First there were all the family members dying, including babies who never got to see the light of day and adults who didn’t see a glimpse of their 40s, and then there was The Big A Mistake That We Must Never Speak Of Except In Select Company, and then there were more family deaths and a massive fire that wiped out my childhood home.
And things started getting pretty touch-and-go in the mental health department here in the McCardell household.
Friends told me I needed to get some time to myself. “Meditate,” they said. “Exercise and take some herbs,” they said. “Get some time away from the children.”
Trouble is, I didn’t know how to do that. And it was a full-time job hiding the State of the Union from the kids. One day I reached a breaking point which involved yelling Fuck You at a calm, loving Stefan, slamming the door and driving to the beach. I rented a surfboard, made my Beginner Surfer Self way out into the waves and into calm water and meditated out there for a few minutes, thinking about The Bigger Picture and What’s Happening To Me. But then I realized the waves were suddenly way too scary and big for me to actually return to the shore, let alone ride repeatedly like we did in Kauai. I imagined the worst. The worst being having to ask a surfer out there to help me in. Oh, God, I’d rather die. Just let a shark come and eat me before I have to paddle over to a surfer with the pathetic explanation that I didn’t know how to get back through the huge waves.
After about an hour of floating around out there pretending I knew what I was doing – pretending paddling around looking at the view was what I came out into the water for – I eventually rode a wave in (on my belly) and returned the board and called Stefan who was understanding and empathetic and his usual amazing self. And he said maybe it was time that I maybe perhaps took the step of maybe getting some help. Maybe. But it’s up to you, he said.
It was the day my parents’ house burned down that I started Lexapro. Otherwise known in my house as Vitamin Happy, Lexapro is an anti-depressant the adults in our household use to lift ourselves out of the hopelessness, despair and desperation we would normally be drowning in. What a kick that a little white pill could do so much! I went from never thinking about anything positive, completely desperate for normalcy, feeling sad all the time – to this wonderful place of satisfaction, a place of being able to connect with the kids, not cry all the time, feel like I’m worthy. I’m worthy of happiness, even if it comes from a pharmaceutical company. Hey, I’ll take it.
Yes, time has also healed a bit, but time doesn’t work the kind of magic Lexapro does. And the only side effect is that I have amazing dreams at night – colorful, epic novels that take me away. I sometimes wake up needing time to get over the whirlwind of the night.
When I was debating getting on Lexapro, one friend told me that there was a time in her life she should have taken anti-depressants but she didn’t. She later regretted that. “Maybe this is a good time for you,” she said.
I’ll say.
But then I weaned myself.