Getting Ready to Get Off My Antidepressants

I mentioned awhile ago that I'm getting ready to get off of my antidepressants. I want to be honest about my journey to potentially help others who might be going through it. I know that this is different for everyone, so I want to share my experience. 

At this moment, I'm still on my medication, and I'm not meeting with my doctor until next week to even start the process. But, as the little planner that I am, I've spent all summer trying to get myself ready to get off of my medicine. 

At the beginning of the summer, I was a mess. I was getting used to working full time, Sammy and I were trying to figure out how to eat when I wasn't there to cook, I was tired, I was stressed because having a grown up job is so different from just working at college and I was constantly worried that I was going to get fired. I was having panic attacks pretty regularly at night, and I felt like a failure. How was I supposed to get off of my medicine if I couldn't even function while I was on it?

I went back to therapy, and that was a life saver. I was able to realize that this was a big life change, and it was normal that it was hard. Not only was it hard on Sammy and I, but it was hard on my family as well. I wasn't as available as I used to be. I was also sliding back into my old habits that I had the last time I was in therapy, with worrying constantly about my parents and family, even though it's not my responsibility to make them happy. 

The anxiety didn't automatically go away after those first therapy appointments. Another huge problem was my diet. In the adjustment period between school and working full time, we went out to eat a lot. We hadn't prepared enough and so on. From those weeks, I've been able to realize that whenever I eat fast food, I'm more likely to have a panic attack or wake up in the middle of the night feeling sick. After a few weeks of feeling good, I ate out with my co-workers one day. It was a stressful day and then I felt sick that night. It's been an overall great revelation, but sometimes I just want to have some Chick fil a. We've been eating healthier now and it's made a difference. When we do go out to eat, we go to places with better food, like Qdoba or Panera.

Sammy and I have also started getting up in the mornings and doing a workout. We don't get much exercise, and exercise creates so many endorphins. I knew that if I was going to do this, I'd need as much going for me as possible. I know that I wouldn't be able to do these workouts without Sammy. Every morning one of us has to push the other one out of bed to get going. Once we are out and moving, it's fantastic. We have so much more energy throughout the day, and it's like a little date in the mornings. We aren't perfect and don't get out everyday, but it's still something. I definitely notice a difference on the mornings that we didn't go.

With these little changes, at my most recent therapy appointment, I honestly ran out of things to talk about. Life has smoothed over, and after getting a reminder of how to take care of myself, things were going great.

However, this past week I've felt the anxiety creeping back in. It's a slow little bugger. I don't notice it all at once, and it's really slow. It's little things that I worry about, or start to nag at me, that keep growing and growing until I'm worried and feeling anxious about things that make no sense. I wasn't able to notice when this started this time. I believe it's because school was starting for Sammy and I was worried for him, and other little things, but I'm not exactly sure. This was a bit of a hard weekend just because we were doing things that were pleasant, like going to one of my favorite bookstores, but I was still feeling out of control and anxious.

I'm trying to look for the blessings in this though. Because of my anxiety this weekend, I was able to have a real talk with Sammy about some of my fears. This isn't just a me thing. I'm going to need his support. I worry that I'm going to be a burden on him while he's dealing with his school and work, along with a million other things. This isn't going to be easy, and he was honest that this is going to be hard because he doesn't fully understand my anxiety, as hard as he tries, and it's hard when I'm anxious day after day and there's honestly nothing he can do to fix it.

Another blessing was that I was talking to my Heavenly Father about some things that I was stressed out about and literally a few hours after I told him, one of those problems was solved. At times it feels like I'm just talking to the air everyday, but then there are those moments where there's no other explanation than he was listening that keep me going. I know that He's always there, it's just sometimes He doesn't need to give me such a blatant reminder everyday.

Right now as I write this, I'm on a roller coaster of feeling like I can do this and then being crushed with doubt. Either way, I'm going forward.