This is part two of my ongoing antidepressant series. I again want to get my story out there, to make even one person feel less alone. While medications can help people, there are many who benefit from them. However, I seemingly had the opposite experience. I know I’m not the only one.
After my decision to come off of Lexapro in January of 2022, I was optimistic about what the experience would be like. I learned the hard way I shouldn’t have come off cold turkey, and that these medications affect everyone differently. I kept going through my normal life working as a house cleaner and waitress, both of which started getting increasingly more difficult. I started noticing I would get anxious driving from house to house when cleaning, that having to use the restroom to pee was starting to get tied into my anxiety (which is fairly common, but I was unaware at the time). While waitressing I would get antsy and nervous whenever we were slow and had to deliberately take deep breaths to calm myself down.
In May of that year I moved in with my boyfriend. We had been dating for three years at that point, and I was extremely excited. On the day I moved in, all I could feel was anxiety though. Over the previous several weeks my anxiety had started getting worse and worse, and I experienced intrusive thoughts for the first time. I had no clue what to make of them, and all they did was heighten my anxiety more and more. I started relying on my boyfriend for everything, and was doing all I could to just function normally. A few weeks after moving in I quit my cleaning job. Every morning I felt an overwhelming sense of dread and would experience anxiety throughout the day cleaning. I thought it was just the job, that maybe it wasn’t for me and I needed to move on.
After quitting the cleaning job I started waitressing full time instead of just part time like I had been doing. I assumed this would be what I needed. Around the same time I started reading and hearing about the negative effects of the copper IUD. The entire reason I got it was to avoid the unwanted side effects of birth control, and turns out I just walked into another minefield. I started finding hosts of online communities with women saying how much the copper IUD destroyed their bodies and mental health. To say I was frustrated would be an understatement. I didn’t have insurance though, so I was unsure of how to go about getting it out.
Everything just started getting worse and worse, and I just kept going down the spiral of panic and anxiety. There was one night where I left work because I had heart palpitations all day and could not calm down. If my boyfriend wasn’t working he would come into the restaurant and sit at the bar knowing that him being there calmed me down. At the time I was still drinking a lot as well, which only further contributed to my lack of calm. I was a big binge drinker, and would wake up the next day feeling like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and like I was the lowest of the low. It would take me days to come back from those episodes.
I tried to eat better, I was going to the gym. I journalled, saw a therapist and tended to my garden almost daily. All of it gave very temporary relief. In August of that year I went back to Pittsburgh twice, the trips only a few days apart from each other. The day I got back home is the day it all changed in my head. I went out with my boyfriend and proceeded to get extremely drunk, have a panic attack and ended up in the ER for the night. I don’t remember most of the night, and my boyfriend told me he wasn’t able to calm me down. I was discharged and spent the majority of that day crying and in a complete panic. It was like that experience opened the floodgates for all the anxiety I had been holding back since coming off the Lexapro 8 months earlier.
My mom came out and stayed with me for a few days, since I was on the other side of the state. I was a shell of myself and could barely function. My boyfriend had to work, and typically worked 50-60 hour work weeks so he wasn’t home all day with me. When my mom eventually left, after a panic attack and more crying, I ended up going with her. I thought that maybe what I needed was just a few weeks at my parents house with no responsibilities and to just reset myself. I talked about getting back on Lexapro, since it’s what caused all of this and I apparently couldn’t function without it. I hated that decision, but I at the time didn’t see another way seeing as I still didn’t have good insurance and I couldn’t function.
After going back to my parents, I made the agonizing decision to move back in with them. I blew up my entire world by doing it so abruptly, disrupted multiple people’s lives that I still carry the weight of guilt and shame over. I couldn’t function. The idea of going back to work suddenly seemed like the most impossible feat, the idea of going back to my house with my boyfriend where I would have to make decisions for myself was laughable. The first two weeks of me being at my parent’s house all I did was eat a bit, sleep, and cry. Anything else completely drained me or sent me into a panic. I couldn’t drive anywhere on my own, since driving had become one of my biggest obstacles with anxiety. I took benadryl every night to stop my intrusive thoughts and sleep paralysis that had developed a few months prior.
After a month of being back I got a job where I worked remotely. I was starting to feel a semblance of normal again after months of absolute chaos in my mind. I was back on Lexapro, and had gotten the IUD out. I thought I was on the right track. I knew I didn’t want to be on medications forever, but for that moment I was doing better and better as the months went on. My boyfriend and I’s relationship was strained to say the least, but we managed and have continued to manage to make it work. In my mind, I would be better within a few months and just go and live with him again and resume my life.
But life has a funny way of working out and hitting you when you least expect it. I had finally been feeling more like myself than ever before when my Aunt got really sick. It was difficult and a lot of long days, but I felt a sense of pride in being able to help as much as I did. A year prior I wouldn’t have been able to. She died that September, and the day after her funeral I took my dad to the hospital and he would never make it out of the ICU.
For five months I visited him every day and maintained my job. I was going to the gym a few days a week as well and had somewhat of a social life. While it was one of the most difficult periods of my life, I felt like I finally had my anxiety under control. I was able to drive to the hospital to see my dad everyday before working, I was able to see friends for dinner on the weekends and my anxiety didn’t seem to control me as much. Driving long distances was still out of the picture, but I took the train to see my boyfriend multiple times. It seemed like that part of my life was finally looking up. That the earth shattering anxiety was a thing of the past.
After months of being in the ICU, my dad passed away. It was heartbreaking, one of the most difficult times of my life. I made it through everything, the funeral and the days and weeks after. While I thought I was grieving the loss of my father exceptionally well, I decided that it was a good time to come off of Lexapro again. In my mind if I could make it through the hell of the previous 7 months, I surely will be fine tapering off this medication.
Once again, I was wrong. It set me back so far that I still am recovering from it over a year later. I was numb from the loss of my dad, and was looking to replace one situation with another. I’ve learned that grief can come when you least expect it and can hit you harder than you ever thought possible.
I am ending part 2 here for now, and will go into detail about my experience coming off lexapro for the second time in part 3. I’m not sure how many parts this will end up being, as I’m still dealing with the repercussions of everything now. I don’t want the fact that I don’t have an end to my story to stop me from telling it, and from connecting with those out there who have had similar experiences.
