Buspar

In December of 2014, for the first time in about 15 years I got off of my anti-depressants.  My husband had changed jobs and we had to wait 90 days for his health care to kick in.  We tried, but we could not pay the $250 & $800 per bottle for my meds.  We knew, since he was employed, we would qualify for no programs. 

I was afraid to go off of them.  We had no idea what I would be like.  So we rode the storm out, but something incredible happened, I felt better than I had in years.  Suddenly I was not sleeping 16 hours a day, I had more energy, and our sex life was better than it had been in several years.  I was actually horney for the first time since I didn’t know when.  While this may sound a bit forward me talking about this, I want to speak for and to my sisters who are too shy or too embarrassed to say these things.  We knew that the medication could affect our sex life, but we didn’t realized how much.  I figured, as in all other things medical and emotional, that I was just broken.  I began to feel happier. Happier and clearer then I had been in a long time.  I believe now that I had been over medicated, that at some point in those 15 years my depression had broke. 

I did really well for a while, and then in April I entered this current cycle of heavy anxiety, insomnia and frequent panic attacks.  My best friend, at the time, was put into the mental hospital about then.  I was terrified for her.  I think I had 4 panic attacks during the 10 days she was in.  Now this is someone I spent many hours a day with.  This makes what happened next all the worse.  She decided to tell a massive lie, and we caught her in it.  The day I confront her about all of this, in all freakiness, my dog Prince gets hit and killed on the road in front our house.  No she didn’t do it.  Prince had been sick and we think committed suicide.  He’d been telling us he wanted to go, as his heart had been failing him for several months before this. 

I thought I would break in the weeks following all of this.  Heavy grief, panic attacks, anxiety, plus the loneliness of this place were my constant companions.   So that was May and in June I went to see my primary care physician (PCP).  I told him I was not depressed but was having constant daily anxiety.  I asked if there was a daily medication for anxiety.  I prescribed me Buspar.  It has been a Gods’ send! 

You take it twice a day.  But as he said, “If you don’t take it every day as prescribed it won’t work.”  I hoped it would work. I just had no idea how well it would work!    I started to feel better almost immediately.  What had been a good sex life now became even better!  I have feelings and experiences I had not had, since I first met my husband 12 years ago.  Turns out they give Buspar to people who are on anti-depressants and having sexual side effects.  Slowly, drop by drop I began to do little things I had not done in a long time.  My house became cleaner, because I had the energy to wash the dishes and do the clothes every day.  Little things like getting fully dressed in not just a night gown, every day, and making the bed.  I made to do lists, and then did them. 

Most days are wonderful.  I cook and clean, and tend the animals and my anxiety stays at bay. Then you have days like yesterday, a day full of anxiety, waiting on the panic attack that doesn’t come.  It’s kind of like waiting on a thunder storm.  You see the wind change direction, the sky turn green from the hail in the clouds, you see the lighting and hear the thunder.  You batten down the hatches and wait inside for a storm that never materializes.  You are greatly relieved, but a little disappointed as well.  All that work, all that anticipation for nothing. 

So what was yesterdays trigger?  I don’t know.  It could have been that I wrote extensively, the day before, about my anxiety.  It could be that I am close to the anniversary date of my first major panic attack.  It could be that I have not had a panic attack in 11 days, and something in my brain says it’s time to have another one.  It could just be fear of another attack.  I don’t know. 

I often have panic attacks in my sleep, so last night with all this anxiety I was afraid to go to sleep.  Even with my Unisom sometimes I have trouble.  I had to invoke Holda and my spirit guides to protect me.  I cannot tell you how relieve I was to awaken this morning and have had a good night’s sleep. 

Buspar continues to change my life for the better.  The moral of this story is that there is medication out there to help.  You just have to be brave and ask about it.

Ilsa