A few weeks ago I started my medication switchover, something that someone who doesn't take antidepressants or similar probably won't quite understand. Basically you slowly ween off of one medication, get it pretty much out of your system and then start the next. You can't simply stop one and take another since the timing that they take to work, the half-life etc, could mean a little too much serotonin production, that might not sound bad but it can cause horrid side effects. Although weening off of medication and having a little break comes with its hideous side effects too.
I was directed to reduce my dose over a few days and then take it every other. By the time I had reached a few of the 'every other' days, I had actually become quite unwell - significantly actually, I didn't truly realise how much I need some sort of medication to boost me. In some ways this is a positive experience, it is going to be so helpful in my professional role, but on a personal level I cannot begin to tell you how embarrassing or demoralising it is.
To be sitting in a&e surrounded by people with broken bones and various body pains, whilst you are - as they put it - actively suicidal is beyond humiliating. Trying to smile at small children playing at your feet and running around screaming in excitement, whilst you want to put your hands over your ears and scream is so unexplainably hard. To have professionals look at you and you can see in their eyes they have no idea what to do with you. From here I was put under crisis team - for those of you not in the know, google it.
The crisis team, this was a point too far for me. I have been on placement with such teams, I know what they say and write and think. To be working with them as a patient and having them ask you your profession, it makes you feel so ashamed. There are so many feelings I have attached to this experience, I'm lucky I had someone to hold my hand through it all, but it has completely opened my eyes to how ignorant we still are to mental health in mainstream care settings. It was humiliating standing in front of a room of people answering the question 'why are you here today' with 'I want to die'. Condescension, patronising, sympathetic faces are NOT helpful in any way, whoever you may be.
My small saving grace was the absolute shed load of diazepam, enough to last me months if taken PRN - that's my plan -Alongside my new medication It was essentially making me a zombie of myself, but I couldn't truly feel anything anymore, I could barely do anything even if I had wanted to. One of the hardest parts of this whole is experience is everyone else. Why is it people describe you as being 'unwell', why do people shy away from what's really happening? Or seem embarrassed that this is who you are?
I mean I'm not one for posting my every thought and suicidal intention everywhere or discussing it with people - I personally find that hard to comprehend - but when people try to hide what is going on for you or step around it, have you any idea how ashamed you make me feel about myself? When really you are the one who should be ashamed, for trying to hide it, for making it a taboo, you maintain the stigma, and shame on you doesn't even touch the sides.
As for now, I'm slowly getting my dose into my body and starting to feel a little better, but as ever in my mind I can't help but think this is never going to go away. The person I am under the mask of medication is a sad, lonely, hopeless and lost soul. Thankfully medication means I can maintain daily life, working once again and being able to actually see people but it too comes with its clauses and pitfalls. For me the hardest part is the weight gain side effect, despite professionals telling me this isn't common (it says 1 in 10 on the leaflet), however it seems to be happening to me, I think.
My weight has been an issue for me since I was young, perhaps not even my weight just my size and my body. People who know me well know I really dislike my body and how I look. I can notice the extra pound on my body, I can tell when clothes don't fit because of my size and although these things shouldn't matter and I tell other people they don't, to me they are a part of my core. Currently I'd estimate I've gained half a stone. I cannot stop eating, something unlike me, I'm pretty certain I've never felt true hunger until now. I cannot get enough sweet foods, I feel such an overpowering and overwhelming feeling to consume I can't stop myself - this ultimately ends in tears and a brisk workout to make me feel not so bad about what I've eaten. I am disgusted by my actions and how vile I look and the size I have become. It makes me feel sick to look in the mirror at my body. I don't think I can find the words to show just how much it bothers me.
So here comes the catch 22: if I take my medication, my weight seems to be increasing, which is sending me into a serious downward spiral with food and my self loathing however if I don't take the medication I am a weeping mess who can barely get out of bed. And there is so little I can do to help either of these things?!
All of this puts into perspective for me just how hard it must be to be resistant to medication or have chronic depression or schizophrenia or psychosis and so on, imagine managing these, I guess I'm lucky with episodical depression, I kind of know the episode has to end at some point - then again I also know it's going to come back and bite me in the ass once again. But for those people who are in their worst mental state constantly, I can't even begin to Fathom how hard that must be. So I guess in some ways I have to be thankful for this hideous experience on a professional level, I'm hoping I can help people to not feel like me, to feel they can't talk about these things and to educate their families so the stigma can be crunched. I think that's all I can really take from it because on a personal level, I know this is just the beginning of a war, perhaps I have won this battle but I know there is only more to come.
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