The backstory

>Gym once a day for an hour – anytime 24 hour gym

>Drink 5 glasses of water

>Take vitamins – vit D, probiotics, fish oil, Blackmores Executive B Stress.

>Blog a journal of any attacks and how they make me feel

>See the physiologist for behavior therapy

>Meditation at night

>Drink milk for calcium

My triggers

-Being alone with my son

-Thoughts of dying

-Thoughts of taking medicine

-My son screaming or kids screaming

Symptoms

-Throat tightens – struggle to swallow

-Tongue feels swollen

-Blurred vision

-Feeling of going to faint

-Cant sit still

-Notice my heart

-Tight chest

-Thoughts of my sons safety

-Dizzy when walking

-Fatigue

i went a month cold turkey, i remember getting tingles in my hands and feed, brain zaps and anxiety. i thought the worst had past after i reached the 3 week mark however it hadn’t i ate healthy, i took vitamins, i went for walks but the anxiety attacks kept coming especially if i took any medicine like panodol, i would feel like i was going to die from taking it. i then suffered irritablity, i was snappy, angry and i couldnt stand anyone which made me depressed. i felt sucidal. i got so upset i went back on setraline however this time setraline didnt help me. the setraline hasnt reduced my anxiety and all its side affects have come back and i feel so depressed. since being on them i have felt worse than i felt before i ever started them and believe i would have managed better if i had just seen a physiologist and done cognitive behaviour therapy insetad.

now i feel dependent on the medicine however this will change, i will fix what these chemicals have done to my brain i will win.

My GP casually recommended i take an antidepressant to feel better, not addictive, minor side affects, will stop postnatal depression why not?

the citrapram wasnt bad to be honest, the only problem i had with it was that i felt flat and numb, i also became obsessed with crime shows. i was only on half a tablet and my body sucked it in very quickly, when i went to a full tablet was when i went numb in the mind however i felt good enough to come off the tablets so i went off the tablets for 2 weeks and out of nowhere i suffered vertigo in a car park while holding my son. an ambulance was called and they kept asking me if i was off my medicine. i lied and said no. when i finally left the hospital i went home and took my tablet. i instantly started to feel better and i then did some research, enough to realise that i had withdrawal symptoms from stopping cold turkey.

seeing my GP

the GP and I discussed the citrapram and the crime shows i was watching, she recommended i go off the citrapram and onto another antidepressant setraline. on setraline i felt amazing the first few days except for the constant sinus infections. my husband like me on that one too however i also noticed it caused a rash on my face. i was on half of a half tablet for a few weeks and then i went up to a half tablet which made my sinus infection worse than before so i decided this one wasnt right for me.

lexapro

lexapro was the worst one i tried it gave me sever anxiety, worse than ever before and its never left me since. i tapered myself off and went cold turkey knowing this time there would be withdrawal symptoms.

It was when my mum was over and i didnt realise it was a panic attack. my son was 11months old and i had wanted to change my hair colour so my mum put in the hair dye, i started to feel my head tingle and i thought i was having a severe allergic reaction to the dye more intense then the burning feeling i felt on my head, i couldnt breath my chest went tight, i was dizzy the room spun and i swore i was dying. it then made me think of my dad who died when i was 18. he dropped dead instantly from an aneurysm that burst in his brain and i thought i had the same fate.

i went to the hospital and they gave me an antihistamine, this carlmed me down and i was fine to go home, i ended up taking them for the next week as the panic attack seemed to keep coming back i just didnt know it was the panic attack i just thought my body was still reacting to the dye.

2 weeks later it was my sons birthday, it was really stressful. we were at costco getting food for the party when the room started to spin, i felt my tongue swell and i couldnt breath, oh no i’m having another allergic reaction my throats swelling!

my husband rushed me to the hospital and they put me straight in a room and went to counteract the reaction however they found on inspection that i wasnt having any allergic reaction. they told me to see my GP immediately.

I visted my GP to discuss my hospital visit and this started my antidepressant journey of hell.

How it all began

I was so excited when i found out i was pregnant, we had a very easy 9 months. It was in the last month of my pregnancy that things started to go pear shaped.

People started to notice that my baby didnt move much, first picked up by the lady who was giving me a pregnancy massage “your baby hasnt moved, normally most pregnant mums there baby moves heaps” i left feeling very concerned about what she had said, so concerned i started writing down my sons movements and googling how many they should do in an hour, i guess this is when my good old friend anxiety started to show up. i called out to my partner “the baby isnt moving much, it actually hasnt moved at all in the last hour” off we went to the hospital and i was monitored their was a heartbeat and my son was barely moving on the ultrasound video however he had a strong heartbeat. “we suggest you be monitored overnight” that night i was monitored and the next morning they suggested i be induced “we want to induce you, if you were over 35 we would be doing a Cesarean” i said i wanted to go home and think about it that i dont want to be induced right now at 37 weeks. “your baby might die, you cant leave without booking in an induction the next day” so i booked the induction and went home. i could see the stress on my husband and mothers face that i didnt stay in the hospital, it was a look of i’m being selfish and we might loose the baby, i however i just wasnt ready to take that step i needed time to process. I spent the whole night awake worrying and when i went to the hospital that morning nerves had really set in.

First inducement.

the gel, wow this was not for me, i had the gel and instantly started having contractions the contractions were very intense to the point where i was sure the baby was coming, after 6 hours the nurse came in to check on me, i begged her to check my contractions because they were so painful however my water had not broke, she soon enough realised my body was having a reaction the the gel and it was immediately taken out and i was given an endo to sleep. feeling defeated and very sore i tried to sleep and dreaded the next day.

second inducement

the balloon, the balloon i would recommend, it hurts at the start however as it shrinks it hurts much less, you can sleep and do things while the baloon is in, the only problem for me was it also did not dialate me any further along and i reamained 2cms dialated.

Breaking my waters

last option came and they decided to break my waters, the nurse who was lovely told my partner and mother that it can take up to 12 hours so to go get something to eat as we are in for a long ride. as soon as my waters broke that i found for some reason hilarious i then went into active labor – by myself! i had no idea what was happening, i was in so much pain i asked for the gas immediately, what we didn’t realize is how fast i was dilating and the next thing you know my mum and partner walk back to find me 7cm dilated in 30mins and food was off the cards for them i needed help.

after birth

my son was beautiful, the apple of my eye. the first thing i noticed about my son was he never cried, i would listen to all the other babies cry but not my son, not even for food. second thing i noticed was he didnt open his eyes, they were always closed. the next thing i noticed was he didnt poo, the nurses took him away and cleared his mucus plug. i think it was then the nurses noticed he wasnt normal either, i tried to breastfeed however he wouldnt latch, i thought it was me, i could only wake him enough to syringe feed him small amounts of breastmilk.

day 3

they did a blood test and found he was jaundice and he went under photo therapy lights . the first time he woke and cried i cried from joy “the hard part was over” but it wasnt.

my son still didnt breast feed and he had extremely bad colic, i never slept. he couldnt drink a bottle correctly and i knew something else was wrong. i visited a breastfeeding clinic who said he had severe lip and tongue tie, we had this removed however it took months to see the colic disappear ” we are in the clear now, its gone” we thought. the next problem we noticed was that he couldnt stay asleep “he is stop breathing, it wakes him up” we then started to see a private ent that took out his androids at 18 months.

My son is much better now however mentally the stress has affected me and this is where the antidepressant hell story begins.