Antidepressantsssss

Before I knew I had to quit drinking, I decided a good way to level out all the hangover anxiety was to take antidepressants. My roommate was a total trainwreck, and he took them, so what could possibly go wrong?

I knew it was cheating.
I knew it was a distraction from the real problem.
I knew my boyfriend wouldn't go along with it so I didn't tell him.
My doctor would have never gone for it either (she's super smart and invested in my well-being). But thankfully she was away on maternity leave and her replacement didn't bat an eye at my request.

Within three hours of taking my first pill (an SSRI) I was in love.
A new drug.

It muted all the bad things.
Like the commercials on the car radio, the urge to go check on my hair and makeup every 2 hours at work, the rage at the guy who cut me off on the way to work. I didn't have a care in the world.

My insecurities went out the window. How could they fit all that confidence in one teeny tiny pill?

I started saying hi to people in the hallway, without fretting. I started going to lunches with all the guys at work, eating drinking and chatting without any sort of anxiety about what I'd say or do. It was easy. Finally.

Is this what it feels like to be them? Easy and sort of boring? We can talk about nothing really, and still have a great time?

But once I was alone, at home, I wouldn't know what to do. My dirty house no longer gave me anxiety, so I stopped cleaning it. I would just sit there, for hours. Shitty television didn't bother me anymore, so I started watching that. Salads were inedible now, so I started eating only macaroni  and cheese.

Fuck working out.
I gained 10 lbs.

Drinking on these pills was amazing. Like I was 20 again. But I'd black out after 3 or 4. So I had to be careful.

In the end, I could feel years and years of my life going down this muted sort of cloudy track and it worried me. So I came clean to him. And he insisted I didn't need them, and he was right. I reluctantly said goodbye to the teeny tiny pill of fake confidence.

The radio commercials were intolerable immediately.

My anxiety came back, but with it, the feeling of caring about things. I think small amounts of anxiety are good for us. Our mental health should always be handled properly by a professional and dealt with accordingly, but in my case, it was small, and linked to drinking more than anything.

It's been about a year.
And now I'm sober.
It turns out that was what I needed to do all along.