Argh

“Solo, I’m a soloist on a solo list
All live, never on a floppy disk.”

I know I’ve talked about my mental health journey, but have I told you much about my journey with medication? This type of thing, being prescribed a daily anti-depressant, doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

I had a pair of beautiful children, and an older kidult who lived up north, and I was married, and I worked for a media company. Yet my mood was the lowest it had ever been; life had gotten on top of me, defeated me. If you would have asked me, I would’ve told you that it was a happy marriage. That I loved my job. That I loved being a father. That I was fine, really. Just tired. Or stressed. And that it’d pass.

The thing is, these statements were all true. Are all true now. I just didn’t have any light sources. You can deal with a monster coming down the hall. You can’t so easily deal with one you can’t see, even though it can see you. You definitely can’t deal with one surrounded by an army of imagined monsters.

I had the idea of running away from everything, of leaving everything behind and relocating to some small town down the country and living off the benefit. My wife recommended we find a community nearer to where we were and that I see a doctor. In hindsight, her idea was probably more reasonable.

I’ve written before about how much I loved my GP and this period of my life is why: he helped me navigate medication options and got me settled on one. He hooked me up with a therapist and a bunch of free sessions, and got me registered in a seminar about mindfulness. I did the work.

And then I thought I was done so I stopped taking the meds around the time Child #3 with my wife arrived. I was good. Life was good.

So, yeah, that was a mistake. I went back on the meds.

“Brotha, did ya forget ya name?
Did ya lose it on the wall playin’ tic-tac-toe?”

I don’t know how universal this experience is, whether it is the same for everyone on every medication, but here is what I do know: since sometime in early 2019 until a week ago, I’ve been taking paroxetine (sometimes called paxil, especially in the US) every single day, starting with a 20 milligram dose then upping it to 40mg/day after finding the lower dose didn’t quite cut it.

For me, the idea of taking paroxetine was simply a measure to stop the lows from being too low. But every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Paroxetine also stopped the highs from being too high.

Sometimes, when I would (could) stop and consider the state of my mental health, I would wonder if - by controlling the depths of despair - I was also leaving behind unrealised joy. The bad days weren’t as bad, sure, but doesn’t that mean the good days weren’t as good? I’m haunted by how much joy I didn’t feel over the past almost-decade. I had a promotion in 2019. My mother retired in 2020 and we had a family gathering for it. My sister got married in 2021. Ireland recorded a series win against the All Blacks in 2022. I celebrated ten years of marriage in 2023. It is entirely possible that paroxetine robbed me of some of the joy inherent in these moments.

There are other documented side effects of taking paroxetine - weight changes, fatigue, sexual dysfunction - and I experienced some of those too. In fact, the weight gain was so severe that, by 2024, I was firmly in pre-diabetic range. I ended up taking phentermine for a time to help lose weight, and am still taking metformin, a standard tool against blood glucose levels.

I stopped taking paroxetine a week ago with the guidance of my doctor and after weaning off it for the better part of this year. And one of the signs that it was starting to lose its grip was that I was feeling emotions that I hadn’t felt in some time, one of which is anger.

Anger was the inciting event that got me back on medication in 2019, or rather, my inability to correctly channel and deal with my anger was the event.

I won’t go into details as it was traumatic for all involved. What I will say is the work and preparation I thought I had done so that I would be okay when these feelings came was not enough. “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” Mike Tyson once said.

I got knocked the fuck out.

“Anger is a gift.”

I made a mistake in that moment, though. I demonised anger itself.

In my experience, aggression is a negative action, and too often turns into violence. All aggression does turn our anger against others. It weaponises it.

But anger can be righteous and it can be a helpful emotion. It points us at our values, and it helps us to defend ourselves and those around us. Anger isn’t inherently a bad thing. In fact, in an election year, anger is super helpful in guiding me through deciding who to vote for.

As I’ve been weaning off paroxetine, some feelings have been starting to make their way to the surface again. And I was initially fearful, to be honest. I had blamed anger for so long, turned it into an enemy, made it something that I shouldn’t feel under any circumstance. But I find myself more able to deal with anger now. Anger no longer turns into aggression; I can take the deep breath and turn it to good, to explaining how I am feeling and how to move forward.

And if I’m feeling and noticing anger again, maybe I’ll be feeling and noticing the full experience of joy again too. Could just be there are great days ahead.

_{(Oh, hey, hope! Long time!)}

Coming off paroxetine hasn’t been all smooth sailing. This past week has been full of poor sleep and overly emotional moments and gastrointestinal issues. My tinnitus has been turning into a zapping noise every now and then.

My doctor tells me those are normal side effects of paroxetine leaving your system, and they’ll pass. And if I lose sight of that, Helen made me a beautiful reminder out of cross-stitch last year:

Until next time,
Chris xo