Feelings

The last few years have been kind of rough on me emotionally. The beginning of 2009 I decided to try some depression medication. You don’t have to do much convincing now to get a prescription from a doctor and at the time the doc I was seeing was a pretty good one.

Believe it or not, I’m not big on popping pills. I quit smoking while taking pills, but I only took them for about 6 weeks. I take one fish oil capsule every day and from April through October I take allergy meds. I don’t get headaches. I don’t have aches or pains. I rarely get sick. I have no health problems.

I came to the conclusion that sometimes we humans need a little help and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you know when to move on, so I’ve been taking citalopram for most of this year. The problems I was having were mostly related to the problems another person in my life was having and with the help of the medication I was able to detach myself from the situation.

When I was ready to stop taking the meds I called to make an appointment with my doctor only to find out he had moved to Oregon. This guy made it clear from the get go that taking this medication was temporary and was a way to get the brain back on track. The new doctor’s theory is if it’s working there’s no need to make any changes.

One of my flaws is that I think I know everything. There’s lot’s of time I totally ignore a doctor’s advice because I think he’s just full of shit. So when this guy acted like I was nuts because I wanted to come off these meds I took a step back and re-evaluated. After another month I decided that yes, he was full of shit and I started weaning myself off the meds.

I know I did it all wrong, and even though I do know the meaning of the word weaning…once I made up my mind, I forgot to take the pills. The effects were freakish and really uncomfortable and I wouldn’t do it that way again, but now that it’s done, I have noticed many things I didn’t realize before.

I thought the only effect was that I couldn’t shed a tear no matter how sad the situation. Turns out not only wasn’t I crying enough, I wasn’t laughing or dreaming or feeling enough either.

The first indication the drugs wore off were the flowing of tears and I didn’t even care because it felt good to feel again. Another early indication was waking up remembering having dreams. I usually don’t remember what my dreams are about, but I usually do remember having them. Now what the hell my ex husband was doing in the first two dreams I remember having isn’t anything I want to analyze but “he who shall not be named” hasn’t been in my subconscious mind since.

The best part so far is how I can just laugh my ass off. I having cracked up like this since March and it sure feels good.

I have to confess that all of the other “not so fun” emotions are back in full force too, but isn’t that what being human is all about?

So laugh, cry, dream, get pissed, frustrated, irritated, disgusted…it’s what we’re supposed to do.