Anxiety, Meds, and Words from the Horizon. (So to Speak.)
I keep writing this post, over and over, feeling like I have to say everything. Today I’m trying to release myself from that pressure. This post will not say everything. It will just say some things.
I have this memory from Allegiant’s release week. I hadn’t been sleeping or eating much due to the stress of the new book coming out, and all that I was doing to give it a good start in the world. I had taken a glance at Twitter before my plane to San Francisco took off, and saw, for the first time, how angry and upset a lot of my readers were at the way I chose to end the series. It may strike you as unbelievable that I didn’t anticipate their reactions, but it’s true nonetheless– I did what I thought (and still think) was right for the story, and that was all.
Let me be clear: I’m okay with reactions, negative or otherwise. I am a grown woman, and a professional author, and when people disagree with me, even angrily, that’s okay with me. Readers are allowed, encouraged, to feel. To form their own opinions. To reject and despise a story. To think some books are crap and other books aren’t. To say so, in whatever GIF-y, sarcastic, exclamation point filled way they choose. On a logical level, I believe this, would fight for it if I had to. But Anxious Brain doesn’t get memos like that, doesn’t speak the language of logic. Anxious Brain just feels, feels, feels.
Some of my readers were so upset they posted death threats. (Hyperbolic or not, this is never okay. It’s the Internet, so it’s hard to know if people are joking or if they’re really going to try to hurt you.) I never thought I would upset people that much, ever, in my entire life. Anxious Brain triggered a meltdown.
My plane took off, and I was so anxious I was sobbing right there on the flight. The people next to me, thankfully, didn’t say anything. I couldn’t distract myself. I counted down the minutes until we landed, my sleeves disgustingly stained from wiping my nose.
My publicist and I went straight from the airport to the bookstore for me to sign stock before the event that night. The bookstore staff was friendly and kind, but I couldn’t be kind in return. All I could do was put on my headphones and sign books. I cried the whole time. Couldn’t stop. Some of my actual tears are in those Allegiants, San Francisco. It’s funny to me now, though it wasn’t at the time.
After I got home from that tour, I had the worst few days of my life. I was irrationally convinced– convinced– that I was going to die of some life-threatening disease or another. I don’t remember, now, which one. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the obsession took over my waking and my sleeping. Most of the time I felt separate from my own body. I felt a disconnected kind of terror, unrelated to anything in particular, my heart pounding and my breaths short. I felt—and not for the first time– like I was losing my sanity.
A little while after that, I went back to therapy. Clearly I wasn’t handling things as well as I wished I was.
That was the “before” picture. This is the after:
The story of how a year of therapy turned into finally trying medication isn’t really important right now. Someday I’ll tell it. I was never the kind of person who was even open to the suggestion of antidepressants– I thought that was a sign of weakness, something other people needed, not me. I was strong. I would fight it on my own.
I’ll never forget what my therapist said to me the day I finally raised the subject of brain chemicals to her. It was pretty simple, just, “you don’t have to fight so hard.” Meaning: you don’t have to go it alone, do it without help. You don’t have to try to be so strong.
I burst into tears. She had released me, somehow, from the obligation of working so hard just to get out of bed, and put on clothes, and interact with other people. (Most of the time I had to take a nap the second I finished my shower, because the anxiety was so exhausting. I had accepted this. I no longer realized, consciously, that it wasn’t normal for an otherwise-healthy person to do that. In case you’re wondering…it’s not.)
Antidepressants, like most medications, are not perfect. It’s not easy to “get it right.” The dosage, the prescription itself. Every brain reacts differently. Everyone has different side effects they can tolerate.
Antidepressant 1 made me into an indestructible, emotionless robot– which was fun, for awhile, for someone so used to being controlled by her emotions. But it wasn’t me, so I talked to my doctor and switched to Antidepressant 1 + Supplementary Antidepressant 2.
1 + 2 made me anxious again. Back to the beginning.
Antidepressant 3 was promising at first. I still felt emotions, but I also felt exhausted. Can’t-get-through-the-day-without-a-nap exhausted. Can’t-exercise-because-you’re-too-sleepy exhausted.
Several months into my quest for the right dosage and the right drug, I suddenly found that I was myself again. Antidepressant 4, my little miracle. I was not my anxious self, but the person I had been underneath. Neurotic, yes, because I have always been neurotic. Capable of being nervous, and sad, and angry– capable of having negative emotions, and feeling bad, and wishing my life was different. Wishing I was different.
But also– ALSO! Capable of self soothing. Capable of fighting back without draining my energy. Like a muscle that you suddenly realize is strong after you’ve been working out for a few weeks– like that first time you carry a bag of heavy groceries up a flight of stairs and realize you’re not as out of breath as you used to be. I wasn’t a robot, but I had energy. I could have a cup of tea and not feel so jittery and shaky from the caffeine that I wanted to turn back time and un-drink it. I could be kind to someone in a bookstore who recognized me and asked me for a picture– without having a panic attack!
I could be okay. Happy. Sometimes even calm.
Life is the same web of complicated and difficult emotions that it’s always been. I don’t always wake up happy and positive and ready to face the day. But I do wake up capable and hopeful.
I’d love to tell you something comforting, something soothing, something to take away your fear of medication or therapy or doctors or whatever it is that’s holding you back from doing what’s best for your brain. I can’t tell you those things, because they wouldn’t be true. It’s not easy, it’s not fun. It’s not great to break down and sob because you think you’ll never find a medication that lets you feel like yourself while still treating your anxiety. It’s not fun to drag yourself to therapy every week even though you hate the hard, but true things your therapist is telling you about the way you’re thinking and feeling. It’s not awesome to explain and re-explain how mental illness works to people who have never experienced it.
There will be days when, defeated, you dust off your old bottle of Klonipin (doctor prescribed) because even the antidepressants just aren’t enough anymore.
There will be days when, hopeless, you curl up on the couch and wonder if you will ever feel okay again, even for a couple minutes at a time.
But there is something on the horizon, a glimmer of something else, the hope of hey, I can handle this, even though it’s hard! I am standing there now, and looking back at where I’ve been, so I can tell you. I can tell you that hey, I can handle this, even though it’s hard! is worth fighting for. It’s worth that awful, terrifying call to the mental health clinic, the one you rehearse for, even the one you ask your mom to make for you. It’s worth every hour of bickering with your therapist because anxiety makes you a stubborn asshole. It’s worth every little green-or-blue pill you swallow, while under the supervision of a medical doctor, in the dim hope that you will one day feel just a tiny bit better than before.
It is worth it to try. And to try again. To take care of your brain.
I am wildly, madly, scorchingly happy to be in this place. I am so grateful for my therapist saying “you don’t have to fight so hard.” I am so proud of Past Veronica for dragging herself– sometimes thirty minutes late, because it was that hard to leave the house!– to therapy every week. For years.
If you have done even a single thing– told a friend, asked for help, called a doctor, tried a medicine– to take care of your brain, I am so proud of you, too. One little step at a time, guys.
If you haven’t done those things, if you can’t, if it’s too goddamn hard, that doesn’t mean you suck. It doesn’t mean anything other than you just can’t right now. But hear this, just in case. Just in case it’s the thing you need:
You don’t have to be so strong. You don’t have to fight so hard.
