Setback

According to the 'Lululemon Athletica' manifesto, life is full of setbacks, and it is how we cope with them that decides our success in life. Shortly after I wrote the previous post, I started feeling very sick of my stomach. I also started feeling very anxious. I had been off the meds for 3 days.  Of course now I'm back on Venlafaxine, which seems to have helped the anxiety go down.

I somehow feared the possibility of having an anxiety crisis some time after stopping Venlafaxine, but I never imagined it would come so quick, only three days. I also realize I was having a horrible, horrible week, full of worries, some accidents, and even my computer stopped working. Almost like an astrological 'inferno'. It seems my stopping venlafaxine came at a very bad week.

Overall, all of this means I'm not going to be able to get pregnant for a while, at least until I am stable enough to try to reduce the meds again. Such a bummer :-(

Claustrophobia

Last night I dreamed I was somewhere near the beach. It was so warm and nice, and I could see the ocean waves breaking against the sand. Then everything around me changed, like it happens in dreams, and I'm inside a building. I get in the elevator to do downstairs. The metal doors close in front of me and the elevator walls shrink so much they can almost touch the sides of my body. The elevator starts moving down and stops shortly after. I know something is wrong. I haven't reached the first floor yet. I try to force the doors open using my fingers, but they don't open. I start to bang at the doors and shout for help. I search for the emergency button and press it several times. I feel trapped inside a metal box. I'm feeling claustrophobic and it is horrible, horrible, horrible. I step back the most I can (2, 3 steps?) and try to visualize I'm inside a supermarket with long high aisles, very high ceilings full of fluorescent lights. Somebody outside the elevator talks to me. They say they're working on fixing it so that I can get out. I tell them they better hurry, or I'll go crazy inside such a tiny room. I tell them I'm trying to calm myself by imagining the supermarket aisles.

They get me out (I don't remember exactly how) and one of the people outside tells me she thought it was funny how I used the image of supermarket aisles to try to trick my mind out of the claustrophobic situation I was in.

I'm not sure what to make of this dream. I was terrified of elevators when I was a child. Even if my parents were with me, I would not get in. We would have to climb the stairs. I grew out of it eventually, and nowadays I have no problems with elevators  - or so it seems.

Am I feeling trapped? Is my mind trying to find ways for my body to cope with the lack of medication? Am I scared? Well, it seems so, but I was able to avoid having a major breakdown inside the elevator. It was a horrible horrible time, though, and I was relieved it was just a dream. What could this all mean? Perhaps my question is, without medication, am I going to make it?

When pain does not go away

It still hurts
Even though time has passed
Wasn't time supposed to heal any pain?

But pain
does not always go away
In spite of time
Or wisdom acquired
or forgiveness granted
Sometimes pain
lingers,
and decides to stay
for good.

Pain is not
always bad.
for it reminds us we're human
it connects us with our feelings
it softens our hearts
towards others
whose burden may be much heavier
much harder
to carry.

The Buddhists say
Life is suffering.
I'm no Buddhist
but I tend to agree.

And while I despise my suffering
I know this pain
has made me stronger
wiser
better
than my older self.
I know I broke down
but I have risen
and built a greater me
from the broken pieces.
 
I embrace you, Pain
you've strengthened me.
I embrace you, suffering.
you've made me wiser.
I embrace you, fear.
You've reminded me I can be vulnerable
and it is okay
not to be perfect
not to be always good
not to be what others want me
to be.

I embrace who I am - my whole self
all my flaws
all my shortcomings
all my insecurities
all that makes me this being
who knows pain
also means
I'm alive.

We have it easy

I follow this blog about a young American volunteering in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Amy helps rape victims through a non-profit organization called COPERMA. Her most recent post is about a visit she did to an orphanage. Some of those children have been adopted by American families, and unfortunately all of them reported being sexually abused. Her description of what she saw there - the way the children were underweight, had  a zombie-like gaze and were like dolls with barely any sign of life - like bodies separated from their souls - made my stomach turn in disgust. I realized how I've had it 'easy' my whole life, in spite of my illness, in spite of my anxiety attacks, my difficult time getting off my medication, my 'demanding parents', my perfectionism... what is it all to compare to what those children have endured in their short existences?

It breaks my heart to think that little beings who are barely starting to become 'persons' have to suffer such violence against their bodies and their emotions. I know it is in Congo, but we know it happens everywhere. It happens here in California. It's happened with children who go to the government daycare units in Brazil. My mother, who has worked in public education in my home country for her whole life told us about it - about how the teachers find out the children are being sexually abused or exposed to inappropriate behavior by their parents/caregivers. Usually, some of the children will try to perform the same actions they've seen/suffered at home to the other children in the day care, mostly during nap time. Then the teachers inform social services, and the social workers have to visit those children's families to investigate what might be happening.

This world seems to be so full of wicked wicked men. How could they hurt a child? And sexually abuse a child? Why does pedophilia even exist? Who was the first human being who decided that engaging in sexual acts with a 3 year-old was something agreeable to start with?

I know I sound like one of those people who are in complete disagreement with the world. These are things I cannot control. They almost do not affect me. I have no children of my own; nobody in my extended family has been sexually abused; none of my friends' children has suffered either. Why do I care so much? Well, perhaps it is because such horrible horrible acts make my very own existence seem too easy. I've had it easy here... I wish I could say more, and yet, all I can do to help right now is to donate to Coperma so that Amy can try to reach out to those children.


Visit Amy's blog.

Turning Point

I've been so busy I haven't taken the time to update this blog at all. Nevertheless, I've continued to decrease Venlafaxine and am now down to 75mg/day. I'll be stopping completely in about 20-25 days. Once I'm off the meds, my doctor told me to wait 2 weeks before I start trying to conceive. Venlafaxine has a half-life of about 7 days, so 2 weeks should be enough to guarantee I'll have no antidepressants in my system when the miracle of life begins inside me. I have to say, I CAN'T wait!

Bad mood X Morning flow

Yesterday I actually thought I was having some kind of relapse. I felt so irritated, so annoyed, so out of myself. I went to bed at 7:30pm because I did not want to do anything or interact with anyone. So much for my 4 year anniversary! Well, my husband and I do not really celebrate our wedding anniversary on Feb. 15, the day we got legally married. We celebrate it on April 29, the day we had the religious ceremony and reception back in my country. Nevertheless, I did not intend to be so grumpy last evening. So this morning I woke up at 5am and decided I should send this bad mood away with some early morning yoga. The class was definitely intermediate, and since I'm a beginner, it pushed me a lot. I realized how out of shape I am! Anyways, it's a soggy rainy dark day outside, and I have 9 hours of activities ahead of me, but I feel great. A raspberry mocha with some cheese omelet definitely helped improve my mood as well :-) Good morning, good mood!

Amidst flowers and happiness

I wake up feeling nauseous. I try to have some food, but my stomach complains. My heart beats faster. My thoughts race through my mind as I try to get calm enough to have some breakfast into my body. Something. Some food in. I need to make phone calls. Get budgets, schedule fitting appointments, call the florist. I'm getting married in 4 months and I still don't have a date set. My fiance is thousands of miles away, while I'm back home in my country of origin, at my parents', trying to plan the biggest party I've ever planned in my life. On the day before, I had an argument with my future husband. About lunch menus. I also got a prank call that made me believe, for a couple minutes, that my parents had got into a car accident. As lunch time approaches, the nausea hasn't gotten any better. I try having an apple. Lunch is at the table. We all sit in to eat, but I can't manage to touch the food. It's happening. Please God, no. Not again. Never again, please, never again.
The days that followed what seemed to be an uneventful January 4 or so were the worst days of my life as far as I can remember. I felt constantly nauseous. My anxiety levels escalated to the point I couldn't function. Nothing stopped in my stomach; I felt like crawling up the walls, but had no physical energy to do so. I lost 10 pounds in the first 2 days of what I call 'my worst nightmare', the second anxiety attack I had and the third depression episode. I had been off meds for exactly 2 months. JUST 2 months. Why? Why was this happening again? And I had to go pick flowers and try on wedding dresses. Set a wedding date; book a place for the ceremony and the reception; talk to musicians, to the sound system guy, to the wedding invitation printing place, to the restaurant that would do the catering... While I was throwing up everything I ate and could barely stand on my feet, let alone make decisions, or use my brain at all.
When  it happened the first time, in 2005, I swore I never ever wanted to go through that again. An anxiety attack like that is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Worse than wanting to die, worse than physical pain, worse than anything I've ever experienced. It was pure anguish.
I was immediately put back on antidepressants, but whoever's had them before knows they do not start really working before 4 to 6 weeks of treatment. My doctor put me on Xanax, as well as on a drug that slowed down my digestive system, so that food could actually stay in my stomach before the extreme levels of anxiety I was feeling made me throw up. I remember before this second attack, 0.5mg of Xanax (or Alprazolam) was more than enough to keep my anxiety down. Not this time. 1mg wasn't enough. 2mg weren't enough. 3mg held me together for a while, until Effexor XR started kicking in. I got better as the weeks passed. I saw my doctor twice a week. I thought that nightmare was over.
It wasn't. Four days before I was supposed to get on the plane to come see my fiance, get legally married in the U.S., and apply for the spouse visa, I start throwing up again. It happened when my mother and I were leaving the house to go pick up my wedding invitations that had just been printed. I needed to take them with me to mail them to our American and Canadian guests. More so, I needed to mail all of our guests as soon as possible. As I talked to my doctor on the phone, hearing him say he did not think I could actually catch a plane being in that state, tears rolled down my eyes. We were at the beach house and had no internet connection at home. I went to an internet cafe nearby to talk to my fiance, who did not receive my news very warmly. Not getting on that plane on February 7, 2007, meant I would lose my plain ticket, would have to wait until April in my country, would not get legally married in America, nor be able to get legally married in my country without my fiance being present one month before the wedding just to schedule the ceremony (Brazilian bureaucracy). I felt defeated. My emotions had taken over my mind and screwed up my body, and I felt powerless to do anything about it.
As I contemplated the sun set down over the hills, in a little tiny beach town in Southern Brazil, my mother looked at me from the hammock where she was sitting, and said the words that gave me the courage to take back control of my body and my mind. "Go", she said. "Get on that plane, go and be happy. It is what you want, so you can do it. Shake this illness off you, tell it to go away, tell your body to stop hurting and go. Go. Be brave, be strong. Go". So I did, and my then fiance and I got legally married on the morning of February 15, 2007, at the beautiful San Francisco City Hall, on a glorious sunny day, like most days in California.

I did not throw up on the plane, or in CA, even though I arrived there pretty sick of my stomach. I had to go to new doctors, different than the ones I had in my own country, but doctors nevertheless. I was put on 220mg of Effexor XR and taken off Xanax. I started having trouble sleeping and needed Trazodone to be able to fall asleep. I went to numerous therapy sessions, including cognitive-behavioral therapy, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis... I was told I probably had strong genetic influence (given my family history) and would probably need medication forever. At that point, I did not care anymore. I simply did not want to go through that ever again. EVER again.

It's been 4 years now, and things have changed. After 4 full years in treatment, I'm down to 100mg, scheduled to stop my 'chemical crutches' completely by the end of March. Hopefully conceiving by April or May. Giving birth around this time of the year in 2012. Those are plans, all plans. Hypothetical, ideal situations. And as I enjoy my husbands' care and attention this Valentine's Day, amidst flower bouquets, chocolate-covered strawberries, and Thai food, I think to myself, 'never again'. I don't want another nightmare following a release from medication. I don't want to be hungry and not able to eat because my body is rejecting food. I don't want to stare at the floor with a lump in my throat and pressure on my chest, wondering why it won't go away, why won't it just go away. I feel confident it will be different this time, but the truth is I am afraid. Afraid of my own body's reactions. Afraid of not being in command of my emotions, my glands, my mind, my heart, my digestive system! I am terrified of going through something like that again. I want to be optimistic and believe I can beat this. The truth is 'this' has beaten me twice before, so the record isn't on my side; Statistics and research aren't on my side; all I have is my will of succeeding and my desire of being a mother - without the aid of antidepressants.