Going without

The husband is gone again, at a conference in Michigan for new faculty members at small colleges and then back to Chicago for more work. He was home with us for four days last week and I'm telling you, it was like the sun came out. I didn't feel the [embarrassing] need to spend fifteen minutes each night checking all corners of the house for hidden rapists and predators. I could have conversations with someone who didn't respond to my every statement with either "Up! Up! Up!" or "OUTSIDE!!!" or "More Elmo?". I ate big dinners involving non-processed food items and dessert. Yes, I know such food options are available to me when dining alone but, hi, have we met?

Recent 90210 re-runs have been all about infidelity. They're showing one of the later seasons right now and it's all Brandon cheating on Kelly and Noah cheating on Donna and Valerie cheating on David. The other day I found a business card for some IT woman in the contents of my husband's pants pocket, and on the back were the handwritten words "Call me if you need computer assistance." I grabbed the card and waved it in front of the husband's face and was all "Computer assistance? Really?". And then we laughed. But man.... I gotta tell you. Once this whole professor thing gets started come September, and there are little students in tight shirts and faux-hippie-headscarfs popping up for office hours and advisee sessions, I'm going to be all about the self-destructive playa hating. Because my husband is a bit of a hottie, I'm not ashamed to tell you, and I'm not gonna lie: when I was in college I feigned interest in both Coleridge AND Shelley in order to score private study sessions with the visiting Romantics prof. Who wore fabulous sweaters. And had a less attractive girlfriend. That's all I'm saying.

Ok, so what I'm also going without these days -- in addition to the husband -- are my antidepressants. I've been off the Lexapro for three weeks now. I weaned myself when I realized that my stockpile of therapist-provided free samples was running out and that consequently I would have to begin actually, I don't know, paying for drugs. I was only on the Lex (that's what we addicts call it) for six months so I didn't think it would be a huge deal to stop. And it wasn't. Except for the fucking electric shocks that run from my head to my toes fifty times a day.

People call them brain zaps and, apparently, it's a thing. A thing I should have researched, perhaps, before commencing with the pill-popping. On my first day without any Lexapro at all (I had been weaning off gradually for awhile) I kept expecting to get sick, the kind of nauseous, dizzy sick I felt when I started taking the drug. But I didn't, and the first couple of drug-free days were awesome. I thought I was home free. Then all of a sudden I started getting these little flashes of vertigo on and off throughout the day, usually when I looked from side to side or made some kind of sudden movement. Kind of like waves of dizzy electricity, the flashes travelled from my head through my arms and legs, usually lasting just a second or so. These went on for a few days, getting worse and worse, until finally I did what any responsible librarian does when faced with a health crisis: I googled.

Hey -- guess what?? Brain zaps are one of the most common Lexapro withdrawal symptoms! Oooh, and guess what else? Some people have them for years! Wait, wait ... and guess what commonly seems to happen when people ask their doctors for help with the brain zaps? They get prescribed another antidepressant! Wheeeee!

It's been three weeks now and I'm still all static electricity, although thankfully the zaps have become far diminished in both frequency and severity since that first craptastic week. I'm hoping that all those poor fools whose brains kept on zapping away for years were just on the Lexapro for much longer than I was, and that my brain will return to its regularly scheduled programming ASAP. But either way, zap or no zap, I'm pretty sure that it's therapy or nothing for all my mental health-related needs from here on out, friends.