Coming off the 'Happy' pills...
This summer
I went to the Edinburgh fringe for the first time, wrote, produced, directed
and starred in my first one woman show, finished my therapy sessions and came
off the happy pills that quite literally stopped me from killing myself two and
a half years ago.
It's only as you wean yourself off such a thing that you realise what an effect they have had. Ignoring the physical side effects (well we will come back to them later) the change in my moods is actually stark. In the last two years I have sailed through rush hour, calm, composed, patient. This past week I have been inches away from losing my shit at nearly every person to dare cross my path. I actually gave a two year old in mid tantrum a dirty look so harsh it took concentration and every muscle in my face. A two year old.
I have snapped at my mum twice, which used to be quite the past time. Happy pills meant that I just calmly accepted her foibles. She's a stress head, she stresses about things you don't even know exist. A worry that couldn't form in your head it's so minute - she is a particle worrier. Whilst on my pills I have found this endearing, normal, just my mum. Apparently now I have a drama queen reaction to EVERYTHING. I spent 30 years in that permanent state, I didn't realise quite how lovely the last two years have been until the calmness vanished.
Heck, I've even started arguing at every possible opportunity again. In fact in the last three weeks three people have deleted me from Facebook. Granted two are actual idiots/self-righteous pricks/people who hate successful charity campaigns (you pick which). But one was a real friend. I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure how it got to that point with the friend and if I'm being fair on myself, I don't think the friend one was deserved. For two years the things these Facebook ‘deleters’ annoyed me about would not have inspired so much anger. Passion: yes. A reasoned argument - if I could, yes. Anger in its rawest form? That's new: and I'm not sure I like it. I don't like being irritable.
But then, is it the tablets? Is it the fact I'm missing my therapist? Is it the fact that after a stressful and intense few months creating and then performing my own work, I'm on a comedown? Is it because since I got back to London the level of shit and stress of my financial situation has finally hit home? Well, it's probably all of them. But I do know all of that with the help of a little pill might make me upset but would not take the form of anger, which has become my default setting.
So should I go back? Do I take the pills until life is a bit more settled and I'm less stressed? Yes is probably the sensible answer. Until you consider the physical side effects, the most disturbing of which is constant dizziness. Constant - dizziness. CONSTANT DIZZINESS. And also pins and needles, nausea and extreme, extreme fatigue. I've had glandular fever, it has nothing on the tiredness I felt in week two of being 'off' tablets (and yes before you ask I did wean myself off – a little quicker than planned). Quite simply, I don't want to have to go through those symptoms again.
And then, and here's the major one, vanity. In the last two years I have slowly put on a dress size. I'm not fat in any way but it's not my body as I know and like my body. It's bloated. Now, there is no evidence that this weight gain was down to my tablets. Part of my depression meant I didn't look after myself as well as I could, my drinking habits changed at points of it and I turned 30. But my doctor did say it's harder to lose weight whilst on them. The fact is I haven't had the Will power to try to lose weight until recently, just working on my emotions was hard enough. And now I'm in this mind-set I'm very reluctant to go back on the pills. It is entirely psychological but until I stopped taking the pills I would always have used them as an excuse to give up a diet. "One week and no change - it's probably because of my tablets so go on, eat the chocolate bar."
Also, somewhere in this crazy journey of a year everything has become tied up with Edinburgh. My therapist and I worked to end our sessions at the summer break, just as I left for Edinburgh and she for her month long holiday. My social life, work life, home life, money (what little there was), all of it disappeared as Edinburgh loomed. Every ounce of my focus was on making that happen because I knew that as soon as I got myself and my work up there I would never look back. All energy would now be in this career, the career I have had a little start / stop attitude to as I've spent the last decade coping with and working on the hands that life dealt me. Until I had worked on these things I was always going to need a lot of energy to just survive. I'm not sure I've ever described the events and things that ultimately introduced me to my depression and I don't plan to here (that is what artistic expression is for - you'll find my life in everything I do if you look for it) but they actually began when I was 16. I am quite certain that depression is something that exists within me but I was introduced to it through reactions to events. And now I'm aware of it and have worked hard to understand the things that fuel it within me. I have learned to accept the lack of control that saw my life spin out of my control when I was 16 to 20. I now understand that I have wanted control over my environment to an unhealthy degree because the biggest events of my life happened to and around me without me having any say, control or part of them.
It's only as you wean yourself off such a thing that you realise what an effect they have had. Ignoring the physical side effects (well we will come back to them later) the change in my moods is actually stark. In the last two years I have sailed through rush hour, calm, composed, patient. This past week I have been inches away from losing my shit at nearly every person to dare cross my path. I actually gave a two year old in mid tantrum a dirty look so harsh it took concentration and every muscle in my face. A two year old.
I have snapped at my mum twice, which used to be quite the past time. Happy pills meant that I just calmly accepted her foibles. She's a stress head, she stresses about things you don't even know exist. A worry that couldn't form in your head it's so minute - she is a particle worrier. Whilst on my pills I have found this endearing, normal, just my mum. Apparently now I have a drama queen reaction to EVERYTHING. I spent 30 years in that permanent state, I didn't realise quite how lovely the last two years have been until the calmness vanished.
Heck, I've even started arguing at every possible opportunity again. In fact in the last three weeks three people have deleted me from Facebook. Granted two are actual idiots/self-righteous pricks/people who hate successful charity campaigns (you pick which). But one was a real friend. I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure how it got to that point with the friend and if I'm being fair on myself, I don't think the friend one was deserved. For two years the things these Facebook ‘deleters’ annoyed me about would not have inspired so much anger. Passion: yes. A reasoned argument - if I could, yes. Anger in its rawest form? That's new: and I'm not sure I like it. I don't like being irritable.
But then, is it the tablets? Is it the fact I'm missing my therapist? Is it the fact that after a stressful and intense few months creating and then performing my own work, I'm on a comedown? Is it because since I got back to London the level of shit and stress of my financial situation has finally hit home? Well, it's probably all of them. But I do know all of that with the help of a little pill might make me upset but would not take the form of anger, which has become my default setting.
So should I go back? Do I take the pills until life is a bit more settled and I'm less stressed? Yes is probably the sensible answer. Until you consider the physical side effects, the most disturbing of which is constant dizziness. Constant - dizziness. CONSTANT DIZZINESS. And also pins and needles, nausea and extreme, extreme fatigue. I've had glandular fever, it has nothing on the tiredness I felt in week two of being 'off' tablets (and yes before you ask I did wean myself off – a little quicker than planned). Quite simply, I don't want to have to go through those symptoms again.
And then, and here's the major one, vanity. In the last two years I have slowly put on a dress size. I'm not fat in any way but it's not my body as I know and like my body. It's bloated. Now, there is no evidence that this weight gain was down to my tablets. Part of my depression meant I didn't look after myself as well as I could, my drinking habits changed at points of it and I turned 30. But my doctor did say it's harder to lose weight whilst on them. The fact is I haven't had the Will power to try to lose weight until recently, just working on my emotions was hard enough. And now I'm in this mind-set I'm very reluctant to go back on the pills. It is entirely psychological but until I stopped taking the pills I would always have used them as an excuse to give up a diet. "One week and no change - it's probably because of my tablets so go on, eat the chocolate bar."
Also, somewhere in this crazy journey of a year everything has become tied up with Edinburgh. My therapist and I worked to end our sessions at the summer break, just as I left for Edinburgh and she for her month long holiday. My social life, work life, home life, money (what little there was), all of it disappeared as Edinburgh loomed. Every ounce of my focus was on making that happen because I knew that as soon as I got myself and my work up there I would never look back. All energy would now be in this career, the career I have had a little start / stop attitude to as I've spent the last decade coping with and working on the hands that life dealt me. Until I had worked on these things I was always going to need a lot of energy to just survive. I'm not sure I've ever described the events and things that ultimately introduced me to my depression and I don't plan to here (that is what artistic expression is for - you'll find my life in everything I do if you look for it) but they actually began when I was 16. I am quite certain that depression is something that exists within me but I was introduced to it through reactions to events. And now I'm aware of it and have worked hard to understand the things that fuel it within me. I have learned to accept the lack of control that saw my life spin out of my control when I was 16 to 20. I now understand that I have wanted control over my environment to an unhealthy degree because the biggest events of my life happened to and around me without me having any say, control or part of them.
Whilst working this all out and battling with it, starting a career that involved lack of control in some senses (you can't control an audience, audition panel, finances etc.) and an openness to the deepest and darkest emotions and memories within me was nigh on impossible. And yet, slowly over the past decade I have taken a step, then a step, then a step. But I had been working these past two years on me so that I could take the jump right over the cliff into this crazy career. And I needed to be strong enough to hold onto the glider as I descended and help to steer it and hold myself in the air. So coming off the tablets and leaving my therapist all became tied up with this event, this first jump into the unknown.
For that reason, the tablets shall remain as a friend I know I can turn to if things get dark again. But in the meantime please bear with me...two years of anger appears to be rearing its head and despite being aware of it, I cannot seem to quite hold onto it. In fact, in the moments of head shaking and tutting and commuter rage it seems as if it is holding onto me instead of the other way round.
Footnote:
All my acrobatics teacher at Lecoq
wanted me to do was to let go of control. Alas, flipping me upside down was not
the therapy I needed. FLIPPING ME – UPSIDE DOWN. A little white tablet with the
power to inflict pins and needles and dizziness, now that, that’s the ticket.
#Andtheycallitclownschool
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