I started taking it two and a half years ago when I began to feel so sad and bleak through my grief for Ruby that I felt I was a burden, a weight too much for Claire and Tom and for whom life, after their initial raw pain of losing me, would surely be more pleasant if I wasn't in it.
The medication literally saved my life. After a ropey fortnight getting used to it (the tablets tired me out so much that on the first day I took one I fell asleep at the lunch table in a restaurant) it worked exactly as originally designed- the humid fug lifted, my limbs were lighter, colour returned to my perception. I felt less sad, more able to cope, less irritable, insightful. I stopped having near-obsessive repetitive thoughts- a line in a song, a fissure in a rock, a right-angled desk corner. I could exhale fully having previously kept my lungs quarter full of air for what? Running away? To fight?
On anti-depressant medication I experienced rational sadness, rational tears and a rational breadth of emotion. Everything was manageable- difficult decisions, tensions, my patients, my mum's death in February this year, even my grief for Ruby. I could relax and I could laugh and I was normal.
I had decided that 2017 was to be a pivotal year. I made resolutions to which I have remained faithful, in the main. I decided to run Belfast Marathon in May and put in four months of near-daily hard graft to achieve this. My mum died, suddenly, in February (I doubt I will ever write about it in this blog. Anathema to my profession as a mental health nurse some things are best left unspoken). The fourth anniversary of Ruby's death was in May, one week after the marathon, and it was more difficult than I had anticipated compounded my Mum's death and post-marathon blues.
But throughout these physically and mentally demanding months I planned to stop my medication. I was confident in my coping mechanisms, confident that I was "better" and "back to normal" so, with guidance from my GP I very gradually reduced my doses until I swallowed, with no fanfare of note, my
final tablet ( I was originally taking 20mg of citalopram so I alternated between 20mg and 10mg per day for a week or so then reduced it to 10mg per day for for nearly two weeks then 10mg every other day for a week or so then I just stopped).
It is more important than most people realise to be measured and patient in a reduction regime. I knew I would be sensitive to negative stimulus and that I would be delicate so I have tried to maintain a sense of self-reflection and I have kept my environment warm and supportive.
For the first week or two off the tablets I was pretty wobbly. I was very irritable, I lost my temper easily, I became impatient. This was a huge change from the last two and a half years but Claire reminded me that was the old me returning and that I could be a pretty grumpy bugger at times prior to starting the tablets.
Now, three weeks down the line, I have calmed a little and have placated myself. I have kept myself distracted and creative, two activities that I know work well for me. I look to the simple things for meaning- my sunny cycling commute into town, the rain and the trees when I run, my son's hugs, my wife's tenderness.
It is liberating that I have no worries about remembering tablets every morning. But it is constrictive that the ease of coping with stress has dissappeared and that a greater psychic effort has to be employed to get by, day to day.
In other words, normal life.
