My Failed Anxiety Experiment Can’t Come to an End Fast Enough
By: Gina Gallois
Tags: Self Care, Pandemic, Mental Health, Anxiety, Womens Health

My Failed Anxiety Experiment Can’t Come to an End Fast Enough

After the long process of getting off medication, now I can’t wait for it to kick back in and neither can my husband

Photo by Drazen Zigic. Licensed from Canva Pro

It’s been a bad time for anxiety sufferers. Hell, it’s been a bad time for everyone, with or without chronic anxiety. But for those of us who live somewhere on the anxiety spectrum, our brains help make us believe things are even worse than they actually are.

It’s as if all of our worst fears, phobias, and nightmares, the ones we’ve worried about our whole lives are coming for us in one way or another.

As an introvert, being stuck at home doesn’t bother me nearly as much as watching as American health, life, economy and society being torn to shreds. Granted — some things need to be torn up in favor of a MUCH more just society. Black Lives Matter.

But everything seems to be in tatters. The very simple fact of having no idea what is coming next, in terms of my kids going back to school — or not — is driving me to distraction. I don’t need to know everything, but I do like to know some things.

One or two things…I could live with knowing just one or two things!

I feel defeated now, but I have hope

I hung in there with the best of them for several months of this pandemic, but now, after all that, I am admitting defeat. I need to go back on medication. My husband told me so. He asked me to consider it.

Maybe “defeat” is a strong word, or has too negative a connotation. Perhaps I should say “I’m down, but I’m getting back up — with help.”

There’s no shame in realizing I need a little neuro-boost during this massive global crisis. There’s no reason to feel so down, unmotivated, restless, hopeless when I have a solution that works and may well be worth the side effects.

The next morning I took the first small dosage that will have to build up in my system over a period of weeks. Four? Six? Who knows?

Sadly, I’ll know it’s working when I can’t cry over the endless stream of tragedies occupying my news feed each day— not that I won’t feel like crying is appropriate — I just physically won’t be able to cry.

That’s what happened last time anyway. I could feel sad, but my body wouldn’t react in accordance with my mind. I couldn’t feel despondent, only distantly sad.

Maybe this wasn’t the best time for experimenting with my mental health

When I started my experiment living without medication just before the pandemic began taking hold in Western countries, I was delighted to feel more emotions, and yes, even to cry. To climax! What a rush, after several years of a somewhat flatter, less extreme existence.

But when I have days like that day — days like the day my husband said he thought I needed to go back on the meds, I realize I can’t quite do this alone.

Not right now anyway. Not without making the people around me miserable and dragging them down with me. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone.

My brain just isn’t wired in a way that lets go of things easily. I tend to ruminate. I get overwhelmed by all the things I need to do, but can’t figure out how or where to start and things snowball from there.

When things are generally ok, I can get by with CBD, mindfulness, and deep breaths. But when the world is falling apart and then I get my period, or an acquaintance rejects my small talk in a totally insignificant exchange, it doesn’t take much for my anxiety to crowd out all rational thought and replace it with negative, self-destructive garbage.

Fast forward a few weeks — my observations

It has been four weeks. I’m taking 50mg now, which is half of my normally prescribed dosage, and I am feeling a little better. Less frantic.

But that’s not the first thing I noticed. I had completely forgotten about the bizarre dreams I used to have and that stopped when I stopped taking sertraline back in January.

This morning I woke up from a kind of lucid dream with weird sexual undertones in which several friends from high school and college suddenly appeared and galavanted around with me on New Year’s Eve, in France. Oh and my dad was there, too — in a totally nonsexual way — in an Elvis jumpsuit, trying to help me find my coat after all my friends sledded away without me for no reason.

Oh, yeah…I forgot about the trippy dreams. I googled it to check the dreams were a possible side effect of sertraline — they are. Apparently, some people have nightmares. I wouldn’t describe that dream as a nightmare, but it wasn’t exactly a sweet dream either.

The other side effects I had forgotten are the night sweats and trouble sleeping — mostly from being sweaty!

Supposedly, the dreams and the sweats should subside over time. That’d be great…

When I thought about it further, I realized I have been letting go of things more easily in the last week or so. I’m not ruminating on things for hours or even days on end. Things are rolling off me a little more quickly.

Halleluja!

The real upside

Are the side effects I described above deal breakers? Just a few months ago, they were. Right now, it feels worth it to get some motivation back and a glimpse of a light at the end of the tunnel — even if the pandemic isn’t going anywhere and there are still a lot of unknowns.

I am finding more motivation to write! I have ideas and inspiration. I thought my writing frequency had declined so much because of the pandemic and having to expend all my energy on my kids all day every day, but maybe anxiety and/or depression were playing a part as well.

When I look solely at my writing output, my posting frequency decreases along with the amount of meds in my system.

Here’s to hoping I can reverse the trend! My second children’s book is in illustration and I want to get cracking on the third — strike while the iron is hot. I’m brimming over with ideas and I don’t want to lose steam.

It’s great to want to do things and not just feel like all the things I want to do are too much trouble or won’t work out anyway, so what’s the point?

Time to check in with a professional

It’s clear to me that I made the right choice to go back on sertraline. But now I’m hesitating about returning to the dosage I was at previously. It did make me a little dead inside and totally killed any thoughts of sex. Maybe I should try 75mg for a while. Maybe 100 is too much?

My psychiatrist uses a checklist and different tools like that to evaluate where I’m at, so I think it’s time I pay her a visit and see what she thinks. She doesn’t always see things the way I see them, but I’m not always seeing things clearly.

The real test will be PMS and my period — in just a few days! I usually feel the worst around the time my period starts. Hopefully I’ll see some improvement this time around.

Cue ominous music.

Aside from that unknown, I’m happier and less easily irritated. I’m happy with my decision and I’m glad my husband spoke up when he did. It was time to do something and I’m glad I listened.

Thanks for reading.

Did you know I just published my first children’s book?

It’s called Opossum Opposites and it’s the product of an era when I got a lot more things done because my children were in school. You can check it out here. You can also join my mailing list to learn all about my books, by clicking here.

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