Get out your tickets and get ready to board the roller coaster of crazy, because I'm officially phasing out the zoloft, starting yesterday!
A few months ago, my company announced that they're changing their health plan to a high deductible plan with an HSA (which basically means that if you're healthy, you save money, and if you're not healthy, you get screwed. But physical illness is just moral weakness, right? Right! Buck up, sick people!) and I was thinking about how much my zoloft would cost over the course of the year. I've gone generic, so the cost wouldn't be nearly as bad as it would have been a year ago, and it wasn't really about the money, anyway. If I had to pay every red cent of a brand-name zoloft prescription out of my own pocket, I would, if that were the only way to ward off the depression. If someone told me that, in order to avoid falling into a depressive pit, I had to behead a live chicken and bathe in the blood every morning, I'd do that too. Anything, anything, to build a big, strong wall between me and the depression.
I'd thought before about going off of the zoloft, and each time, the thought caused a panic reaction - my body got tense, my stomach flip flopped, and I could feel myself getting angry at the world - as though someone were actually standing there, trying to take my zoloft away from me. "Go ahead," I would think. "Just try to pry it out of my cold, dead hands."
This time, it was different. I didn't feel angry or defensive. Instead, I felt curious. I wanted to see what I'm like without zoloft - what my life as a grown-up would be like without zoloft. For me, going on anti-depressants was a stage of maturing - I did it as one aspect of the process of learning to take care of myself. Taking anti-depressants is, to me, part of being an adult.
Now, I want to find out what it means to be an adult without them - whether I have the ability to manage my depression by managing my life, without the medication. I want to try to be sane by cultivating habits of sanity - good nutrition, good exercise, good choices like time for meditation and plenty of sleep.
It's been about five years since zoloft marked a new chapter in my life - a chapter where I'm capable of getting up in the morning and looking forward to simple things like a cup of coffee. A chapter where I can look back and see how overwhelmingly unhappy I was. A chapter where I don't have to struggle up a mountain of effort just to make a convincing appearance of being like everyone else.
I love zoloft - that sounds silly, but it's true. It's representative of so much in my life - freedom, independence, hope, strength. The ability to help myself. Now I want to see if I can take those things in, from all of the tools that I've learned to use in my daily life, without taking the pill anymore.
In a way, phasing out the zoloft is a technique for forcing myself to be more disciplined about creating my life. If I have a reason for eating, sleeping, working, and living well - avoiding depression - I'll be better about sticking to the habits that reflect what I want out of life. I'll have to be. There won't be as much room for error.
I came to terms a long time ago with the fact that my depression isn't like a disease that can be cured. It's more like cancer - you go into remission, prepared to deal with it if and when it presents itself in a familiar or new form. It's a part of me, and not always a completely negative part - but that's a whole other post in itself. So I'm not looking to eradicate depression, and I don't expect that I've been cured. That's not why I'm going off. Actually, I'm not sure why I am going off, except that a little voice inside me said that it's time to try.
So here goes - Day One of spring cleaning my life, aligning my habits with my desires, and making a conscious effort to buffer my head, heart and soul against The Crazy. Brought to you in part by my new, shiny, lower zoloft dose.
Wish me luck!
A few months ago, my company announced that they're changing their health plan to a high deductible plan with an HSA (which basically means that if you're healthy, you save money, and if you're not healthy, you get screwed. But physical illness is just moral weakness, right? Right! Buck up, sick people!) and I was thinking about how much my zoloft would cost over the course of the year. I've gone generic, so the cost wouldn't be nearly as bad as it would have been a year ago, and it wasn't really about the money, anyway. If I had to pay every red cent of a brand-name zoloft prescription out of my own pocket, I would, if that were the only way to ward off the depression. If someone told me that, in order to avoid falling into a depressive pit, I had to behead a live chicken and bathe in the blood every morning, I'd do that too. Anything, anything, to build a big, strong wall between me and the depression.
I'd thought before about going off of the zoloft, and each time, the thought caused a panic reaction - my body got tense, my stomach flip flopped, and I could feel myself getting angry at the world - as though someone were actually standing there, trying to take my zoloft away from me. "Go ahead," I would think. "Just try to pry it out of my cold, dead hands."
This time, it was different. I didn't feel angry or defensive. Instead, I felt curious. I wanted to see what I'm like without zoloft - what my life as a grown-up would be like without zoloft. For me, going on anti-depressants was a stage of maturing - I did it as one aspect of the process of learning to take care of myself. Taking anti-depressants is, to me, part of being an adult.
Now, I want to find out what it means to be an adult without them - whether I have the ability to manage my depression by managing my life, without the medication. I want to try to be sane by cultivating habits of sanity - good nutrition, good exercise, good choices like time for meditation and plenty of sleep.
It's been about five years since zoloft marked a new chapter in my life - a chapter where I'm capable of getting up in the morning and looking forward to simple things like a cup of coffee. A chapter where I can look back and see how overwhelmingly unhappy I was. A chapter where I don't have to struggle up a mountain of effort just to make a convincing appearance of being like everyone else.
I love zoloft - that sounds silly, but it's true. It's representative of so much in my life - freedom, independence, hope, strength. The ability to help myself. Now I want to see if I can take those things in, from all of the tools that I've learned to use in my daily life, without taking the pill anymore.
In a way, phasing out the zoloft is a technique for forcing myself to be more disciplined about creating my life. If I have a reason for eating, sleeping, working, and living well - avoiding depression - I'll be better about sticking to the habits that reflect what I want out of life. I'll have to be. There won't be as much room for error.
I came to terms a long time ago with the fact that my depression isn't like a disease that can be cured. It's more like cancer - you go into remission, prepared to deal with it if and when it presents itself in a familiar or new form. It's a part of me, and not always a completely negative part - but that's a whole other post in itself. So I'm not looking to eradicate depression, and I don't expect that I've been cured. That's not why I'm going off. Actually, I'm not sure why I am going off, except that a little voice inside me said that it's time to try.
So here goes - Day One of spring cleaning my life, aligning my habits with my desires, and making a conscious effort to buffer my head, heart and soul against The Crazy. Brought to you in part by my new, shiny, lower zoloft dose.
Wish me luck!
posted by be-elle | 9:29 AM
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