shit and like, I’m the type of person who shouldn’t pay attention to all of it.

I’ll give you an example: I got a pet camera for when I would leave my puppy home alone. I would check it way too much and found that I would spend my day worrying and watching her. After 3-ish weeks of that, I disconnected the camera and decided to have confidence in my smart puppy and just hope that my house wasn’t destroyed when I got home. Spoiler alert – it wasn’t. Having that camera gave me too much access and something like that does NOT work for someone like me.

Learning to trust whatever process this is is something I need to get comfortable with and it’s really fucking hard. I don’t really trust anything. I don’t have much faith in anything. I don’t have the ability to just fling shit up to the Universe and say “it will all work out” because life has kicked my ass a little bit and I’m just not wired that way. The good news is that I’m finally trying. I’m scared to death of what the future holds, but I think that I can muster up enough faith to let myself know that I will be okay. And that’s a good start, right?

Thanks for reading. I know that this post was messy, but I’m here if you need me…

I don’t wanna wait, I just wanna know, I just wanna hear you tell me so, give it to me straight, tell it to me slow… ’cause maybe someday we’ll figure all this out, we’ll put an end to all our doubt, try to find a way to just feel better now and maybe someday we’ll live our lives out loud, we’ll be better off somehow, someday…

Song name: SOMEDAY/ Artist: Rob Thomas/ Year: 2009