Zoloft, Where Have You Been My Whole Life?

                            

I started getting really sick in the spring. I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened but I started feeling really run down. Exhausted. Like by 7 pm I was melting into the floor and could barely function. I would sleep and wake up exhausted. Then I developed neck and back pain and then horrible headaches. I tried drinking more water, vitamins, exercise, meditation....nothing seemed to help. Then I got the fog. I was forgetting things. I forgot to pay my bills. I thought I had gone in and paid them, but I didn't. I missed dentist appointments. I would forget little things. When the fog set in, I began to panic. I'm dying. I have a tumor that is eating my brain or I am having a stroke. This is it. It was bad. I knew I couldn't live like this. So I dropped the kids off at school one day and went straight to the doctor. I just walked in. I was in sweatpants and a messy pony tail with dark circles under my eyes. I looked like a crazy person, but I didn't care. I was tired.

I sat down and waited and my doctor came in and asked me what was going on. I told him my symptoms and then said, "So, I'm pretty sure I am dying." I'm sure he didn't think I was neurotic at all. They drew some blood work to check my hemoglobin and thyroid and then began to ask me a million questions. "Are you under a great deal of stress?" I laughed, "I think that is an understatement." He jotted. "Are you anxious?" I don't know what that has to do with anything. "Yes." "How long has that been an issue?" Well, open up a can of worms. I have always been extremely anxious. I stopped thinking it was an issue. My anxiety is like a parasitic twin that is just part of me and I've learned to function with it.
                         
                       
                      Nothing to see here. Just me and my anxiety.

I think I was anxious from the moment I was born. I emerged from the womb and thought: This air burns my lungs, I probably have some horrible lung disease. The doctor might drop me.....

I answered the question. "Always, my whole life." He looked at me and said, "Have you every considered the possibility that you suffer from depression?" I was pretty sure he was full of crap. I might be neurotic and anxious but I am not sad or unhappy. "I don't think so. I don't feel hopeless or sad." Then he started talking about the physical manifestations of reduced serotonin....blah, blah, blah. "I think you would benefit from Zoloft." What? An anti-depressant. No way. "I don't think so." He shrugged. "It might be worth a try, you can always go off of it if it doesn't help."

I was pretty desperate. If he told me that I needed to stand on my head and chant, I probably would have done it. "What are some of the side effects?" I swear to God, this is what he said to me. Exact words: "Well, you need to be careful when you pass gas because something extra might come out." What?!?!?!? I looked at him sideways, "So, are you saying I could shart in my pants?" He didn't even crack a smile. He just shrugged. "You could." I thought about it. I can continue to feel horrible or I can feel great and might poop in my pants. I chose poopy pants. I mean, what the hell? YOLO. I'm the kind of person that will go all in.

So I started taking the Zoloft and I love it. My fatigue, muscle pain and fogginess are much improved but the most amazing thing is that my anxiety is completely gone. It is amazing. Plus I haven't pooped my pants yet, so that seems like a bonus.

The weird thing is that I feel like I am supposed to be ashamed by my Zoloft taking. I am not. I will tell the world. I do not care. I feel like I would have benefited from an anti-depressant for a long time but there is such a stigma attached that I never even considered it an option. I think a lot of people think that. I never even knew I could live without crippling anxiety. It is awesome.

The older I get and the more people I meet the more I realize that: 1. everyone is a little crazy 2. everyone comes from a dysfunctional family. I haven't figured out if everyone is crazy because their family is dysfunctional or if every family is dysfunctional because everyone is crazy.
                       

I am amazed by it. I just feel lucky that my family is dysfunctional in a silly kind of way. We put the fun in dysfunctional.

I will carry on the tradition of putting the fun in dysfunctional. Even if I am powered by Zoloft.