It's no secret that I have emotion to share. I have enough emotion to float a room of stodgy old men who were taught as children never to cry. All that emotion has to go somewhere. I guess it all got sent to me.
I started taking SSRIs when my son was 9 months old and I weaned from the breast pump. I thought it was mostly hormonal that I was slowly losing my grip, and although it had been recommended to me several times before in my life that meds might help me be a little less nuts emotional, I resisted. I resisted because I thought somewhere there was an answer I was missing. A puzzle piece that would explain why I cried so easily, so often, so sometimes completely without provocation or in the absence of what I considered, real pain. I have led a normal life, no scars to mention, a happy childhood, a warm nuclear family. I went to college, have a good job, a great husband. I have not suffered great tragedy, the kind that would leave lingering sadness or issues to resolve.
Or have I? I don't think I have, but if I haven't then what in the world is wrong with me? I ask a lot of questions. I am a need to know kind of person. In the absence of any hard evidence I have nothing but question marks staring at me when I have tried to figure out who I am.
When I talked to the super star astrologist she explained something to me. My sun and moon are opposing signs. This is uncommon and as it would suggest, can lead to a lot of inner conflict. For example, one side of me wants a jet set life, the other, the security of a good job and family. The wife and mother in me won that round, but believe me, the jet setter is still pissed. She's not afraid to kick me in the chakras to let me know it either. The benefit of hearing that from Dena was that it finally gave me something to cling to. This is who I am. What I am made of. It doesn't make it any easier, but it's something. An answer of sorts. I'm not just completely randomly crazy. To me, that was comforting.
The SSRIs were great. I didn't cry at work anymore. I wasn't so hot tempered. It provided greater balance for my extremes. But I couldn't help asking the Doctor, how do I know what it is that is always making me cry if I'm not crying anymore? It's like having a disease but with the meds, suddenly my symptoms were masked. How do I know if I am getting better? Worse? Different? I never got a straight answer. I used to cry when I would see the Psychiatrist and she kept upping the dose and I never felt any different. (Take the pills. Take the pills. Don't worry about that other stuff. Take the pills). So I lowered it, slowly on my own, knowing I could go back up if I felt I needed to. I didn't need to. I hovered at around 25 mgs for a long time until I thought I was pregnant, then I stopped. I felt fine. It's important to me to have a pharmaceutical free pregnancy unless I start to lose my mind, but I've done it before, I don't see any reason why I couldn't do it again.
So how do you know if you are better? You stop taking the pills. And you hope you are better.
I'm not so lucky. I'm exactly the way I was before. What I really want to write is that I am FUCKING exactly the way I was before, because my temper has returned. It's as if she's been starved all this time and just had a nice meal and has put her feet up on the table and is ready to take you down if you even suggest that it might not be a good idea to keep your dirty shoes where you eat. The tears are back too. Buckets of them. Only they are hiding under the table because they don't like to be seen. Ambivilance has returned as well. She's just watching this all play out because, really, she doesn't care what happens.
I know, I know that depression is a disease, there doesn't need to be a reason why I feel this way, some people just do. Always have. I know I always have, only motherhood has taken it to a level that is no longer appropriate. I could cry in the grocery store before if I wanted to. You can't do that with a sweet face staring up at you quizzically from the cart with a bag of chocolate covered pretzels clutched in his fist, asking, be happy mama? Yes, that really happened and yes, it was heart breaking. I'm not too far gone to realize I needed to quickly wipe away the tears and pretend I was absolutely fine, but I don't want to live my life being a pretend mama. Always trying not to slip up and let the real one out.
