Okay, now having said that, many of us have a drug fear. I hate taking new drugs, it sends my anxiety through the roof. I am always afraid of allergic reaction or drug interaction. I take about 10 different drugs since the heart attack. 2 of those being for my stomach because the other 8 rip it up something fierce.
First a little piece of advice that may help some. When I have to take a new med. I ask my doctor if he would mind me sitting in his waiting room for 2 hrs. This alleviates some of my anxiety, at least for any life threatening quick reactions. (Never had one, but apparently I still worry anyone because the other 15,351 fears are not enough.) Just sharing this because it does helps me to take meds in the beginning. My Dr knows my anxiety, so he is quite happy to let me sit there reading old magazines. (He should, I think I am single handedly putting his youngest child through college.)
Also, to combat my anxiety I have started to take Prozac. Now I am just sharing. I had a HUGE problem with taking anxiety meds. Also since I was 15 they had tried me on three that did noting for me. Welbutin (Made me feel like a zombie). Zoloft (did not a single thing) and Lexipro (Made my depression at least three times as bad.) So I was very hesitant to try anything new, even after all those years. But as I saw my life slipping away and the anxiety gaining strength with age, not losing it, I knew I had to try something. And you know what.......it worked.
I remember about two weeks after taking it, one day I was driving, going two hours by myself to a family get together. It was Summer time then and the sky was blue, the weather perfect and the windows open. Out of nowhere, I almost started to cry. For the first time, random thoughts of death were not screaming through my head, I could enjoy the wind on my face, I was out of the house and my safety zone and my shoulder muscles were not bunched and pulled up tight. It was a beautiful feeling.
If someone had tried to tell me before hand, I would have laughed at them and just not believed it. But Prozac has totally changed my life. (That is the pill after 4 trial and errors that worked. It may be different with you, this is not a Prozac commercial. It just happens to be the one that helped me.) Trying to describe the feeling was like trying to describe a new color that you had never seen before, how could you? After a few days I settled on the analogy that I had been living my life in a house on fire, with the noise crackling and roaring, the constant struggle and fear to stay alive, the total chaos that I just accepted as normal. And then one day.......it just wasn't there. Amazing, wonderful and....scary as hell! My head was quiet, no anxiety songs of death and doom. Just me and i swear I could hear crickets if I tried. (Not actually).
I was not prepared for this. I didn't and am still learning to cope with, this emptiness. Don't get me wrong, it is not a zombie state. I am still vivacious, (my story), outgoing in public and friends have noticed nothing but good things. (No slowing of speech, no sluggishness, etc. I trust their observations more than my own.) Lets go back to that fire analogy and the noise, it was totally disconcerting. Not horrible just new. But all that anxiety I had felt all my life, that struggle to just put one foot in front of the other. The struggle to get out of bed was gone. Suddenly, I had no fight but 47 years of training on how to fight and 0 years on how to live at peace. It is still an adjustment and it is still a hard struggle, but I never want to go back to that again. You don't realize how much energy it takes till all the emergencies that you worry about but never happen are gone and you have nothing to do with the energy. Yes, I am still depressed, (More on that in a moment) but that unyielding, undying anxiety is gone like it never existed.
Now let me say this and say this opinion clearly. Medicine is not the only answer. Yes Prozac has done some amazing, life changing things for me, but it will not undo 47 years of wrong thinking. That is not its job! For the pills to be really helpful they MUST be used in conjunction with therapy. The pills will take care of your chemical imbalances, but it will not stop your mental thoughts and how you have changed your thinking to live with the stress, depression etc. Pills are only one part of this war to free yourself and live the life you were meant to. You know that many of you, I know you are out there, are not even sure they deserve a life free of pain and full of happiness. A pill isn't going to help that. I swear just as much by the other parts; therapy, nutrition, exercise, church attendance and getting yourself plugged into your community. These will help just as much. Each one plays a part so that one day we may not need the pills or therapy. But lets be honest, okay. If whatever we were doing was working and allowing us to live rather than just survive you wouldn't be reading this and I wouldn't be writing this. Therapy is long and painful. The meds may take quite a few tries to find the right one. But you are using all that energy now, just to brush your teeth and pretend this is the life you want. My friends, please I am begging you because you mean so much, realize this IS a WAR and if you don't realize that and fight it as such you are only going to be the FIRST casualty. Family, children, loved ones, friends, will all suffer right along with you.
Now getting that out of the way, let me tell you before my life got so bad I had to develop this thought of Total War, I cursed mind medicines. I felt like taking them was losing, like killing off that bad part of myself was a weird form of suicide. I literally hated the thought. I have writings, poems about why I wouldn't take them. As if that twisted malformed and ultimately destructive part of myself, was something to be protected because it was me. Let me say this loud and clear from the other side now....it is not! If our eyes are out of whack we get glasses and we don't cry and say, "Well that is just me and part of me!" Twisted leg? do we cry over leg braces that can eventually correct the problem? Do we not remove a tumor? That is what that chemical imbalance is, a tumor, a cancer that is eating at your soul. And after it now being quiet enough to finally hear the 'real' me, I would never go back. Don't believe any of those lies. You wouldn't walk around with bad teeth because they were part of you if you could afford it, so don't believe this dark twisted thinking is you either.
I will say this again, because you are all worth the fight and you are all so very precious to me, even if I don't know your name. You can not lose this war. You must fight with every tool you can. The enemy; our fear, Satan, rough childhood, whatever, can only use lies to stop you from using the tools it knows will work. You are tired, you are fighting everyday anyway, so why not go on offense? Why not attack the root instead of just trying to live with the problems it creates in your life? You are a fighter, now take the fight to the problem instead of the other way around!
Talk to your doctors, get second opinions, get therapy, talk to God, help your fellow humans when you have the energy to. With every victory you will become more confident and want more victories. With each step you will become healthier, nicer to yourself, a better husband, wife, parent and friend to others.
I know you have suffered, I really do. I know you are tired but this fight is everything and you know what? You might not believe this, you can actually win this fight instead of just surviving it!
If you haven't heard it lately, I think you are wonderful. A beautiful fighter who is tired. I am praying for you and trying to let you know you are not alone. God DOES love you, I love you and kid, you are soooooo worth it. I promise!
As always, thank you for letting me ramble, you rock and stay strong brothers and sisters. You are not alone and you can and will win this. Be strong and of good courage!
Frank
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