Thursday 25 August 2011

Un-medicated follower of fashion?!

So.. Here I am. Officially one week without my anti-depressants. Unlike the last time I came off them, I have weaned myself off slowly, reducing my dosage soooooooooo slowly. I've not had the hideous withdrawal symptoms this time, which is fantastic, because they are seriously evil. Thumping head, eyes at the back of my head/tunnel vision feeling, mood swings. Although last time I was not at all ready to come off them, so the side effects added to the fact I wasn't ready to cope was a baaaad cocktail. I crashed big time then. That was May last year. I've been coming off these ones for 10 weeks or more now, bit by bit, and I was very apprehensive. Not in the same way as last time (I knew at the back of my mind that I wasn't ready but the Drs convinced me I should try to come off them). It was the fear that I wouldn't cope, that the same things would happen as before. Last time was so scary. The feeling that everything is out of your control, that you're falling down a deep hole and all the time you have to look after a baby as well. I just felt pure panic the whole time. You know if you're walking home from a pub or something late at night, in the dark down a dark path and you feel like someone is fallowing you. In fact you know someone is fallowing you. But there is no escape. That's what it was like. It all felt so inevitable. It was all I could do to get up in the morning. So, as you can imagine, I really did not want to go back there.

These days I'm super sensitive in terms of my emotions and feelings. Probably too sensitive. Every morning when I wake up I evaluate how I feel, decide if I think I can cope or if it's going to be an anxious day, have I woken up with my teeth clamped together etc... I actually wrote the title for this blog post and intended to start writing it on Thursday.. but I had a bad day, felt totally out of control. In all honesty, I thought that was it, that I was about to spiral down again what with it being (then) five days without my anti-ds. I was snappy tense and very moody. I had a horrible moment with Ethan when I was trying to get him dressed for the day and he was running around excited (like a normal 2 year old!) and I held him down, close to me and said "mummy is going to get very angry in a moment" in, well, quite frankly, a horrible voice. I felt like a total bitch after doing that. Ethan was upset. I didn't yell, hit, punch, anything like that, but I felt terrible. That I could make my child upset in that way. Of course he was fine in under a minute, back to his normal self, but I couldn't rid myself of the disgust I felt over my behaviour. Even now I feel terrible about it.

I continued to feel pretty unhinged for the remainder of Thursday and was very glad when Pete returned home from work, just so relieved to have someone else there with me.

Friday was a better day. A day not without it's tense moments but I didn't feel quite so highly strung.

So, what happens this morning? Sit myself down on the loo, and oh! What's this?! My period. That's it... that's what was behind those horrible mood swings, those out of control feelings. I've always had bad PMT and for me it's bad enough for me to misinterpret as anxiety and PND. On the one hand, I'm relieved of course. It's good to know this was a 'normal' monthly mood swing type situation. On the other hand of course, I have this to look forward to every month... I think when I was on my tablets they probably evened out some (not all as I'm sure Pete will testify!) my PMT symptoms. I don't think my PMT was worse before I had Ethan, I think it's just I'm more aware of these thoughts and feelings and because I'm home with him all day everyday I have no where to hide from them. I end up lashing out because there is no respite. It's true what they say, you hurt the ones you love the most.. because you feel if you lash out at them they will forgive you I suppose! I guess as he gets older it will get easier, he won't need me to be there every second, he'll be more content doing things by himself so I will be able to go and diffuse my tension out in the garden in peace, or have a shower or something without a lovely but whiny small person tugging at the shower curtain asking for a booby song. Or to show me his impression of Poi from Show me Show me dressed up as Twinkle Twinkle when we paused the TV once (loooong story.. paused mid show, she had one of those unfortunate faces and Ethan now likes to pull that face at every opportunity saying "look! twinkle twinkle face!").

Of course, there's the chance that by the time Ethan is of this age I will have another little darling to look after, causing my nipples to scab up and fall off and allowing me to make the undead look good due to being too anxious to sleep (I was once unable to sleep when Ethan was under 3 weeks old because I was worrying about how I would find time to make his pack lunches when he's at school.. yes, honestly..). This might not be the case I suppose. I hope we do have another one. It's what we've planned and deep down, despite the shitty times it is what I (we) still want. I'm scared though. All of it scares me! The difference is that these days, I have hope. I've done it! Somehow we've managed to get past the two year mark and Ethan is thriving. I may not be perfect as a Mum (who is?!), I may snap, but at least I don't yell at my child in public "if I see you go near that fence again I will beat the shit out of you" (yup, heard that little gem the other day). I don't care whether I have to go through the rest of my life on anti-ds or not, and I think that's what's made the difference. I have lost the stigma I held about needing 'help' from pills. So what if I do? You have asthma, you use an inhaler. You have allergies you take an anti-histermin... I have problems coping sometimes and I need help!

All this could be the two beers I've necked talking..

Whatever it is, it leads me to what this blog post is supposed to be about. It stands to reason. If I am no longer medicated, then I should probably change the name of my blog! What I want to know is, do any of you reading have any suggestions for names? I'm not sure, so I thought I'd see what other people think.

Get your thinking caps on folks and let me know. I am waiting to hear from you!

3 comments:

  1. Difficult one. I love your blog title and can't think of anything anywhere near as good. Well done on coming off the meds though. I really hope you stay happy and healthy without them. You're doing brilliantly. xx

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  2. Thanks lovely xx

    *le sigh* it is tricky.. Itll probably end up staying the same. Ive been wracking my brains and I just can't come up with anything either... I've always been vey happy with the name of it, just don't know if it's appropriate any more..

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  3. Well, after sleeping on it I think I'm going to keep it with the same title for now...

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