is it goodbye, fluoxetine?
(This post has been loitering in my drafts for the past week. I recurringly circled around it, reworking sentences until they lost meaning. I even considered deleting the whole thing. Even now, I am certain it reads incoherently, but I accepted that incoherence might be the only way to write this.)
A month ago, I made the decision to quit antidepressants. I hesitate typing this, because I don't want it misconstrued as a brave, triumphant declaration. I'm not writing this from the other side, waving encouragement back to those still struggling. Because I myself am still struggling, scared out of my damn mind. What does it mean when, for the past year, my ability to function was sustained by 20 mg of something I can barely pronounce?
Medication steadied me, but I started wondering if the scaffolding I built for myself (hard conversations, writing, reflecting) could hold me up on its own. But who am I without medication? Am I reclaiming myself or carelessly stripping away the only support I had? Am I growing or gambling with my stability?
But what I fear the most is this: What if the version of me off medication is someone I don’t recognize? And what if I do, and I remember why I tried so hard to medicate her into silence in the first place? What if it all comes back stronger, more violent than before?
Going off medication doesn’t reduce the responsibility - it multiplies it. There's no chemical veil numbing me from my emotions anymore. If I spiral, I will spiral with full awareness, experiencing raw and unfiltered, every flicker of feelings and thoughts. Will I interpret it as personal failure? Will this be proof I never really healed, that I was only borrowing time from a prescription bottle?
I'm haunted by the possibility of having to go back. If I find myself, months from now, trembling in front of my psychiatrist again, asking for a new prescription and admitting to myself I wasn't ready. Still, I am actively trying to remind myself that going back isn't weakness but, instead, a sign of care.
I wish I had a sagacious takeaway or a profound life lesson to leave you with, but I don't. So, I offer this: there's no right way to survive. You are allowed to fall and get back and fall again.