meds Archives -

Whole for Whole

August 6, 2014 by Farewell Stranger ·

A little over a year ago I started taking a new medication. I’d had a blip, and I was pissed off about that, and I really didn’t want to have to start another medication. But I took it, and aside from feeling drunk and having a very weird middle-of-the-night conversation on the first night I took it, I hardly noticed it. Except not long after I realized it had one profound effect: It finally, miraculously allowed me to control my anger.

This was revolutionary for me, in the holy-crap-how-is-it-five-years-later-and-I-am-only-figuring-this-out-NOW sort of way. A pill to control anger? Sign me up!

It does have some side effects, though, one of which being that it masquerades quite nicely as a sleeping pill. Which is fine, except it makes mornings sort of drowsy, and that’s not helpful when you have two small children who are awake at an ungodly hour, and it especially wasn’t helpful as I prepared to go back to work after maternity leave. So after talking to my psychiatrist I went down to half a pill.

For the better part of a year, I dutifully cut that little round, orange pill in half and popped that half every single night. But mornings were still a little rough, so I started taking the pill a little earlier in the evening and planned my activities around the hour and a half I had before it was nearly impossible to keep my eyes open.

And so it went, and things were mostly pretty good.

And then, after a while, they weren’t.

Since late spring (maybe, in fact, for longer) things haven’t felt quite right. I’ve been blipping too often and struggling with the great why and generally feeling like c’mon, please, for the love of all things holy, there must be a way to manage this. And I was angry about that.

I was angry about a lot of other things too, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

And then one day something happened and I got really mad and my husband pointed out that I was angry all the time and we had a rager of a fight and I decided I needed to do something about it. So I stopped cutting the little round, orange pill in half and started taking the whole thing again.

I think (though I haven’t verified this with my husband) that it has made things okay. I still get mad, but the thing about this medication is that it allows the normal, sane version of me that still exists inside my head to stand off to the side and point out that the anger is irrational and I should probably just let it go already. Sometimes I still get mad, but I have the ability to choose not to react. I have the ability to control my reaction. Control! It’s a wonderful and quite helpful but often elusive thing. I look back now and realize that lack of control has made the road I’ve been on the last few years a pretty rough one.

So no, I didn’t want to start another med, and yes, it does have some side effects, but I got over it and the side effects are quite manageable. So I take medication for anger, because the benefits outweigh my pride and the challenges of drowsiness and put me back in a place where I can (mostly) act like a rational human being towards those around me. And perhaps (dare I say it) even more importantly, it puts me back in a place where I am me. Where I am more whole. And the implications of that are many and far-reaching and something I will share with you in another post sometime soon.

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: depression, going public, meds, perspective

Talking About PPD (and All Its Friends)

September 10, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, so it seems appropriate to share this with you today: Yesterday I did an interview for a news outlet about why it’s important to talk about postpartum depression in the context of maternal suicide. You can see that interview and the rest of their reporting on the Global News website.

The interview was prompted by a Canadian Medical Association Journal article about why it’s time to put maternal suicide under the microscope, which, in turn, was prompted by the case of Winnipeg mother Lisa Gibson who, it appears, killed her two small children and then herself and was said to have been suffering from postpartum depression. There are a few things I want to say about this issue and my interview with Global News.

I’ll start with this: Women like Lisa Gibson who kill their children are not monsters. That’s a bold statement, but I really believe that to be true. In fact, let’s make it a bolder statement:

Women suffering from postpartum mood disorders who kill their children are not monsters.

Some of you are already in fits of rage, but hear me out. I don’t want to change your mind about this, because it’s such an emotional topic and I totally get that, but I do want to be able to have a conversation about it. I’ll share my thoughts and I welcome yours in the comments.

First, women who do this are not suffering from your typical depression. Generally they are suffering from postpartum psychosis, which is as scary as it sounds. Some very brave women have shared their stories of postpartum psychosis and the completely unreal, not-based-in-real-life things they believed. Women like Jenni, who shared that she saw:

“…a figure, a dwarfish figure – a dark, person-shaped creature that scurried toward the bassinet, saw me, and darted away.”

Jenni thought it was this figure—instead of colic—that was responsible for her newborn’s crying.

And then there’s Heather, whose story I’ve shared before. Heather described finding herself naked on the side of a DC highway:

“When helicopters flew overhead, I was convinced the world was going to end and that presidential nominees Barack Obama and John McCain were headed to DC to join forces and save the world. I thought of a few ways I could help save the world: My husband and I could kill each other. Or we could kill our children. Or my parents…”

So: Women like Heather do not have murderous motives. Often they truly believe killing their children is necessary for reasons that don’t make any sense in the real world. For others it’s less like a plot from a dramatic Hollywood blockbuster and more that they believe their children would be better without them as a mother. Don’t try to make sense of it. It’s psychosis. And until we make it okay to say, “I’m not okay,” and to make it better, easier, not-terrifying for mothers to ask for help, this is going to keep happening.

We need to make it okay to ask for help.

And that’s why I did the interview. The news clip, of course, includes mere seconds of what was a much longer conversation and if you’re familiar with my story then you haven’t missed much. But the clip also focused on medication – partly because it’s a visual associated with the topic and partly, I suspect, because it’s sort of shocking. (Serious? Clearly associated with mental illness, in any case.) And while medication is one of the things I credit with helping me finally recover, it’s not the only option and it’s not what works for everyone.

The point I wanted to make, essentially, was this: Ask for help. You’re not alone. Postpartum depression is shockingly common and you’re not the only one and it doesn’t make you a bad mother. There are options, and whether you’re hiding in the bathroom crying or formulating a plan to take your own life, you can get help. There is another way.

Please, ask for help.

It’s going to be okay.

SUICIDE AND CRISIS RESOURCES

If you (or someone you know) is thinking about hurting yourself or your children, get help.

Canada: Crisis centres in Canada: http://www.suicideprevention.ca/in-crisis-now/find-a-crisis-centre-now/

US – National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

International: http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html

And remember, you don’t have to be suicidal to call a hotline. If you need to talk to someone, call. You can also go to the nearest emergency room to ask for help.

Filed Under: Hard things, Postpartum depression · Tagged With: call for back-up, depression, going public, meds, we're not alone

Sunshine Today, Cloudy Tomorrow

September 8, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

Ethan has a remote control toy that talks. “Today’s shape is circle!” it says when he pushes a button, and then quickly launches into a counting song as his baby fingers push two buttons together. Sometimes it spouts out a weather forecast as if he were watching TV: “Sunshine today, cloudy tomorrow!”

The voice for that one is female, squeaky. Overly cheerful, as though clouds tomorrow—the forecast is always the same—were a welcome thing. Although I suppose there’s something to be said for having a heads up that clouds are on the way.

3:41 p.m.

My depression has materialized in almost every form possible – anger, anxiety, flat nothingness, extreme sadness that requires a large and close-by stash of Kleenex. Until recently, that sadness was a slow decline, a slipping, a falling in, something I could feel coming. My forecast would show the clouds moving in; it was a reliable source that would allow for some preparation. I would reach out to bat the depression away, then watch it soar like a badminton birdie that flies farther and smoother than its awkward form would suggest.

Earlier this year that changed. I started having what I call “mini crashes” – fine one day, not fine the next. The sunshine would, suddenly and with no warning, be replaced by clouds, and I’d stand there wondering where they came from and why my inner meteorologist had failed me.

8:42 p.m.

I had one too many rainy days and had to do something about it. Thankfully, I’ve got it mostly under control now, but I still watch the clouds much more than I did before.

That’s the reality I’m left with, I guess. It’s been five years and the depression—or the possibility of it—isn’t going away. It’s in me. It is me.

It’s taken me a long time to accept that and be willing to deal with it and all its implications.

It’s okay, I guess. It’s manageable. Mostly, as they say, it is what it is. I’m better now, but if I need to I can batten down the hatches, ride out the storm, and wait for the sunshine to filter through again.

It always does.

9:13 p.m.

[These pictures were all taken on the same day several weeks ago. The clouds where I live are beautiful – shocking and entrancing and sometimes downright menacing. I take pictures of the skies a lot, but the way the clouds developed on that day happened to be particularly eye-catching.]

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: anxiety, depression, hope, meds, perspective

Conversations with the Steam Cleaner

May 24, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

Last night I decided to be a big girl and take the new medication I was nervous about taking (one reason being that it has a sedating effect so I wasn’t sure how the night wakings were going to go). The first time I got up I felt drunk, exactly as if I’d had a little too much to drink. I’m not a big fan of that, but I’m hoping it either goes away or Ethan sleeps long enough that I sleep through that phase.

Around 3:30 I came back into our room after feeding Ethan. Then Rich got up to blow his nose and I had a lovely conversation with the steam cleaner thinking it was Connor.

“Hi buddy. What’s wrong?”

The steam cleaner/Connor didn’t answer.

“Are you okay?”

Still no answer.

I sat in bed trying to remember what colour t-shirt Connor had on when he went to bed. I was sure it was a dark one.

“Connor, love? Are you there?”

Connor the Steam Cleaner was silent.

At that point Rich came out of the bathroom.

“What’s that?” I asked him. “Is that Connor?”

“No, that was me blowing my nose.”

Apparently he’s not terribly good at following along with insane conversations in the middle of the night.

“No, that. In the corner. Is that Connor?”

Rich did an impression of a dog chasing his tail as he turned around and around to see what the hell I was talking about.

“What?! Who’s there?!”

Understanding dawned.

“That thing in the corner? That’s the steam cleaner,” he explained.

“Oh. I thought it was Connor.”

“You scared the crap out of me.”

I shrugged and went back to my drunken sleep. At least we didn’t have another kid to put back to bed.

PS Don’t ask why we have a steam cleaner camped out in the corner of our bedroom.

PPS He was wearing a light-coloured t-shirt.

Filed Under: Conversations with Connor, Hard things · Tagged With: depression, meds

Blip

May 23, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

You know how sometimes you talk to your psychiatrist about developing a plan to wean off your anti-depressants but then you find yourself making another appointment to talk about how that’s not a good idea? And it’s because you’re getting mad at stupid things too often and you find yourself crying over silly things enough that you’re developing an intimate relationship with soggy Kleenex? When that happens, instead of a plan to decrease your dosage you come out with a prescription for a new medication to add on top of your existing anti-depressant.

Or at least that’s what happened to me.

I am…disheartened about this. I’m also terrified to start a new medication (and, admittedly, a bit stubborn because I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO) so I’ve had it for two days and haven’t managed to actually take it yet. Maybe tonight.

I don’t really know what else to say about this yet, but I wrote a post on my Yummy Mummy Club blog that was meant to be poignant but ended up just being sad, so I feel like I need to put this out there.

Sometimes there are just too many tears at bedtime. (And other times too. But hopefully not for long.)

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: admissions, depression, meds, meltdown