This is, without a doubt, one of the hardest things I’ve written about. Not just because I’m going to share some deeply personal thoughts (and I don’t regularly do so!), but also because it challenges the ‘persona’ I like to cloak around me. This is hard because I was forced to strip away my ego and step away from my pride.
You see…I broke.
And for some reason in our society, that’s seen as weakness. We see it as defeat (men perhaps more so). Mentally or emotionally breaking feels different from when something physically breaks. When something deep inside your core breaks…it feels more, shameful. Embarrassing. There’s a different stigma with emotionally breaking than a bone breaking.
Back To Where It Started
Let me take you back about two years. Colin was wrapping up elementary school and we were struggling with whether it was time for a move. We had been in our home for 15 years; and our house was 6-months away from being paid off. We were thinking about taking Colin away from all the school friends he had grown up with.
On top of normal, every-day stress, I also happen to work in the start-up space which adds an extra layer of stress. We also found out that Marly’s mom’s cancer had returned. And her mom made the decision to not pursue additional treatments.
Because of that, I took on a lot of extra stuff. Look, that’s what you’re supposed to do as a spouse. It’s part of the “for better or for worse” and I don’t regret it or place an ounce of blame on Marly. I managed all the financial details for selling and buying a new house, including changing lenders at the 11th hour. While Marly was spending time with her mom, I also picked up extra chores at home.
Buying the new house was full of its own stresses…from figuring out what we could afford to which neighborhood and school was the best for Colin to packing everything up and moving. We also had to contend with fleas and nearly two inches of standing sewer water in the basement of the new house (on our first weekend living there) followed by taking the former owners to mediation.
We were also in the midst of multiple renovation projects. We needed new furniture. The ‘to-do’ list grew exponentially while the ‘done’ list seemed to stay the same.
"Do You Smell Smoke?"
I started noticing odd symptoms that I brushed off. One night, while on vacation in Colorado…I felt extremely nauseated. In fact, Marly woke up to find me laying on the bathroom floor because I just knew I was going to get sick. I chalked it up to altitude sickness. And the next day felt fine.
Then, I started smelling weird smells all the time, often asking Marly “do you smell smoke” only to have her look at me and ask “what smoke?” My chest and left arm would randomly ache or hurt. My heart would race. I felt dizzy and light-headed. A lot. At some point, I saw blood in my stool…the dark kind, not the benign, bright-red kind.
While playing volleyball one night, I felt my knees buckle and I went down. I thought I was just overly tired. I slowly walked to the car and as I sat there, felt my heart race. I felt sick. And I smelled burning rubber. I was sweating. Being the “Dr. House” wannabe that I am…I instantly thought “I’m having a stroke.” And being the male that I am…I still drove home.
The minute I got home, Marly knew something was off and made me schedule an appointment with my primary care doctor the next day. He had me go through a physical and during the “turn-and-cough” test asked “how long have you had this lump?” My response “what lump?!?” Fifteen minutes later, I found myself at a lab having an ultrasound to see if I had testicular cancer. It wasn’t until a week later that I was told it (thankfully) was a benign cyst.
But later that night…is the night I broke.
I woke up in the middle of the night with heart-attack symptoms. I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt sick. I was sweating. My chest ached, my left arm felt weak. I just sat there on the bed…while Marly kept frantically asking “do you want me to call an ambulance” and I finally asked her to drive me to the ER. I rarely go to the doctor’s office let alone the ER. And at 2AM, I was on a hospital bed, surrounded by nurses and doctors only to be told…
You’re not having a heart attack.
Yes. I was relieved. But also…had no idea what I just experienced. The ER offered nothing other than “it wasn’t a heart-attack.” And to follow-up with my doctor. We went home, caught a few hours of sleep and got up for Colin’s soccer game that morning.
As I watched from the sidelines…I started feeling sick again. And after the game told Marly “I think we need to go back to the ER. I keep smelling smoke.” And so, the ER did a CT scan to see if I was having a stroke or had something else going on in the brain.
I wasn’t.
No one is “disappointed” that they aren’t having a heart attack or a stroke. My frustration at the time was that I now had no idea what was going on. In fact, I asked to be admitted. The ER doctor looked at me and said “my job is to make sure that if you walk out the doors, you won’t die. All our tests show…you aren’t dying. You have to trust that.” He gave me some Atavin.
Being married to a pharmacist has it’s perks and drawbacks. The perks? I knew what Atavin was for. The drawback? I knew what Atavin was for.
GAD And An Ulcer
I went back to my primary doc and talked him through everything in more detail, this time…I didn’t leave anything out. The blood-in-the-stool caught his attention plus some of the other symptoms and he scheduled more tests including a colonoscopy and upper GI scope; I fought him on it, but Marly wasn’t about to let me talk my way out of it. They found an ulcer during the upper GI and, thankfully, nothing in the lower colon.
My GI doctor told me after the procedure that “your stomach is like a second brain, it has a lot of nerve endings, but they aren’t specific. So, as your stomach sends out pain signals, your brain tries to interpret it. Your brain interpreted the pain from your ulcer as pain in your chest and then that created referred pain to your left arm.”
Interesting. But that was only part of the answer. What about all the other odd symptoms?
When I went back to my primary care doctor he suggested that the other symptoms indicated that I had GAD or “generalized anxiety disorder.”
That was the real gut-punch. (Pun intended)
Our ego…my ego…didn’t want to believe that “stress” put me into this situation. I couldn’t accept that I wasn’t able to handle my stress. But, the evidence was clear. And I (begrudgingly) agreed to go on Lexapro (an SSRI) plus Ativan for break-through anxiety.
Here’s a fun fact about SSRIs…going on them is hard. Anxiety symptoms ramp up while your body adjusts to the meds.
There’s also a ton of quirky side effects people can experience. For me? Weight gain was one. 25 pounds. Right in the mid-section. Kind of a cruel twist “hey, I realize you’re dealing with anxiety, let’s go ahead and plop 25 pounds of pure fat on your stomach too.”
Speaking of gut…the SSRIs messed mine up. I had to go back to my GI doc and ask him to figure out why I was hitting the toilet 6-8 times. A day. First, he identified a bout of “SIBO” (small intestine bacterial overgrowth), but eventually he just chalked my multiple, daily trips up to the SSRI and I was on yet another prescription. At first, 8 Bentyls a day…which made me drowsy all day and then switched over to Librax which helped ease the tiredness.
I’m a private person and so, I kept this quiet from all but my closest circle.
Healing
I spent the next year healing. I became a hermit; and am thankful that those closest to me understood that it wasn’t them I was purposely avoiding. It was me doing what was best for me. I needed solitude. I needed quiet. And rest. I needed to find “center” again.
I read a lot. I was quiet (super rare for me!). I was tired all the time. I did yoga and tried to keep up a workout schedule, despite being tired all the time. Despite the extra pounds piling up, no matter how much effort I put forth.
I would love to say it was a light-bulb moment where I instantly felt better. But it’s not the case. It was a small step forward, a step back, two small steps forward, step back…. until I got to the point where I felt better.
I started thinking about going off the Lexapro. Though, the question in my mind was: “are you better because of the pills or are you better because you’re better?” But my doctor and I made a taper plan to see how I would do.
Here’s another fun fact about SSRIs…going off them is just as bad as going on. I had spent the last year on Lexapro, and the last 4-6 months relatively anxiety free. And now? Tapering off the meds made me re-experience those symptoms.
But I stayed with the plan. Each taper down, I just knew the next week was going to be rough. And I’m happy to say I was able to fully taper off. I’m also off the Librax. And I’m down 15-hard-fought-pounds (sorry medical literature, losing weight after SSRIs is NOT easy).
By the way, I’m not at all demonizing SSRIs. I needed them. They helped me through a rough patch and, despite the side-effects, I’m glad I took them.
So, the last remaining piece of the puzzle is: why write this now? Almost two years after everything started? I’m off all of the meds and fully recovered, so why now?
Every Journey Has Its Lessons
Pride and ego are some of the toughest inner-demons we have. Mine are no different. This journey brought me face-to-face with them. I had to put aside pride and ego and ask for help. I was forced to slow down and appreciate moments. I had to realize that emotional states can have real impacts to physical well-being.
I had to learn how to give myself grace.
And in going through this I realized that others are out there…ashamed of their own emotional pain. Hiding it like I did, afraid of the judgement and stigma. And I wanted to share that sometimes breaking isn’t always optional, but...
…Staying broken is.
We don’t choose to break. But we can choose to heal. We don’t have to stay broken. We don’t have to be ashamed that we broke. There is life after breaking. Healing after hurt. And if that’s the one takeaway someone gets from reading this…then my journey was worth it.
Since I’ve been completely honest through this post…I have one more confession: I’m also writing this post selfishly. While that chapter is over…I don’t know that I had written the last sentence in the chapter yet. I don’t know that I had said and admitted “out-loud” that I broke. And I don’t know that I’ve said “out-loud” that I’m back.
I did.
And I am.
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