Where have you been?
If you read the prior two posts (the ones with actual paragraphs, not the ones with vampire devil squirrels) you may have noticed, I went off my meds and on my depression again. They say you should never abruptly stop taking psychotropic meds. They are right. It was hideous. I mean in a jaw-dropping, panic-inducing, the most disgusting emotional display you’ve ever seen kind of way.
As anyone who has ever been on depression meds knows, there is a underlying current of euphoria associated with taking them. Not euphoria in the exaggerated way, just in that there’s a sense of well being that staves off the breakdowns. Because the medication builds up, if you happen to miss a day or two due to, oh, let’s say, neglecting to refill your prescription, the euphoria endures. Then day three comes along. Day three is when you find yourself sitting on the couch, straining against the invisible hand at the back of your neck that is pulling your shoulders into the “slump of sadness”. And you realize, “Shit. I need to refill my Zoloft.”
So you think about it for a while. You tell yourself, “Just call them. It will take five seconds.” And you think some more. Eventually, around day five, you wonder whether you can order refills online. Day seven, you check it out. Finally - the refills are ordered. The sense of accomplishment is overwhelming and it makes you sad to realize how pathetic that is. So you think about that for a while.
Three days later the phone calls start coming in and there are messages: “This is your CVS pharmacy calling Your Name. A prescription for Your Name is ready at Ninth Street.” The ninth street CVS is five blocks away from you. It only takes about two weeks for the calls to stop. By this point you’ve been off the Zoloft for so long, going back would only mean enduring another excruciating two weeks of your mind adjusting to chemicals (this time by putting them in rather than taking them out) and you go to therapy instead. Logically you know you should just suck it up and walk the five blocks and pay the ten dollars and pull your shit together, but for one reason or another, you don’t. And I didn’t.
And then it was September.
