Comparing notes about Paxil
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. ~ Camus
I said to a friend yesterday, "I woke up this morning feeling like me inside for the first time in months!" That's "me" back on a small dose of Paxil. The weight of being alive has lifted so that being alive feels like something to look forward to rather than dread. When my friend went on Paxil to help her get through a period of deep grief and anxiety, she felt like her world was veiled and she couldn't get to anything out there or inside either. Another friend once told me that she considered Paxil her "happy pill"; it perked her up.
Interesting. It shouldn't be surprising that different people have different reactions to being on an anti-depressant. One of my sisters who suffers from depression can't take it all - it leaves her feeling weird and woozy. I've heard from people who get more depressed on it than off of it.
So if different people have completely different responses, how come we hear standard lines like this one (which I've heard from more than one alternative health-care provider):
"When your body is free of Paxil, you'll be able to really feel your feelings."
Hmmm. I was on Paxil when Mona died and that grief knocked me on my butt; a year later my sister died, more grief; a year after that I had to have my cat put to sleep, more of the same. And not just grief: I've felt kick-ass angry (which a harder place to go to under any circumstances, so Paxil has nothing to do with it) and full of joy over ordinary things. I call those things "feelings."
Not until I woke up Wednesday feeling a sense of "self" inside did I realize how fractured I've felt over the last month since I took the last dose. I could feel the slide into a pit of sadness and I could hear the danger thoughts: life is not worth living; I don't want to live like this; I want to die. And I could feel the disconnection from people around me, like I was encased in fog. But not until Wednesday did I get it that I had lost a sense of my own being inside of this body. And that is just not OK.
I've had a lot of active support through this journey that, while it is deeply personal, also affects my friends and my family. And I've had tremendous support from people I don't know well and from strangers who became friends through blog postings. I'm grateful for all of it. A hundred years ago, I'd have been shunted off to an attic and fed through a slot in the door for simply being who I am.
Here's one thing I want to take away from this experiment: Trust my body. Pay attention and trust my body. I think that we are hardier than we think we are and that we have more innate intelligence than we give ourselves credit for. If it takes a drug to sweep away the clamor and leave enough silence for the one true song, then so be it.

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