Medications: dosages, types, prescribers, side effects, costs, stigma, and hospitalizations. One word that carries with it so much more weight than we ever truly stop to realize. I’ve gotten used to taking daily medications for my well-being, stability, and peace of mind. But it wasn’t always like this for me.
I first got introduced to the concept of medications when I was diagnosed with OCD in Fall 2014. Steve had mentioned that I could try medications as an additional alternative to managing my symptoms, but I wasn’t interested at the time. During my first hospitalization in January 2015, the idea was again brought to my attention. I was still stubbornly against the idea of having to ‘rely’ on the aid of medications in order to treat my mental health. But, I was given some information on an anti-depressant and a nurse spoke to me one-on-one about the idea. I was wary, but I remember that she observed that trying to treat the disorders ‘on my own’ wasn’t working out too well for me (I was in the hospital, after all), and so she asked whether I had anything to truly lose.
I decided that I didn’t, so I took the medication.
At this point in time, I was beginning to transition over to a therapist outside of UMass Boston that I hadn’t actually met in person yet. Being in this limbo, I didn’t have a psychiatrist, and would get my prescribed medications from a nurse practitioner at my doctor’s office. A couple more hospitalizations later, I arrived within the doors of my still ongoing psychiatrist. The medication I was on got increased a few milligrams and I got some nasty irregular heartbeat side effects from it, so I was promptly taken off of it and a new medication was added to the mix.
While seeing this outside psychiatrist, who we’ll call “Phil,” I remember the first real trepidation I had over taking medication: would it make me different than who I am? would I have to give up my friendship with the depression? There’s a twisted, almost cruel relationship one can form with their disorder. It becomes comfortable to feel really crappy, and, when identifying as a suicidal blob as I did at the time, I was afraid of what possibilities and new opportunities would become within my reach again if I got better. It’s as though the idea of getting better became more of a nightmare than being complacent with the depression and OCD.
But the person I am in crisis is not the person I am while stable. And I’m more than a suicidal blob or another label of a mental health condition. Yes, the diagnoses are a part of my story, but they’re not the entire picture. This is something I would come to believe and understand years later.
Around June 2015, I was hospitalized again and was started on an anti-psychotic to treat my OCD, but that gave me the side effect of a tight jaw. I was taken off of this medication and added to a new one later.
In 2016, I was on a balance of medications that I stayed on pretty regularly.
In 2017, new medications were thrown into the mix again. I believe this was around the time I was started on a booster medication to help with the anti-depressant, and in September, I was taken off of that and added to a few different medications, including another anti-psychotic. One of the medications I was on around this time gave me low blood pressure, so when I saw Phil again after my inpatient stay, I was taken off of this too.
By February 2018, I began my current level of medication: two pills of an antidepressant in the morning and one pill of an anti-psychotic at night. I went up on the anti-psychotic following my previous hospitalization and finally received the weight-gain side effect that I had bypassed for three years. But, as I was underweight to begin with, it wasn’t such a bad thing.
Overall, Phil and I have a good rapport. He listens to what I have to say, takes my concerns into mind, and treats me well. I feel heard and listened to when I’m in his office. Medication adjustments for me were often gradual and it felt like an open discussion. He’s helped me look at diagnoses as a fluid spectrum. He always reminds me that, when I’m feeling unwell, I can call to reschedule an appointment if I need to see him sooner.
I may be on medication for the rest of my life, but if it’s a stable life, then I’m okay with that. And even when it’s not, I know there are options for me now. That, in and of itself, is a blessing.