I haven’t updated lately because I am taking Lexapro. Lexapro is an antidepressant / anti anxiety medication. I am not depressed. I don’t like the word. I wanted to write about it, but then, I didn’t want to write about it.

I have been thinking about going to the doctor and asking about taking something for about six months, then never actually went. What I have been feeling for at least six months maybe longer was the inability to feel happy. Mind you I was not unhappy. More like indifferent. I did things because I thought they needed to be done but never really liking the idea of doing anything. I was running more on compulsion and a need for order more than anything else. I knew in my mind that my husband loved me madly but I wasn’t able to feel it. The running joke was for Andy to check in with me daily to see in what state my “loveometer” was in. I knew that my life was amazing and would always think so, but I wasn’t able to really be a part of the experience.

You know me. I eat well. I exercise three to five days a week. I do yoga. I take responsibility for my actions and analyze my deep motivations for things, always trying to evolve emotionally and spiritually. This felt like this was something that was a chemical problem. This felt like no matter how much I did all the right things, something was pressing on me that I would never be able to lift off. It made me really think about how a less educated person could one hundred percent believe that demons and their possessive powers were a reality.

I felt that spending the month with Bob and my mom in Chicago was the stressor that finally moved me to cry “uncle” and go to a walk in clinic here in Denver. The doctor was really nice. She was, or at least looked about 28. At first when she came in she was very sedate. Like she didn’t know what she was walking into. Was I suicidal? Was I going to cry? Was I going to cry alot? I told her what I told you above. I told her that I know the difference between being sad for a reason and feeling what I was feeling now. This I felt like an organic problem.

She asked me if I had anxiety or trouble sleeping. I thought long and hard and answered no to both. She gave me the prescription and I had it filled.

It’s been about two weeks since I’ve taken the first pill and I feel like a fool that I answered “no” to the anxiety or trouble sleeping questions. What was a normal day in my life seems to have been jam packed with what I can now correctly identify as anxiety. For the first three or four days of taking this, I sat on a rock and marveled at the stillness of the trees. I told Andy that “nothing was vibrating” anymore. The tightness in my chest, that I didn’t know was tight is gone. My racing thoughts that I didn’t even know were racing, are calm. I don’t feel “high”, or weird, drugged or woozy. I feel normal. I feel like I can think clearly and my mind doesn’t automatically try to figure out every possible outcome to any given situation. No more frustration and restlessness over nothing I could put my finger on. The last two weeks have been the most grounded I have felt since I can remember.

Andy and I are both surprised and amazed at how much my “moodiness” effected both of us. I feel foolish for not recognizing and doing something sooner. My husband is the most patient and incredible person that I know. I love him madly and feel, really feel like the luckiest girl in the world.