No, not that one (I wish!)… I want to write a little bit about Olanzapine. The big O that saved, but also dominated my psychology for a solid five months. In case you’ve not read my blog, about six months ago I experienced mania and psychosis because of the stress and pressure I was putting on myself to solve the impossible problem of being in love with my very gay husband – who I deeply, deeply wanted to be straight (or bisexual at the very least). He is, in fact – gay – still my husband and things are … complicated, but stable.

Growing up, mental health and mental stability was not something that was particularly reinforced and taken into consideration. If there was a hardship, you pushed through it – you cried, you screamed, you slammed doors, but you pushed down that trauma and didn’t necessarily process it. My husband was brought up in a similar environment, we are both from an Eastern European upbringing and strength, a clean house, and God are all that really matters. When I lost my marbles a few months ago, my entire family was wild eyed and deeply concerned. It was probably the scariest thing that I ever put my loved ones through – the loss of my sanity. There was a real fear that my broken mind would not be mended back together, that I’d end up losing my family – my son, my entire life. Thankfully, put back together I was – through medicine, very potent antipsychotics that made the voices in my head go away and the fear in my heart subside.

It’s strange, the feeling that medication gives you. I was not delusional about my relationship, I was not in denial about what was – but at the same time, I was completely ok with all of it. The fact that my husband had cheated, the fact that he was gay, the fact that at one point he really wanted to divorce me… it was all terrible, but bearable under the cloak of medication. I would have likely stayed on this medicine longer than what I pushed for, but the weight gain was just devastating. As much as I controlled my food intake and rode the bike or worked out – the weight kept climbing, and with the weight gain my self image deteriorated and sadness was creeping in past the medicinal cloak. I could not be married to a gay man, sad, and overweight…no way.

Five weeks ago today, I sat in my psychiatrists office and told her I want to be done with the pills. She agreed – bid me farewell, good luck and told me we should check in in another six weeks. It has been a very, very difficult five weeks for me. I have never suffered anxiety in my life, I’ve been nervous before – had butterflies in my stomach and definitely struggled through some form of anxiety when my husband was coming out to me as gay. But what I have been going through the last few weeks has been debilitating. Waking up every day to a pain in my chest, if not a tightness then the weight of a baby elephant sitting on top of me. Sad thoughts have crept in on me first thing in the morning – thoughts of my husband hurting me again, thoughts of divorce, thoughts of life as I know it ending, pain – real, internal pain that medication was gently alleviating and masking so I could get better.

Now, without the pills, all I’m left with is my own management of the anxiety – which is difficult, painful, and mentally exhausting work. I feel like 70% of my mental capacity is preoccupied with just getting through the day – telling myself it will be ok. I’ve had this fear that maybe I am bipolar, but to be honest, I don’t think I am. My mania was very clearly caused by psychological trauma and pressure – I was trying to move through everything too fast – heal too fast, forgive and move on too fast. The speed with which I was trying to fix things in my marriage broke me. Real healing from trauma takes so much time, and thankfully – time is what I still have plenty of.