chemical warfare

when the drugs don't work

I’ll never know why I consistently feel the need to apologize for silence. Silence is, after all, wonderful, and I’ve done nothing wrong—not when it comes to being quiet. But there’s that weird immediate reaction of asking for forgiveness. Put a pin in that, because I’m sure there is plenty beneath that particular surface.

Life is life-ing. I have caught myself saying this to a few friends recently, and it isn’t for lack of things(or even an abundance) to touch upon. There is a genuine tint of defeat in all of our conversations as of late. A shade of all the awful we cannot control. Someone dares to say “this world…” and can’t even finish the sentence before we are all cosigning the sentiment without a word. We lower our eyes to the weed fractured concrete and shake our heads. This world. It’s too much. We try to talk about anything else.

I haven’t felt well. I haven’t felt great for a while now. I’ve spent many years fine tuning the ability to slice right through, to get on with it and be uncomfortable—migraines alone have taken me to places inhabited solely by muscle memory—meaning I can drive a car with half my face missing; I can disappear in the middle of a sentence. Pain will take you elsewhere. Pain will steal whatever it breathes on.

There is pain and there is pain and then there is pain. So many ways to hurt, so many ways to surrender. There are a few I am used to and must deal with upon arrival(migraines); the come and go twinge of my elbows and knees because powerlifting and pregnancy are big time joint bullies. These are hurts I am used to, for better or worse.

There is of course the pain one might file under “mental health.” The additional, invisible-ish struggle of staying out of the mind’s deep end. Sadness that drags us, imbalances were are medicated for (or not). And it is painful, to walk through a world you are convinced would be better off without you. It is painful to try to escape oneself again and again and fail because you are you, and you would rather be anything else. Some of us have been here many times. Some come so often that this train of thought becomes the vacation home—the cozy spot to rest one’s head. Yes, there are people who might call the pain a comfort—maybe it is all they know and everything else is impossible, and their world feels correct this way because it is familiar. I know that one well.

After Naomi, things changed. There was, of course, the physical pain of labor recovery—dear lord did it suck only using my arms to sit up. Then the postpartum terrordome that I still seem to have a key to. I needed help, I asked for it. Medication and therapy are wonderful and often effective tools. I was grateful to receive the help.

Fast forward a bit. Fall of 2024, and I pass out on my way to the bathroom at 3ish a.m. I know this to be fact because I came to while lifting my face off the ground. I know this because I spit fragments of my front tooth into my hand. I had no memory of anything but feeling sick and reaching for the door. That little bit of darkness—the swatch of time forever missing from standing to crashing—has stuck with me. It is a thing that likes to lean all of its weight onto my amygdala. Almost like a single, broken bit of static garbling the edges of my days—Naomi coughs and dread seizes me, or Chris winces with a hand on his stomach and the fear of illness immediately turns me lightheaded and frantic. The incident birthed a new type of dread—anxiety tethered directly to sickness and health. My doctors recognized this new association and its havoc on my life. Anxiety, back in a brand new way—a new certainty tied to it, because illness will happen. It’s a part of life. Docs have done their best to add or tweak what they can medicinally to help me in the throes of these horrendous attacks. For a bit of time, I felt relief. Nothing complete, but enough to untangle myself from impending doom.

In the midst of shifting one medication for another, I started to feel really, really bad. Unwell. Fractured. Dizzy every time I turned a corner. Dizzy after working out—sometimes I sat in a bathroom stall fighting against tunnel vision, pouring sweat that caused my knees to slip as I knelt to vomit. The furious rhythm in my chest caused an all over reverberation. I started crying throughout the day until the word throughout morphed into the entirety of. The garbled static grew past the edges and scribbled all over me like bad tracking on a VHS. The physical aspect and its intensity wrecked me, forwards and backwards. Panic that cues every symptom of a heart attack so it’s hard not to assume you are dying. Numb fingers, racing heart, spinning room, a grip of alarm within that shouts THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG. The world felt upside down. Everything in fight or flight, fight or flight—my days ending in utter exhaustion.

My docs determined it is most likely acute withdrawal from one of my medications—one we were confidently stair-stepping doseage down a month at a time. I have followed a particular regimen for a few months. Some people can handle the combination I am on. I hesitated when it was first recommended to me. Was this trepidation a foreshadowing? The cruel part is you do not know until you try. So I tried. Turns out I am not one of those people that can handle the chemical load.

If you’ve ever dealt with antidepressants, you might be nodding along, familiar with the adjustment period which book ends both the beginning and end of each medication. Two weeks to a month to start to feel better in either direction. Some take longer. I’ve never had such a brutal reaction to changing meds. I never knew withdrawal could make you feel like you were dying. I didn’t expect it to make me want death to come. The panic attacks are stunning. In the throes of them I am willing to do whatever it takes to make it stop. I do not like this unfamiliar level of desperation. Feeling my brain clawing the skull to get out. The idea of hospital admission is brought up. But this too feels like an open jaw trap—can they remove my head from my body? Can they remove my thoughts and stuff something soft in its place, just for a little while?

Knowing this is mostly from a chemical shift gone wrong doesn’t make it any easier or palatable. The siren of SOMETHING IS WRONG might start in the mind but it drags in the heart. The limbs. There’s that lean on the amygdala—center of our fight or flight response. I do the breathing. I get some air. I remind myself that anxiety is a liar. I get honest with others. I can’t play it off like there isn’t shame. It’s nobody’s fault but it also feels like I am failing. When the balance is off, what is the guarantee I will find it again?

At work I spend twenty minutes in the respite room, door locked, laying on the flat carpet trying to lift my head without the world spinning. Eating has become ridiculous—something I know I must do to live and function but in the moment of spoon to mouth I get lost in the why of it. A little tremor in the wrist. What isn’t worthless? There is too much danger in that thought. I’ll leave it alone.

Doctors assure me this is temporary. An adjustment. A part of it. We increase one med again. Maybe this, and if not, then maybe that. I tell them I feel like a bad experiment. They say to give it time. I have no more time to give. I say I want to feel okay. Normalcy is an illusion and I’m cool with that but give me back my baseline. I beg them to tell me what happened to me. I tell them I am so sick of adjusting. It feels so awkward when a doctor tells you they are sorry.