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aberration) wrote2025-11-08 05:22 pm
aberration) wrote2025-11-08 05:22 pm
Entry tags:
arms outstretched, back from the dead
So, um.
… guess who’s off their meds?????????????????????
I mean, don’t go off your meds if they’re working/make you feel better.
I recently stopped taking Lexapro, after a little over four years. And it feels weird to talk about, because I think antidepressants are good and medication is good, and I think for a time it was good for me to be taking it. And I also think, maybe, that time passed and I kept taking it; I’d tried lowering the dose or taking a different medication a couple times before and felt really shitty, and I was afraid that my only options were stop taking the medication and feel shitty, or continue on with all the negative effects that seemed to come with it. For me, only me, I can only speak to my experience.
I find it’s really difficult for me to gage what exactly my depression looked or looks like, and what Lexapro did and didn’t do to relieve that, without all sorts of biases creeping in that just. Probably don’t give me the most accurate perception of everything. I know when I was started taking it, we were all deep in the pandemic, and my PCP was just as a matter of course doing depression screening. A few months later, Lynne was diagnosed with leukemia, albeit a very, very slow acting kind that has since sort of been, reassessed into a pre-cancer condition, but that nonetheless means she’s immunocompromised. Before any of this, including the pandemic, I’d already experienced panic attacks and clear symptoms of an anxiety disorder, which given my family history feels like it was pretty inevitable. But with all of that going on, what I can probably nail down as what really affected my daily functioning was loud, paralyzing negative self-talk.
(There’s a great episode of Bojack Horseman, “Stupid Piece of Sh*t,” that I recall watching initially and thinking “oh that’s so relatable!” … which, upon returning to it when I was older and more aware of my depression, you know. Oh no.)
And I think the Lexapro did treat that, very well. I don’t remember feeling numb or emotionless – I had a range of emotions, and while that negative self-talk never goes away entirely, it was definitely quieter, and what was really worse, the hours or even days of paralyzing panic and self-loathing were restricted to much shorter bursts of it. And having that was good, was definitely something I probably needed; it was a relief to lose hours or days to agonizing over real or pretty much imagined fears and failures.
The downside of it, I think, was that it really broke my concentration. Now, okay, I’m not going to say I’ve ever been the most self-disciplined, amazing, focused person. I’ve always been a procrastinator, I’ve always had to make all kinds of bargains or deadlines with myself (or hopefully externally imposed) to get shit done. I’m the bad student who could stay up all night finishing her term papers and get away with it, I’ve got all sorts of bad habits around getting things done, fine. But I still wrote a lot! I look back at this journal and see these multi-thousand-word posts about all sorts of shit, even into the pandemic, certainly when I was working my regular, demanding job. And I can see my output very plainly decline in the months after I started taking Lexapro. The timeline in when I started taking medication, and how little I was writing, is pretty hard to ignore. And I think it also turn made my job, which I’ll acknowledge was already difficult, feel just fucking impossible. There were many other things going on with it – the unit I’d been working in since I started was effectively closed and shuffled around in a way that felt pretty shitty. I was terrified to return to working in person, particularly in the courthouse which is a nightmare, because I was afraid carrying something home to Lynne. And negotiating accommodation around that just sucks. I basically took a year off work, but even during that year felt like my capacity to focus, and my creative expression, was just… wilted. I still imagined things, I still yearned to put the shit in my head somewhere, but I also felt this block in my head, and just, like way more of a struggle than it should have been.
During this time I was also diagnosed with ADHD, and for a time also took Adderall, which, maybe helped counteract the effect of the Lexapro. It became harder to get, and after a while I didn’t feel it was really helping and stopped altogether. I think I am on some spectrum along ADHD and possibly autism, really, but I doubt I’ll ever get any kind of clear answer on that, and am not really interested in looking now.
With my current job, the reality is trying to do everything I have to do for it is just impossible. But I felt in particular like a failure because writing had become so difficult for me. Because it does feel like… the one thing I can do well. I am good at writing. I know that. It’s maybe the one thing for which I feel like I have any natural talent. I could be better, sure, but producing output that people like to read, that feels professional or well-written to them, is just something that comes easily to me. And now I couldn’t do it, and it was the thing I was supposed to be good at, and I didn’t like any other part of my job.
And in the last few months all of those feelings just came to a head, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I did wean myself off it. You can’t go cold turkey, if only for the lightning headaches that come with withdrawal. But this time when I reduced my dosage, the negative self-talk didn’t come roaring back. I felt noticeably better the more I came off it – I also felt noticeably worse at times, but with this underlying buzz of happiness along with it. I was not numb or emotionless while on Lexapro, but I think I hit a point where the extent of my emotions was limited. Now I cry more, but I also get more… ecstatically happy? I do feel freer, inside my head.
I think the extent to which I’d reached this point of feeling emotionally stunted, or trapped, was an eventual thing, maybe the point where the medication was no longer helping. I don’t think it was some inevitable product of it, and I don’t think any of my experiences would inevitably be true for anyone else. But I do think I ultimately hit this point where the Lexapro wasn’t making me happy – it just made it so I didn’t care that I was sad.
Which, since going off it, there have been times where I wished I didn’t care about how sad I was. But if the real, specific, disruptive symptom was that paralyzing agony I’d put myself through – that hasn’t really come back. At least, not with the same intensity and length. I can feel really bad at points, but I also get over it much, much more quickly than I did before I’d started taking Lexapro. And while I also wish I didn’t – feel as badly as I do, I wish I didn’t have these inclinations to mentally punish myself, I also think overall, the fact that I get through it so much faster means I’ve probably gotten what I needed from the medication. My brain is trained to work through these storms and move on. That’s what I needed, and I don’t think going back to the medication will improve that.
The medication isn’t worth the side effects anymore. That’s okay. That’s how medication works.
So yeah, I haven’t been writing here or anywhere for a while. And I hope – well, I need it to be something I can come back to, here or somewhere, and I’ll have to rebuild the habits I had around it. I look back at my old writing and I’m. It just makes me really sad. I do think I really needed the medication, but, I don’t know.
Why did this one thing I really liked about myself have to be the cost of it?
I’ve been trying to keep a handwritten journal in the last month or so. I’m one of those people who loves to buy blank books but is terrible at filling them, I’ve always been terrible at keeping diaries or journals, I so often find that I have no desire to relive my day-to-day life. I’ve been fairly good about it, sometimes missing a day because I forget or fall asleep since I tend to do it near the end of the night before I go to bed. One recurring thought that tends to come up when I’m writing in it is not to say that I hope I can do something, but rather just to say that I can do it. So it’s a matter of will, not can.
So. I know I can build my writing habits up again. I know I can come back to this, whether it’s the focus, or confidence in my opinions, or just needed to get the feelings and words out somewhere. I know I can do that. This right here is doing it, so there’s a little bit of will, too.
… guess who’s off their meds?????????????????????
I mean, don’t go off your meds if they’re working/make you feel better.
I recently stopped taking Lexapro, after a little over four years. And it feels weird to talk about, because I think antidepressants are good and medication is good, and I think for a time it was good for me to be taking it. And I also think, maybe, that time passed and I kept taking it; I’d tried lowering the dose or taking a different medication a couple times before and felt really shitty, and I was afraid that my only options were stop taking the medication and feel shitty, or continue on with all the negative effects that seemed to come with it. For me, only me, I can only speak to my experience.
I find it’s really difficult for me to gage what exactly my depression looked or looks like, and what Lexapro did and didn’t do to relieve that, without all sorts of biases creeping in that just. Probably don’t give me the most accurate perception of everything. I know when I was started taking it, we were all deep in the pandemic, and my PCP was just as a matter of course doing depression screening. A few months later, Lynne was diagnosed with leukemia, albeit a very, very slow acting kind that has since sort of been, reassessed into a pre-cancer condition, but that nonetheless means she’s immunocompromised. Before any of this, including the pandemic, I’d already experienced panic attacks and clear symptoms of an anxiety disorder, which given my family history feels like it was pretty inevitable. But with all of that going on, what I can probably nail down as what really affected my daily functioning was loud, paralyzing negative self-talk.
(There’s a great episode of Bojack Horseman, “Stupid Piece of Sh*t,” that I recall watching initially and thinking “oh that’s so relatable!” … which, upon returning to it when I was older and more aware of my depression, you know. Oh no.)
And I think the Lexapro did treat that, very well. I don’t remember feeling numb or emotionless – I had a range of emotions, and while that negative self-talk never goes away entirely, it was definitely quieter, and what was really worse, the hours or even days of paralyzing panic and self-loathing were restricted to much shorter bursts of it. And having that was good, was definitely something I probably needed; it was a relief to lose hours or days to agonizing over real or pretty much imagined fears and failures.
The downside of it, I think, was that it really broke my concentration. Now, okay, I’m not going to say I’ve ever been the most self-disciplined, amazing, focused person. I’ve always been a procrastinator, I’ve always had to make all kinds of bargains or deadlines with myself (or hopefully externally imposed) to get shit done. I’m the bad student who could stay up all night finishing her term papers and get away with it, I’ve got all sorts of bad habits around getting things done, fine. But I still wrote a lot! I look back at this journal and see these multi-thousand-word posts about all sorts of shit, even into the pandemic, certainly when I was working my regular, demanding job. And I can see my output very plainly decline in the months after I started taking Lexapro. The timeline in when I started taking medication, and how little I was writing, is pretty hard to ignore. And I think it also turn made my job, which I’ll acknowledge was already difficult, feel just fucking impossible. There were many other things going on with it – the unit I’d been working in since I started was effectively closed and shuffled around in a way that felt pretty shitty. I was terrified to return to working in person, particularly in the courthouse which is a nightmare, because I was afraid carrying something home to Lynne. And negotiating accommodation around that just sucks. I basically took a year off work, but even during that year felt like my capacity to focus, and my creative expression, was just… wilted. I still imagined things, I still yearned to put the shit in my head somewhere, but I also felt this block in my head, and just, like way more of a struggle than it should have been.
During this time I was also diagnosed with ADHD, and for a time also took Adderall, which, maybe helped counteract the effect of the Lexapro. It became harder to get, and after a while I didn’t feel it was really helping and stopped altogether. I think I am on some spectrum along ADHD and possibly autism, really, but I doubt I’ll ever get any kind of clear answer on that, and am not really interested in looking now.
With my current job, the reality is trying to do everything I have to do for it is just impossible. But I felt in particular like a failure because writing had become so difficult for me. Because it does feel like… the one thing I can do well. I am good at writing. I know that. It’s maybe the one thing for which I feel like I have any natural talent. I could be better, sure, but producing output that people like to read, that feels professional or well-written to them, is just something that comes easily to me. And now I couldn’t do it, and it was the thing I was supposed to be good at, and I didn’t like any other part of my job.
And in the last few months all of those feelings just came to a head, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I did wean myself off it. You can’t go cold turkey, if only for the lightning headaches that come with withdrawal. But this time when I reduced my dosage, the negative self-talk didn’t come roaring back. I felt noticeably better the more I came off it – I also felt noticeably worse at times, but with this underlying buzz of happiness along with it. I was not numb or emotionless while on Lexapro, but I think I hit a point where the extent of my emotions was limited. Now I cry more, but I also get more… ecstatically happy? I do feel freer, inside my head.
I think the extent to which I’d reached this point of feeling emotionally stunted, or trapped, was an eventual thing, maybe the point where the medication was no longer helping. I don’t think it was some inevitable product of it, and I don’t think any of my experiences would inevitably be true for anyone else. But I do think I ultimately hit this point where the Lexapro wasn’t making me happy – it just made it so I didn’t care that I was sad.
Which, since going off it, there have been times where I wished I didn’t care about how sad I was. But if the real, specific, disruptive symptom was that paralyzing agony I’d put myself through – that hasn’t really come back. At least, not with the same intensity and length. I can feel really bad at points, but I also get over it much, much more quickly than I did before I’d started taking Lexapro. And while I also wish I didn’t – feel as badly as I do, I wish I didn’t have these inclinations to mentally punish myself, I also think overall, the fact that I get through it so much faster means I’ve probably gotten what I needed from the medication. My brain is trained to work through these storms and move on. That’s what I needed, and I don’t think going back to the medication will improve that.
The medication isn’t worth the side effects anymore. That’s okay. That’s how medication works.
So yeah, I haven’t been writing here or anywhere for a while. And I hope – well, I need it to be something I can come back to, here or somewhere, and I’ll have to rebuild the habits I had around it. I look back at my old writing and I’m. It just makes me really sad. I do think I really needed the medication, but, I don’t know.
Why did this one thing I really liked about myself have to be the cost of it?
I’ve been trying to keep a handwritten journal in the last month or so. I’m one of those people who loves to buy blank books but is terrible at filling them, I’ve always been terrible at keeping diaries or journals, I so often find that I have no desire to relive my day-to-day life. I’ve been fairly good about it, sometimes missing a day because I forget or fall asleep since I tend to do it near the end of the night before I go to bed. One recurring thought that tends to come up when I’m writing in it is not to say that I hope I can do something, but rather just to say that I can do it. So it’s a matter of will, not can.
So. I know I can build my writing habits up again. I know I can come back to this, whether it’s the focus, or confidence in my opinions, or just needed to get the feelings and words out somewhere. I know I can do that. This right here is doing it, so there’s a little bit of will, too.
no subject
I'm glad you made the decisions you needed to, when you needed to, for yourself -- both going on, and going off. It will come back.
no subject