Lexapro Week One
Last week I saw a primary care physician for the first time since I was a teenager (gotta love the US healthcare system). In truth I was going mostly at the suggestion of the neuropsychiatrist I had seen a few weeks prior, as he suggested they would be a first step in getting a regular psychiatrist.
Even with that knowledge I was pretty shocked when I left my first appointment with a shiny new prescription for an SSRI. Apparently you can only tell so many medical professionals you're feeling suicidal so many times before they feel obligated to fix that. Guess I should have seen that coming, in retrospect.
There has been such an overwhelming amount of change happening in my life recently. The week before my appointment I stopped smoking weed, which I've been using to limp through adulthood basically the entire time. I say limping, because while I do believe it was in some ways helping me manage my epilepsy and especially my Functional Neurologic Disorder, it also made me hate myself. My mom and stepdad were the ones who brought weed into my life - they were the first people I got high with as a teen. I watched them both limp through life as well as they never learned appropriate coping skills.
Since I knew that going on some type of mood stabilizer was almost inevitable, it seemed like the right time to cut out the bad cope. I had no idea it would be literally a week later that I'd start on an SSRI, and it's been very intense.
Outside of that big change, there is also all the stuff I talked about in my last post in regards to having to drop out of school three weeks into the semester.
Zooming out even more than that, I only got my FND diagnosis in December. That same month my epilepsy diagnosis changed to intractable, basically meaning my seizures were not improving with medication. This is another reason the SSRI was suggested.
I really want to remain hopeful about the Lexapro. I'm only a week in, and it takes a solid two months for your body to adjust. I feel proud of myself for taking steps in the right direction, no matter how scary.
Right now though I also just want to complain because this shit is rough and I'm Straight Up Not Having A Good Time.
Week 1 Lexapro Complaints
(in no particular order)
- Cannot for the life of me sleep at night and as a result I've slept through most of the day twice now
- Hella shakey and nauseous
- My fucking nose will not stop bleeding
- Because SSRIs affect your platelets, my already heavy period has been worse
- Still having seizures, but they feel different now which is a bit scary
- While not suicidal, I feel deeply sad this week. Some of this may just be internalized stigma about mental health needs. I just feel very defeated.
- I feel a loss of sense of self. My mind feels empty in a way it never has before. There's an argument to be made that my mind has always been way too full, so this is better. Still, that alone is leaving me with a lot of complicated feelings.
Attempting to be hopeful
As hard as this first week has been, I have already seen a few benefits I want to mention.
- The first day I felt genuinely giddy. This likely has nothing to do with the Lexapro itself which won't begin to really take affect for several weeks and probably has more to do with finally being listened to and receiving help.
- I'm ruminating a lot less. I don't have a ton of energy to do much right now, but I can tell I'm spending less time stuck in my head already. Before I constantly had to be doing The Most Productive Thing Possible at any given moment, and I've sort of let that go by necessity.
- Boring stuff feels easier. The second day (before I got my mega period) I set out to do a dreaded task: the dishes. Usually unloading or reloading is all I can handle at once before I need to take a break, but before I knew it I had done both and cleaned the stove.
- I'm having significantly less intrusive thoughts. I believe this is why boring stuff feels easier. My inner monologue is very self-critical. Even something as simple as dishes comes with a lot of background noise: "how do you always let the dishes get like this?" "Why is it so hard for you to just be a grownup?" etc etc. until I'm to exhausted to finish a second task.
All in all I do feel hopeful that this is an important step towards an overall healthier life. These first few weeks are notoriously hard. Plus, I really have no way of telling what is a side effect from the Lexapro vs. withdrawals after relying on weed for so long vs. general malaise from a difficult time in my life.
Since I first started blogging I've been complaining about my own tendency to overthink everything. For better or worse, that feels impossible now. I used to spend weeeeeeeks crafting even a simple blog post in my mind, then on paper, then in a google doc, then here in the bear editor.
Not this baby.
After another sleepless night I decided it was time to return to my cozy little blog and just let all my feelings out, and I feel so much better for having done so. And I don't think this post is worse off because it's less polished than the pieces I agonized over. If anything, I've been trying to shed these habits so my writing would have a level of authenticity I really admire in many other bloggers but was struggling to achieve myself.
I don't exactly know how to finish this as a consequence though. . . but I do know it's time for my midday nap. I guess I'll wrap up by saying as scary as this all has been I'm glad to be an artist and have ways to express myself through it.