Lexapro Pros Prose?

March 11, 2024

I’ve been listening to this book called “The Hot Zone”, which is about how Reston, Virginia nearly became the site of an ebola outbreak in the late 80’s. Basically, a lab received some monkeys from Africa, and they all started dropping dead. Then researchers examined the agent that caused their sudden illness, and discovered that it was something that looked like ebola. Turns out that it was ebola, but it was a strain that doesn’t affect humans. The whole country breathed a sigh of relief that an ebola outbreak was not about to cause havoc is a highly populated area right outside of Washington DC. My Kentucky friends probably don’t know Reston, but it is the town where my favorite meat market bar is located (a bar that has been featured in some of my greatest dating/mingling stories). I got kissed there once without my consent after buying a shot of Jameson for a gay man and being rejected so publicly that the bartender bought me a drink and comped the shot for me. Yet I keep coming back for more. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I’m very familiar with Reston and this story of the ebola monkeys is living rent free in my head. I am now reading the sequel to “The Hot Zone” called the “Crisis in the Red Zone” which is about the very devastating ebola outbreaks in Africa in 2014. It reads like a horror novel about doctors and nurses who were frantically trying to help people who were dying horrific and painful deaths, knowing all the while that they were very likely to contract the disease themselves. Think COVID19 front line workers (heroes for sure!) but battling a disease with a much higher death rate than coronavirus.

Naturally, I’ve been really worried about ebola ever since I started going down this rabbit hole. You know how men have that “Roman Empire” thing where they allegedly think about the Roman Empire at least once a day? I think my “Roman Empire” shifts regularly based on what it is I’ve decided to worry about at any point in time. Two weeks ago, I went on a date with a man who has stage 4 colon cancer. For that whole week, I was googling what can cause colon cancer, what the treatments are like, stories of healing and loss. My date told me he can’t eat ice cream because the chemo makes him so sensitive to the cold that even drinking ice water is “like swallowing knives”. As someone who always has Drumstick Ice Cream cones in the freezer, I cannot imagine this lukewarm-water-no-ice-cream-allowed life. And meeting this man obviously gave me some perspective – perspective on how frustrated I am with dating, how much time I waste not doing things I like, the amount of time I spend at work instead of soaking up the time I have with people I love. I felt a lot of admiration for him and am really glad I met him. But I also spent a lot of time worrying about it – worrying about whether I’m eating the wrong things that could cause me to get sick like that, worrying about how years of an eating disorder might have destroyed my organs already and I don’t even know it, worrying that someone I love will get sick and I’ll have to see them suffer (and live a life without ice cream!). Pretty selfish way of thinking, I know. But this, my friends, is what we call anxiety.

About once a week, I seem to find something else to be very worried about. For about a week this summer, I was absolutely certain that my boss hated me and I was going to be fired. This week it’s ebola. Last month, I found a bump on Maudie’s arm and I was already planning her little doggy funeral. A marine cheated on me in 2019 and I spent three days absolutely convinced that I had HIV from his infidelity. Anxiety.

I’ve written quite a bit about my depression here but maybe never in clinical terms. For the latter half of 2023, I was crying myself to sleep just about every night. I was taking Benadryl and other sleep aids to fall asleep right after work. I was struggling with friendships – friendships that meant the world to me, but I couldn’t figure out how to function in them. I wasn’t drinking “a lot” by society’s standards, but I noticed that I was starting to drink to numb pain – which wasn’t like me. It was a similar pattern to what I experienced during the dark times of COVID lockdown. The difference back then was that life was slow. I had time to focus on hobbies like working out twice a day and playing video games. I had less pressure on me at work because work was slow and we were all working remotely. I was a mess, but no one had to witness it, and I had outlets that I could use to work through feelings. But 2023 wasn’t like that. I had to be at work every day – in a role where people depend on me. I didn’t have time to workout for three hours a day and count every calorie – which meant I had no abs to snap pics of and post on social media to get some kind of external validation. I was really struggling with depression and felt like I didn’t even know where to begin to tackle it. I was seeing a therapist, but felt like I couldn’t do “the work” required in therapy because I couldn’t function or focus on anything but how unhappy I was.

My experience with depression and anxiety is that anxiety kind of feeds my depression. Anxiety is to depression as Cheetos are to Maudie. Nothing can make a bad mood or a downward spiral worse than some anxiety about things that may or may not happen. Sure, you’re already in the fetal position thinking about how Kyle, the dad from Texas who said he wanted to be exclusive with someone else, but have you thought about the fact that he might have given you an STI? Have you considered the fact that you may actually die alone? Don’t you think your friends will laugh about how pathetic you are behind your back? Maybe he dumped you because you’re fat. You might have a reason, maybe (but rarely) a really good reason for feeling depressed, but the anxiety bumps it up to level 10.

So at the end of 2023, I decided that I’d had enough of this depression and anxiety making me act like a shitty friend, shitty sister, shitty employee, shitty dog mom – all of these things that I know I am NOT, but sometimes play the part. I reached out to my doctor and said “plz help”. She put me on Lexapro. Here are some things I have noticed about the medicated version of me:

1. I don’t cry (much). I’ve cried maybe twice this year, and I think I was crying over things that were genuinely upsetting (like when I fell down that staircase in Maryland).
2. I am crushing it at work. It’s insane – when you’re not constantly thinking about how sad you are or how worried you are, you can actually think about your job. You can also think about other people around you and be a better boss. You listen better. You respond without being as reactive.
3. My skin is *chef’s kiss*. I actually don’t know if that has anything to do with the meds.
4. Weight gain? Like, who cares? One of the reasons my doctor was hesitant to put me on any type of depression meds back in 2020 when I first asked about them was my eating issues. But what I’ve learned is that I don’t know if I’m gaining weight on these meds – but I do know that I do not care (much).
5. I’m a better friend. I’m less likely to cancel plans to have more wallowing time. I’m less likely to show up stressed or frustrated from traffic. I’m less likely to be an asshole.
6. I’m a better family member. See number 5. I’m more patient with the kids and can focus on them when I’m with them.
7. I’ve been tired. I’ve been going to bed early and waking up later than I would like. I do feel tired a lot. I’m hoping this side effect will eventually wear off.
8. I’m starting to find the distinction between fascination and fixation. Ebola aside, I have been better about avoiding macabre and depressing rabbit holes. I’ve lightened my true crime podcast and documentary load. I’ve been trying to spend my time absorbing content that makes me happy – not stuff that makes me scared or angry.
9. I’m still an open-book and emotional human, but I can have conversations without falling apart. Most notably, I’ve been really good about receiving candid feedback at work and taking action on it.
10. I say yes to more things. I’ve made this deal with myself about food. If someone offers me food that I’ve never tried before, I’m going to take a big bite of it. This sounds trivial to all of the foodies reading this, but not for me. I’ve been the world’s pickiest eater for as long as I can remember, and I think a lot of that came from anxiety! Fear of eating something in front of someone and not liking it or not knowing how to eat it the right way (think like, using chopsticks) has stopped me, and also fear of trying something that cultured and refined people like and not liking it. So far this year, I’ve eaten kumquats, pho, and hummus for the first time. Snaps for me. Food aside, I said yes to a trip to Charleston with friends, and I said yes to a trip to Paris (where I assume I’ll really get to flex my say-yes-to-food muscles). Unrelated: Remind me to tell you about the guy I met on Bumble who was morally opposed to all vegetables. All of them. That was the moment I realized I couldn’t live a life without cooking with onions.

I don’t know if this information is useful to anyone. I would never prescribe my approach to life to anyone else because Lord knows I’m not doing a lot of things right. But if you are feeling like things are hard and unmanageable, I would encourage you think about talking to a medical professional about it. I spent a lot of years trying to avoid taking meds because of my job security level and other factors. I’ve had partners who disparaged people who “need” medication to function, and that has deterred me. All I can tell you is that I’ve gotten some relief for the first time in…well, ever.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to read some more about ebola before bed.