Prescribed Addiction

I'll preface by saying that the following is not meant to diminish the experiences of those who have dealt with (and perhaps overcome) addiction to recreational substances. I recognize that my prescription drug is a) legal, b) easy to obtain, c) fairly cheap, and d) not likely to land me in legal trouble any time soon. But seeing how it is as close as I'll hopefully ever come to feeling "like an addict," I believe my experience with Paxil is one that deserves to be spoken about.

I started taking Paxil a little over 12 years ago. What was going on in my life: I was sixteen, looking towards beginning my junior year at an expensive private high school in Atlanta's ritzier neighborhood. Death had encompassed my life over the previous year as I dealt with the passing of five people close to me: three elderly family members, one suicide by a queer teenaged friend, and a close relative of my best friend that died suddenly and unexpectedly at a young age. While I did not personally know the latter, his was the one that hit me hardest. He was young, barely into college the way I remember it. He had an undiagnosed heart condition that had never caused him any trouble until he was just... gone. Young people dying suddenly and without notice. That was scary for me.

The panic attacks became so regular that my life was on hold. I could not so much as stand up out of bed without the crippling feeling like my heart was going to give out. But really... why would it have? I was a dancer, one of the most active kids in my peer group. I was healthy, ate well, had no family history of congenital organ defects. But people who suffer from panic disorder are irrational by definition.

So my parents did what was likely the only thing to get me back on my feet before school started back up: took me to a shrink who would give me pills. After all, legitimate panic disorder manifests as a true chemical imbalance (shut up Tom Cruise, you're an idiot), so drug therapy was surely the proper treatment.

It worked so miraculously that we all but forgot to look for the underlying cause of the imbalance. I understand now that chemical imbalances rarely "just happen" and that drug therapy is best used as a temporary solution in conjunction with whatever will get to the heart of it all. Of course my teenaged self wasn't about to ask questions. After all, I was one of many sixteen year olds on SSRIs. In 2000, it had become as normal as teen angst, and all I had to do was take a pill. Take a pill, feel normal, repeat.

After a decade of this, I started thinking about my reproductive future. Paxil is not safe to take during pregnancy, and I would not will the risk of heart anomalies on a future child. So I'm in therapy (the kind with a person who doesn't have prescription privileges), working on whatever it is I think I should be working on. Hopefully I'll go off the drug one day, but past attempts have not fared well.

Anyway, Paxil is known for its withdrawal symptoms. I've had quite a few experiences with this. I forget to get my prescription refilled before the pharmacy closes, and so I have to wait until morning. Those nights are hell. I had one last night.

These are the moments that make me feel like a drug addict, where I feel as though I can sympathize - if only mildly - with people who have battled addictions themselves. I woke up a number of times overnight after having vivid nightmares. Cold sweat. Hot but freezing. Mouth dry. Sheets below me damp with perspiration, dizzy and emotional. These are not the symptoms of panic disorder itself as the drug manufacturers would like you to believe; this is drug withdrawal.

That this kind of thing can result from a legal drug, one that is prescribed to millions with promises of "normalcy" while innocuous substances like marijuana carry severe life-ruining consequences, is beyond my comprehension. My psychiatrist is a drug peddler, pure and simple. He requires one appointment every two years to continue refilling your prescription. The last one was immediately after my husband left me. In our 20 minute phone conversation, the only real advice he offered was to up my dose from 20mg/day to 30mg/day. (I did not ever do this... my marriage was ending, I wasn't supposed to feel normal.) The Klonopin he also prescribed proved a beneficial bandage as well, but I've learned that this man's job is not to fix but to drug.

And such is the problem with our society's treatment of mental illness. We assume these things "just happen," so just take this drug, don't worry about it, you don't need to look inward to find answers. Or rather, we don't have the time to soul-search for their roots. Drugging is easier, it's cheaper, and it's not at all time consuming. My current therapy is definitely not easy. It's not cheap. It takes time. I'm privileged to have the ability to do it, and in the long run it will be way less expensive than whatever health problems I'll experience from the decade plus of Paxil exposure. But again... we're not a society set up to prioritize those kinds of holistic self-care practices.

So we drug. And drug. And drug some more.