A Soul Bared

Originally Posted: December 2015

Warning: this is a little more “bare soul” than I usually post. It’s personal. It’s MY journey, posted on our private blog in 2010. It is not meant to spark debate on treatment for mental illness, which varies widely from person to person. It was written by me, as a person of faith, as I experienced it. And if it can help even one person know they are not alone and that there is help - whatever form that may take for them - then it is worth making it public.

In the early Winter of 2009, in the midst of what should have been the great joy of expecting our son, I was in a very bad place. I was struggling with an emotional pain and anguish for which I was unsure that relief existed. It was dark, lonely, exhausting, paralyzing, terrifying. By the grace of God and His gifts, I am here today. This is the story of my nose-dive into the depths of despair and the Grace by which I climbed back to the light.

Chris and I always knew that we wanted more kids. We wanted our daughter to be a big sister and we wanted to share our blessings with another child and expand our family. Eventually. That said, our son was a surprise. Let me clarify that: our son was a WONDERFUL surprise. As I took that pregnancy test on October 16th (“Just ruling it out, honey”) I was sure I wasn’t pregnant. Not possible. Nuh-uh. As we ran back and forth, packing to head North for the weekend, I glanced back at the test on the bathroom counter. I will never forget that next moment. My eyes got huge, my jaw dropped, and I said, “Sweet Jesus, Christopher, I’m pregnant!” Chris came into the bathroom grinning. My brain eventually reengaged and I started grinning, too. This was earlier than we had planned, but in hindsight, the best timing in the world. We had a beautiful little one on the way!

Shortly after the shock wore off (it took 4 years to conceive our daughter and, thanks to an overload of stress that freaked my body out, the math on this one was WAY off, to say the least), I realized that I was taking a medication for my OCD that was not considered pregnancy-safe. Knowing that I needed to get off of it, I approached my psychologist and my OB. We decided to wean me on a normal time frame, but the shortest normal time frame possible. With my body’s history of not liking foreign substances or shake-ups, I should have known it wouldn’t be easy.

The drug I was taking is called Effexor. Not your typical OCD drug, it is usually used for other emotional issues like depression. But it worked for me and I had tried A LOT of different drugs over the years that did NOT work. The nasty bit about Effexor is that it has a very short half-life. That means that the amount of time it takes for the dose to decrease by half in my body is very short. Withdrawal kicks in quickly. My body stayed true to form and freaked.

I did alright for the first bit, but after a few days my body went into major withdrawal. My concentration was nil, I had no appetite, was nauseous, beyond irritable, experiencing extreme paranoia/panic and headaches, and was dealing with something known in the Effexor world as “Brain Tremors”. I have never felt so sick in my life. The worst of it was the tremors. I would get dizzy, and my brain would literally, physically, feel like it was shaking. The only thing I could do about it was curl up in a ball, put my arms around my head and literally writhe until it had passed. They lasted anywhere from 30 seconds to 10-15 grueling minutes. I eventually discovered that if I consumed copious amounts of sugar as soon as I knew one was starting—such as slamming a 20 oz. 7-UP—I could find a small bit of relief. But I never knew when they would hit, how long they would last, or how I’d feel when they were done (usually really tired). I stuck it out and have a whole new respect for drug addicts and alcoholics trying to kick the habit. It is a nasty, painful, grievous trial. I could not work, I could not drive, and I could barely function. And I was worried about what the stress was doing to my unborn child.

Once I weathered the withdrawal, I assumed I’d be home-free. That was far from the case. I was ok for a few weeks, but eventually began to slowly descend into depression. Having felt this before with Post Partum Depression after our daughter was born, I knew what that creeping feeling at the back of my head was. I called my psychologist and said, “I think I need to go on something else.” I knew that being depressed and having high amounts of cortisol (a “stress hormone” produced by the adrenal gland) in my system while pregnant could be more dangerous to a fetus than a “pregnancy-safe” anti-depressant. I talked over my options with a consulting psychiatrist and we decided to try Prozac since it had worked for me for a little while several years earlier.

Once again, my body played cruel tricks on me. The prescription was filled as a generic. While generics are touted as being “the same thing” as brand name drugs, they are not exactly the same. They are required to deliver the same amount of active ingredient, in the same way, and to be used in the same way by the body, but they are allowed variation in inactive ingredients and other secondary details. My body likes to deal in black and white. Grey areas are not my friends. My body did NOT like Fluoxetine the way it had like Prozac.

I began taking Fluoxetine (generic Prozac) on a Friday. By Monday, I felt horrible. I was extremely paranoid, in a state of panic, and didn’t want to be alone. It was like looking into the face of the devil himself. My psychologist said that I was having a reaction to the drug in which the condition will get much worse for a bit before the drug starts working. It could be 3 weeks or so before this eased up. My mom dropped everything and came down to be with me since Chris had to work and take care of our daughter. It helped me, and it helped him. Most days, mom had to literally force me out of bed and engage me. I didn’t want to kill myself per se, but I didn’t want to live through this anymore, either. Existing was excruciating.

The suffering eventually began to ease and mom went home after a week. I wasn’t 100% better, but enough to be able to function again. I continued to see my psychologist weekly. The Fluoxetine eventually made friends with my system and I am on it to this day. There are still some very hard days, but they are fewer and farther between than the good ones and I am again able to experience joy.

So why am I telling you this? Why now? Because last Christmas morning, I sat sobbing with un-easable sorrow as my little girl giggled and opened her Santa stocking. I knew that it was the chemicals in my body talking, and that it would eventually get better, but it brought me such pain to not be able to enjoy that moment. That was my last “really bad” day. A year has passed, I am happy and healthy, still doing “maintenance” appointments with my psychologist when I feel the demons creeping at my neck, and faring very, very well. I am telling you because I survived it. I saw the depths of Hell and, by the Grace of God and His gifts to me, I survived it. I didn’t do it alone. I couldn’t do it alone. I knew there was another side to the bridge I was on, and I knew it was possible to get there eventually, but the knock-down waves sloshing over the edges and swamping me made my desire to get there alarmingly feeble.

God has blessed me with an unbelievably compassionate and patient husband, a mother and father who have graciously given me their undying support and allowed my husband and me to lean on them and upset their apple cart at a moment’s notice, my children who bring me indescribable joy every day, and friends and extended family who love me seemingly unconditionally. But more than anything, God has given me respite. In the moments when no one else could help me, when no one else could relieve my pain and when I was too weak to ask for His help, He picked me up and carried me through. I wasn’t aware that it was happening at the time, but in looking back, there was but one set of footprints in the sand. As the poem says, “It was then that [He] carried [me].”

As we celebrate this Christmas season, I am reminded of these gifts and that Christmas morning one year ago. We celebrate the gift of God’s Son, given to us so that we may live. A man who endured unimaginable pain and suffering, and who understands our trials, however alone and forgotten we may feel. May you feel His grace and peace in your life this holiday season and in the years to come, and may you share His light with the world.