I’ve been trying to reduce the dosage of my antidepressants lately.
Twice my wife has asked me to stop in the past few days — she wants me to go back onto the full maximum dose that I’ve been on for years and years. Once was during a fight last night over our son’s behavior, the other time was this weekend when we were having a rather intense relationship-oriented discussion.
The thing is, I’ve barely cut back at all. I’ve literally started cutting my pill in half every other day. And with that small change, I’m starting to feel more myself again. I’m less of an emotionless hazy empty-carton-of-emotion and I actually feel things again. I feel like there’s been some complicated shit going down lately, unrelated to the meds, and my wife is making the SSRIs the scapegoat.
But what if she’s right?
I do feel like shit today — mostly over the argument we had last night. But that’snot depression. That’s normal feeling-like-shit-for-something-you’ve-done-wrong. Depression is random and has no cause. Depression is unrelenting. I actually deserve the sadness this morning. I’m not going to say I’m enjoying it, but it’s there for a reason.
Sadness is getting cigarette smoke blown in your face. Depression is the stale cancerous nicotine permasmell that you can’t get out of your clothes.
OTOH, maybe this is a really bad time to be experimenting with my meds, while things are a bit difficult to navigate at home. But is there ever a good time?
This post first appeared on Medium.
