The Never Ending Cycle of Depression and Anxiety
I'm terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me; All day I feel its feathery turnings, its malignity. - Sylvia Plath
I remember the very first time I was ever depressed like it was yesterday. I was 9 years old and we lived in Mesa Arizona. It was summer. I was sitting at the dining room table, looking at wedding dresses in a magazine. As I child, I spent hours planning my wedding. I dreamed of getting married to Eddie Van Halen, the love of my life. Occasionally, my mom would buy me a Bride’s Magazine and I’d spend my day dreaming of marrying Eddie, picking out the dress I would wear, my flowers, and what my bridesmaids would wear. But this particular day was different. Normally I would look at the dresses, ooohing and awing over each and every one, but today there was nothing. Nothing was pretty, nothing excited me, there was absolutely nothing. No feelings, just emptiness.
That was the beginning of a summer that was full of deep, dark despair and uncontrollable anxiety. I remember waking up every morning trembling, anxious and unable to concentrate. I couldn’t play with my friends, nothing brought me joy. I was so frightened that something was wrong with me. I would try to talk to my mom about it but she just said that I’m fine, stop worrying, all you ever do is worry, and try not to think about bad stuff. But that’s just it, that’s all I could think about, I couldn’t shut my mind off. My mind was constantly worried that I would hurt someone or that I was dying. Every time I tried to sleep, I’d close my eyes and all I saw was red. I’d stay up pacing around the house, I’d try to distract myself by watching late night TV but nothing work, my mind would not shut off. All I could feel was anxiety and sadness. I felt alone and scared with no one to turn to.
It reached its crescendo probably right after I went back to school in September. Slowly but surely I started feeling better, though, able to control my thoughts, and eventually I felt absolutely normal. I was a bubbly kid, playing with friends and enjoying life again. I never gave it another thought.
My second bout came around when I was probably 15. This time, however, it started with horrible anxiety attacks. I remember one was so bad, I made my mom take me to the emergency room because I was dizzy and could not breath. They couldn’t find anything physically wrong with me and told my mom I probably had an inner ear issue. But it wasn’t that, it was anxiety. That panic attack triggered something in me and I spent the next 2 months in a constant state of worry. I couldn’t sleep, eat, and all I could do was pace. I had to be by my mom at all times. I was terrified to be alone. Sometimes my anxiety at night was so bad, I needed my mom to sleep next to me. She knew something was wrong so she sent me to one of my pastors to talk to, but I was terrified he would put me in the mental hospital so I didn’t tell him everything. And again, slowly, I started feeling better. My anxiety subsided and life returned to normal. This became a cycle for me every 3-4 years. Each time, I would have to force myself out of the house and to work. I would cry on my way to work and try my hardest not to lose it by distracting myself my reading license plates or saying the colors of the cars.
I finally decided to get help in 2002. My youngest child was 6 months old and it started again with massive panic attacks. I wasn’t eating or sleeping. I lost 30 pounds in a month and a half. I was terrified to take a shower so I would make my husband sit in the bathroom with me. My mind would not shut off. It would play one intrusive thought after another. My biggest fear was hurting my kids. I have never even spanked my kids but my mind would not stop worrying about the what ifs. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t leave the house and when I did numerous times I had to pull over because of my intense anxiety. Sometimes at the store I couldn’t finish shopping, I had to leave all my stuff and run out of the store. I felt trapped and suffocated. I called my doctor multiple times a day because I knew I had Lou Gehrig’s disease. I was a fucking train wreck.
At one of my numerous appointments, I decided to try a medication. I knew I couldn’t continue to live like this and my husband was threatening to leave me if I didn’t do something about it. We decided on Celexa, only because it was the medication with the least amount of sexual side effects and my husband insisted on a medication that would not make me lose my sex drive. I started that medicine that night and I woke up feeling more anxiety than I had ever felt in my life. It was awful. I called my doctor crying and he insisted that it was all in my head.
As the day progressed I continued to feel worse. It got so bad that I made my husband take me to the ER. They too said it was all in my head and sent me home. I refused to take the medication again and my husband got mad at me.
I went back to the doctor a week later and agreed to try another medicine despite how awful the first one made me feel. This time it was Paxil. I started it that night and thus began one of the worst weeks of my life.
I woke up in tears and could not stop crying. I cried for an entire week straight. My doctor prescribed Xanax to help calm me down, but all I felt was intense sadness.
Another week went by and slowly I started feeling normal again. I actually could sleep. I could eat. I could leave the house and drive to the store and actually stay there and finish shopping. I felt some joy. I was getting my life back.
I was very secretive about starting the psych med. My parents were adamantly against medication and would often tell me depression is just selfishness because all you’re thinking about is yourself. I felt like I was letting them down and that made me feel terrible about myself. One day I finally confessed to them that I was on Paxil. They’re response, “Well you’re probably going to end up killing your kids if you stay on it.” I never spoke to them again about it.
Life was back to normal, my husband and I divorced and I lived my life with no anxiety or depression. I did have some side effects from the Paxil. The most notable one was my inability to cry. I remarried and had two more babies and in 2006 I went to a new psychiatrist who prescribed a mood stabilizer for me. I continued this regiment until 2018 when my mom passed away.
It was November and I looked at my prescription bottle and started thinking. Do I really want to stay tied to this fucking medication for the rest of my life? What if society collapses and you can’t get it anymore, what are you gonna do? So it was at that moment that I said, this is it, no more. I was scared to go off it. I never wanted to relive those horrid anxiety ridden days again, but I was using this as a crutch. I was on it for 17 years. It was time to find out what I was like off it.
So, without telling any of my doctors I slowly started weaning myself off both medicines. Each week I’d halve the previous weeks dose until there was no more to take and just like that I was unmedicated. Since I stopped it so slowly, I had almost no side effects which was nice. I was able to cry again and honestly, that was really the only difference I really noticed.
I haven’t had any huge bouts of anxiety or depression until recently. I vowed though that I will never go back on medication. My doctor who got me through my last episode told me once that he told my story to a group of doctors as proof of Paxil’s effectiveness. He talked about how positively my life changed once I started taking the med. I really did get my life back after starting Paxil. Many people, however, in the circles I run in will tell me that my recovery was all in my head and that the med did nothing to help me. I guess, ultimately, it doesn’t matter which it was. I got better and that’s all that really matters.
I was raised to not talk about issues like this in public. I was told that people will use this type of information against me and I’ll lose friends, dating prospects, and jobs. I do worry about that, but this is me. This is raw, unfiltered Mellony. I hope by telling this story it will let others know that they are not alone, that you can regain your life back, and that it does indeed get better.
I suffer from intense anxiety and haven´t been able to go out for nearly 2 years because just seeing people wearing masks, waiting in line for basic services, or being put under scrutiny just because I want to buy something I like from a store causes me to get dizzy. I KNOW I need meds, but I don´t want to take them.
Here is something you said that resonates with me:
"What if society collapses and you can’t get it anymore, what are you gonna do?"
I always think about people in other times when pills were not ubiquitous. What did they do? Well. They had a rough time but that never stopped them, right?
Anyway. Great read, as usual.