This is my little friend.

I’ve introduced you to him on more than one occasion.  I’ve found encouragement, support, resistance, fights, and downright ugliness over him.  I’ve found others who struggle, others who judge, and others who condemn.  My love affair with him has been rocky at best.  I resisted his temptations for far too long when my first two little people came into the world.  By the time, I had my third baby, I was begging for the stuff.  I came off it, had another baby, and got back on it like a true addict making sure they had it ready in the little cup of pills they bring you just after giving birth.  Then I came off of it, cold-turkey and lost my mind.  Thought I had truly done it this time.  Got back on them, even increased them, and didn’t think twice about not partaking of them until about 3 months ago.

Sure, I’m the same person.  Sure, I still struggle with my anger.  And the yelling.  Oh, the yelling.  But it’s not a battle I’ve just rolled over and accepted, I will win it.  Hopefully before my babies are grown and seeing their own psychiatrist.

It’s not just that I would like to have more babies.  (There I said it.  I’ve hinted.  I’ve kinda talked about it.  I would like to have more babies. Let’s get over the shock of that statement, before moving on, shall we?)  I know the ins and outs of this addiction.  I can stay on the pills until the 3rd trimester, if I so desire, if it happens, people, stay on topic!  And then pick right back up where I left off of them.

It’s not that I suddenly have some big stand against them.  If you search your soul and ask God to search you, this article will help you travel that path, and if you still think you need them, you probably do.

It was a combination of things that made me take pause while popping them one morning.  I was kinda zombieafied.  Kinda.  Not bad, just a little… there…  not here, per se, but.. there.  I was having trouble concentrating.  Okay, so some of that’s just me and no amount of things I change could drastically affect that, but it was different.  I couldn’t have one conversation without saying, “Wait,  what was I talking about.”  Or, the dreaded recounting of a story and stopping mid-sentence to try to get the other person to figure out the word I was looking for that fit in the sentence.  And I’m not talking about the “there are kids everywhere interrupting me” kind of thing.  It was when I was fairly well-rested and only talking with my husband.  Frustrating.  It was also the other side-effects.  You know, the other one.   If you don’t, it’s just as well, because my husband would have a stress-out over my mere insinuation of the side-effect.  That’s enough of that, thankyouverymuch. It was also just a gut-feeling that it was time.  I needed to try life again without them.

This time as I was pondering what that life would look like, I decided to google “coming off Zoloft”.  And, lo and behold the wealth of knowledge of the difficulties of doing that.  Not from the medical sites.  They are all brand X “blah.  blah.blah.  slowly.  blah.  under physicians care.  blahblah.”  No, it was real-life kooks just like me, who decided to get off Zoloft and discovered the underbelly of withdrawals that can be worse than the presenting symptoms to get on them, that blogged about them and then lived to tell about it.  They described my last crazy episode to a “T”.  This one, where my friend came running to help me.  Where I really thought I might not make it through the day.  When I thought the problem was that I was crazy enough that I had to be on them, when really it was the withdrawals from suddenly stopping.  So I read, researched, prayed, and read some more.  I talked to my honey.  Researched some more and got smart.  I got ready.  I knew the bandaid had to come off.  I knew that I needed to prepare myself for the chance that the hemorrhaging was as bad as ever underneath, but I knew it was time.  I also knew unlike the quick rip last time, I was gonna pull off them one.little.painful.bit.at.a.time.

So, I said another prayer, and woke the next morning to take 75 milligrams instead of my usual 100.  I went into a tailspin.  Dizzy.  Canyon-head.  Very irritable.  Discontent.  Feeling like I need to climb the walls or out of my skin or something.  I stayed at 75 milligrams until all of that went away.  For me, that was about 10 days.  But I was prepared to stay at that dose for however long it took for me to feel “normal” again.  On the eleventh day, I realized it had been a couple of days that I had not noticed the “stop-motion” movement thing when I turned my head and the headaches had subsided.  So, I cut it to 50 milligrams.  Same thing.  A couple of days of hardcore, “What have I done?”  But it was tolerable because I was expecting it.  And then about 8 or 9 more days for me to feel like I was completely back to normal again.  Time to reduce.  I went down to 25 milligrams.  (Now, I feel like I should stop here and say, if you found me by googling “coming off Zoloft” like I did – then you really ought to see your doctor.  I’m not responsible for you.  Only me.  What I did was done completely with the knowledge that at any point that I felt in over my head I would run straight to my doctor.  Do not do what I did.  I tell you this so that you may find comfort, encouragement, and the urge to see your doctor.)  Again, I waited it out for normalcy.  Again, somehow, about a week and a half of staying at the 25 milligram dose, it found me again.  This is where it began to get a little tricky for me.  I then cut that little sliver of a pill in half again.  Down to about 12 milligrams a day.  Held this and waited.  Note, here:  by the 25 milligram mark, the withdrawal symptoms were considerably less at the outset than going from 100 down to 75.  About a week and a half and I cut that 12 milligrams in half.  This was difficult by now, because I don’t have one of those little nifty pill cutter things.  About 2 weeks later that 6 milligrams had turned into a shaving of a dose.  But I stayed the course and took it.  I think it was about this point that I decided to quit it all together.  Just because it was so hard to cut it that small anymore.  So I did.  The bandaid was removed.  And so far, there were no signs of a hemorrhage.  This was a physically difficult leap.  Much like the very first reduction.  Very dizzy.  Headaches.  Cranky.  Spacey.   But it, too, eventually passed.  And now, a month or so later – I’m free.  Right after I came off and the withdrawals had disappeared I kept waiting.  For something to go terribly wrong.  I held my breath.  Waiting.  And yet, nothing.  Clarity in my thinking.  Emotions, huh, what’s that?  You mean, I cry again at sweet movies and sad stories?  Full thoughts.  Short-term memory was back.  So, I just knew something was going to go terribly wrong.  But it never did.  I have noticed, that I am on edge a little more, you know, over things like cornstarch, but, really, who isn’t?  I don’t know about you.  But.  For me.  For now.  This is working and I’m thankful.  When it ceases to work, well, then, I’ll do something else.