Misconeptions of Mental Health Medication/Care

I was reading a blog today, actually it was an entry on an online magazine that I follow.  The purpose of the article was to describe how a baby loss mom is using meditation and visualization techniques to try and conquer her anxiety as a mother to her living children.  I appreciate and respect that process.  However, in the midst of describing her process, she goes on to say that she will not medicate as medication would not "fix" her problem but only mask the symptoms.  I have actually read this type of phrasing on several blogs from baby loss moms.  Again, I appreciate that everyone will choose their own path for healing, but...I don't appreciate the negative connotation that medications used to treat depression, anxiety, insomnia, etc. receive, or the connotation that is often given to mental healthcare professionals, as if utilizing these resources/tools/aids is somehow a bad thing.  I really struggle with these types of comments.  As if I don't feel judged enough by the outside world, I am now feeling judged by an intimate community where I thought I was completely safe.

My hope is that for most people, the comments come from a lack of understanding.  I will admit, I did not have a good concept of how therapy, psychiatry and medication for such mental disorders worked.  Society as a whole puts a very negative image on using these resources.  I think of how people react to the fact that I say I see a therapist and it brings extreme discomfort.  I don't know why, I'm completely comfortable with it.  It is a part of my life that is actually working for me right now, something I look forward to, something that helps me feel empowered in my own well being.

Therapy, counseling, psychiatric care, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds, sleep aids, all can be quite effective, if used with care, correctly and under the supervision of a responsible mental healthcare provider.  I would say that is exactly what I have experienced.  Medications are not used to "fix" depression or anxiety or sleep issues, they are not used to mask the symptoms so that you can ignore them and go on with your life while hiding from your problems (although I would venture to guess this might be how they are most commonly abused).  Medications are used to help alleviate some of the symptoms, so that you can focus on working through the real issues to come to a better place for yourself.

Case in point - me.  After first losing Alfy, I didn't have any issues sleeping, I was sad and less energetic than normal, but that was okay, I had just lost my son.  I think it was probably about 3 or 4 weeks after I had Alfy, that my sleep habits, energy levels and all around interest in anything started to take a turn for the worse.  And it's funny, once one thing starts, it affects the other things and they get stuck in this vicious cycle.  I would go to bed at 10pm, every night.  Going to bed at the same time every night is supposed to help with sleep, right?  Well it stopped working.  I would go to bed at 10pm and I would lay awake until 2 or 3am, when I would fall asleep, it was fitful, full of waking up over and over and over again, waking up at 4:30am and being wide awake, falling back asleep for a short while, hoping that maybe you would get a couple solid hours of sleep.  Once that started to really take root, the energy levels started to fall.  Once that happened, the apathy began to set in, and you go through the cycle again.  Now, throw some uncontrollable anxiety on top of that and wow, it's some tough stuff to get through.  

At one point I was taking Ambien (10mg), which still wouldn't always work.  I was up to 150mg of Zoloft (anti-depressant) and I had Xanax to help curb the anxiety (don't remember the dosage).  Sounds like quite the cocktail of meds?  Well it was, and it was what I needed at that point in my healing.  I needed something to help alleviate the symptoms so that I could focus on the real work of grieving and trying to put myself and my life back in a place where I felt I could function again.  I suppose I would compare it to the flu or a cold.  Do you sit around miserable with fevers and chills and body aches without doing anything for those symptoms?  No, you try to alleviate them at some level so you can do the other things like eat, drink fluids, sleep to get better.  We're okay with these things in a physical sense, but not in a mental sense and I would like to see that change.

Currently, 1 year, 1 month and 2 days after giving birth to my sleeping son, I still utilize these aids.  I see my therapist/grief counselor once a week.  I see my psychiatrist every 4-6 weeks.  I work with both to regulate my need for medication.  I no longer take Ambien or Xanax as my sleep has greatly improved and I have learned some new coping mechanisms for my anxiety and it's decreased quite a bit.  At one point, I went off the Zoloft completely as well.  However, I found out I was pregnant about the same time and the anxiety, irritability, apathy started returning.  I honestly don't know if it was because I was off the Zoloft or the stress of facing another pregnancy, probably a combination of both.  But, again, with the help of my therapist, psychiatrist, OB and perinatologist I decided that utilizing the Zoloft again would be the most beneficial thing for me to do.  Depression creates more risks in pregnancy than Zoloft and I have a huge fear of postpartum depression, something that is very likely for me to experience again.  Why make this pregnancy harder than it already is?

I continue to work in therapy and will do so for as long as it feels right to me, maybe it will be for a long time.  Yes, the goal is to eventually go away from it, but I don't think it will ever be totally gone from life.  If anything, I see it as a maintenance tool for me for years to come, and one that I am thankful to have found.  I am also a firm believer that it takes many, many different resources to help a person in terms of their mental health -  counseling, exercise, medicine, diet, support, writing, the list could go on and on.

Please don't judge me because I am in therapy or because I use anti-depressants.  I am not masking my symptoms, I am not crazy, I am not medicating to escape reality.  I am simply using another tool to do just the opposite, to help me accept my reality and live in it the best I can. 

Ultrasounds

Ultrasounds - I've been wanting to write about them for a while, I'm not sure what's stopping me.  I think I have a hard time including pregnancy topics on this blog when it was started for Alfy, and pregnancy topics can be terrible for others who might be reading this due to a recent loss.  But, it is part of me and my life, so it's gonna be part of my blog.

I have had 10 ultrasounds and I am 20 weeks along, averages out to an ultrasound every 2 weeks.  I wish I could accurately describe the experience.  It's not at all like it was with Alfy, or probably what it is like for most women.  I don't get excited to see what the kiddo will be up to.  As another blogger/baby loss mom stated, it's like walking into a nightmare.

I'm terrified every time I walk into an ultrasound room.  I am full of an anxiety that freezes me.  I feel like a deer in headlights must feel, stuck, blind, not ready for the impending doom that is on its way.  

We found out Alfy was gone through an ultrasound.  I remember watching the face of the sonographer, seeing her face fall and biting her lip.  I remember seeing the "color" on the ultrasound screen, or really the lack thereof.  There was one color and it wasn't moving.  I knew at that moment, but didn't really think it was possible.  

I relive those moments each time I get an ultrasound, probably something similar to PTSD. But, rather than feel the anxiety in its full force during the ultrasound, as I said above, I freeze.  I feel almost nothing.  I turn it into more of a scientific moment for me, okay, here is that part and that one and this is functioning and this is moving.  And, for a brief moment, there seems to be some relief.  But it quickly rushes away the moment screen is turned off.  No telling what will happen in the moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks until the next appointment. 

I have gone in twice unexpectedly, on days where the anxiety in me was so high I was sure something was going wrong, one for spotting and one for cramping in my stomach.  Both times I discounted my feelings as I sat in the office, but the anxiety that led me to those ultrasounds is the kind that leads others to the ER, chest pain, an inability to calm yourself, a feeling of losing control.  Both of those times, everything was "fine."  After the second appointment, I lost it.  I tried to speak, to tell Tony something (I have no idea what) and all that came out were sobs, tears, anxiety, fear, sadness.  I had just found out that kiddo #2 was okay and I could do nothing but sob in fear.  

I try not to think about it too much, or I would be like that all the time, it's why I freeze and detach myself now.  Even as I write this post, I feel very detached.  And it will continue, I have at least 12 more ultrasounds to go, maybe more.  

Two weeks until the next one.