Bad Medicine Is What I Need

Eating disorders are a mental illness. (There. I said it.) Like anyone with an illness of any sort, I see doctors to help keep me on the recovery path. There's a therapist, a nutritionist, my primary care physician and, of course, my meds doctor who writes prescriptions for what I like to call my "happy pills." My meds doctor - I shall call him Dr. Meds - is wonderful, kind and very conservative with my medication, which I appreciate tremendously. He's also adorable and would totally be my gay boyfriend if he wasn't my doctor.

But anyway...I saw him late last week and knew my meds needed tweaking. I'd been taking the same anti-depressant (ADP) for nearly two years and it had really lost its zing. I was feeling kind of flat and uninspired - all signs that a depressive episode could easily creep in. (For the depression rookies: a depressive episode for me = not wanting to get out of bed, not wanting to leave the house, not wanting to take a shower, etc. Even the smallest task feels insurmountable.) Dr. Meds suggested adding a very small dose of Prozac to the ADP I was already taking and, knowing I needed *something* else, I agreed. I mean, how bad could it possible be?

Day 1: I added the Prozac to my other ADP. Nothing happened. Hooray!

Day 2: I took my meds and got ready to go shopping/out for lunch with a friend. I stopped to grab breakfast so I could eat on the way and...ugh. I couldn't eat it. I got about halfway through my egg white sandwich and felt physically ill at the thought of eating more. I ate lunch alright but by the time late afternoon rolled around, my body was shaking and I'd developed a weird twitch in my right index finger. And an appetite? Forget it. The mere suggestion of food was enough to make me gag. Then I had a thought: the last time I started restricting my food intake and landed in the outpatient program was triggered by a change in medication. It made me not feel hungry so I thought, "why eat just for the sake of eating?" I went to the bathroom - where I do my best thinking - sat on the toilet and just started sobbing. "This cannot happen again," I said out loud. No. This cannot happen again.   

Day 3: My morning coffee tasted like a cigarette butt or something else awful, bitter and smoky. I had to take my meds, so I forced myself to eat a packet of instant oatmeal so there would be something in my stomach. I felt woozy and shaky and pretty miserable all day, but forced light foods like cup o' soup and saltine crackers throughout the afternoon. "It would be so easy to lose a few pounds this way," something said to me. "If you're careful, no one will even notice but you." Being alone with my thoughts is a pretty scary place, so I took Norman out for a long walk to try and clear my head.  I felt better when I got home and made a real dinner, stupid voices be damned.

I forgot how much my body hates SSRI's, a particular type of ADP that increases your levels of serotonin. (Prozac falls into that category.) After a bad episode with Zoloft several years ago, I swore them off completely and decided I'd rather feel like shit than feel like I did on Zoloft. Now here I am...taking a combo of medications...including the dreaded SSRI. Dr. Meds said it will take my body time to adjust and I believe that. What scares me is that my mind won't adjust and that I'm not strong enough to keep it quiet. I know this eating disorder will wiggle through even the smallest opening I give it because it's always waiting for me, quietly plotting its next move.