So now I just don't know what to do. I started taking Lexapro again last Wednesday (today is Thursday). So I've been on it a week. I stopped taking it when I found out I was 8 weeks pregnant back in May of 2009 and stayed off while I was nursing my daughter. I felt pretty good while I was pregnant. Stressed and a bit anxious trying to get things in order at work in preparation for my maternity. And the whole "holy crap I'm gonna be a mother" thing was a bit stressful and anxiety inducing as well. Still, I was actually really impressed with how well I did off of my medication. Considering the fact that I was pregnant and supposedly super hormonal and prone to greater emotional upset, I felt pretty good. Of course this seemed kind of appropriate, because I'd been in therapy for nearly four years and medicated for nearly three - so the whole "doing well" thing has become pretty familiar.
BUT....here I am now, typing about my newly "re-medicated" status. This is because I really began to struggle with anxiety and resultant depression shortly following the birth of my daughter. I suppose this isn't a surprising thing. Lots of women experience post-partum depression. I had been seeing my therapist about once every 2-3 months throughout my pregnancy and so I wasn't totally without treatment during the postpartum period. In fact, based on my declining mood, I began attending monthly again. My anxiety and depression ebbed and flowed. Sometimes I felt okay, sometimes I felt really good, and sometimes I felt plagued with anxiety. Sometimes I obsessed over the potential issues that my new life could bring. Analyzed all the presently non-existent problems that new motherhood can bring to one's sense of self, one's relationship, and to the well-being of the baby. I also worried about the standard stuff: would I make a good mother, were we doing things correctly, would I ever sleep again? Mainly though, the familiar type of non-productive, cyclical anxiety and obsessing had returned to my regular mental profile. So.....over time, I decided that once I was done nursing I would go back on the Lexapro. As I explained to some of the people I trusted enough to share my feelings with: "I understand my anxiety now, I know what's happening and I don't have panic attacks anymore. But just because I understand these feelings doesn't make them any less unpleasant."
Well, my daughter is six months old and I'm back on the meds. I've been on them for a week, and I've had two panic attacks. The content of my panic attacks is so unexpected that it's almost comical if it weren't so frightening when it was happening. Lately, I've been worrying to the point of physical discomfort about the meaning of life. About what happens when we die, if there's a God, what I should believe, what I do believe, what my husband believes, and how all of this relates to the answers I will or will not be able to supply my daughter one day. Honestly, these are reasonable things to wonder about, questions that every human asks at some point. But they aren't really questions with a specific answer. Thinking them over repeatedly and thoroughly isn't even inappropriate - I don't think - but thinking about them over and over again, for several days, to the point that it makes your head and neck and then your chest and even your feet feel hot and fuzzy, makes an overcoming sense of dread wash over your body as you think, panic-stricken that it's possible life has no meaning and there's nothing I can do about it. Yeah. This shit is out of the ordinary for me. This shit is upsetting.
I used to worry excessively that my relationships with my husband (then boyfriend) was going to end, or that it should end, or that we were poorly matched, or that we shouldn't be together and that I'd have to leave him/break up with him, even though I really valued the relationship. I would worry that suddenly I'd stumble over some huge problem or incompatibility that I should have noticed earlier but hadn't.
God, this is not cohesive. Who cares. I really just wanted to get some of my intense, hard-to-discuss worries off of my chest. Ha - the actual truth is that Family Guy is on tv and I'm distracted. Not really distracted by it....I'm not actually watching it......I'm not distracted because I'm trying to watch it. It's just hard to write about issues of this gravity with such light programming on in the background. Ha - discussing Family Guy and existentialism in the same entry. Funny.
Okay - I'm not sure what I've figured out. I'm still scared of panicking, but I guess I feel a little better. Oh, I know...I was going to try and figure out whether to take my meds still. See, the panic attacks I've had recently didn't start until after I'd gotten back on the Lexapro. To assume that the medication caused them seems inappropriate because I was on it for three years with no problems...with successful therapeutic effects, actually! But I can't help but wonder about the timing. NO panic attacks in years, and then two in a weeks time after beginning again? I dunno.....
The panic attacks could be explained otherwise, though. The culmination of a year of untreated anxiety and the intensified factors of new motherhood...the additional fact that, as a public school employee on summer vacation, I now have a shitload more time on my hand to ruminate and obsess over negative notions. Yeah, it's a tough one. Am I having panic attacks because I got back on the meds, or am I having them because I've been off the meds for so long?
I guess I'll give it a little longer than a week to see what happens....
No comments:
Post a Comment