Lowest of the Low, Part II

So, it was going to take a couple of weeks to completely wean off the medication that the psychiatrist had prescribed and at first, I didn't experience any withdrawals. However, once the dosage became significantly smaller and my brain started reacting to the lower amount, everything changed. And that was it, this drug was a mind/brain altering drug and a heavy duty one at that. Every night for close to two hours, I would curl up on the couch in a fetal position with a veritable mountain of blankets piled on top of me and shiver uncontrollably. It felt like the flu every night except, thank goodness, it wasn't contagious. My mother wanted to take me to the emergency room the first time she watched me go through it. But I knew there was nothing they could do. I had to suffer through it.

The worst part was that the anxiety continued even though the dosage was decreased. As a result, I was still taking the anxiety medication on an almost daily basis. If I didn't, I was pacing the floors non-stop and couldn't interact with my children. So, I took it. And I was still taking the very-well-known sleep medication so that I would get more than a few hours sleep. At some point, the desperation set in. My mind was a mess. What was wrong with me? I had been through much worse it seemed--I had suffered the death of my father at a young age, along with abuse as a teen, and a traumatic c-section and I always bounced back. Why wasn't I bouncing back?

I was despondent, desperate, and feeling extremely guilty for all the time my mother and mother-in-law were having to spend with me and the boys. My mother-in-law accused me at one point of just making it all up. My mother began to say that she just couldn't come down anymore (she lived about an hour away). I was disrupting their lives and they, like me, were starting to feel that there was no end in sight. I was scared to death that it would never change, I would be this way forever.

And so it happened, truly The Lowest of the Low, I hit bottom. I told my mother-in-law that I needed to go to the local psychiatric hospital. I cried the whole way there. I didn't want to go, but I didn't know what else to do.

I told the doctor who did my intake that I "just wanted to feel better." I can still remember sitting in that cold chair across from him with my head hung low, not wanting him to admit me but at the same time terrified that he wouldn't. Surprisingly, he did admit me. (I say surprising because I wasn't having serious suicidal or homicidal ideations which are usually the requirements.)

So, I suffered through the embarrassment of a strip search (not invasive, but very uncomfortable nonetheless) and walked through those doors that were clanged shut and locked behind me. There was nothing happy about this place as you can imagine.

I met with the on-call psychiatrist and he proceeded to tell me that it was not possible to have withdrawals from the drug I was taking. I very nearly laughed at him. My husband called the original psychiatrist but he didn't return his call for two days. What a compassionate doctor, huh? I cried every time my husband came to see me. I didn't want him to see me there but he was my lifeline.

For the first time through this ordeal, I was prescribed an anti-depressant. I made the acquaintance of a woman around my age who was there because she had aborted a multiples pregnancy after having spent years going through fertility treatments to try to get pregnant. I stayed at the hospital for 3 days and was released.

About two weeks after coming home, I woke up one morning with terrible indigestion and stomach upset. This went on for weeks, I would wake up early, early in the morning upset to my stomach. I tried eating more, I tried eating less. I prayed a lot. I thought it must have been the result of the anti-depressant so I quit taking it. I then decided to look up the side effects of the anxiety medicine I was still taking. Not only was severe reflux and nausea on the list, but many, many others. The other major drawback? Because it was a drug that impacted my central nervous system, it was highly addictive. So, quitting it was akin to quitting a highly addictive illegal drug. But I was SURE that the reflux was caused by the anxiety medication. Fortunately, I was able to wean off of it with not as many troubles.

UN-fortunately, my reflux continued. I went to see a family physician who told me that severe reflux could be a problem related to the brain, so I underwent a CAT scan. It was a nerve-wracking week before I received those results and of course, they came back negative. I knew in my heart that the reflux was medication related. The only medication I was still taking though was the very-commonly-prescribed sleep medication and surely it wasn't that. The family physician finally sent me to a GI doctor who told me that I needed to have a colonoscopy and upper endoscopy. Yeah, NOT.

Just a couple of days before I was scheduled to have the colonoscopy, I looked up the side effects of the sleep medication. I was blown away. It had as many side effects if not more than the anxiety medication. I stopped taking it and started a supplement which included Valerian Root. Two days after I quit taking the prescription sleep medication, I woke up with NO pain, no reflux and I had slept better than I had in a very long time. And I CANCELLED the colonoscopy. Things were looking up!

Please feel free to comment. It took a lot for me to put this in writing as only a handful of people know what happened and I would rather forget about this time in my life. But I know now that God sent me down this difficult path for a reason and that He wants me to share it in order to help other people.

Up next, my thoughts on the original psychiatrist, his diagnoses, and a bit of my and my boys' lives since the hell finally ended.