Although I kept a strong face for the rest of my family (big
girls don’t cry, right?), I folded inside myself. I know my students were supposed
to be preparing for the state writing exam during the 10 days between her death
and memorial, but I don’t remember what I did to prep them or if we just
watched movies for two weeks straight.
What I do know is that being the “strong one” took a toll on
me. After leaving my grandmother’s memorial, I fell onto my sofa and didn’t
move for four hours. I wanted to not think about anything. I would have stopped
breathing if my body didn’t do it automatically for me.
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©
Izoneguy | Dreamstime Stock Photos
I'm just gonna lie right here...
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My poor boyfriend at the time had no idea how to handle it,
but I could not articulate the depth of my grief. Luckily, I had already been
seeing a psychotherapist and was fairly quickly able to talk through my
feelings of emptiness. She suggested I start taking something to get me over
this hump and my GP prescribed me Pristiq (desvenlafaxine—sister drug to
Effexor, or venlafaxine).
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America! Fuck Yeah!
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See, what I’ve left out is that I was seeing a psychotherapist
because I was already feeling like a martyr and didn’t know how to escape my martyrdom
(see my previous post). I had been dealing with persecution complexes, extreme
anxiety in new situations, mood swings, neediness. After back-to-back deaths of
two of the most important figures in my life (my 14-year-old dog, Luna, died
three months before my grandma), I couldn’t handle my own issues and my double-endured
grief. My GP was up on all this info and after my psychotherapist referred
me, for medication he put me on the best stuff there was. Literally within an
hour of taking my first dose, I felt like every problem I ever had was gone
(and stupid, to boot).
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Fuck you bitches. I’m out!
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All those little annoyances, all those little traumas I
carried with me every day just evaporated. I could smile again. I could
breathe. I had finally stripped off that last layer of cocoon to fly through
life the way I always wanted to. The Pristiq was so great that I never
considered coming off of it. I never thought I’d stay on it for the rest of my
life, but I knew I felt like myself again. It wasn’t until I moved overseas
(where Pristiq isn’t available) that I considered getting off the medication,
but now that I am, I’m frightened all over again.
To start, here are all the documented side-effects of discontinuing
Pristiq/Effexor (in order of likelihood):
·
dysphoric
mood
·
irritability
·
agitation
·
dizziness
·
anxiety
·
sensory
disturbances (e.g., paresthesia, such as electric shock sensations, known as “brain
zaps”)
·
confusion
·
headache
·
lethargy
·
involuntary crying and/or laughing
·
insomnia
·
hypomania
·
tinnitus
·
seizures
Doesn’t that just sound awesome? When I attempted to quit
Pristiq cold turkey, those first five symptoms emerged within 36 hours of my
last dose. I held out for three days, but I finally had to go to the doctor and
beg for help because I seriously thought my world was ending.
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Don’t drop it! Don’t drop it! Don’t drop it!
|
After being bitched out by a rude nurse practioner (because
the one thing you should do to a suicidal person is make them feel even worse
about themselves), the UK doctor suggested I go on a daily dose of 75mg of Effexor
(as I was on 100mg of Pristiq) and see about weaning off after 3 months of
balancing myself out. Just like the Pristiq, I was my normal self again within
moments of taking a dose.
The three months came and went, and now I sit here, one week
into weaning off, wondering if I have the willpower (or the mental stability)
to do this. Since I’m no longer taking an extended-release tablet, the
medication only stays in my system about five hours, which means that if I take
my AM pill at 9ish, I’m ready to murder someone around 3. Sounds about right,
actually, as I have always said I would be happiest in a society where I
could siesta in the afternoon.
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Two things will happen if you wake me; you won't see the second...
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But what worries me more is that even when I take two doses
a day (I’m on an alternating schedule: 75mg one day, 35mg the next), my brain
is bringing back all those old anxieties. Stupid things are starting to get me
all riled up inside. I’m feeling insanely lonely and quick to anger. I don’t
want to come off a prescription that I might need to function, but considering
I don’t have a psychotherapist over here (and even if I did, he/she wouldn’t have
known me long enough), I have nobody to
help me make that determination. I know these horrible thoughts and actions
aren’t me…or are they?
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|
Wait—is that me? Or you? Or YOU? I’m so confused!
|
I always said I was like my mother in that I feel only in
extremes: extreme anger, extreme anxiety, extreme jealous. But also extreme
love, extreme happiness, extreme excitement. Since I’ve been on Pristiq and now
Effexor, I feel no extremes. Just…contentment. Is that normal? Is that what
people are supposed to feel? Or am I just in a medicated haze? I’m making another
appointment with the health center to discuss my withdrawal symptoms but if
websites like this and this
are to believed, no matter how gradual my reduction, I’m going to experience
withdrawal.
If I have to stay on Effexor forever, so be it. I just want what everybody wants: to experience life in a normal, well-adjusted way. I would just rather not be medicated to do so. :/
