Medicated

I couldn’t think, couldn’t sing, couldn’t write.

It had stolen my ability to be Andie.

I have suffered from depression in one form or another for over ten years. First arriving on the scene as postpartum with the arrival of my strawberried Emerald, it took root in our difficult life circumstances, fed on my up-and-down hormones from four pregnancies, and flourished in autism and diabetes.


With tiny baby Emerald, I should have been suspicious when I told Michael, “I’ve read that some mothers don’t bond with their babies right away, so it’s okay if I don’t love it yet,” by his response:


“She’s already here; can you not call her ‘it’?”


From the thickets, it’s kind of hard to see though. Your body is telling you that you indeed feel this way so obviously you are supposed to feel this way—if it wasn’t a logical reaction, you wouldn’t be having it. It isn’t until you separate yourself through the lens of someone else’s perspective that you start to realize the script is all wrong—this isn’t how your story is supposed to play out.

The analogy that is most often referenced is getting glasses for the first time: you didn’t realize how blurry everything was until it came into focus.


After Benjamin was born, I was sitting at my general practitioner’s, Dr Andy, for my 25 year annual physical. It was my first appointment with him; I was referred by my obstetrician because they were golfing buddies. Michael wanted me to bring up my mood swings in response to an incident we had earlier in the week: We were running behind getting ready to go to church, so I got upset and kicked the high chair across the room. Which apparently was the wrong reaction.


As I sat there, feeling ridiculous because I had a couple of bad days and Dr Google over here was diagnosing me with depression, and the doctor is going to think I’m an idiot, why am I even here, this is stupid, stupid. Tears are in my eyes and my throat is sore because I am not going to cry again and make a fool of myself, and I’m just so, so angry and I don’t know why. I am absolutely furious, fuming, sitting there on the examination table all by myself and there is no reason.


This isn’t what depression was advertised as. You envision sadness, not anger. Thoughts of suicide. I didn’t want to kill myself. That would have taken way more energy than I had available, and I couldn’t see hurting myself. At night when I closed my eyes for the briefest moment, I would wish I wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t want to die, but living was so hard, and death sounded so...peaceful.

Dr Andy explained that depression wasn’t just sadness; it was all the emotions, right under the skin, ready to fly out before we could stop them.

He prescribed Celexa (citalopram) for depression, Elavil (amitriptyline) for anxiety.

The first week, I was euphoric. Not because the medicine had such a profound impact on me, but because I was so optimistic—we had identified the problem and there was a solution! I wasn’t a cold, hateful mother; it was a biological issue. The medicine was going to help, I could feel it in my bones.

The second and third week felt like I had been cruising down the highway going 80 miles per hour and someone had thrown the parking brake. Instead of my emotions feeling right under my skin, it felt like I carried them overflowing in my arms—in any given situation, I had to frantically sort through and figure out what exactly I was supposed to be feeling, experiencing every emotion at once in a confused and upsetting state.

After about a month and a half, everything evened out and we got on kind of a system. Weekdays, I’d put Gabe on the bus to PPCD, drop Emerald off at preschool, and go home to put baby Benjamin down for nap. While he was sleeping, I would take my two little “happy” pills and hope nobody needed me for an hour because I would be too dizzy to drive. I’d lay on the couch feeling like I was rolling somersaults; then it would pass and the rest of the day would be pleasantly tepid.

It felt like the colors had been scaled down on my life. I was no longer seeing red furious or blue sadness, but I wasn’t laughing and joyous either.

After hurting for so long, the mediocrity of okay days was paradise. 

I stayed on the two meds for a couple of years until I moved to Abilene and got a new doctor, one that reacted with horror when he saw the amount of serotonin-affecting medicine I was on. He had me drop the Elavil and cut my Celexa dose by half.

The new regimen lasted about a year. During that time, I slept whenever I could get away with it. I was a perfectly pleasant (for the most part) individual, perpetually living between nap times. What drew me up short, what made me question the medicine I was on, was when someone asked me what I did for fun and I realized:

I can’t name one thing I enjoy.

I’m a person of superlatives—I have a favorite in every category, just go on and ask me. But during that time, I couldn’t think of anything that brought me pleasure. It felt like I was doing things because I had done them before, things like watching cooking shows and reading, but there was no satisfaction, no emotional connection, just an automated response.

With depression, my chest ached remembering things I had once enjoyed, longing to recapture that experience. I’d get a plate of TGIF hot wings—my favorite, with the crispy outside and the buttery, spicy sauce—and will it to taste as good as I remembered, but it never did. I’d get dressed up and go out on dates but no matter how much I put on my “happy” costume, I couldn’t make my insides reflect out.

The treatment, the antidepressant, though...it felt like the candle inside me had been blown out.

If my favorite show was on, I wouldn’t look up once until the credits were rolling and realize I hadn’t heard a word. I would sit down my favorite meal and taste nothing before the food was gone.

My mind felt like a yawning, wind-filled cavern where placidity reigned supreme. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t sing. Couldn’t write.

Antidepressants had stolen my ability to be Andie. 

For a brief while, I switched to Wellbutrin to see if it was the specific med that was causing the issue, but it was an emotional cataclysm and I couldn’t finish the initial 6 week course. I talked to my doctor again, noting that my youngest child was then four years old, so the underlying issue—postpartum depression—had likely passed its course. I had ridden the wave of celexa through the last storm, but now it was time for the clouds to part and let us evaluate what was left to work with.

It was hard to wean me off because I was on such a low dose to begin with, but gradually I got to the point that my system was clearing out. There was a significant period of adjustment, a time in which Michael and my mother asked repeatedly if I thought this was a wise choice (with the heavy implication that they disagreed with this course of action). To ease the transition, I started going to counseling to learn coping mechanisms.

Three main strategies emerged successfully for me:

The first was my lists. I made a list of the minimum I was allowed to get done each day. Eat healthy, Drink Water, Do something enjoyable. If I accomplished nothing else that day, then I could say I tried to take care of myself, which was a start.

The second was taking time for myself. Twice a day—once before Michael left for work and the second after dinner—I would go for a run. It was 90 plus degree weather and I loved it because I could blast my heavy metal music and not talk to anyone or socialize with anyone for a half an hour or more. It was just me.


The last was my “Thought Vomit” journal.

My counselor had recommended a mindfulness program. He said thoughts are like leaves in the stream; we can watch them pass by; we acknowledge they are there, we hear them, and we let them pass. If we don’t hear the thoughts, they’ll just keep repeating until we do, so acknowledge them.

My homework every week was to write down what I was thinking for 15 minutes every day. Just write. It’s a different process to write than to speak or to think; it feels so much more actionable. I would find a spot, usually not long before bed, and I would write down everything I was thinking—every emotion I was feeling, every song I had stuck in my head, every complaint and every praise and everything, like a grand purge until there was nothing left.

Emptiness not like the one caused by Celexa, which felt like a desert with friends hiding where I could not see them, but an oasis where nothing was happening, no one was moving, and I could just be at peace.

I spent a year getting reacquainted with myself, remembering what brought me joy and satisfaction outside of being a wife and a mother. Lemonheads, Tim Burton movies, the dark and macabre, but also sunlight and dancing and Jude Deveraux. I liked things that were powerful evocators, things that demanded a reaction. Joy was something I had missed for so long and wanted to spend as much time in as possible, but I rediscovered things I did not like as well: loud noises, big crowds, being late, messes. It reminded me of what it took to take care of myself.

Toward the end of my pregnancy with Tula, the depression took hold again. I was snapping at the kids, taking four baths a day, just waiting. Waiting to feel better. Waiting for happiness to come back. Three weeks postpartum, having cried every day because of change in routine or unexpected events or delays, I started on a low dose of Zoloft (Setraline). I was dizzy at first, but then it just ran quietly in the background. It felt like it was gently nudging me away from the darker thoughts, away from spiraling into a panic attacks. It was a little platform that held my emotions up until I could take over again on my own.

Sometimes I felt weak or foolish for needing medicine, for not being able to handle it. I felt like I was supposed to be coping better.

When I was feeling kinder, I knew that just as Gabriel took medicine to control the symptoms of his autism and Emerald took insulin to manage her diabetes, I needed support, too. It wasn’t a matter of my ability, but a physiological disruption that had to be corrected. Taking action was coping. 

I still have bad days. Thursday was a bad day. Gabriel ruined my coffee, drank the back-up; Emerald and Benjamin would not stop fighting and I burned only dinner to complete inedibility. We were supposed to play a game as a family but my dour mood had soured it for everybody. That day, I didn’t cope so well. Spending that time learning how to care for myself, satiate my emotional needs, taught me though: it is okay to have a bad day, because tomorrow will be better.

I know how to make it better.

—Andie

The Next Chapter in Our Story

This is story is continued from “God Is My Strength”.  “http://weardenfamilynews.blogspot.com/2016/05/god-is-my-strength.html”.

Gabriel had just been born, and Michael was fired from his job at the call center.

There is a concept in video games known as draw distance or render distance. Put simply, it is the maximum distance you can see out in the fictitious land from one immobile place. Done well, it can convey the enormity of an open world; done poorly, it is like wearing bad glasses where the further out you go, the more blurry and distorted it becomes.

Metaphor within a metaphor, better get to my point.

The time after Gabe was born is a lot like poor rendering. I feel as I stand here in my clarity like everything from that time is shrouded in a thick fog, isolated events and moments fairly obscured. Part of it was because of baby brain--I was pregnant more often than I wasn’t in those couple of years, and my body was having trouble recalibrating to its new normal.

The biggest cause may have been the sleeplessness. Gabriel did not consistently sleep through the night until perhaps the last year, and even now I say ‘consistently’ with a significant amount of hesitancy. From birth until the age of three when he could receive nighttime medicine, most 24-hour periods he got a nonconsecutive two hours of rest.

Someone had to be up with him during that time. Michael worked full-time; I couldn’t because the cost of daycare was outside our means, and because I was still going to school part time. All days and most nights fell almost exclusively to me. That is not to say that Michael had it easy or that he was not contributing. It is just one of those things.

That is why I have had such a time writing this; why it has been two months. The next page in our saga was not the most difficult; steadily our lives were improving, things were getting better. We would look back and laugh at some of the parts that made us want to cry at the time. Some parts, like the dirty taco restaurant near our old apartment, we would remember almost fondly. Others, like the day we got evicted...we don’t really talk about those. We bundle them up in the smallest parcel possible and stuff them way in the back of the closet of our hearts where we don’t have to see or think about them anymore. This blog series has been our first revisit to many of those memories.

A reluctant return in some cases; there is quite a lot I'd rather forget, let the render fog just….wash away.

To know Gabriel now, you couldn't even imagine anything bad about him. He's so gorgeous, loving, affectionate. His beautiful brown are always deep in thought. He likes to cuddle up next to you and give sweet kisses, loves Veggie Tales and docilely flipping through the Bible.

I don't want to take that image from you; that is who he is. There is kind of this unspoken code that you don't talk about the worst bits. People start to think the worst of your child, of autistics in general. Wonder if they are a danger to be around or allow to be with your children. It makes daycares feel justified for turning away special needs kids as liabilities. Churches feel like it is appropriate to ask a family to worship someplace else.

Everyone I tell this little tidbit to (particularly Christians) are absolutely horrified by it, but that doesn't detract from the truth:

I do not know a single special needs family that has not been kicked out of a church.

The manner, the politeness, may vary, but every one I have encountered shares this common experience. I have a friend that took her child to Sunday School, one they'd be attending for years, to find a group of parents clustered around a notice posted inside the window like Martin Luther’s theses nailed to the door. It was a letter from the church with her name clearly at the top telling her they would no longer accept her child in bible class or the church-run daycare.

People who hear that balk, and insist that surely their church would NEVER do something so horrible. How is that a Christian attitude, they demand. For didn't Jesus say, “suffer the children unto me”??! That is simply and utterly outrageous!

….except that it's not. Should be, but that's not how it always works out. Having a neurodivergent or differently-abled child is one of the most cripplingly, devastatingly lonely journeys. You feel like the whole world has turned their back on you, this is something you have to face--and bear--alone.

You'll often hear me say how lucky I am to have Gabriel, and I still fully, emphatically mean it. I adore him. Plain and simple--I've loved him hopelessly since the day he was born and every day since.

I find myself trying to sugarcoat it. Pulling my language; don't want to scare you away, dear reader.

Then I ask myself...who softened the blow for me and Michael when we were 22 and 24 (respectively)? Who pulled punches to protect our innocence? We made it through; this story is one of triumph, not defeat. We were not especially blessed, uniquely qualified, or graced with particularly robust patience. Quite the contrary: ask anyone that knows me well and they'll tell you I'm a cantankerous, ill-tempered troll better suited to scaring children from under a bridge than rearing them.

I'm resilient though, and stubborn as they come. Michael, too. And we have a God that has not abandoned us or failed us for a second.

Gabriel as an infant had to be in motion. Benjamin as a baby was squirmy--he liked to roll in your arms like a manatee on crack, but Gabe was different. If his body stopped, he was gale-force squalling.

It was so pervasive in our lives that Emerald, at the tender age of two, developed anxiety and started showing signs of stress. Her parents day out program called us to in to have a sit down meeting. They were concerned because whenever the classroom got louder (which it is wont to do, full of toddlers), she would wring her hands, twist her shirt, and yank out her hair, babbling incoherently. If it got to be too much, she had a meltdown or ran away, behaviors generally frowned upon in daycare.

I internalized this, of course. Blamed myself for keeping our house too quiet, not exposing her to more at a younger age. We called for an Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) evaluation, where she qualified for speech and occupational therapies. ECI is a government-funded program being part of the school, so you can go ahead and judge me for being on that one as well. Medicaid reimbursed them for coming, which is weird that the government insurance was paying for a government program, but I'm not going to overanalyze it. Even if we weren't on Medicaid, ECI saw you--if you qualify for services, you get services.

Speech helped her gain language; OT taught her self-regulating, soothing techniques. For her brief stint as only child, she really was the perfect baby. Bright-eyed and intelligent, eager to please. She was so happy all of the time. The transition was difficult for her. She adored her baby brother, always wanted to hold him, play with him. It was a big adjustment, though. Always is.

For one thing, we were co-sleepers. We tried to do the crib thing, cry out, read all the books on getting her out of our bed, but honestly, I liked holding her. She was warm and squishy and smelled like milk and lavender and undiluted joy. It made me feel safe having her close-by in case there was an emergency, and it helped me bond with her when it didn't come as naturally to me as it should.

When Gaby was born, I had to be available to him for feeding. I had the night shift then. Emerald stayed in our bed, but I slept on the sofa near Gabe. Over the next several years, I tried to move back into my bed with my husband, but more often than not I was on that tomato red couch. It was where Gaby was, and Gaby needed round-the-clock care.

Writing it all out, things fall into place a bit better than they had at the time. I didn't know I still harbored feelings of guilt for Emerald’s anxious behavior until just now. I can also see how we arrived at the place where our family was divided neatly down the middle: Daddy and Emerald, Mommy and Gabe. Michael and Emerald had our bed in the back; Gabriel and I took the other end of the house. No reason for everyone to be up.

For hours most every night, I would walk the baby in circles: through the living room, across the dining room, into the kitchen, front hall, then back again. At the start of the night, I would sing. That's what you do for babies, right? You sing. Gaby hated my singing though, so after a while my voice would peter out until all you could hear was the rhythmic patting of my bare feet on the linoleum. If I stopped, my tiny son would start to cry again, so I kept going for as long as I could stand.

The swing didn't move fast enough for Gabe’s liking, the gentle gliding motion not neatly vigorous enough; when I needed to rest, I strapped him in and coaxed it along with my foot, nodding against the wall and jerking back awake until dawn.

In June 2009, Michael got a job selling cars at Scoggin Dickey. It was often thankless work, 10 hours of standing on scorching asphalt six days a week to sell cars to the rudest, most ill-informed consumers in existence. Everyone buys into the crooked, cheating car salesman so full-heartedly that it has almost become encoded in our DNA to mistrust them. The company treated him very well, though--as long as he was trying, they took care of us, sales or no sales. The paychecks were inconsistent amounts; we never knew how much we would have to work with until it came through on payday. We made do. It was no extravagant lifestyle, but we were surviving.

The demands of the job were taking a toll on Michael; it is exhausting work, and he was unaccustomed to the sheer force of hatred directed at him from perfect strangers. He periodically applied for other jobs all over town, but nothing else ever came of it.

He left at 7.30 to get into his office by 7.45. The kids and I would go out on the front porch and have picnic breakfast in the cool morning, watching people heading out. Emerald would color with sidewalk chalk or play with bubbles while I would gently push Gabe back and forth in the stroller. When it got too hot, we’d go inside. Emerald’s favorite movie at the time was “Meet the Robinsons”, so we would all three pile together in the recliner. Run time at 1 hour, 42 minutes, if I could get Gabe calmed enough to sit--or, if I was exceptionally lucky that day, asleep--I could get an hour or so nap, so long as I kept the chair rocking while I did it. It wasn't the ideal situation, but it worked.

The commute to the dealership wasn't far--ten minutes each way--but gas prices were so high that we tried to drive as little as possible. Despite the cost, Michael drove home for lunch most days. I couldn't make it an unbroken nine hours; if he was with a customer, it could be even later. He could have saved the money and take his lunch at work, but he trekked back and forth to offer relief to me.

Living it, I didn't realize anything was wrong. I knew I was tired, and that I actively dreading going to bed at night because night was the worst time. Children are all different though; probably just colic. A phase. He’ll grow out of it and things will get easier.

With reassurances like that, our days faded in and out much the same way for a year and a half.