A Week Between Two Drugs

This is one of a series of posts about a breakdown I suffered in 2010.

The story begins here.

Wishing I'd Stayed in Spain

I go back to the GP. It's neither of the two I've seen before; it's an older lady who's been there a long time. She tells me Prozac is not the drug for me. I leave with a prescription for Zoloft, and instructions to stop taking the Prozac, and leave a week before starting the Zoloft.

I haven't been on the Prozac for very long, and since it's made me go a bit bonkers as it is, there doesn't seem much point in coming off it slowly. The GP doesn't tell me to, either. So I just stop taking it, and wait a week, as per instructions. 

That week is, without shadow of a doubt, the worst in my life. When I look back, it is like a montage scene from a very bizarre movie. I go proper, unrelentingly, bat-shit crazy. There is no let-up. I cry, I wail, I scream, I throw things, I burn myself: deep, painful burns that will scar over int he weeks to come, the scars still clearly visible years later. I cut myself; I bang my head against door frames. I drink all day and night and feel like death. I don't get dressed or leave the house or speak to anyone for four days straight. Somewhere in the back of my head, I am aware that this is all caused by the withdrawal from the Prozac, but right now, I can't listen to that voice because I am convinced that everything is doomed and black and broken, and we will all die horrible, painful deaths. 

I can't even say what's wrong, what's different now than it was yesterday, last week, last month. I've just plain had enough and am done with it all. 

I feel so very alone... I can't even put it into words. I have five brothers and sisters, but few of them bother with me. People I thought were my friends have disappeared. People for whom I went to a great deal of trouble for their birthday, people I've made a lot of effort for throughout the year, people I've listen to complain and moan and let off steam about their problems... not a word. People I thought would come out for a mad night out on my birthday because they were such great friends of mine didn't even get me a card. I feel like I put in a lot of effort with people; if I like a person I will go out of my way to do things for them. Perhaps it's because I'm so desperate for someone to care about me. But I do all these thoughtful things to make people smile whenever I can... and it doesn't work. People can still see whatever poison I have inside of me, and they run away. 

The thing with side effects from this sort of drug is... Well, the likelihood is you were already a bit suicidal when you started taking them. So you don't really know if it's a side effect, or really you. Ditto that for every single thing you think or feel. When a drug is designed specifically to change the way your brain functions, how do you know which parts are you, and which are the drug? I am particularly worried about this, as living alone, there is nobody to say to me, "you've been staring at that wall for half an hour now..." I worry that I will convince myself to jump off a pier or something, but it'll just be a side effect of the drugs. And there's nothing more irritating (I should imagine) than jumping off a pier and realising just as the water breaks your legs, that actually it's probably just a side effect. 

I should probably have stuck with the original plan and not come home from Spain. Now I'm stuck here with no clue what to do to get me from now to bed time, much less through tomorrow or next week. 

I just want to go to sleep until this has passed. Or indefinitely. Because I really can't cope with how things are at the moment. You know when you learn to meditate and they tell you to just sort of sit and notice your thoughts like a passive observer. I'm doing that with my whole life. And I don't even care. 

I feel like with every decision I make at the moment, I'm moving myself that much farther away from "normal." Sending Facebook messages to people I don't know very well, calling people I barely know, texting people I know I shouldn't. I just don't want to be left on my own. I send Facebook messages to two people I vaguely know from the pub, because I know they are friends with a bloke who lives over the road from me (who I also barely know). I wanted his number so that I could call and go over and hang out with him. I don't want to sit in the house on my own; I don't trust myself. But it probably says a lot about me that I am. That even after I've exhausted every avenue, I'm still here, on my own. That there's actually nobody who thinks enough of me to be here.

The shiny new pills are called Sertraline, the generic name for Zoloft. In 2007, this was the most-prescribed antidepressant in the US. I can't remember if this is the drug that was in the papers because it made loads of people want to kill themselves. 

I begin to look forward to the day I can begin to take the new pills. I see them as some panacea wonder-drug in the distance, lit up by a glow of heavenly radiance, and here to cure all my ills. That first night, I take one before I go to bed. A little white 25mg pill that will fix me.

I wake at 3am and sulk. It hasn't fixed me. I'm still screwed.

Months later, when I am recovering, I meet my older sister for coffee. It is the first time I have seen her in months; I am not sure whether she knows what I've been going through or not. When I tell her the GP put me on Prozac she pulls a face, before telling me, "People in our family can't handle Prozac, we all react very badly to it. You shouldn't have taken the Prozac." Quite what use this information will do me months after the fact, I do not know. But this, unfortunately, is the nature of my family. We discuss everything months, often years, after the fact.

The next part of the story is here.

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