We sat around the patio table and I felt alone. Usually, I’m up for girl gab and friendship but all I wanted to do was close up shop and huddle in bed with a TV, a book, or complete silence. For the past few months, I’d run that way. Not wanting to talk, not wanting to do, not wanting to show myself, my face, my heart. That feeling? When everyone around you seems normal and able to enjoy life and all you can do is scratch the window and curse the glass? It’s almost like being buried alive. Do you know those people who carry sadness with them? How they try to smile but you can sense something deeper, more raw below the surface, and it might scare you a little? So much so that you want to leave them and put the sun on your face to burn off the heavy?
I think that’s me. The sad one.
I asked, I did.
“Have I been different the last few months?”
One by one, my friends nodded and reluctantly told me I had seemed “down.” It’s true, I’d been on the edge of tears daily, felt close to raw and unable to climb out of where the sun didn’t shine. Of course, sometime in February, I’d stopped taking my medication. I reveled in it at first. I could feel stuff! Like feelings! I even liked that I could cry once more, a skill lost to medicated apathy. Off Celexa, I was me again in all my wet emotion and realness. But then, it was me again in all my wet emotion and realness. I still want to have all that in my soul. It’s just that I can’t assimilate it all without feeling…broken. I hate that fact. That I need medication.
I tried other ways. I took natural supplements, cleaned up my diet, moved my body more. Yet always the sadness. So much more intense during certain points in a month, so much so that I couldn’t think straight. Rather, I was crooked. All my thoughts leading to horrible conclusions, like I’ll never get my personality back, my sense of humor is gone forever, no one likes me, I’m Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted.
I still blame the hormones. I sense the wave of body chemistry kicking up its heels and unfurling in imbalance right before my period, but it gets me in the gut every time, those heels.
I want the power back. I want to be the one wearing the stilettos. I want to kick that imbalance right out of my bloodstream and into the street and into the dirt and out of the world.
I just have to admit that for now, I need a co-kicker. So it is, and so it is.
I need to be me again.
I ran upstairs as my friends sipped wine and watched the kids swim. I called my doctor, ordered a prescription, and surrendered. Next time I’m with my friends and the people who love me, I hope to be there all the way, out of the hole, in front of the glass.
This is my PROMPTuesday submission.
Yes! I am right there with you! After I started meds, I lost my funny. So I stopped taking them and then became an emotional wreck. Drugs are now my copilot too. Thank you for saying exactly how I feel too! Hugs!
((hugs))
Wishing you lots of comfort and peace with the tough decision you had to make.
We all have a helper, I think, that we maybe don’t want to rely on. But sometimes, it’s for the greater good. You were brave, not weak – remember that.
xoxo
I could have written this post. Hang in there. It’ll get better. Maybe try a different prescription? I got back on meds, but still struggle a bit. Not like when I went drug-free. But, still.
Hugs, my friend. I am so sorry you are going through this, have been going through this, will be going through this.
I am here. I am here.
xoxo
If I were with you in person right now, I would not want to put the sun on my face to burn off the heavy.
I wouldn’t.
But I can imagine you wanting to.
And of course you want your face in front of the glass, not scratching.
So you must do what you need to do to not be in that hole.
Because you’re too special to be buried.
A big hug to my brave friend!
O
I understand where you’re coming from, even though I’ve never been diagnosed with depression.
Maybe I should. But then I couldn’t afford the meds. Such is life when you’re working at temp jobs for next to nothing…at least where I live, it’s a very expensive state.
So I decided today that I’m going to pay very minimal amounts on our debts (which never seem to end ::sigh::) and concentrate on scraping enough money together to pay the mortgage and the electric bill…the 2 most important things in my life at this moment.
That, and trying to get a perm job, which I’m supposed to get sometime next month, after my boss negotiates down some of the fees from the temp agency.
I’m crossing my fingers, because the last time I was in this position, with a “slam dunk” to go perm, I had the rug taken out from under me, with my boss saying she couldn’t hire me permanently because I didn’t have a degree.
Baloney.
They brought in somebody from another department, probably because they wanted to keep her in the company, just not in her prior job. So they looked at the temps in the company and decided, yeah, Nancy doesn’t really need it, will just dump her.
But true to form for me, I couldn’t NOT help the person who forced me out.
Sorry for the ramble. I still get a little p.o.’d about that whole situation from time to time. I’m just hoping and praying that THIS time, I WILL get the perm position.
And I’m thinking my stress and depression from this financially slim period (which has lasted for about 4 years, lol)will be a thing of the past.
I hope you start feeling better very soon. :-)
BTW, just curious…where’s the picture from? Looks like a lot of fun! (I always loved being in and around the water. :-))
I hate that the meds don’t seem to solve the problem, but my doctor always reminds me that it could be much worse.
I was just FBing with friends about this very same thing. I just found your blog through a comment you left on a blog that was linking up with Kelly’s Corner. Your blog name jumped out at me, as I am down here too. Hello. :)I am always looking for local blogs. Anyway… I have been going through some sort of hormone shift too, and have dealt with a generalized anxiety/depression for years. I totally understand what you are saying. I hope that you feel better quick cuz it is a miserable feeling.
I hate those f**king hormones!
I hope you’re having luck kicking them into the street and into the dirt and out of the world where they belong.