antidepressants

I haven’t taken it. I’ve just been staring at the orange bottle. Blinking. Wondering why I won’t just open the damn thing and swallow the little pill. What’s my hesitation? I’ve been on them before. This exact one, actually. No side effects. No issues. Just a little serotonin boost. So what’s the hold up?

Grief isn’t depression. Believing I need a pill to help me feel better about my husband dying feels… laughable. Firstly, there is nothing that will make me feel better that’s not just merely distracting me from what happened. At the end of the day, that doesn’t seem helpful at all. Secondly, I’ve been depressed and this ain’t it. I’m struggling, yes, which is why I scheduled the appointment. I’ll be seeing a counselor this week too. I’m not above the help. In fact, I need it. But I’m not sure I need a drug to make it easier to swallow. 

I’ve been depressed before. Off and on for many, many years. It’s like an old friend that shows up just when I think we’ve each moved on. I pack up her shit and throw out the pictures of us and start to forget her, and she’s somehow right back at my front door. I’ve been in immense emotional pain. I’ve wanted to die. I’ve laid in bed at night, sobbing, begging a god- if there is one- to not wake up in the morning. This pain is just as deep, but it’s not that. It’s not my brain trying to convince me everything is bad. No, this time, everything really is just bad. I’m hurting and I’m sad and I’m struggling, but I don’t want to die. I don’t hate myself. I hate this situation.  And that somehow makes all the difference. 

So to treat this like any other time in my life I’ve been despondent seems fruitless. It’s nothing like those other times. I want the pain to stop, but that’s not how this works. There’s nothing to fix. I’m broken, but not in the way that begs to be mended. I’ll live the rest of my life with these cracks in my foundation. What’s a little serotonin going to do for that? It’s not like I think it could hurt, it’s just that I’m not sure grief is meant to be numbed or lessened at all. I think maybe it’s meant to be felt. 

The thing is, I’m a suddenly single mother to two boys under 5. I lost my husband when I had a newborn, while I was still pretty freshly postpartum. I’m trying to work a full time job. There’s endless paperwork to do, copies of death certificates to send, logistics to figure out. A whole new future to plan. Kids to raise. And I’m doing it mostly on my own. I don’t always have the luxury of meandering through my grief the way it deserves. I have to get up and make lunches and get my kids off to school and keep our lives moving forward. Right now, I need all the help I can get. Even if it means having to numb out my grief ever so slightly so I can see through some of this fog. If this will help me be a better version of myself for my boys, I’ll do it.