What happened to Jane?

In general, when it comes to my real life, I try and keep a vagueness on twitter and the blog that will keep my identity hidden and my family safe. But, sometimes that means I say things that make me sound a lot worse than... like this last week when Jane Smith took a bender into crazy town.

Let me start from the beginning... I, like so many people worldwide, take a daily medication that can be used for a whole host of things (depression, anxiety etc). I am by no means crazy, I'm just among the masses who take some sort of a happy pill for various reasons. The demons in my head are no scarier than anyone else's, and with a small dose I'm able to shut out that part of my conscious and move on being me.

In the past I've experimented with lowering my dosage and or stopping entirely to see if I could come off of it. The answer is no, I'm a long-term pill popper and over the years I've accepted it. What I haven't done, however is change my ways of procrastination. So, when the 2 month supply of pills was running low I knew I needed to call the pharmacy but I delayed, forgot, got busy etc etc etc. Until one night low and behold I didn't have anymore left (imagine that, the bottles DO run empty eventually??) So I told myself to call the next day - and guess what - I forgot. That night when I reached for my pill is when I remembered and made the call right then. The automated voice told me it would be ready the next day, and off to sleep I went 2 days off of meds. I woke up to an email from the pharmacy that they were out of stock, and would have to order it. The order would be delayed 24-48 hours.

Uh oh.

See, the problem isn't the actual symptoms of your issues as much as it is the basically detoxing your body has to go through. For me it goes like this.

Day 1 of symptoms starts the day after missing my second pill. I start to find it hard to focus, and my mind is all over the place. I'll go to pull up an email at work and by the time I open a blank message the thought I had is gone and it takes a second of retracing my bouncing-off-the-walls-thoughts to remember what I'm doing. Mood is up and down, but mostly ok.

Day 2 starts the dizziness and the "I-hate-everything" day. Nothing is funny, it's stupid and a waste of my time. My head feels like I'm falling even when I'm sitting still. I put myself on "Do Not Disturb" to try and hide at my office and I essentially yell at the computer screen about how stupid these people are every time someone asks me anything.

Day 3 is the sweaty quiet day. I'm still dizzy this day and now I'm sweaty. It's gross, I'm sorry but my body sweats on day 3 which is really 5 days since the last time I took a pill. Pretty much, I felt like ass and I start getting lost in my head. Luckily for me my pharmacy finally got my meds in and I was able to start on my mend. We went to a birthday party for our very good friend and I self-consciously sweat and drank myself through the evening.

It will now take a few days for Jane to return, unfortunately I got to go through most of the detox which means I get to build it all up again and not get lost in my head in the meantime. But for those who cared that's what happened to me, there was nothing worth saying besides a string of curse words and I hate_____'s. And that isn't fun or sexy and that's not what you people want to read about. But I also didn't want people to think I was some sort of lunatic from the vague nature of some of my tweets. This is the best vague/detail I can give.


The Wife