Today, I am starting anti-depressants.
It's a decision I have made willingly but have a history of staunchly refusing for the majority of my life.
No, I'm not depressed, but episodes of depression, headaches, nausea, and a whole host of other symptoms have added up to a long, frustrating history with chronic anxiety.
Whether it's social anxiety or the anxiety disorder I've been struggling to conceal since I was a child, anxiety has dominated most every conversation and interaction and self-reflection I've ever had.
I have long feared making this decision because I feared the consequences of what would happen if I were to go off of the medication. Would I be plunged into an even deeper pit than before I started them?
I think I was also scared of feeling "normal."
I've never felt normal.
My happiest moments in life have all been tinged with anxiety. Happiness in itself scares me. I've always worried that if I'm happy, it just means that unhappiness is about to catapult itself toward me in the subsequent moments.
I've gone to counseling, I've joined support groups, I have an accountability partner from group I don't even know the last name of, I've coped, I've exercised, I've gotten fidget tools, I've taken homeopathic helpers, I've prayed. It. Doesn't. Help. Not long-term, at least.
There's a weird mentality about being Christian that if I am a good enough Christian, if I pray hard enough, if I am prayed over, then this will subside. There's a mentality that this is spiritual warfare, not serotonin.
The truth is, this doesn't have anything to do with my faith:
I love God.
I lack the necessary amounts of serotonin receptors.
It is as uncomplicated as that.
I've never wanted to start them in the midst of a major depressive episode because that would be admitting defeat. If there's one thing anyone knows about me, it's that I'm tenacious. I'm insanely tenacious. If I can fix it, I will fix it.
Another frustration in friends and family pushing pills is that they don't deal with my anxiety. They may deal with the effects of my anxiety, but they have no idea what my disorder feels like. They just want me to chill the heck out.
You aren't taking pills! You don't know!!! Don't sell me on something you know nothing of other than researching them.
A year ago, I joined a support group. It's all online, just enough to troll through responses and whatnot. Through that, I met Lubs. She and I are similar ages, struggle with the same thing at the same level of severity, and get on really well. I never went back to the forums after that; we communicate, commiserate, and collaborate.
Her symptoms temporarily subsided around 6 months or so ago, and we lost touch.
Last week, she reappeared and we started our talks again. She had tried all that I had as well and finally had given in to trying medication for her anxiety.
For me, now, the timing is perfect. I'm still striving against my anxiety, but I'm not debilitated. I have a friend who is starting this process with the same struggles I do. I have camaraderie and I have sensibility. No one is pressuring me. It's finally my choice.
Shocker, I'm worried.
What is life without anxiety? Or rather, what is life with chemical stabilization?
I guess I'll find out.
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