But you seem so together…..
“But you always seem so happy and confident… you seem so together”, is the typical response that I get from someone when I confide in them that I have a long history of suffering from anxiety and panic disorder. There- the cat’s out of the bag. Even though it started back in my early 20′s (only a smidge more than a few years ago), with panic attacks and shortness of breath, I didn’t feel like I was on my way to becoming the mayor of Crazytown until about ten weeks after my first baby was born. Accompanying the usual roller coaster of postpartum hormones and emotions, I was steamrolled by grief over the death of my grandma, who held onto life by a string, just so she could meet her first great-grandbaby. She passed away when my daughter was only eight weeks old, and that is about when my world was started to turn askew.
I realize now that I was suffering from postpartum depression, but at the time, I was convinced that I would never be “normal” again. I would wake in the middle of the night in frozen terror, convinced that someone was conspiring to take my baby (who slept in a bassinet right next to my bed) or break into our home. I would get out of bed three and four times a night to make sure that the doors and windows were locked, in addition to the usual every-three-hour feedings that my daughter demanded. The combination resulted in my sleeping only a couple of hours nightly, for months at a time. I was so frayed and frazzled, like a rubber band that has been pulled so tightly, you can nearly predict the moment that it is going to snap.
At the end of a postpartum follow-up appointment, my wonderful and very attentive doctor must have noticed that my eyes were more hollow than usual, my under-eye circles a little darker, and my disposition more sallow. As we were saying good-bye, she gently put her hand on my shoulder, and asked me, “are you doing alright? I mean really doing okay?” I could feel the surging crack start to splinter the delicate “Supermom” veneer that I had so successfully hidden behind, and out of that crack, my tears and emotions poured. I told her about my grandma, and my fear, and how little I was sleeping, and I sobbed huge crocodile tears when I was describing my middle-of-the-night panic episodes where I thought that people were going to hurt me or my child. I thought for sure that she was going to order a straight-jacket for me right then and there, and held my breath as I waited to see how she would respond to my admissions. I will never forget the way she so reassuringly and softly said, “none of this is your fault, you are a wonderful mother, and you will not go crazy.” I so badly wanted to believe her. She sent me home with several different resources to learn about depression and anxiety, yoga, meditation and medication. After a week or so of trying the holistic remedies, I did my research on different medications for depression and anxiety, and decided that it was a route that I had to try.
Seven years later, I have been off and on, mixed and matched, increased and decreased on all different arrays and cocktails of medications for anxiety and depression. In hindsight, I wish that I had given the yoga and meditation more effort, but I truly think that I was so depleted and desperate at the time, that I needed the most aggressive form of treatment, that would work in the shortest amount of time. Within weeks of taking my first dose of Zoloft, I began to realize that I was sleeping better (or as good as one can with an infant), I was not as sensitive and fearful, and I was starting to feel a little more like myself.
What I didn’t realize, and what has taken me years to realize, is that I was becoming “flat”. The flame that sparked my fire, that lent me my creative edge, and fueled my entrepreneurial spirit, was slowly beginning to extinguish. It’s time to take off the cast, and see what I can do to heal those past wounds. Now is the time for me to learn other methods of coping with my anxiety, and I intend to keep trying until something works. It has been six days since I weaned myself off of Buproprion, and there have been several days where I have experienced some disconcerting side effects, like dizziness, nausea and headaches. But, I am determined to find a better way to live. I am not against psychological medications, and agree that people really do have chemical imbalances which cause them to have to rely on these medications to live their lives. But for myself, personally, there must be a better answer. I want to unlock my potential, unleash my creativity, drop-kick my fear and anxiety, and find out what’s really under all of my layers. I will keep you posted on how this process plays out and the different skills and tactics that I pick up along the way that help get me to my goal of being more healthy on the inside. Don’t expect me to walk around chanting like a Buddhist monk, while contorting myself into poses likely seen on stage at Cirque Du Soleil, but do look forward (a.k.a. you’ve been warned), to me getting a little bit of my spark back.






