Side Effects 

by: Ashley Byrd

Prozac. Welburn. Effexor. Celexa. Zoloft. Viibryd. Diazepam. Trazodone.

Sometimes I would think about hitting the median. Driving 80 miles per hour. What if I just pulled the wheel to the left? I’m going so fast. It would happen so fast. Just to shake things up. Just to feel different.

I was on new meds, still being tested at the time. My doctor told me he had a good success rate. The Zoloft wasn’t working. I had hit a wall at 200 mg. He couldn’t give me a higher dose. It wasn’t working. After two years I had hit a wall.

Off drugs and taking my medication correctly, I was still sick. It wasn’t the drugs, it was me. All those years, it wasn’t the drugs it was me. I was sick. The new meds were strong. Too strong. They kept me awake at night. The lack of sleep was making mefeel crazy. I remember driving home one day from work thinking I needed to be committed. I was crying, but wasn’t aware. Tears were slowly streaming down, but there was no emotion behind them. I thought, “they need to lock me up…” ”I need to be locked away…” I wanted to wreck. I needed to get the home. I needed to get the fuck out of that car.

I made an appointment with my doctor. Told him I couldn’t take the new medication anymore. He told me three more months. I needed to stay on the new medication for three more months. I needed to be on them for a total of six. It had already been three. Three more months. Can I handle three more months of this? Can I do three more months of this without killing myself? Can I? He told me not to take them after 4 p.m. and to only take them with a large meal. That didn’t leave many options. Can I do this? I have to. He has the notepad. If I don’t get these drugs I won’t have any. I had been off medication before. I had been off medication and wanted to die. I cannot be off meds.

My first stretch without antidepressants was at age twenty. I had come home from being kicked out of college and stopped taking my Prozac.

I had been on Prozac since seventeen. It wasn’t my choice though. It was my mothers. After finding I had cut both my writs she sent me to a psychologist who put me on medication. I didn’t always take them though. She would watch me. She would look under my tongue. Sometimes I’d make myself throw-up when she left. Sometimes I’d hide them between the mattress and the bed frame. I didn’t want them. I was a teenager and didn’t want them. One argument led to her forcing the pills down my throat. After that I either took them or hid them. I lied. I lied about taking them correctly.

I had come home from college to clean up my act, but I had also come home with an addiction. Leaving school was supposed to help me. Coming back to my hometown didn’t. Drugs were everywhere. I knew everyone. They were cheaper and easy to come by.

My general practitioner, I saw back home, was the first I confided in. I told her I did cocaine. She asked how often and I said no less than four times a week. She told me I had a problem. But I was twenty. There was nothing she could do. She told me I could die. I told her I knew. I wasn’t seeing a therapist at the time and felt comfortable with her. Every few weeks I’d end up in her office sick. I was sick often when on drugs. I would get sick easily. She would ask if I was still using and I would say yes.

One day I came to her office not because I was sick, but because I had to tell her something. I had to tell someone. I had to tell someone I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself. I was going to commit suicide. She asked if I had hurt myself in anyway yet. I said no. She asked if I had a plan. I said yes. I had access to a shotgun. We talked candidly. Said she wouldn’t have me committed. That she couldn’t. I told her about not taking my Prozac. She asked how I had done on antidepressants. I told her I had only fantasized about ending my life when on the medication. It was just a fantasy. Until now. She wrote me a script for Celexa.

Taking medication doesn’t mean you’re someone you’re not. It just makes you who you’re supposed to be.