May Cause Dizziness
I have been off Prozac for eight days now. A month before that, I started weaning off of it, and I was on half a dose. I had been on (first Zoloft, but didn’t like the side effects, then) Prozac since the end of February. I share this openly because we need to end the stigma around antidepressants and any medication for mental health. And in my case, any stigma around postpartum anxiety and depression.
This wasn’t the first time I’ve been on medication. When I was in college, I was such a depressed mess that my life had become completely chaotic and unmanageable. Specifically, I hated the way I looked so much, in an obsessive, destructive, harmful way. I didn’t look like any of the girls at Arizona State that society loved to objectify, I obsessed and cried over MySpace models and girls in magazines, and was an insecure, exhausting girlfriend. (And yes, I transferred to Arizona State for a boyfriend I met at a rave while on ecstasy.) If you know anything about my childhood, this all checks out. Desperate, I went to the counselor on campus for help. She told me that my case was too severe and I needed to see a professional. Humiliating!
I started seeing someone who suggested I also see a psychiatrist so I can get on meds. I was first put on Zoloft, which gave me really bad shakes. So she put me on Lexapro instead. Looking back on this time from where I am now, I’m pretty sure I was too numbed out, definitely shouldn’t have been drinking and doing drugs as much as I was (but it was the year Playboy magazine named us #1 Party School, after all), and probably wasn’t really doing “the work” in therapy. But I was so young, and you only know what you know. I wasn’t ready. I continued on the Lexapro for years after. At some point during that time in Arizona, I auditioned to be a Phoenix Suns cheerleader. I got so dizzy and woozy at the audition and I sucked. I started to notice that any strenuous activity on the medication was nearly impossible for me.
After my boyfriend and I broke up, I had a bad drug addiction, dropped out, became a stripper (throwback!), then moved back to New York. I was still on Lexapro and saw a psychiatrist who told me I had borderline personality disorder. (I didn’t.) I auditioned for STOMP, and got put onto the national tour. After one of my first shows, the rehearsal directors came backstage and essentially told me that I sucked and wasn’t jumping high enough or stomping hard enough and I looked tired and bad (not their words, but my interpretation, all I remember is crying.) I explained to them that my medication made me dizzy, and I wanted to get off of it. I proceeded to do exactly what you’re not supposed to do—I stopped taking it, cold turkey, no weaning, no professional assistance, nothing. I had terrible withdrawal; it reminded me of Requiem for a Dream, which was my favorite movie in college, which makes me laugh now to think of College Me thinking that movie was so cool and watching it all the time. (Ew?) It felt like I had the flu, I had the chills and was burning up at the same time, the sheets of my hotel bed were soaked in sweat. I struggled in the show, the dumb new girl on the tour who was only twenty-two years old and wasn’t on her Lexapro anymore. But I eventually got better and was happy to be off of it so I could show up to six shows a week and travel for most of the next two and a half years.
So, that was the last time I was medicated. Well, with a prescription. I then had this idea that weed was my medication. And that weed fixed everything! (It didn’t.) Look, I don’t think weed is bad and to each their own if it’s something that works for you. For me, it isn’t so much the weed that was bad, but my obvious addiction and dependency to it. It was a dependency because I was high at all waking hours of the day, every single day, and any time I tried to quit, I couldn’t, and couldn’t even remember how I ended up high again. It was a dependency because I was incapable of being sober. I was incapable of only doing it sometimes, and not all the time. I was incapable of controlling how much I did it. And if there’s anything I’ve learned about dependencies on things, it’s that I’m giving away my power, because I’m controlled by fear.
Quitting weed was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Just like I had quit an ex-boyfriend and a dependency on male validation eight years before then (throwback!), there was horrible withdrawal, and I had to feel so. Many. Feelings. Who knew I would even have so much more to feel? But I suppose when you’re compulsively needing to numb out for years, you’re probably avoiding something.
Why would I do that to myself? What would I make life harder than it already is? I think once I got a taste of how it works (face your fears, call back your power, do the thing you don’t want to do, call back your power, get more present, call back your power, feel your feelings, call back your power, etc.) it’s hard to avoid the opportunities.
So when my postpartum anxiety wasn’t getting better no matter how hard I tried to wish for it to, and I had to surrender to getting on meds, which of course was already gently suggested to me by other moms, my therapist, my husband, and strangers on the internet, at first I felt defeated, but as soon as the medication brought an immense amount of relief and I could sleep and eat again, the only regret I had was that I didn’t get on it sooner. It’s so interesting how we can still be programmed to allow ourselves to suffer because that’s what seems “strong.” Time and time again, we are proven that asking for help and receiving support is what is actually strong.
What’s crazy and coincidental is that I had tried the Zoloft for about 10 days and then switched to Prozac on what ended up being the day my mom passed away. (I really am looking forward to writing about that experience very soon—for paid subscribers.) I really do look back at my experience with Prozac gratefully—it’s what helped me move through survival mode, it’s what saved me from drowning, it got me treading through the water so that I could stick my head above and catch a breath, it got me crawling onto solid ground, so I could do what I needed to do next to take care of myself.
And now I’m here, eight days off the Prozac. As I mentioned before, I had decided to wean off of it after my psychiatrist suggested it—she could tell I was excited to get off of it, and that I was ready. I’m able to take good care of myself now, and I’ve seemed to left survival mode, and have begun to… thrive? Maybe? I think so. Writing in this Substack has been so good for me. (So if you’re reading this… thank you. Truly.) Getting back to work on creative projects has been so good for me. I’ve been going to auditions again, and though it’s taken me a minute to find my groove again, it’s been a journey of feeling out who I am now, which is a completely different person. I really have been in this place of remembering who I am, what is important to me, and what I really want. This is the most authentic I’ve ever been, the strongest and bravest I’ve ever felt. Every day I keep discovering all the ways I’ve constantly shrunk, dimmed myself, and held myself back in the past. And I’m tired of it. I’m so tired of it. I can’t anymore. I’m just too tired. I just want to be myself.
Two nights ago, I was feeling sad. Now that I’m off the meds, I think I’m getting to catch up with my feelings. I cried. Easily! The entire time I was medicated, I could barely cry. Which for me, was odd and disorienting, because I was usually very connected to my feelings and would cry as soon as I’d feel like I needed to. It was something I was proud of, because to me, it was very good energetic hygiene—I never wanted to carry old or stuck shit around. (I also loved breaking cycles—my entire life, I never saw my mother cry once.) So basically, for the past six months, I had felt pretty… constipated with my emotions. My back always hurt because of it. (I will always shout out this book for the rest of my life to anyone out there with back pain because just by reading it I ended 13 years of chronic back pain.) So, when I cried last night… it felt damn good. So good. I needed it so bad. I felt like myself again. I want to cry more. I’m excited to cry more. I’ve got so many feelings to catch up on. (I have yet to feel my mom’s passing. Yeah. I know. I’m telling you, I can’t wait to write about all of that.)
Though it served me very well, it felt like the medication was just another thing that dimmed me. I know it was for the best and I highly encourage it for anyone going through postpartum anxiety or depression. But now that I’m much better, I’m just excited to continue on this theme of getting back to my self. Just reading this all back to myself, I see that I’ve spent my entire life, in so many different ways, trying to get away from myself.
I can’t believe this is the first time I actually feel like I’m ready to be my self. Actually ready.
