Stigma

“I didn’t want to scare you with all the medication,” Dr.- tells me at our third appointment. I sit on the doctor’s sofa beside my husband. He holds our baby. Annabelle is exploring the doctor’s office. I want to curl up in a ball; I feel as though I am going to jump out of my skin. She prescribes atavan.

A half hour after I take one, I feel as though, well, as though I’m not running for my life. I am calmer than I have been in weeks.

That night, I go to bed, the baby lays beside my husband and me; our night is split into two 5-hour shifts. I drift off to sleep now and again waking to bottle nurse the baby . . . this is unlike any night so far. It is the first night of many on a long road (back to a healthier me). When it is my turn to sleep I take ambien and fall into a deep, zomby sleep.

Weeks, no months pass. Each night gets easier and easier. We stop relying on our 5-hour shifts. I hold Levi in my arms through the night. I tell my therapist, “It is all I can do for him. I can’t breastfeed, so I’m giving him this.” She thinks co-sleeping isn’t a great idea. She thinks it disrupts my sleep and in her eyes, that is bad.

“I want you to get ready to go off of the ambien, Jessica. You sound better and better each time I see you. Do you think you can try it?” I nod but I don’t want to. I feel so afraid. I fear a night without sleep. It makes me someone, something else.

But I try it. First I cut my dose. When I see that I can sleep well on a small dose, slowly I let myself let go of the sleep aid. Like my doctor tells me to do, instead, I take an atavan to calm myself at the end of the day. I drink a glass of milk. I sleep. I sleep as much as a mother of a newborn sleeps.

“So are you feeling better now?” a friend asks me. I do, though the question raises feelings I do not want to confront. My logic throughout this entire experience has been that if I were diagnosed with a physical ailment, like diabetes, I would take insulin. I would change my diet. Anxiety and depression are no different. Medicine helps my brain produce what it needs so that I can live. I eat a good diet and exercise daily. I take vitamins and supplements. Taking care of myself is my priority. I am a better mother for it. I am a better me for it. I love myself. This isn’t and has never been easy for me to do. Isn’t that sad?

I now go to bed each night and drink a cup of chamomile tea. I take a single atavan. I don’t want to. I move back and forth on how I feel about needing this medicine. I accept that I will likely be a “lifer” on my antidepressant (a term I take from another mother who was treated for ppd) and somehow I think I am comfortable with taking only that. I accept the stigma of having a mental illness. I accept the stigma and fear wrapped up in having take medicine. But it is simply another mountain, of so many, that I climb. The stigma that is. Of medicine. And funny, that in a way, the medicine is like my gear, helping me climb that mountain.

That is all for now. I needed to write this.

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