Vitamin Z
You who have been with me lo these many moons may recall that, shortly after Z was born, my doctor put me on Zoloft for post-partum depression. I took it for several months, and it was very helpful. So at some point I decided I had adjusted to motherhood, and carefully weaned myself off the Zoloft, happy to think I could go back to unmedicated normal.
This state of affairs held for a few months, and then just after the New Year, I began to notice a certain creeping, foggy exhaustion coming back into my life. I also found myself having a lot of difficulty and frustration dealing with the myriad developmental changes Z was going through as he got older and more complex. It came to a head shortly after Z's first birthday. One day in the car with Aaron, when I picked a fight with him for nothing I can recall now, and burst into tears. We decided that perhaps unmedicated normal was not all it was cracked up to be, and I went back to the doctor, who agreed to put me back on the same low dose of Zoloft.
Wow, what a difference. I am all about better living through modern chemistry. Most noticeably, when Z throws a tantrum or gets sick (which often go hand in hand), I am so much better able to deal with it than pre-Zoloft. Aaron says he has never seen me smile so much, and I agree with him that I feel happier than I ever remember being.
Which makes me wonder how long I'd been suffering from untreated depression.
When Aaron first met me, I was a bitterly angry person. If you'd asked me, I wouldn't have described myself as unhappy, it was just that I spent a lot of time being angry at the world for being stupid--which meant I spent a lot of time angry. Much of this stemmed from the abuse and social marginalization I suffered in middle and high school, which primed me to assume that the world really was out to get me, specifically. I wonder if I'd been able to have some kind of drug therapy or emotional counseling, if that would have helped me way back then. I'm not sure I would have accepted it, though--I would probably have been suspicious of it as an adult attempt to entice me to conform.
I also look back on my teaching experiences, which were incredibly frustrating and fed my anger at the world's stupidity. I wonder if I'd been better able to deal with the various academic stupidities, and the petty annoyances attendant on working with adolescents, if I'd had the Zoloft to regulate my moods. I was easily frustrated in those days, and tended not to stay in any one job, or location, for very long. I now wonder if the reason I spent so much time job hopping in the late 90s was that it was only the limerence of a new job that was keeping the depression at bay--and once that wore off...
I knew a lot of people on one kind of medication or another for depression, but it never would have occurred to me that I should be one of them. For one thing, I wasn't sad, I was *angry*, and that anger always seemed justified. But mainly it was that they always seemed to have much worse problems than I did--my life was good, my life was great, and I certainly didn't have self-esteem issues (quite the opposite, frankly). How could I possibly be depressed? This, of course, has an obvious answer--if life is that good and you're sad or mad or anxious anyway, then maybe these emotions aren't merely situational; maybe they have a difference source.
I try not to think of it in these terms, but...how much of my life did I waste this way? How many potential successes did I turn into failure through blindness to the fact that I needed a little help?
All of which is by way of saying, if you're feeling depressed, get help. It makes a world of difference.
(NB: Facebook comments here.)
This state of affairs held for a few months, and then just after the New Year, I began to notice a certain creeping, foggy exhaustion coming back into my life. I also found myself having a lot of difficulty and frustration dealing with the myriad developmental changes Z was going through as he got older and more complex. It came to a head shortly after Z's first birthday. One day in the car with Aaron, when I picked a fight with him for nothing I can recall now, and burst into tears. We decided that perhaps unmedicated normal was not all it was cracked up to be, and I went back to the doctor, who agreed to put me back on the same low dose of Zoloft.
Wow, what a difference. I am all about better living through modern chemistry. Most noticeably, when Z throws a tantrum or gets sick (which often go hand in hand), I am so much better able to deal with it than pre-Zoloft. Aaron says he has never seen me smile so much, and I agree with him that I feel happier than I ever remember being.
Which makes me wonder how long I'd been suffering from untreated depression.
When Aaron first met me, I was a bitterly angry person. If you'd asked me, I wouldn't have described myself as unhappy, it was just that I spent a lot of time being angry at the world for being stupid--which meant I spent a lot of time angry. Much of this stemmed from the abuse and social marginalization I suffered in middle and high school, which primed me to assume that the world really was out to get me, specifically. I wonder if I'd been able to have some kind of drug therapy or emotional counseling, if that would have helped me way back then. I'm not sure I would have accepted it, though--I would probably have been suspicious of it as an adult attempt to entice me to conform.
I also look back on my teaching experiences, which were incredibly frustrating and fed my anger at the world's stupidity. I wonder if I'd been better able to deal with the various academic stupidities, and the petty annoyances attendant on working with adolescents, if I'd had the Zoloft to regulate my moods. I was easily frustrated in those days, and tended not to stay in any one job, or location, for very long. I now wonder if the reason I spent so much time job hopping in the late 90s was that it was only the limerence of a new job that was keeping the depression at bay--and once that wore off...
I knew a lot of people on one kind of medication or another for depression, but it never would have occurred to me that I should be one of them. For one thing, I wasn't sad, I was *angry*, and that anger always seemed justified. But mainly it was that they always seemed to have much worse problems than I did--my life was good, my life was great, and I certainly didn't have self-esteem issues (quite the opposite, frankly). How could I possibly be depressed? This, of course, has an obvious answer--if life is that good and you're sad or mad or anxious anyway, then maybe these emotions aren't merely situational; maybe they have a difference source.
I try not to think of it in these terms, but...how much of my life did I waste this way? How many potential successes did I turn into failure through blindness to the fact that I needed a little help?
All of which is by way of saying, if you're feeling depressed, get help. It makes a world of difference.
(NB: Facebook comments here.)