My name is Mikeera and I take medications to stabilize my mood.
Do you know how long it took me to write that?
Years.
Antidepressants were never something I thought I would find myself on. I’ve always been described as “the happiest person ever”, “the girl with the brightest smile”, “a ray of sunshine”. But after a traumatic event in 2018 and the events that followed, in early 2019 I found myself in a pit of despair, beyond hope, and struggling to survive.
After my first major panic attack, my family doctor started seeing me on a regular basis to check in with how I was doing. What was supposed to be a weekly meeting, quickly turned into an every other day affair, with my mental health deteriorating by the day. By my third visit, my nurse practitioner said the words I had been dreading since the beginning: I think we need to start you on some medication.
Now, a quick aside: I was already in therapy. I had been in therapy on and off since my trauma. I knew that therapy worked. It had worked for me before. But this time, therapy wasn’t enough. I needed something more to help give me the energy, the will to get out of bed, enough focus and clarity to be able to feed and care for myself. My doctor and nurse practitioner knew that I wanted to try every natural method possible before turning to pharmaceutical interventions, but at this point, they knew that the risk of me harming myself and my deterioration were too great for me to continue to delay. That was when I was introduced to a little blue pill: Zoloft, my antidepressant/anti-anxiety medication.
I remember my nurse practitioner explaining all of the side effects to me - which ones to look out for, which ones were just minor inconveniences. Night sweats, fevers, high body temperature, tremors, vivd dreams (night terrors, what they don’t tell you is that this can actually mean night terrors), weight gain, seizures…
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. They were putting me on a medication that I would have to take for the foreseeable future and when it came time to get off of it, I would have to do so very gradually or else my brain could literally fry itself until I had seizures and could die. I broke down sobbing in the office, begging for another way, there had to be another way. My mom held my hand and told me she thought it was a good idea.
For those of you who don’t know my mother, this statement from her was huge. A nurse herself, my mom understood what all of these side effects and possible long term effects meant. For her to look at me - her crumpled heap of a daughter - and tell me to take the medication, I knew that it was serious.
I made my nurse practitioner promise me that as soon as we could, we would start to come off of the meds. She agreed, knowing my reluctance, and reiterated that she thought this was our best course of action. Hesitantly, I agreed and took the prescription for the medication.
Thankfully, because of my therapy program, I was fast-tracked into seeing a psychiatrist, who assessed me and made more medication recommendations. Over the next two years we would increase doses, add medications (another little blue pill and a white one too!), take away medications (goodbye Prazosin, good riddance!). Every time I had catastrophic setbacks, we would start with intensifying my therapy and then, if need be, adjusting my medications. Now, I find myself at a level where I feel stable, I’m even able to feel joy again. I still feel all of my feelings, I’m just able to work through them better now.
Medication really changed my journey and I can honestly say that without it, I may not be sitting here writing this today. It’s not without it’s drawbacks (like the fact that I have to pay for these super expensive drugs out of pocket), but ultimately it does serve a purpose. I will say that if I wasn’t using it in conjunction with therapy, it would only have taken me part of the way. I needed all fo the pieces for the puzzle to come together.
If you’re scared to start medication or ask your health care provider about it because you’re afraid that you will “lose your sparkle” or because of the potential side effects, I can honestly say that the benefits of medication far outweigh the risk of not getting to live a full and happy life.
I don’t know where I would be today without a whole lot of Jesus and a little blue pill.
I hope you have a wonderful day and whatever you’re going through, know that there are always options. As usual, I will add some resources below for anyone who feels that they may need them.
Sincerely,
Mikeera
For Canadian mental health resources, click here.
