So long, dear Venlafaxine

“I’m nostalgic, I don’t want to let it go. Of course, I’m afraid, but it goes beyond. I feel like after a break up.” I said while getting red as a consequence of my increasing anxiety and the shame it produced me to admit this out loud.

“I understand, but remember that we made a genetic study and we are letting go a medication that isn’t useful for your chronic depression. You remember the study results right? I gotta say I’ve never met a patient who was so reluctant to change that even the change of her psychiatric meds, that we’ve been waiting for almost a year, has you feeling unwell… It’ll be okay!” My psychiatrist told me with care, looking me with those patient eyes full of concern that had been guiding me like a father for the past 3 and a half, almost four, years.

And that’s it people. I’m having a hard time letting go the antidepressant I’ve been using for 3 years now. I dare to say, I’m feeling like breaking up with it. I know how horrible or unthinkable or illogical it may seem. But I’m heartbroken.

Because we don’t talk about psychiatric meds enough, and because when we do is to trash about them, I write this piece. Before this medication, I was in fluoxetine. And it was nothing to me, I took it for one year and I bet to say I was even more symptomatic at the end than at the beginning of the treatment. After a whole year, my former psychiatrist realized how linked my anxiety was with my depression, and he gave me a new medication. God knew you don’t have to go through med school to realize I’m an anxious gal, but well…

I cannot tell you exactly how long it was, but suddenly I started to feel more stable, more calm, more me. And after a year and something of trash talking about psychiatrists and medication, I started to accept the fact that the little pill could do something. But I kept quiet, and kept wishing the meds away and to be normal again.

At the mark of two years with the diagnosis, I was already over 18, so I started going to a psychiatrist for adults.

I arrived telling him how I hated the medication and how I wanted to be over and how upset I was that he medicated me for my anxiety. He kept quiet. After some weeks, I saw how intervening with the anxiety was the key to keep me more stable. With the dynamic duo of psychotherapy and the correct medication, I spent almost two years living with depression and anxiety in my best shape. There were some dark periods, some good ones, but generally I could live my life as everyone else my age did.

It hit me then, with help in the acceptance of my professionals, that medication wasn’t bad. I would dare to say. That medication was even good. It didn’t solve my problems, but it helped me to be more human, more like me, more of the person I wish I could be again. As my body was getting used to the side effects, such as dry mouth, hair loss, some nausea and a constant headache, I could for the first time in 4 years accept the fact of taking my medication as an act of self love. I could accept my antidepressant and my anxiety pills as I used my inhalers for the asthma. I normalized it, and (I’m gonna say it out loud), I even started to be grateful for them. Because as I took them, in a holistic approach with psychotherapy and a change in life style, I could feel normal again. I could have a boyfriend. I could have friends. I could go out without feeling threatened by every single thing. I could control my tears, and even, spent entire days or even weeks without crying like before.

But then, I spiraled out of control. I had the most horrible, dark and dense depressive episode ever. I lost myself in sadness, and my old medication and way of being wasn’t enough to save me. At this crucial point, my psychiatrist decided to make a genetic study, in which the result was clear: my medication, the one I’ve took for three years then, was enough for my anxiety but not for my depression. There was, luckily, one that could adjust to my genetic composition, the kind of depression I’ve got and some more things.

And it started… Since March, we’ve been trying to make the transition. I speak in plural because it has been a continuous effort from my psychiatrist, psychologist, parents, support team, and myself.

Back then, my body collapsed, literally, with the absence of my old medication and the side effects of the new one. It was like my body, my biology, refusing to let go the old habits. So we started, minimum by minimum, to lower one medication while adding the new one. So slow, as a turtle pace.

Here we are now. The following day since my doctor told me “We are in the starter dosage of the new meds, and the minimum of the old one. It’s time to remove it completely”. After 6 freaking months of effort. I’m ready, my body is ready, it’s time.

And I’m having a hard time, and I’m saying it out loud. I’m not afraid or Ashamed to do so. I’m not only terrified of how this new medication will work (because let’s face it, even if I have the genetic results that scream to me that it’ll be absolutelyeffective and better, an anxious mind has never enough proofs or ways to prevent catastrophies) but I’m sad. My old medication was the first medication I learned to love, I learned to accept, I learned to incorporate to my life. Thanks to that old medication, I learned that taking a pill doesn’t make me any less worth it, or weaker. Thanks to that old medication, I know that I’ll have to take antidepressants for the rest of my life and that its okay, because they work for me. They make me feel more alive. They don’t erase the pain, or the symptoms, but I feel like a human again.

So farewell my dear Venlafaxine, thank you for all you did. Maybe we could have worked if the diagnosis hadn’t got so complex, or if my depression was mild. I got nothing but a grateful heart, and sorrow, as I’m getting used to not taking you every morning. May you help thousands of others.

Love,

M.