I’m doing something a little different this week. May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States, so I figured sometime this month I would talk about it.
I came across an essay I wrote in a writing class right after I left California and drove to the Midwest in 2017. So that means this essay is about three years old. It was never published anywhere, but it’s about taking my first antidepressant. I also came across the photo you see in this post. I took this photo the day I took that first pill. I don’t know why I took the picture. I probably looked at my hand and saw the semicolon tattoo and smirked at the irony.
I originally got the semicolon tattoo because it seemed “writerly” and I wrote a little essay in college in response to the writing prompt “Describe your life as if it were a mark of punctuation.” I wrote that my life in college was like a semicolon because it marks the end of a sentence but lets everyone know there’s another sentence to follow. At the time, college was like my “semicolon” period, the part of life that signified the end of childhood and the beginning of something new.
I didn’t know when I got the tattoo that it would take on a new meaning many years later. Project Semicolon is a suicide prevention organization. The semicolon is intended to symbolize that one’s story isn’t over yet. Unfortunately, a few months before I wrote this essay, the founder of Project Semicolon passed away from suicide after a long history of depression. There are so many tragic stories like this one, and I’m thankful to see that people are talking about mental health more today. I’m proud to have the semicolon tattoo, and it serves as a reminder to me and others not to give up on the bad days.
I did not edit this essay at all for this post. It’s comforting to read these old essays and realize how much I’ve grown from being honest with myself and others about how I’m doing. It brings back some raw emotions, I must admit, but there really is so much more to my story and there’s more to come.
Silver Lining
by Melanie Lentz
My relationship with antidepressants started like a nervous laugh, one of those awkward ones that seem to say, “I don’t know what to do right now, but I have to do something.”
I stared at my new prescription bottle that first morning. My favorite decorative bowl – the one with flowers and colorful paint swishes – sat on the kitchen counter next to me. It was typically empty, but a few pieces of leftover chocolate lined the bottom, evidence of a recently impulsive grocery store. I was usually an annoying health nut who thrived on the benefits of kale and cardio, but that day I unwrapped a piece of chocolate and read the “inspirational” quote written on the foil wrapper’s silver lining. It said, “Be your own valentine.”
“Oh, shut up!” I barked at the wrapper as I crushed it into a ball and threw it against the backsplash. Then I bit into the chocolate and my irritation softened into a chuckle. Eating chocolate before breakfast tasted so rebelliously delicious. Finally, after shaking the pill in my hand as if I were about to roll a dice, I took my first antidepressant.
In a moment of desperation a couple weeks prior, I had contacted my employer’s help line. I wanted to say, “I’m fifty shades of messed up. My world is falling apart. Train wreck, party of one.” Instead, I said, “I need to talk to somebody.” They helped me find a therapist who practiced near my house, and I started seeing her regularly.
I cried through the entire first session, and now I have a respectful admiration for therapists. I needed a giant coffee or a nap after listening to myself vent to this poor woman. I could only imagine how she felt. I was less than thrilled, however, when she encouraged me to see a psychiatrist.
“I’m not going to take a ‘happy pill’ like a crazy person,” I’d told her defiantly, “My marriage is still over. Work is still miserable. A pill isn’t going to change the circumstances. I’d rather handle my troubles without pharmaceuticals.”
She must have been bristling with a frustrated comeback, but she kindly passed a tissue instead.
“Listen. You’re grieving and heartbroken as anyone would be in your situation. A doctor may feel you could benefit from something in the short-term. Sometimes medication helps take the edge off while you cope in healthier ways than you have been.”
“But what will people think?” It was my terrible, growth-stunting question.
I reluctantly made the appointment with a local psychiatrist. When I arrived, the waiting room was nearly full. I glanced around as I waited to check in. A middle-aged bearded man was scribbling wildly in a notebook. A teenage girl with glossy eyes sat with a parent or guardian, both a picture of despair. Everyone else sat with their eyes cast downward at magazines or cell phones like “normal” people. I wouldn’t realize it until later, but we were all alike in our own unique and sometimes tragic ways. We were bravely admitting – or being forced to admit – that we were not okay. Instead, I continued to assume, “I don’t belong here.”
When it was my turn, my inner cynic checked in by saying, “I’m the imploding shell of a human who can’t seem to handle personal and professional hardships while others are suffering from real hardships like starvation and war.”
Instead, I really said, “I’m a new patient, and I have an appointment at 2:00pm.”
A few minutes later, a nurse called my name. She led me down a hallway to the doctor’s office, but it looked more like a professor’s office than a medical office. A middle-aged woman sat behind the dark cherry wood desk with matching bookcases and shelves lining the walls.
“Come in,” she said. She gestured for me to close the door as I stepped inside.
I wanted to say, “I’m just here to appease my therapist.” Instead, I was quiet.
“So tell me what’s going on with you,” she said as she clicked her computer mouse distractedly.
I gave her the gist. My husband’s charm had been directed elsewhere. I was resentful and extremely angry. I was crying so hard on a daily basis that I’d start coughing and eventually vomiting. I ended with my therapist’s recommendation. She typed a few words into the computer.
“So you want to get meds, huh?”
“No, actually, that’s the last thing I want,” I blurted, trying not to grit my teeth or cry, whichever came first.
Like my therapist had done, she pushed a box of tissues toward me and started clicking at the computer, unfazed. She asked many questions.
“Have you ever wanted to hurt yourself or others?”
“No.”
“Does your family have a history of mental illness?”
“I don’t know. We don’t talk about it,” I answered honestly.
“How are your sleep habits?”
“Fine.”
“Has your weight changed?”
“I’ve lost a couple pounds.” It was probably more than a couple.
“Do you abuse prescription or recreational drugs?”
“No.”
The list went on. When she determined I wasn’t a risk to others or myself via her scripted checklist, she finally looked up at me.
“Well, let’s start you on something and see if it helps.”
I was worried about the infamous weight gain side effect of antidepressants and said, “Seriously. If you give me a happy pill that makes me gain twenty pounds, I will be anything but happy.”
She cracked a smile at my bluntness, and I finally relaxed. She suggested an alternate medication and dosage that did not have such a prevalent weight gain side effect.
“I’d rather prescribe something you will actually take,” she wisely reasoned.
I nodded, still unconvinced and she knew it.
“You want to get better, yes?” She came across a bit curt, but I know she was just being direct. While my mind was running wild in convoluted emotions, she pulled me into the one question that mattered. Yes, I desperately wanted to get better, and I was going to have to take some uncomfortable steps to get going in the right direction, even if the recommended direction may be met with some judgment.
“Do you think my depression is a chronic condition or a circumstantial one?” I sincerely wanted it to be the latter.
“It’s too soon to tell. Keep going to therapy. I’m sending in your prescription. If this helps, I recommend you stay on them for a year. Then we’ll reevaluate. Make an appointment to come back in three weeks.” She turned toward the computer screen and started typing, my queue the appointment was over.
I knew I needed to seek help, one way or another, and that reality had to trump how I felt about it or how others may perceive the methods. I was reluctant to admit it, but “taking the edge off” for a little while helped. I was stronger in the presence of self-awareness and the dismissal of ego.
Now my divorce has been final for a while. I left my job over a year ago and moved away. I’ve chosen to come out of my train wreck year a better woman. With or without an antidepressant, I still sweeten the sting of life’s whiplash with a piece of chocolate every single morning. Just one. No more, no less.